St. Anthony Messenger May 2019

Sharing the spirit of St. Francis with the world V O L . 1 2 6 / N O . 1 2 • MAY 2019

IN THIS ISSUE:

Faith & Family page 54

MOTHER MARY, OUR MUSE MAY 2019 • $4.99 StAnthonyMessenger.org

PATTY CRAWFORD: A VOICE FOR JUSTICE THE FLIP SIDE OF THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES OUR ORDINARY, SACRED WORLD

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THE POWER OF TRUTH, LOVE AND COMMON SENSE ◆ COMMON SENSE CATHOLICISM How To Resolve Our Cultural Crisis

Bill Donohue his work by the well regarded President of the Catholic League analyzes how three key elements of a democratic society—freedom, equality, and fraternity—have been misconstrued by intellectuals and policy makers who do not respect the limitations of the human condition. Their lack of common sense has resulted in serious social and cultural problems rather than solutions. By contrast, the social teachings of the Catholic Church mesh well with the demands of human nature, and as Donohue shows here, offer the right solutions to our cultural crisis.

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“In this important book, Donohue, a brilliant social scientist, reveals how we can all apply the common sense wisdom of Catholicism to our daily lives and remedy our current cultural crisis.” —Raymond Arroyo, EWTN Host, The World Over

◆ THE POWER OF TRUTH Challenges to Catholic Doctrine and Morals Today

Cardinal Gerhard Muller fascinating and engaging examination of the current controversies in the Catholic Church by a highly respected “inside” Church leader. He gives thoughtful and persuasive answers to some of the most challenging issues facing Catholics, such as divorce and remarriage, whether Catholic morality can change, what role the Pope plays when it comes to Catholic beliefs, the relationship of politics and religion, how to reconcile science and faith, and more.

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"Focusing on eleven urgent issues in the life of the Church today, Cardinal Muller has written the best kind of 'simple' book: simple as in clear, concise, appealing, and powerful. Erudite and articulate, Muller has a gift for direct speech and candid honesty. His thoughts are a joy to read." —Most Reverend Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia

◆ EIGHT WAYS OF LOVING GOD As Revealed by Love Himself

Jeanette Flood ased on the Beatitudes, this inspiring book presents eight “love languages” of God revealed in the life and teachings of his Son, Jesus Christ. This includes trusting Him, spending time with Him, heeding Him, apologizing when we offend Him, loving his whole family, picking up our cross, following Him, and eagerly awaiting Him. It reveals that being a Christian is really all about a relationship—a relationship of love with Love Himself.

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“A fast and fun read. Profound and thoroughly researched, it can easily be understood and appreciated by anyone. I highly recommend it to anyone hoping to grow in the spiritual life.”

— Fr. Gary Lauenstein, C.Ss.R., Author, The Heart of Holiness

www.ignatius.com P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522

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VOL. 126 NO. 12

2019 MAY

28 Mary, Our Muse

COVER STORY

Text and paintings by Holly Schapker

Many people look to Mary for spiritual guidance and nourishment. She’s also a source of inspiration for this artist.

22 A Voice for Justice

By Susan Hines-Brigger

HOLLY SCHAPKER (2)

Patty Crawford went up against Baylor University after hundreds of women bravely came forward with sexual assault allegations. Her faith is what got her through.

36 The Flip Side of the Joyful Mysteries

By Martin Pable, OFM Cap

A shadow hovers over the joyful mysteries of the rosary.

In it, we can find parallels to our own lives.

ABOVE: Jesus’ Gift to His Mother: Juniper and Cuckoo Flower, 24”x 30”, oil on canvas COVER: Maryiam, 12” x 16”, oil on canvas

40 Our Ordinary, Sacred World

By Richard Rohr, OFM

Our faith challenges us to look beyond the times and places that are designated as “sacred” by finding God in everyone and in all things.

44 Fiction: The Name of the Father

By Jennifer Moore

Everyone longs to be known.

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DUMBO: 2019 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.

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VOL. 126 NO. 12

“Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.”

2019 MAY

—St. Francis of Assisi

10 SPIRIT OF ST. FRANCIS 10 Ask a Franciscan

Believing in Apparitions

12 Franciscan World & St. Anthony Stories Francis Meets Sultan Malik al-Kamil An Heirloom in Hiding

13 Followers of St. Francis

54 POINTS OF VIEW 5

Your Voice

Letters from Readers

19 Editorial

Beyond Thoughts and Prayers

20 At Home on Earth The Speed of Soul

Jocelyn Thomas

54 Faith & Family

14 Faith Unpacked

The Ball and the Box

DUMBO: 2019 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.

It’s Complicated

48 MEDIA MATTERS

55

48 Reel Time

51 Audio File

50 Channel Surfing

52 Bookshelf

Dumbo

Wrestle

Julia Jacklin | Crushing

The Silent Ones

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 4 6 15 16 18

Dear Reader Church in the News Saint Who? Notes from a Friar Poetry

21 51 55 56

Cartoons Pete & Repeat In the Kitchen Reflection

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dear reader

ST. ANTHONY

MESSENGER

A Relatable Mary

PUBLISHER

W

hen I visited Assisi a few years ago, one of the things that struck me was a painting of Mary that I saw at Greccio. The image is of Mary breastfeeding Jesus. As a mom, it filled me with joy to see an image of the Blessed Mother doing something that many mothers do on a daily basis. The image broke Mary out of the iconic mold in which I was always used to seeing her. Suddenly, Mary was relatable.

That is why Holly Schapker’s images of Mary in this month’s article “Mary, Our Muse” are so compelling. Each one presents an image of Mary to fit the various ways in which people see our Blessed Mother. Schapker also provides a walk through her inspiration behind the images, as well as reflections on what is being portrayed, offering both a visual and spiritual treat.

Also in this issue, we have something that many of our readers are very passionate and vocal about—a fiction story. This touching piece delves into the struggle between being a priest and being a son. Make sure to check it out!

Daniel Kroger, OFM PRESIDENT

Kelly McCracken EXECUTIVE EDITORS

Christopher Heffron Susan Hines-Brigger

FRANCISCAN EDITOR

Pat McCloskey, OFM ART DIRECTOR

Mary Catherine Kozusko MANAGING EDITOR

Daniel Imwalle

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Sandy Howison

Susan Hines-Brigger, Executive Editor

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A Voice for Justice

Fiction: The Name of the Father

Fiction: The Name of the Father

PAGE 44

PAGE 44

interview subject PAGE 22

Patty Crawford is the director of marketing for products for Franciscan Media and a volunteer in the Focolare movement. She lives in Evans, Georgia, with her husband, Ben, and their three children. She has a degree in strategic communications from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Anderson University.

writer

Jennifer Moore is a freelance writer and children’s author from Devon, England. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Guardian, Mslexia, the First Line, and Short Fiction. She is a previous winner of both the Commonwealth Short Story Competition and the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest.

illustrator

Mary Ann Smith graduated with a BFA from Parson’s School of Design in New York and began illustrating independently for magazines and newspapers while art directing for a boutique ad agency. Later, she started Mary Ann Smith design + illustration, where she designs book and e-book covers for a variety of publishers and illustrates for magazines, newspapers, book covers, and the web.

To subscribe, write to the above address or call 866-543-6870. Yearly subscription price: $39.00 in the United States; $69.00 in Canada and other countries. Single copy price: $4.99. For change of address, four weeks’ notice is necessary. See FranciscanMedia.org/subscriptionservices for information on your digital edition.

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PHOTO CREDIT HERE

PATTY CRAWFORD

ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER (ISSN #0036276X) (U.S.P.S. PUBLICATION #007956 CANADA PUBLICATION #PM40036350) Volume 126, Number 12, is published monthly for $39.00 a year by the Franciscan Friars of St. John the Baptist Province, 28 W. Liberty Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-6498. Phone 513-241-5615. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, Ohio, and additional entry offices.

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POINTSOFVIEW | YOUR VOICE Feedback from Our Online Readers “10 Reasons to Fast This Lent” (by Amy Ekeh), March 2019 “Thank you for this enlightenment. We give something up in order to receive something.

May what we give up momentarily or permanently during this holy season fetch for us constant union with our risen Lord, amen.”

—Lilian

“Profound and spiritual. Thanks for sharing—especially the response of the young boy to the question of why we give something up for Lent (‘Because Jesus gave everything up for us’). That is really what it is: Christ gave up all for us. Lent is just a small way that we say thank you, Lord, for your crucifixion, death, and ultimate resurrection.”

—Lynette

“Thank you for this guidance. I wrestle with how best to engage Lent. These words have provided clarity for me and I’m sure for many others as well.”

—Terry

.S.P.S. TION lished of St. nnati, postffices. thony 0189. bram

call n the Single notice ption-

a.org/ manun fic-

“Thanks for the very good summary about Lenten fasting. I take extra care at this time to be mindful of what St. Francis said about fasting not only from food, but also from our vices and sins. Sometimes it’s easier to give up food than it is to refrain from saying something negative to another person or to remain patient when you are waiting for someone.”

—Sister Madge

“In terms of fasting from food, might you recommend specific ways of doing this? At age 73 and being a diabetic, I have a diet discipline that I need to maintain. Thank you for any suggestions you might have!”

—Harry

In response to Harry’s comment: “Harry, use Pope Francis’ list for fasting. It involves metanoia, a kind of transformation of the heart through atonement, not fasting from food. After all, that is what Lent is all about!”

—Donna

“Thank you for the very inspiring message on the real meaning of fasting during Lent. It’s both inward and outward work!”

PHOTO CREDIT HERE

—Fleta

“Thank you for the encouragement to find Jesus in everything we do. This article gave me the push to fast and pray more. I used to fast when I was younger but have gotten away from it for years now. Thank you for

reminding us of the importance not only of fasting but also of giving more time and effort in prayer and to focus on others.”

—Debora

What Else Distracts Us from God? I’m writing in regard to Amy Ekeh’s article in the March issue of St. Anthony Messenger magazine (“10 Reasons to Fast This Lent”).

This article, though well intentioned, is not enough. In a Lenten sermon, St. Leo the Great declared, “For it is not enough that the substance of our flesh should be reduced, if the strength of the soul be not also developed.”

Two purposes of Lent are sorrow for sin and conversion. Here are some distractions from God to give up this Lent: anger, impatience, pride, intolerance, envy, gossip, selfishness, self-righteousness, and judgment of others.

Patricia Pohl, Louisville, Kentucky

Rosary, Chaplet of Divine Mercy Still Important to Faith I’m a longtime subscriber to St. Anthony Messenger. I greatly value the “tell-it-like-itis attitude” of this outstanding publication.

However, I have a concern relating to a letter appearing in the “Your Voice” column from the March issue (“Praying the Rosary,” by Anthony Colarelli).

Unfortunately, I did not read the article

by Father Gary Caster in the January issue (“Walking with Christ”). I’m disturbed by his statements about Mary, not praying the rosary, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and so on. This contradicts what Mary, Jesus, and the Church have revealed over many centuries.

Father Caster can believe and teach whatever he wants, but I find it very upsetting that St. Anthony Messenger published his article.

Fred J. Rudolph, Huntley, Illinois

A Holy and Inspirational Woman I was so impressed and thrilled to read “The Remarkable Life of Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe,” by María Ruiz Scaperlanda, in the February issue. Sister Rosemary is such a holy person with God-given talent. Her holy work points to a person seeking her reward in heaven. I seek that reward too, and I hope to help her some day.

Theresa M. Smith, Norristown, Pennsylvania

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church IN THE NEWS

people | events | trends

By Susan Hines-Br ig ger

POPE ANNOUNCES ACCESS TO WARTIME DOCUMENTS

Pope Pius XII, seen here, led the Church from 1939 to 1958. The Vatican recently announced that it will release wartime documents from its archives.

S

aying“the Church is not afraid of history,” Pope Francis announced on March 4 that documents in the Vatican Secret Archives relating to the pontificate of Pope Pius XII will be open to scholars in 2020, reported Catholic News Service (CNS).

Pope Francis said he made the decision in consultation with trusted advisers and was confident that “serious and objective historical research will know how to evaluate in the right light, with suitable criticism, moments of praise of that pope and, without doubt, also moments of serious difficulties, tormented decisions, of human and Christian prudence, which to some could look like reticence.”

Researchers, particularly those interested in CatholicJewish relations, have pressed the Vatican to open the archives and allow a full study of Pope Pius’ actions during World War II, including what he did or failed to do for Jews during the Holocaust.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, cochair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB’s) dialogue with the National Council of Synagogues, praised the news.

“I am grateful to His Holiness for taking this welcome step and allowing scholars to examine the records of Pope Pius XII’s pontificate during the Second World War,” commented Cardinal Dolan. “Along with our Jewish partners and colleagues, I have previously called for access to these files. Today, we look forward to the 2020 opening of the archives.”

n the latest round in an ongoing battle regarding the burial location of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, a New York court ruled on March 5 that the archbishop’s remains should be transferred from New York to the Peoria Diocese, reported CNS.

Then-Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York blesses the tomb of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in the crypt of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

The unanimous ruling by the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division was the third time the New York court system has ruled in Joan Sheen Cunningham’s favor.

Cunningham is Sheen’s oldest living relative. Bishop Daniel Jenky, head of the Peoria Diocese, issued a statement calling on the New York Archdiocese to end its “failed legal contestation.

“Further appeal is not only unprecedented but extremely costly to all the parties involved. Further litigation will only delay the execution of the court’s decision.”

The legal battle has been going on since 2016, when Cunningham filed a petition with the courts in New York asking that his body be moved to the Peoria cathedral. She said her uncle would not have objected to his remains being transferred to his home diocese from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Bishop Jenky is promoter of the canonization cause of Archbishop Sheen, a Peoria diocesan priest who gained fame in the 1950s with a prime-time television series called Life Is Worth Living. He died in New York in 1979, at age 84, and was entombed in the crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

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LEFT: COURTESY OF ST. JOSEPH’S ORATORY; RIGHT: CNS PHOTO/BOB ROLLER

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CNS PHOTOS: TOP: VATICAN MEDIA; BOTTOM: GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

NEW YORK COURT SAYS ARCHBISHOP SHEEN’S REMAINS SHOULD BE MOVED

In 2002, Archbishop Sheen’s canonization cause was officially opened, and, in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints had recognized the prelate’s life as one of “heroic virtue” and proclaimed him “Venerable Servant of God Fulton J. Sheen.”

The first approved miracle necessary for Archbishop Sheen’s beatification has cleared two of the three stages necessary for him to be declared “blessed.”

In September 2015, his cause was suspended indefinitely, however, when the Archdiocese of New York denied a request from Bishop Jenky, president of the Archbishop Sheen Foundation, to move the archbishop’s body to Peoria, and the courts got involved.

PRIEST STABBED DURING TELEVISED MASS

PITTSBURGH BISHOP ISSUES ‘THE CHURCH HEALING’ PASTORAL

Bishop David A. Zubik, head of the Diocese of Pittsburgh

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Father Claude Grou was attacked March 22 while celebrating Mass.

LEFT: COURTESY OF ST. JOSEPH’S ORATORY; RIGHT: CNS PHOTO/BOB ROLLER

CNS PHOTOS: TOP: VATICAN MEDIA; BOTTOM: GREGORY A. SHEMITZ

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n March 22, Father Claude Grou, rector of St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal in Montreal, was stabbed during a televised Mass being celebrated in the oratory’s crypt.

Following the attack, Father Grou was transported to the hospital where, as of this writing, he was in stable condition, reported CNS. The motive for the attack remains unknown.

Dinh Khoi Vu, who directed the morning Mass at the oratory for Salt and Light Television, said: “At the end of the psalm, just before the . . . Gospel, there is this guy who comes from who-knows-where—I only film the front of the crypt—and who moves rather quickly. Father Grou saw him coming with his knife. He had the reaction to move to the side, but he was still touched.

“The knife fell. The aggressor was no longer able to pick it up. Many faithful rushed to hold him back,” he added.

Following the attack, Christian Lépine, the archbishop of Montreal, issued a statement, saying: “We know that places of worship of many religions are targets of acts of violence.

We must continue to follow the path of peace and love, believing that good will overcome evil through prayer and good works.”

n response to listening sessions with Catholics in the Pittsburgh Diocese, Bishop David A. Zubik released a fivepoint action plan as part of his pastoral letter “The Church Healing,” reported CNS. The full text of the letter was published in the March 8 issue of the Pittsburgh Catholic, the diocesan newspaper.

The bishop’s listening sessions have been held since August 2018, when a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report on alleged child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and other Church workers in six dioceses in the state.

In addition to the issue of sexual abuse, the letter also addressed topics such as accountability and transparency in Church governance, spiritual and human formation for clergy and seminarians, and promising additional channels for parishioners to bring their concerns to the bishop.

The first action step laid out in the pastoral letter is “healing and enhanced support for victims/survivors, their families, and loved ones,” with the second being “greater financial transparency.”

Action step three will be “increased accountability,” with Bishop Zubik’s creation of the Church Healing Commission consisting of up to 12 laypeople who are Catholic and nonCatholic, including abuse survivors, with representation from all six counties in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Bishop Zubik said the fourth action step will be “ongoing spiritual and human formation for clergy and seminarians.”

The final and fifth step, he said, is “continued listening to seek truth and reconciliation.”

The bishop said that he will continue to meet individually with victims/survivors and that he will also hold eight annual public listening sessions on various matters of concern to Catholics.

“God is always ready to listen to us. Every leader who is ordained to serve Jesus Christ, and to follow in his footsteps, must listen too,” he wrote.

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ces

church IN THE NEWS

USCCB PRESIDENT SUFFERS STROKE

CATHOLICS IN THE WORLD

ian e

n es-

of , in Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston suffered a mild stroke March 15 while leading the Stations of the Cross, seen here.

nt es

ds the vance

CHURCH OFFICIALS RESPOND TO MOSQUE ATTACKS

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he day after a gunman killed 50 people in attacks at two mosques on March 15 in Christchurch, New Zealand, Catholic officials throughout the world sent their thoughts and prayers to their Muslim brothers and sisters, reported CNS. At a Mass for peace held at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Christchurch, Bishop Paul Martin said: “We know, in solidarity with our Muslim sisters and brothers who gathered in the Christchurch mosques and around the world yesterday, that our only hope is in God. Our only hope is in God. Our only hope is in God.” Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, president of the USCCB, released a statement in which he said, “May almighty God change the hearts of those who hate to Al Noor Mosque in New recognize the inherent dignity of all people and bring Zealand was one of two mosques attacked by a gunman consolation to all those affected by this heartrending on March 15, killing 50 people. loss.”

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TOP INSET: ERIK ANDERSON/REUTERS; BOTTOM: CNS PHOTO/JONATHAN BARRETT/REUTERS

The percentage of Catholics in the world has remained steady, while the number of priests has decreased for the first time in almost a decade.

ardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the USCCB, suffered a minor stroke on March 15 while leading a Lenten observance of the Stations of the Cross at St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church in Spring, Texas.

The cardinal spent five days in St. Joseph Medical Center in Houston before being moved to a nearby rehabilitation facility, which, according to a statement by the archdiocese, usually lasts around two weeks. Doctors expect the cardinal to make a full recovery.

In a statement released by the archdiocese, Cardinal DiNardo said, “I could not be more grateful to the truly wonderful doctors and nurses at St. Joseph’s for their expert care and compassion, which has helped hasten my way down the road to a full recovery.

“I am also doubly thankful for the many kind wishes and especially the prayers that have been directed toward my healing, which I can assure you are making a true difference. I look forward to getting back to work soon and continuing the important work we have before us.”

During his recovery, Cardinal DiNardo has assigned his USCCB duties to Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gómez, vice president of the conference, as provided for in the USCCB bylaws.

CNS PHOTOS TOP RIGHT: JAMES RAMOS/TEXAS CATHOLIC HERALD; LOWER LEFT: MARTIN HUNTER/REUTERS; TOP LEFT: CNS GRAPHIC: LUCY BARCO/THE CATHOLIC REGISTER

C

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TOP INSET: ERIK ANDERSON/REUTERS; BOTTOM: CNS PHOTO/JONATHAN BARRETT/REUTERS

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wo weeks after news of his conviction of sexually abusing two boys was released, Australian Cardinal George Pell was sentenced to six years in prison by a Melbourne court, reported CNS. Cardinal Pell had been found guilty of the charges last December. The cardinal will be eligible for parole after three years and eight months.

In explaining the length of the sentence and the factors he considered, Judge Peter Kidd repeatedly referred to the cardinal’s position of authority over the choirboys and the breach of trust his actions caused.

“You were a pillar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral by virtue of your position,” Kidd said to the cardinal. “The brazenness of your conduct is indicative of your power over the victims.”

The judge also said he had to consider the cardinal’s age (77) and health problems, including noting that the stress of imprisonment would exacerbate his hypertension and heart condition. He said he realized that “each year you spend in custody” would represent a large portion of the remainder of his life. “You may not live to be released from prison,” he said.

Judge Kidd ordered Cardinal Pell to register as a sex offender and told him he would remain on that registry the rest of his life.

Cardinal Pell continues to maintain his innocence and will try to appeal the verdict. The court has set June 5–6 as the dates to consider the basis for the appeal.

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS | ASK A FRANCISCAN Believing in Apparitions

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

Are Catholics obliged to believe in any apparitions of Jesus, Mary, or the saints?

Is that necessary for a person’s salvation?

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ONLINE: StAnthonyMessenger.org E-MAIL: Ask@FranciscanMedia.org MAIL: Ask a Franciscan 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202

All questions sent by mail need to include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Why Pray for Grandma Jones?

In your August 2018 column, you wrote that God does not have a vast, eternal plan that Grandma Jones had successful heart surgery last month. OK, why do I pray for her or anyone else?

Y ?

WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

WE HAVE A DIGITAL archive of “Ask” Q & As, going back to March 2013.

Just click: • the Ask link and then • the Archive link.

Material is grouped thematically under headings such as forgiveness, Jesus, moral issues, prayer, saints, redemption, sacraments, Scripture—and many more!

Thousands visit the Marian shrine in Lourdes each day.

ou prayed before her surgery because this expresses Jesus’ compassion and causes you to relate to Grandma Jones in a way that God certainly approves.

Although they will not describe their prayer in this way, many people pray as though God is a chess player about to make a bad move in your life or in someone else’s. Such a prayer aims to help God make a different—and better—move on the mistaken assumption that God is confined to the human categories of past, present, and future.

Right now, I am praying for the wife of a former coworker here. She is undergoing chemotherapy. She and her husband are extremely grateful for the prayers of friends and relatives.

Does anyone need a better reason than that?

10 • May 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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GRAZIANO 1000/FOTOSEARCH

Father Pat welcomes your questions!

TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: CHICCODODIFC/FOTOSEARCH; BOTTOM: ANTONIOGUILLEM/FOTOSEARCH

Pat McCloskey, OFM

xcepting the apparitions of Jesus recorded in the New Testament, no. You could deny that Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (devotion to the Sacred Heart), or that Mary appeared to Sts. Bernadette Soubirous (Lourdes), Juan Diego (Tepayec), or anyone else. Why? These are private revelations—no matter how well publicized. Believing in a private revelation cannot be a requirement for salvation. Scripture is the best example of public revelation.

The examples cited above all have feast days approved by the worldwide Church. It would be foolish to challenge them, but it would not imperil someone’s salvation.

The private/public revelation distinction enables the Catholic Church to decline recognition of highly doubtful apparitions reported in Bayside (New York), Necedah (Wisconsin), Garabandal (Spain), or many other places.

Quick Questions and Answers

In church services, we often hear, “God loves every hair on your head.” How about the hair on the heads of millions of Africans and Asians who are starving, being murdered, etc.? Also, in the Mass we hear, “You take away the sins of the world.” Really? How can you explain the sins of warfare, rape, among others?

Yes, there is a great deal of innocent human suffering in the world, but most of it is caused by other human beings. That fact does not deny God’s care for each person but rather shows the evil inflicted by some humans on others. Jesus came to help people stop being part of the problem.

My elderly neighbor is very worried that her unbaptized grandson cannot go to heaven. What can I tell her?

Yes, he can. The Church baptizes people not so that God knows who is worthy of heaven but so that the Church commits itself to give the good example that a baptized person has the right to expect from other believers.

No prayer is ever wasted. (See the second Q&A in this column.)

When I was in grade school in the ’50s and early ’60s, the sisters said that prayers for someone no longer in purgatory would benefit someone else there. A soul in hell isn’t going anywhere but would certainly be extremely uncomfortable in heaven where everything reflects the ultimate triumph of God’s values.

Genuine prayer always changes the person praying.

GRAZIANO 1000/FOTOSEARCH

TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: CHICCODODIFC/FOTOSEARCH; BOTTOM: ANTONIOGUILLEM/FOTOSEARCH

If you are praying for someone who may have gone to hell, where do those prayers go? Should you keep praying for them even though you don’t really know where anyone goes? Only God knows for sure.

Light a candle in memory of a loved one, or for your special intention.

When you light a candle on StAnthony.org, it will burn for five days at the National Shrine of St. Anthony in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Franciscan friars are ready to light a candle for you!

Visit StAnthony.org

The Franciscan Friars, Province of St. John the Baptist 1615 Vine St., Ste 1 Cincinnati, OH 45202-6492

www.stanthony.org

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS “God’s power creates us; his wisdom governs us; his mercy saves us.”

—St. Crispin of Viterbo

FRANCISCAN WORLD

By Pat McCloskey, OFM

Francis Meets Sultan Malik al-Kamil

BORN IN 1668 in Orvieto, not far from Rome, Peter was an accomplished shoemaker before he joined the Capuchins in 1693 and took the name Crispin. After serving as a cook in two friaries, he began almost 40 years of service through begging for the friars in Viterbo.

Crispin became a living Gospel for his brothers and for the people of Viterbo.

The beggar was often the most well-known Capuchin in any city.

He died in 1750 and was canonized in 1982. On the Franciscan calendar, his feast is May 7.

—Pat McCloskey, OFM

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WANT MORE? Learn about your saints and blesseds by going to: SaintoftheDay.org

n Cairo, Egypt, on March 1–3, 2019, Catholics and Muslims celebrated the 800th anniversary of the meeting—during the Fifth Crusade—of Francis of Assisi and the Muslim ruler of what is now Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Jordan.

Egyptian civil and religious leaders joined Cardinal Leonardo Sandri (head of the Congregation of Oriental Churches), Michael Perry, OFM (general minister of the Order of Friars Minor), and many others in four days of conferences and celebrations for this anniversary.

Francis and his companion, Brother Illuminato, had gone to the Saracen camp, risking martyrdom for their faith. Sultan Malik al-Kamil was a very devout man and quickly recognized that Francis was also. Francis and Illuminato left with an ivory horn now kept in a chapel in Assisi’s Basilica of St. Francis.

This experience of dialogue has positively influenced the Catholic Church’s meetings with Muslim leaders in Assisi and around the world. On February 4, 2019, in Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis met with Sheik Ahmad al-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar, the world’s oldest Muslim university. They signed “A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.”

More information on the March meeting in Cairo is available in the news section of ofm.org.

ST. ANTHONY STORIES

An Heirloom in Hiding

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n keeping with a promise to St. Anthony, I publicly give him credit and thanks for answering my prayers to find a necklace that was lost. Its value was mainly sentimental, as it was a gift from my beloved late husband and was meant to be handed down to my daughter in due time. I treasured it and was distraught when it was missing.

St. Anthony directed me to its location, and I rejoiced to find it!

—E.M. Obrecht, Romeo, Michigan

The Latin and Arabic texts above say, “Conversation of St. Francis with the Sultan.” This logo is being used around the world in interfaith observances of this 800th anniversary.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JOCELYN THOMAS

Crispin, the official beggar for the Capuchin friars in Viterbo, also cared for the sick and taught catechism.

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TOP LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; TOP RIGHT: COURTESY OF CURIA GENERALE DEI FRATI MINORI; BOTTOM RIGHT: GAVRAN333/FOTOSEARCH

ST. CRISPIN

s

FOLLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS

ST. ANTHONY

Communicating the Charism

“I inherited my love for travel from my father and my gene for service from my mother.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOCELYN THOMAS

TOP LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; TOP RIGHT: COURTESY OF CURIA GENERALE DEI FRATI MINORI; BOTTOM RIGHT: GAVRAN333/FOTOSEARCH

ing SBU shirts came into the bakery. I waited on these two good-looking guys, assuming they were students.

“A few weeks later, at SBU freshman orientation, I saw them on campus—wearing brown habits—and I discovered they were friars!” she recalls.

“Coincidentally, when I came to the provincial office in 2006 to interview for my job, one of the friars I’d met at the bakery was there—33 years later!”

Her work with the Franciscans has been more satisfying than her other positions. “I enjoy the variety of duties that I execute and the nearly 300 Franciscans, my ‘internal customers,’ with whom I work and write about.

Each day includes a little of everything: research, writing, editing, interviewing, public relations, and planning meetings,” explains Thomas.

She also appreciates working with friars and laypeople around the world as part of her role as chair of the friars’ English-speaking Conference Communications Committee.

“I’ve gotten to know friars with a wide range of interests and skills— from the director of a soup kitchen that feeds hundreds of people daily to bishops, authors, physicians, and scholars,” she says. “I admire the Franciscans’ sense of social responsibility—how they take the message of Jesus and St. Francis and translate it into modern life and current needs.

“I’ve often been told I’m good at connecting people. Friars are known for fraternity and for emphasizing the importance of a relational life,” says Thomas. “Perhaps my personality had a Franciscan flavor to it before I took the job, and maybe even before I arrived at St. Bonaventure.”

—Janice Lane Palko

FRANK JASPER, OFM

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ike a golden thread running through a beautiful tapestry, the Franciscans have been woven into the life of Jocelyn Thomas, director of communications for Holy Name Province, one of seven provinces of the Order of Friars Minor in the United States. Since 2006, Thomas has been responsible for managing the internal and external information flow for the province.

The eldest of three children, she was born in New York City, but like many, her parents moved from the city to northern New Jersey to raise their family. “Neither one of my parents was from the area; my mother was raised in Chicago, and my father was born in Sydney, Australia. He grew up in London, England, and in Kingston, Jamaica,” says Thomas. “I think I inherited my love for travel from my father and my gene for service from my mother and her side of the family,” Thomas says. “She had a strong faith, and she would have enjoyed seeing me work for a religious organization.”

Thomas attended Catholic grammar school for two years and then public schools, graduating from Montclair (New Jersey) High School in 1973.

Although she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t aware of St. Francis or the Franciscans—because of having regularly attended Mass and religious education and having an aunt who was a nun—the first time the Franciscans figured prominently in her life occurred during the summer of 1973.

“I had been accepted at St. Bonaventure University [SBU] in Allegany, New York, a Franciscan university, and I was working in a bakery on Long Beach Island at the Jersey Shore when two young men wear-

Jocelyn Thomas

BREAD s

The National Shrine of St. Anthony is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Consecrated in 1889, it includes a first-class relic of St. Anthony and serves as a center for daily prayer and contemplation.

The Franciscan friars minister from the shrine. To help them in their work among the poor, you may send a monetary offering called St. Anthony Bread. Make checks or money orders payable to “Franciscans” and mail to the address below.

Every Tuesday, a Mass is offered for benefactors and petitioners at the shrine. To seek St. Anthony’s intercession, mail your petition to the address below. Petitions are taken to the shrine each week. viSit our webSite to:

StAnthony.org

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mAil poStAl communicAtionS to:

St. Anthony Bread 1615 Vine St. Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498

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SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS | FAITH UNPACKED

W

David Dault, PhD

David hosts the weekly radio show Things Not Seen: Conversations about Culture and Faith. He also cohosts the Francis Effect podcast with Father Dan Horan, OFM. He lives with his family on the South Side of Chicago.

Want a certain topic covered? Send us your request.

E-MAIL:

FaithUnpacked@ FranciscanMedia.org MAIL:

Faith Unpacked 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202 PODCAST:

The Francis Effect podcast can be streamed live at FrancisFXPod.com.

hen I was a young man, I took a trip to the Grand Canyon and rode from the top to the basin on a mule. We reached the bottom in the late afternoon. I had supper, a really good cup of coffee, and I strolled by the Colorado River.

There’s something unique about watching the sunset from there at the bottom. You’re looking up the canyon wall and, high above, the sun drops lower and lower. Then the sun is gone. You move from light to shadow in a heartbeat. In the space of a breath, the summer air goes cold.

For me, losing a parent was like that.

DARKNESS AND LIGHT

This past February, I sat with grief. I have done this every February for 10 years since my mother passed away in 2009. It was sudden and unexpected, and has hung heavy with me ever since. My mother’s name was Ann. She was an atheist. She was also an alcoholic and battled addiction for most of her life. These were the shadows that cut across her canyon, deep into the darkness.

But there was sunlight too. She was an architect and an artist. The town where I grew up is marked, north to south, with houses and buildings that came out of her mind and were locked onto the earth. People lived in them, and business happened in them. Her mind did that.

We had a complex relationship. She raised me as a single parent, but once I became an adult we went several years without speaking.

We had strong personalities, and each had gravities that made things treacherous when our orbits got too close. And yet . . .

I have a memory of standing at her shoulder as she drew lines along the straightedge. I would have been 7 or 8, before all hell broke loose in our relationship. It was the floor plan of a building.

A few weeks later, I am with her at the building site. A skeleton of pine wood has grown up from the slab. The smell of sawdust and stale cigarette smoke mixes with the cool of the concrete slab, and I wander the maze of the floor plan I saw on her drawing board just weeks before.

I had been to enough building sites to

know these bones would soon be thick with windows and gypsum board. So I take a step, and I walk between two pine studs. Silver junction boxes and a rough stairway are in the distance, and here I just walked through a wall.

TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS

As distant as we became, my mother and I found a way back to each other in the years before she died. I had found my way to Christian faith, and eventually to Catholicism.

My mother had found her way to a sobriety of her own sort, but her world had also grown very small.

We kept in touch mostly by phone. The last time I saw her, I was surprised. Her hair, so long dyed, had become a shock of white. She was thin in the face and short of breath. She looked old. But, at the same time, she was flint and steel. Our conversation was probing and angular, as I remembered.

This last visit was also the time she met my wife. She had not come to the wedding, not from spite, but because her world had become that tight and small. She was living in a house packed floor to ceiling with things she had collected through the years and could not bear to let go. She had cardboard on the windows. She had her reasons for this, but I think they had more to do with threats long dead than anything in her life at the time—though that is not for me to say, in the end.

I learned of her death as I had learned of her life in those final years—through a phone call. Like so many things between us, I wish it had been different. I wish our crashing gravities had been different. I wish I could have been the son she wanted. I wish she had been the mother I needed. But in the end, we weren’t. We were simply who we were. No more. No less.

My mother never understood my faith. I wish I could tell her I believe life has a plan, and that I learned that not from some book or sermon, but from standing at her shoulder.

I wish I could tell her that I don’t believe in walls the way other folks do because I know that, strangely, there are times when walls can be walked through.

I learned that from her too.

TOP LEFT: PHOTO COURTESY OF CHICAGO SUNDAY EVENING CLUB/KHIEM TRAN

It’s Complicated

By David Dault, PhD

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saint who?

St. Rasso of Andechs

The Gentle Giant

by Brian O’Neel

ca. 880–d. 953 Memorial: May 17 and June 19

LEFT: First a monastery called Grafrath (meaning “Count Rasso”), Andechs Abbey is a popular pilgrimage site in Bavaria, Germany. RIGHT: Baroque design features accent the interior of Sts. Nicolaus and Elizabeth Church inside the abbey.

WIKIMEDIA CREATIVE COMMONS (3) LEFT: BOSCHFOTO; MIDDLE: HERIBERT POHL; RIGHT: CHURCH OF ST. RASSO

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age through a history book for epic, decisive events such as battles, treaties, and technological advances. Besides the major players, consider the others who helped make these things possible, most of whom are not even a footnote. Take St. Rasso, for instance.

He was 6-foot-6, and his gentlemanly bearing was as impressive as his stature. His height and his formidable military skills won him many jousting tournaments. All of this prepared him for his valorous conduct in two battles that established his reputation.

The first was the Battle of Welser Heide in 942, and the other the Battle of Mauerkirchen in 948. Both were fought to defend Bavaria from the marauding Magyars, who would eventually establish Hungary. These barbarians regularly raided rural villages and looted cities, taking with them not only booty but also slaves. Both battles were fairly decisive defeats for the Magyars, bringing peace to the Bavarian people for many years.

Not long after this second battle, Rasso laid aside his arms and accompanied Duchess Judith, wife of Duke Henry I of Bavaria and daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia, on a pilgrimage to both Jerusalem and Rome. When he returned, he built the monastery we now call Grafrath (which means “Count Rasso”) and bestowed on it relics he had collected in the Holy Land.

Then, having settled his affairs, Rasso became

a monk. He lived the last two years of his life at Grafrath in humble servitude. His acts of spiritual generosity reportedly put his battlefield accomplishments to shame.

After his death, it was not the relics from the Holy Land but his own that drew the most pilgrims. Between 1444 and 1728, over 12,130 miracles were attributed to prayers at his tomb. There were many healings from stomach illness and kidney stones and many healings of children.

WHY ST. RASSO DESERVES OUR ATTENTION AND DEVOTION

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Prayer for St. Rasso’s Intercession Lord, let me never fall into the trap of pride, which turns people away from you and toward their own

Many of us want to leave a mark on the world. The desire for everlasting fame has driven people since the time of Homer. Had St. Rasso merely been a warrior, though, he would be utterly forgotten today. We remember him for the sanctity that made his heavenly intercession before God so effective.

It’s not that earthly accomplishments aren’t important. Rather, we need to ensure that they’re motivated by zeal for the honor and glory of God.

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A baroque painting by Johann Andreas Wolf (1652–1716) depicts St. Rasso von Andechs, the 9th- or 10th-century founder of a Bavarian monastery and church at Grafrath.

quasi-deification. Through St. Rasso’s example and prayers, please help me avoid that quicksand. And if I fall, please rescue me right away. Through your powerful name, Lord Jesus, and the intercession of your most Blessed Virgin Mother.

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NOTES FROM A FRIAR

by Jack Wintz, OFM

THE CANTICLE OF MARY

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ary’s sublime prayer, the Magnificat, takes its name from the first word of the Latin translation of this song of praise. This explains why one sometimes runs into the translation: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary’s canticle is reminiscent of the hymn of praise that the Old Testament figure Hannah sang to the Lord after her state of childlessness was mercifully removed by God. Hannah, we know, joyfully bore her son, Samuel, whom she dedicated to the Lord and who became a great prophet. In her song, Hannah proclaims, “My heart exults in the Lord” (1 Sm 2:1), and in a later line she rejoices that the Lord “raises the needy from the dust” (2:8).

We see similar elements in Mary’s song of praise. We ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and hearts as we reflect on the lines of this great song that flow from the lips of Mary.

We find the context for Mary’s song a few verses earlier in Luke’s Gospel: The angel Gabriel has just told Mary that she will conceive and bear a son, Jesus. He will be given “the throne of David his father and . . . of his kingdom there will be no end.” Such glorious pronouncements did not cause Mary to swell with self-centered pride. Her heart was filled instead with worries and concerns. And yet she fully trusted “the Holy Spirit,” who came upon her, as well as the “power of the Most High,” who overshadowed her (see Lk 1:26–38).

Although Mary had a profound sense of the “greatness of the Lord,” she stayed in touch with her humble and frail humanity and creaturehood. Finally, Mary simply affirmed: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (1:38). Her spirit rejoiced, not in her own strength, but in the power of God’s love.

For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.

The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him.

Mary understands profoundly where her salvation is coming from—not from her virtue but from God’s overflowing goodness. If in the future all nations come to call her blessed,

NOTEBOOK: NU1983/FOTOSEARCH; ILLUSTRATION: VITAMASI/ISTOCK

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

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Mary knows, in all humility, that it is because of what the Mighty One has done for her—not what she has done. In truth, down the centuries, Christians have called her “blessed,” and millions do so today each time they pray the Hail Mary. But the Mother of Jesus surely understands well the words of Psalm 127:1: “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch.”

He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.

He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.

As was already noted in Hannah’s hymn of praise, the Lord “raises the needy from the dust.” So also, in Mary’s canticle, we see God lifting “up the lowly” and throwing “down the rulers from their thrones.” We see the same kind of reversals in Luke’s Gospel as a whole.

Consider, for example, Luke’s series of blessings and woes in his Sermon on the Plain (Lk 6:20–26): “Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry” (6:25). Or consider Luke 14:11: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Surely, Mary would have somehow experienced these reversals in her son—his scourging, crucifixion, and death on the one hand; and his resurrection and his appearances to his disciples in glory on the other.

She would understand, moreover, the dynamics of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (2:8–9) where Paul speaks of Christ’s own humbling, as well as exaltation: “[Christ] humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. . . .”

Mary was already wrestling with these mysteries when she sang her canticle—as well as decades later at the time of Jesus’ suffering and death. Soon after, she would have known about his exaltation and rising into glory. She would know that the dual mysteries of humiliation and exaltation would still be significant challenges even later in the life of Jesus’ disciples and in the Church. In fact, these are the struggles that all humans still deal with today.

He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

When Gabriel appeared to Mary in Luke’s Gospel and told her she would give birth to Jesus, the angel said, “[He] will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever” (Lk 1:32–33). Luke indicates that Jesus is a successor or descendant of David through Joseph, Mary’s husband. Luke does this in his genealogy of Jesus in which he says, “[Jesus] was the son, as was thought, of Joseph” (see Lk 3:23). The Lucan genealogy also indicates that Jesus was a descendant of David (3:31) and of Abraham (3:34)—and it goes all the way back to “Adam, the son of God” (3:38).

Mary ends her canticle with a sharp focus on Abraham, her father in faith—and the father in faith of all God’s people. Abraham represents the beginnings of the story of Israel—a story that continues in Jesus Christ and his followers. A footnote at the beginning of St. Matthew’s Gospel identifies “the coming of Jesus as the climax of Israel’s history.”

Interestingly, the author of the Gospel of Matthew identifies Jesus Christ as “the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1).

We go back now to the Book of Genesis and take a closer look at the Lord’s call of Abraham. God said to Abram: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you” (Gn 12:1–2). As God later tells Abraham, “I will . . . make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; . . . and in your descendants [especially in the son of Mary] all the nations of the earth shall find blessing” (22:17–18).

The greatness of Mary’s canticle is that it embraces the whole sweep of the story of Israel and that of the Incarnate Word—and the whole sweep of Mary’s trust and complete openness to God. We are blessed in contemplating the words of Mary’s amazing song!

Jack Wintz, OFM, served in many roles in his more than 30 years at St. Anthony Messenger, including editor. He is retired and living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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POETRY

Fourth Station We crown her with flowers enshrine her in a garden obscuring the raw motherhood that beheld the suffering face of her lamb, his dear body torn, broken, falling.

Mary’s truth lies not in a garden, but on the bloody road to Calvary where she, with her son, is scourged, pierced, hung on a cross.

KATIE DOBIES/ISTOCK

—Joan R. Halpin

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POINTSOFVIEW | EDITORIAL

Beyond Thoughts and Prayers

“‘We are members one of another.’

From social network communities to the human community.”

—Theme for 2019 World Communication Day

KATIE DOBIES/ISTOCK

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wo months ago, the world was rocked yet again by another mass shooting. This time it was at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and was perpetrated by an anti-immigrant white supremacist. As of this writing, the death toll stands at 50. Many more suffered serious injuries, including a 4-year-old girl in critical condition. Given the pace of the news cycle, we may never learn the status of those injured in the attack.

At the heart of the situation, as with most events these days, was the Internet and social media. News of the attack spread quickly online, eliciting a wave of statements expressing thoughts and prayers. Unfortunately, the actual attack was also live-streamed by the attacker. Before it could be taken down, the video was viewed and shared by people on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Once the initial shock subsided, people immediately began to call for some type of action. It’s a refrain that we’ve heard time and time again following other similar shootings at places of worship, such as Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, where 11 were killed in October 2018, and Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, where nine people died while worshipping in June 2015.

Add in the staggering number of similar events at schools, nightclubs, concerts, public places, workplaces, and on and on, and we have an epidemic. It is an epidemic that we can’t seem to figure out how to stop.

There is a predictability in one thing, though, and that is people’s reactions to these events. It goes something like this: Almost immediately after something happens, people and organizations issue statements offering their thoughts and prayers for those affected. People go online and change their profile pictures and post statuses, memes, and stickers to show they care. Demands are made to do something to prevent future attacks.

And then, after a few days, those called-for discussions— often surrounding tough issues such as gun control, religion, and immigration—quickly devolve into arguments with people pointing fingers and placing blame. At a time when people should be uniting and searching for solutions, they spend time vilifying anyone who voices a belief or offers a suggestion contrary to theirs. Suddenly, thoughts and prayers become disagreements and arguments.

Not surprisingly, most of these discussions—if you can call them that—take place online, where people can safely spew hatred from the safety of their keyboards. Before long, a type of mob mentality kicks in.

A TIMELY MESSAGE

How ironic, then, that the theme for 2019’s World Communications Day Message—which will be celebrated on June 2—is: “‘We are members one of another’ (Eph 4:25).

From social network communities to the human community.” When the Vatican announced the theme this past January, it noted that the theme is a call for “reflection on the current state and nature of relationships on the Internet, starting from the idea of community as a network between people in their wholeness.”

Read that again: interaction, dialogue, meet with others.

These three important elements too often are missing from online discussions. Unfortunately, online, people often talk at others instead of with them.

In his message for the day, Pope Francis points out that, despite its capabilities for building up communities, “the social web identity is too often based on opposition to the other, the person outside the group: We define ourselves starting with what divides us rather than with what unites us, giving rise to suspicion and to the venting of every kind of prejudice (ethnic, sexual, religious and other). This tendency encourages groups that exclude diversity, that even in the digital environment nourish unbridled individualism, which sometimes ends up fomenting spirals of hatred. In this way, what ought to be a window on the world becomes a showcase for exhibiting personal narcissism.”

WHAT’S YOUR ROLE?

The Internet is not going anywhere. It is going to continue to be a place for potential grace and potential evil. And we are not going to avoid it. It has become too ingrained in our lives. That is why we must realize that we can all be part of the problem or part of the solution.

With every post, like, retweet, and comment, we make our voices heard as part of these conversations. Even as Catholics, we cannot claim to have taken the higher ground online.

There are many instances of less-than-Christlike conduct when it comes to discussing difficult issues—both inside and outside the Church.

If we are ever going to work toward preventing another massacre like the one in New Zealand, genuine thoughts and prayers will lead us to action. It’s going to take a lot of work, patience, and communication. We need to ask ourselves what our role will be in those conversations. Will we be a part of the problem or a part of the solution?

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POINTSOFVIEW | AT HOME ON EARTH

By Kyle Kramer

Kyle Kramer

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WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org

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was born in the month of May, which I blame not only for my stubbornness (you know how bullheaded those Tauruses can be) but also for my tendency to live my life mostly on fast-forward. After all, at least in my part of the northern hemisphere, May is when nature really kicks into high gear, when gardens take off, and when hayfields get their spring flush. In May’s lengthening days, every green growing thing strains for the sky.

Hard as my rush-rush-rush habit is to break, I’m trying. For one thing, I simply have less energy than I did 25 years ago, and I have to more carefully pace myself. More important, though, I’ve come to see that always trying to stuff a gallon into a quart turns time into a bully. Feeling besieged by a crammed schedule makes it hard to savor and be fully present in any given moment. And rushing against deadlines (often arbitrary ones) is hardly a recipe for doing my best work. I tend to be much more effective at almost everything when I slow down.

I suppose that my tendency to hurry fits right into American culture, which encourages speed, efficiency, productivity, profit, and achievement. There’s a fast-moving current all around us that makes us feel like slackers or misfits if we can’t or won’t keep up—even though constantly rushing isn’t good for us.

It’s not good for our bodies, not good for our relationships, not good for our work, and certainly not good for our environment. To paraphrase a wonderful line from Quaker

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singer and songwriter Carrie Newcomer: We’re traveling faster than our souls can go.

Bracketing the month of May for the moment, nature tends to be a model of patience and slow-and-steady, turtle-like persistence—especially trees, whose lives unfold on the scale of centuries, not days or years.

The Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, reflecting on the vast sweep of evolutionary and geological time, encouraged us to “trust in the slow work of God.” Remembering such a “deep time” perspective is a marvelous corrective to our ego-driven mania that would have us running frantically to stay ahead of our insecurities and to catch up with our ambitions.

THE GIFT OF MAY

But what about the month of May? I think in giving us May, God’s creation teaches us that becoming friends with time isn’t quite as simple as just slowing down. That may be a good idea in general, but I think there are plenty of times we dawdle when we really need to light a fire under ourselves.

How can we know when to slow down and when to speed up? Our minds tend to be tuned to the chronos clock that measures out minutes and hours and days. Our soul, though, is connected to much deeper realities.

Our soul swims in the river of God’s kairos time—which may meander or may run like raging rapids, depending on the situation.

Our soul tells us that now is the time to

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EarthandSpiritCenter.org

The Speed of Soul

LEFT: COURTESY OF KYLE KRAMER; RIGHT: LEAF/FOTOSEARCH

Kyle is the executive director of the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center, which offers interfaith educational programming in meditation, ecology, and social compassion.

He serves as a Catholic climate ambassador for the US Conference of Catholic Bishopssponsored Catholic Climate Covenant and is the author of A Time to Plant: Life Lessons in Work, Prayer, and Dirt (Ave Maria Press, 2010).

He speaks across the country on issues of ecology and spirituality.

He and his family spent 15 years as organic farmers and homesteaders in Spencer County, Indiana.

propose to our beloved or to welcome children (biological or adopted) into our family before we feel ready—because when are we ever ready for such adventures? Our soul whispers that we must mend our estranged relationship with an aging parent or soon-to-fly teenage child. Our soul urges us to take the leap of faith toward a new vocation. Our collective soul knows that we must right racial and economic injustices with the fierce urgency of now, and that our ailing Earth, whose climate will run away with itself in just a few years, must have immediate care. Sometimes we can’t walk; we have to run, the way the disciples ran to the tomb on Resurrection Sunday.

The only way we can travel at the speed of soul is to listen closely to its still, small voice. Ironically, that requires getting still and being quiet. I think it must be God’s great sense of humor that we sometimes have to slow down from our busyness to discover that we mustn’t waste one more moment of the precious gift of time.

HELPFUL

TIPS A Sense of Urgency “How many penances for texting ‘OMG’?”

The Gospel of Mark has been called the “Gospel of immediacy.” Notice that the word immediately (euthus in Greek) appears much more frequently in Mark than any other book in the Bible.

JOERF3/FOTOSEARCH; LEFT CARTOONS: BOB VOJTKO

LEFT: COURTESY OF KYLE KRAMER; RIGHT: LEAF/FOTOSEARCH

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What do you think is the most urgent social or environmental challenge we face? In your prayer time this month, ask God to show you what part you may be called to play in making a contribution of time, talent, or treasure—now, not later.

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For a more expansive relationship with time, check out The Growing Edge podcast, by Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer.

“Doesn’t the Bible tell us to be a good steward of the earth? So why not just let it grow?”

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TITLE

A Voice for J Patty Crawford went up against Baylor University after hundreds of women bravely came forward with sexual assault allegations. Her faith is what got her through.

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Crawford’s faith was formed from a young age in Ohio, where she grew up with her parents and six older siblings.

Their home, she says, was filled with faith and examples of how to live it. Her parents “committed their lives to their

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A SOLID FOUNDATION

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his is a story about the power of faith in the face of a formidable challenge—a choice between the difficult road and the right one. This is Patty Crawford’s story.

It is one that has been full of twists and turns, ups and downs. It has taken her to foreign lands and through troubling times. When she went up against Baylor University regarding a situation she saw as fundamentally wrong, her faith was tested and her integrity questioned. Suddenly, she found herself without a job or a plan for what to do next. But in the end, her faith carried her through.

LE IX

r Justice faith and social justice,” she recalls. Her dad was one of the first men to be ordained a permanent deacon in the 1970s, and her mom was on the archdiocesan lay pastoral council in the 1980s.

“My parents always instilled faith, education, and loving our neighbor into everything we did,” says Crawford.

During her formative years, she developed a passion for social-justice issues. “I remember doing speech contests as a middle schooler, talking about social-justice issues.”

The inspiration, again, came from her parents. Her dad, Crawford proudly says, “was one of the leaders in changing the laws to give rights to people with disabilities, including helping to shut down inhumane institutions for those with developmental disabilities. He ran county programs around the state of Ohio with the work centered on dignity and value for those he served with developmental disabilities.”

ABOVE: CHAPIN31/ISTOCK

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THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

As Crawford grew older, that passion didn’t diminish.

Following high school, she spent a gap year living in Italy with 64 women from 24 countries before embarking on a backpacking excursion. For a few months, she trekked across Europe on a $300 budget.

By Susan Hines-Brigger

After returning home, Crawford enrolled at The Ohio State University, where she earned her degree in strategic communications. Upon graduation, she became the assistant director of the Albert Merritt Learning Center, a small nonprofit she and her friends had established. The center, located in a rural county in Indiana, empowered families in need through free and affordable literacy education programming.

While working there, Crawford began graduate school.

Yet, at the same time, she “felt called to do sustainable work through a Christian nonprofit in another country in need.”

NEXT STOP: SIERRA LEONE

That is how, during 2005 and 2006, Crawford found herself living in Sierra Leone, where she worked with Hope Micro, a local microfinance organization. The experience, she says, was part of her research “on microfinance and how it empowers women out of acute poverty with a focus on education and their children’s right to an education.”

It “was my first real understanding of how terrible injustices exist, and power and money create a culture of oppression,” she says. It was a lesson she would encounter again later in her career.

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Back home, Crawford got a job with Indiana University East, where she worked in a number of diverse roles, including as the school’s Title IX coordinator. Title IX is a one-sentence law that states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

The law gives all genders equal rights to educational programs, activities, and federal financial assistance. The role of a Title IX coordinator is responding, remediating, adjudicating, preventing, and educating on complaints related to sexual harassment, stalking, sexual assault (including rape), dating and domestic violence, and any other type of sex discrimination related to success in educational access, such as women’s access to admission, scholarships, sports equity, etc.

It was her work with Title IX that brought Baylor University in Waco, Texas, calling. In 2014, Crawford was recruited to serve as the school’s first ever Title IX coordinator and was tasked with establishing the office and bringing the university into compliance with the law.

“I thought this was a sign. As I navigated cases of sexual harassment and other types of discrimination cases, I realized that the gift of my faith—especially on human rights, justice, and dignity—was essential in this work,” she says.

Crawford immediately got to work fielding reports. During her time at Baylor, over 400 people came to her to report stalking, relationship violence, sexual assault, and harassment. Unfortunately, the situations she was facing are found on many college and university campuses—not only Baylor.

At this time, Baylor found itself amid a media storm regarding the rape conviction of a former football player. Other reports began to emerge regarding the football program and sexual violence, leading to the firing of football coach Art Briles and university president Ken Starr. Crawford says she was unaware of many of the complaints.

In 2015, Baylor engaged the law firm Pepper Hamilton to investigate. The firm released a report in May 2016 that said Baylor repeatedly mishandled allegations of sexual assault.

ISTOCK IMAGES FROM TOP CLOCKWISE: SOUTH AGENCY; VASYL DOLMATOV; MATT BROWN; MONKEY BUSINESS IMAGES; YIN YANG

A LIFE-CHANGING CAREER MOVE

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Although it is the application of Title IX to athletics that has gained the greatest public visibility, the law applies to every single aspect of education, including course offerings, counseling and counseling materials, financial assistance, student health and insurance benefits and/or other services, housing, marital and parental status of students, physical education and athletics, education programs and activities, and employment.

SOURCE: NCAA.org

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The university’s board of regents then released a Findings of Fact Summary stating that the Pepper Hamilton findings reflected “a fundamental failure by Baylor to implement Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA).” Pepper Hamilton found that the university’s efforts to implement Title IX were “slow, ad hoc, and hindered by a lack of institutional support and engagement by senior leadership.”

Crawford says that throughout this time, she continually ran into resistance and accused the Baylor board of directors of impeding her from fulfilling the duties of her job as the Title IX coordinator. Yet, despite the red flags she saw, Crawford says she still had hope that Baylor would do the right thing. Things did not change, though, she says.

“I was at an impasse: keep my job and betray those who trusted me with their painful truth by remaining silent, or speak out and risk the consequences. But I felt there was only one way to move forward—to be a voice of truth,” she recalls.

She filed a complaint with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights about the way Baylor was handling Title IX complaints.

According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, the university offered Crawford a monetary settlement to sign a nondisclosure agreement. She declined and began telling her story.

Crawford did so, she says, because “standing up for the truth was worth more than millions of dollars or a lucrative career. I knew that I had to speak on behalf of those who didn’t have the opportunity to speak out; to help continue to pave an easier way for the victims, survivors, and others who could be in harm’s way of abuse and violence in the future because of the corrupt systems that made up the foundation of the Baylor community—a community that I had just begun to care for.”

In a statement issued to Texas Monthly, Baylor University said it “was surprised by the action taken by Patty Crawford, given her public comments in August about the strong support she felt from across the university.”

Following her resignation, Crawford spent two days with the media, explaining her side of the situation, and then stepped out of the picture.

“This ultimately wasn’t a story about me or my work but, rather, about working against lies and silence in order for love to heal and rebuild a community and its systems and structures,” Crawford explains.

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“I knew that I had to speak on behalf of those who didn’t have the opportunity to speak out; to help continue to pave an easier way for the victims, survivors, and others who could be in harm’s way of abuse and violence in the future.”

MOVING ON

Within six weeks of her resignation, Crawford, her husband, and their three kids sold their house and moved to Georgia, leaving behind a difficult chapter in their family’s story and facing an uncertain future.

“I have had moments that have been very challenging because of leaving Baylor or because I refused a large sum of money in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement upon my resignation,” says Crawford.

Following the move, Crawford quickly immersed herself in the details of life—searching for employment, enrolling the kids in school, securing health care. “It was really survival,” she says.

It was only after things started to calm down a bit—when she didn’t have her spiritual guard up—that she says doubt began to set in.

“I’ve had moments where I’m like, ‘I should have just taken the money.’ It wouldn’t have gone public; it wouldn’t have been out in the media. I probably wouldn’t have lost my professional reputation. But it really felt like it would have only benefited me.”

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STARTING AGAIN

Crawford found herself at a crossroads. There was one thing she knew, though, and that was she would no longer work as a Title IX coordinator. That was confirmed by her former colleagues at Indiana University East after Crawford attempted to go back to her old job.

“I had to start all over career-wise, and that was scary because I was already 35 and had dedicated 15 years to a certain career path.” But, she says, “Most of my education and career path have been rooted in ‘God, whatever your will is, I’ll do it.’”

In January 2017, Crawford shifted gears and joined a web design firm in Georgia. A little more than a year later, her position was eliminated, and she once again found herself in search of a new adventure. Again, her faith sustained her.

“God’s plan is never easy nor does it always make sense in the moment, but it is real, it is beautiful, and the reward is not earthly. This is where I get strength and continue to seek strength.”

Earlier this year, in a move that some might call providential, Crawford became the marketing coordinator for Franciscan Media, the parent company of this magazine.

(She was not, however, on staff at the time of this interview.)

If you ask Crawford, she probably would tell you that God had something to do with it.

“I remember every day a sign in my childhood home,” she says. “It said, ‘The joy of the Lord is my strength.’ This helps me refocus my trust in God, put my worries in him, and also give gratitude for all God has given me, like my faith, family, and the support I have received in so many special and unique ways.”

Susan Hines-Brigger is an executive editor of this magazine.

Thoughts on the #MeToo Movement

Patty Crawford

WHEN ASKED ABOUT THE #MeToo movement, Crawford says she applauds “anything that brings attention to sex discrimination, from unequitable wages to rape and violence. I am proud of those survivors who have come out and spoken about their injustices. It is amazing and powerful, and I am praying for them and in solidarity with them.”

She does, however, have concerns regarding Hollywood and media-based movements. “There are many complexities to what causes violence and discrimination. I do strongly believe that Hollywood and the mass media have contributed greatly to this current generation of horrific violence and discrimination. They have not only been part of producing pieces, movies, commercials, and TV shows that celebrate violence and discrimination (especially of a sexual nature), but they have also financially benefited from doing it as well.

“A hashtag and a dress aren’t going to solve these problems. We need to be fully committed to disrupting the status quo, even though we’re up against moneymakers and incredibly powerful industries.”

Crawford says she believes that “for things to really shift and change, we must look deeper and change the culture,” such as the devastation that pornography and the Internet have had on young people and their sexual practices and expectations.

“This also pertains to violence in schools—both physical and emotional—and its relationship to abuse in the home, desensitization of violent games and movies, and the lack of human connection in modern technology,” she says. “The only way to do this is to act, each of us, out of love, truth, and with no basis on our own self-interest. This truly has to be out of love for our neighbor—which is not easy, but necessary.”

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Mary, Our Muse Many people look to Mary for spiritual guidance and nourishment. She’s also a source of inspiration for this artist.

Text and paintings by Holly Schapker

Rose Garden in Ault Park: 24”x 30,” oil on canvas

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Mother’s Love: 24”x 36,” oil on canvas

n the night the angel Gabriel visited Mary, as the biblical story goes, he asked her to bear a child who would be called Emmanuel, a name that means “God is with us.”

Perhaps a pause ensued until she answered Gabriel, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). I find personal transformation in Mary’s simple yes and believe this story gives us all hope.

This incredible moment is inspiring to me because it is still alive and with us today. The same story occurs multiple times a day as we say yes to God’s will ourselves. It is important to remember that when Mary spoke to Gabriel, she was speaking for all of us. Engaging with art through the lens of the Catholic imagination has occurred throughout Church history and since the earliest apostles.

Turning to Mary has allowed me to approach her state of humble relinquishment in my painting studio and outside of it in my personal life. The paintings included in this article derived from my interpretation of our Blessed Mother’s life

Our Lady’s Rose Shone So Bright: 24”x 30,” oil on panel

and her ultimate mission of bringing us closer to Christ.

I present this work as a woman on her own pilgrimage to spiritual understanding.

My personal path is filled with several detours leading to many self-inflicted grievances. As flawed as my pilgrimage has been, I have found that her mantle embraces us all without limitations. Going to Mary with my weaknesses as a human being and as an artist has turned even the worst mistakes I have made into a measure of profound healing and peace.

The Blessed Mother consoles us with the assurance that there is nothing to be afraid of and shows us how we are all one body and privileged members of a remarkable family in eternal union.

In the end, my study of Mary has further reshaped my image of our creator from one of dominance to a God of overflowing goodness, loving kindness, and unending mercy.

It is my hope that each of you experiences this same devotional joy in recognizing the good news.

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MARYIAM W

hen I trust the unfolding creative process before me, everything I need is there serving me. This pilgrimage of faith before the blank canvas teaches me many lessons.

Notice this painting is focused on her eyes with the most care and tightest detail.

Looking forward, Mary knows us and she knows our Lord. What better advocate could we align with? The rough, unfinished brush marks around the edges help guide the viewer’s eye to her gaze. They also show us that her story is unfinished. Just as the servants were needed to perform Christ’s first miracle at Cana, she asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5).

CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY invites us to imagine what it would be like to know Mary—or even to be her.

St. Maximilian Kolbe said that the greatest way we can give glory to God is to unite oneself to the creature who glorifies God most perfectly. She is the loving example of fulfilling God’s will in humility. Mary pondered in her heart the good things that God was doing in her life. With her example, we can develop the same attitude of gratitude.

Surrealist painters taught us that the unexpected and unbelievable can happen in art. The same can be said of a life of faith.

Maryiam: 12” x 16,” oil on canvas

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anvas

THE ASSUMPTION T

o create the illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface, the painter builds up texture and contrast in the foreground of the composition. The background then fades away.

Mary focused her life on Christ’s mission. All other concerns faded away in the distance as she pondered her daily experiences in her heart. When we honor Mary, we are celebrating the mystery of the living God and the perfect disciple. It also reminds us that God wants a similar graced relationship with us.

Tasked with giving spiritual birth to Christians, Mary helps us grow closer to Christ. In Mary, we can find hope for humankind. It is interesting to notice that the flowers are placed among the angels. Perhaps they are metaphors for us and our own “flowering of the soul.”

May we, too, be able to join the Virgin Mary and say, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” (Lk 1:46).

Mother of Eternal Glory (study based on Pompeo Batoni): 21” x 21,” oil on canvas

MY STUDY, BASED ON The Assumption, by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), enlivened and embellished by roses and lilies, shows the radical nature and accomplishment of her life as a humble handmaiden of the Lord.

Then Jesus came to her and said, “Come, my chosen one, and I shall place thee upon my throne, for I have desired thy beauty!” Mary answered, “My heart is ready, O Lord, my heart is ready!” And her soul went forth out of her body and flew upward in the arms of her son.

MOTHER AND CHILD W

hen on the cross, Jesus entrusted his mother to the care of the “disciple whom he loved,” and him to her.

This holy gift before Christ’s final act of self-emptying love has inspired many of us, including countless artists, to claim her as our own spiritual mother and express our devotion to her in various ways. My life has changed dramatically for the better since I took her into my heart, home, and studio.

I now get to experience the many surprising moments of joy on the canvas and witness an unfolding of art that I know comes from the Holy Spirit. My day revolves around repetitive relinquishment and prayer, which opens me to the mystery of God.

THIS MOTHER-AND-CHILD painting is a study based on the work of Pompeo Batoni. Mary is looking to Jesus. The brushwork signifies constant motion. Going to Mary is not an end in itself, for she is the trusted way toward her son. When I see Mary looking at her child, it reminds me that we can draw on her perfect love to look toward others in the same way.

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THE VISITATION H

ow wonderful it must have felt for Mary to be validated by her cousin, Elizabeth, who truly understood the extraordinary circumstance of her life: being pregnant with God’s child!

This may be one of the most beautiful connections shared in human history.

When I mix a color and have it on the tip of my brush, I try to move the same color around the canvas to create a rhythmic harmony. Everything within the composition is connected, and the whole painting changes with every mark.

Without knowing how the artwork will manifest, I try to take the next right action.

Eventually, I am given a new creation to be shared with others.

MANY OF MY WORKS pay homage to the masterpieces of great painters.

It is my desire to honor these artists for their work and to continue their efforts of celebrating creation with my own contributions. This painting is inspired by an early French Renaissance painter, Jacques Daret (c. 1404–c. 1470), who created an altarpiece of the Virgin in Arras, which includes Visitation.

Legend has it that the tiny columbine flower sprang up wherever Mary’s foot touched the earth while she was on her way to visit Elizabeth. The columbine flowers expand beyond the borders as they remind us that God has no boundaries.

The Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth, Columbine Flowers: 24”x 30,” oil on canvas

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TRUSTWORTHY GUIDANCE O

ur Lord trusted Mary when he was at his most vulnerable. Just as he came to us through her, she is the portal back to God. The blank canvas teaches me how much I rely on God. First, the journey begins with an act of faith in hope of a successful painting.

Then comes the dark stage of vulnerability, where I feel lost, frustrated, and afraid.

In art, reflections and perspective change everything.

A miracle can happen in an instant, simply because of a new perspective. Finally, the work gets resolved beyond my abilities. This ritual shows me God deserves all credit as the end result does not come from me.

MY PAINTINGS IN this collection portray Mary in a multitude of times, cultures, and ethnic characters to show her omnipresence through the Holy Spirit. Mary is not limited by our constructs. She is forever ancient and forever new in the face of every woman.

The great theologians, saints, and artists honor Mary with good reason.

She is us!

I take my place in union with them as we all do every time we go to Mary and dispose ourselves to God’s grace. She shows us how to have the deepest relationship with God, which is simply described by St. Teresa of Calcutta: “Do little things with great love.”

Cause of Our Joy: 15” x 21,” oil on canvas

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Our Lady of the Way: 66” x 68,” oil and gold on canvas

OUR LADY OF THE WAY

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hen I completed the Spiritual Exercises, contemplations, and meditations laid out by St. Ignatius, I got the feeling that I was a part of a royal family. And I am not the only one: We are all invited to be intimate members. I was also taught that our value is not based on the conditions of this world or anything we have done in it. Rather, it is because of God’s love, which is inside every one of us.

During a recent visit to an elderly friend in a nursing home, she shared with me that she can always feel God’s presence with her. She is a holy woman with much wisdom. “All people are God’s children,” she instructed. When employees of the nursing home are more disruptive than kind with her, she understands that they are carrying their own burdens. How do we see others as God’s children? We cannot will it, but we can ask Mary to take our blindness to Christ and ask for his miraculous assistance.

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ST. IGNATIUS MEDITATED for hours on a small fresco called Madonna Della Strada at the Gesù Church in Rome. Perhaps he saw an invitation in it for us all.

Our Lady of the Way derives from Madonna Della Strada, with the addition of faces within the garb of Mary and Jesus, which represent all of humanity in Christendom. It has gold leaf, symbolizing the royalty of our inheritance.

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STAR OF BETHLEHEM

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was once asked what my North Star is. What is it that guides me to Christ? As Pedro Arrupe, SJ, said about falling in love: “It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

Following the Gospel each day with millions of other Catholics is my North Star, which gives me the constant opportunity to circle back from my daily concerns to the good news of Our Lord. This is my divine direction.

Teaching us how to live fully in our earthly life and even conquer death, Jesus’ story is one about the greatest holy act—to die to self.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

HOLLY SCHAPKER resides and works in Cincinnati, Ohio. A 1992 graduate of Xavier University’s art program, she continued her painting education by studying under allegorical painter Michael Scott for 10 years. Her work has been featured in many publications and on television and radio. Schapker has been invited to demonstrate her painting techniques and creative process to universities throughout the nation.

She has taught beginning, advanced, and thesis painting at Xavier University. In addition to her painting demonstrations, Schapker travels to give lectures as a creative Catholic and hosts spiritual retreats.

Schapker’s paintings and drawings can be found in corporate collections, universities, private schools, and churches throughout the world. Beyond that, Pope Francis has accepted a portrait of his mother painted by the artist that was given to him in Vatican City.

Schapker found new inspiration for her works after completing the Spiritual Exercises laid out by Ignatius Loyola and attending a pilgrimage based on his life throughout Italy and Spain. She later researched the Renaissance painters who honored Our Blessed Mother.

Star of Bethlehem: 24”x 30,” oil on canvas THE STAR-OF-BETHLEHEM FLOWER is said to resemble the star in the east that pointed to the birthplace of Jesus. The star shone brightly in the night and guided the shepherds to the place where the newborn Jesus lay, then broke into little pieces, scattering white blossoms everywhere.

When we look to the heavens for inspiration, we, too, receive an abundance of gifted guidance from above. I used my brushwork to show movement, as we are always in a state of flux, and repetition is key on our spiritual path in hand with the Virgin Mary.

“My aim is to create timeless images of the spirit. In order to tap into the river of creativity, I see myself as the space at the intersectional point of the cross helped by the horizontal and vertical axes. The time in front of the blank canvas usually follows a period of centering prayer or Lectio Divina. I often listen to the rosary and contemplate the mysteries in the studio. Every time, I feel more like a grateful witness to the creation of my work than its creator.

“The creative process is never-ending for me. I try to observe and learn in each moment, and my paintings depict my quest for truth and beauty. My intention is to practice placing my reliance solely on the present moment in front of the easel and to relinquish all personal control of the brush to God’s energy, which results in unexpected gifts that I humbly receive. I hope others enjoy my work as well.”

Learn more about her artwork at HollySchapker.com.

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Joyful Mysteries the flip side of the

By Martin Pable, OFM Cap

find the joyful mysteries of the rosary to be, well, joyful.

Their focus, of course, is on the wonderful, happy events in Jesus’ earthly life. These are things we can easily understand: a birth announcement, a visit to a beloved relative, the arrival of a baby, a Baptism, and the relief of finding a lost child. Our everyday lives are full of such joyful events.

But lately as I have been praying the joyful mysteries, I’ve become aware that there is also a dark and stressful side to them. But rather than arousing in me a sad or distasteful feeling, I find them to be even more nourishing for my spirit.

I invite you to walk through them with me.

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WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: RIGHT: CARL HEINRICH BLOCH; LEFT: JACQUES DARET

A shadow hovers over the joyful mysteries of the rosary. In it, we can find parallels to our own lives.

The Annunciation to Mary (Lk 1:26–38)

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: RIGHT: CARL HEINRICH BLOCH; LEFT: JACQUES DARET

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We all know the scene. It’s been pictured by artists for centuries. An angel appears to the Virgin Mary and tells her she is going to conceive and bear a child whom she should name Jesus. This conception will not take place in the usual manner, but “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Mary is both confused and fearful; but the angel tells her: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” That’s asking a lot of a teenage girl. But Mary’s major fear (and here is the dark side) is: How can I possibly explain this to Joseph? We are not even married yet. What will my parents and the townsfolk think? In the Gospel of Luke, the angel simply tells her: “Don’t worry; God will take care of everything. Place all your trust in him.” At that point Mary simply surrenders to God’s will: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done according to your word.” We are not told how Joseph responded to this news. But the fact that the Gospel of Matthew calls him “a just man” tells us that he trusted Mary’s word and took her as his wife.

We think of the times in our lives when we are asked to do or say something that others will not understand or will severely criticize. Like Mary, we feel paralyzed by fear. Yet we take the action or speak the truth because we believe the words the angel spoke to Mary: “Do not be afraid . . . for nothing will be impossible for God.” And in that act of faith and trust, we experience, in spite of our fears, the power and the wisdom of God aiding us.

The Visit with Elizabeth (Lk 1:39–56) The next scene in the Gospel of Luke is Mary’s visit to her elderly cousin Elizabeth. The angel had told her that Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy. Now, let’s be realistic about this. That visit was not a trip of a few blocks or even miles; it was more like 60 miles. I can imagine Joseph trying to persuade Mary not to make that trip. But when Mary persisted, Joseph probably insisted that a couple of his adult nephews accompany her. I used to assume that Mary’s purpose is simply to help her cousin in the time before the delivery of her child. But now I believe Mary also has another motive: She needs to talk to an older woman, a woman of faith.

Recall that Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, is unable to speak. But he is a Jewish priest with a deep knowledge of the Old Testament. After listening to Mary’s story, he is convinced that the child she is carrying is the longed-for Messiah. I can picture him writing out passages from the Scriptures that referred to the Messiah. He reminds them that the Messiah will descend from the family of David, to which both Mary and Joseph belong; that he will bring about justice for God’s people; will work great signs and wonders among them; and will be called the Prince of Peace.

But—and here is the dark side of the Visitation—he will also be rejected by his own people and endure the sufferings so vividly described by the prophet Isaiah (53:1–12).

In our own lives, too, there is always a mixture of good and bad news. It’s pleasant to visit family and friends; but sometimes the news we hear from them is not very happy.

They’ve developed health problems; some of the children are not doing well; there’s talk about layoffs at work; their homes need repairs. Still, we are not sorry we called or visited.

Perhaps we even receive some encouragement from them. I picture Mary returning home to Joseph with a grateful heart, knowing that her elderly relatives are praying for them.

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The third joyful mystery is the one we call Christmas: “the most wonderful time of the year,” as the song goes. The events described by the Gospels are certainly joyfilled: the night sky bright with singing angels, humble shepherds kneeling at the crib of the newborn child, the Magi from the East offering the baby their precious gifts. At church we sing our favorite Christmas songs. We exchange gifts in memory of the One who gave himself totally to us.

But, again, the flip side. We can picture Mary eagerly awaiting her time to give birth, Joseph using his skills to build a fine crib for the child. But then comes the stunning news. The Roman emperor has decreed a total census—not only of Roman citizens, but also of Jews and others living in the empire. So Mary and Joseph have to make the arduous journey (again, about 60 miles) from Nazareth to Bethlehem. But now it is nearly time for Mary to give birth. When they finally arrive, every room for lodging is filled. One innkeeper offers to let them use his animal shelter; at least it is out of the wind and has a straw-filled manger to hold the child. The Bible does not relate the words or feelings of Joseph and Mary. But we can imagine them joining their Jewish ancestors who, time and again, cried out: “Why, dear God, is this happening?”

Is it not often the same with us, when our faith is being tested? When our wellthought-out plans get sabotaged by some unforeseen glitch? It is then that we are called to renew our trust in the wisdom and goodness of our God.

The Presentation in the Temple (Lk 2:22–38)

Joseph and Mary are devout and faithful Jews. Their law requires parents of a firstborn male child to present him to God in a ceremony at the Temple in Jerusalem.

The intent is to impress upon the parents that a child is a precious gift from God and that parents are entrusted with this gift. As this ceremony is being carried out, two elderly people come forward.

The first, Simeon, had been told by the Holy Spirit that he will not die until he has seen the Messiah. As Luke says, Simeon “took him [Jesus] in his arms and blessed God, saying: ‘Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace . . . for my eyes have seen your salvation . . . a light for revelation to the gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.’” In other words, this child has come for all people and nations as their Lord and Savior.

Next, 84-year-old Anna comes forward, and, Luke writes, “gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.” These dear elders, who have been waiting and praying so long for the coming of the Messiah, have seen their hopes fulfilled in this child. It’s easy to see why this is a joyful mystery.

But here’s the dark side. After blessing Joseph and Mary, Simeon goes on to tell them: “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted [and you yourself (Mary) a sword will pierce]” (2:34–35). So, when Jesus becomes an adult and begins his public ministry, people will have to choose: either to accept him and his teaching or to reject him. And as that drama plays out, Mary will suffer a broken heart.

This mystery connects closely with parents. Children are a profound source of joy and love for them. At the same time, they can become a cause for much anxiety and disappointment.

Parents and grandparents often must live through these emotional swings. At the same time, they need to hold fast to their faith: that God loves their children even more than they do and will continue to hold them in his loving care.

PHOTO CREDIT WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: HERE LEFT: GERARD VAN HONTHORST; MIDDLE: HANS HOLBEIN; RIGHT: WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT

The Birth of Jesus (Lk 2:1–20; Mt 2:1–12)

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Finding Jesus in the Temple (Lk 3:41–52)

Darkness and Light

Yes, there is a dark side to the joyful mysteries, a combination of joy and pain. But that can make them even more meaningful and relevant for our spiritual lives. We realize that holy persons like Mary and Joseph still had to struggle with stress and heartache in their lives, even amid their deepest joys—just as we often do.

Their example can give us the patience and encouragement we need in our own spiritual journey. And we invoke their intercession, knowing that they truly understand.

Martin Pable, OFM Cap, is a Capuchin friar, author, counselor, and retreat leader who resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

PHOTO CREDIT WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: HERE LEFT: GERARD VAN HONTHORST; MIDDLE: HANS HOLBEIN; RIGHT: WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT

Jewish law required adults to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for three major feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

The Gospel does not state whether Jesus accompanied his parents before turning 12 years old. But on the return trip this time, they discover that Jesus is not with them. One explanation is that each parent presumed that Jesus was with the other. Luke tells us they spend three days looking for him—first among their relatives and friends, then back in Jerusalem. They finally find him in the Temple, “sitting in the midst of the teachers [rabbis], listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers” (2:46–47).

Mary and Joseph, however, are upset and scold him: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” But instead of an apology, Jesus says, in effect, “You should have known I would be in my Father’s house.” But how were they supposed to know that without his telling them?

This event is regarded as joyful because the loss was temporary and the family was reunited. But again, there is another side. It is not difficult to imagine the emotional stress Mary and Joseph had to endure. Did they blame or criticize each other? Possibly, but I don’t think so; their love for each other overcame that. Rather, I imagine each of them feeling a deep sense of guilt: “Why didn’t I check on the boy and make sure he was with one of us?”

Once again, the Scriptures connect us with our own human experience. Who of us has not agonized over decisions, actions, or omissions that caused pain to others and ourselves? Feelings of guilt are not necessarily harmful and can even be healthy because they can lead us to change and to deeper self-knowledge. And spiritually they can move us to repentance and the experience of God’s loving forgiveness.

People sometimes tell me, “I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself.” I refer them to the prophet Micah, who says that God “will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins” (7:19). Once they are confessed and forgiven in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, they are gone. As I once heard a pastor say, “And God puts a sign there: No fishing!” Don’t keep going back into those waters.

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Our faith challenges us to look beyond the times and places that are designated as “sacred” by finding God in everyone and in all things.

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By Richard Rohr, OFM

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T

he history of almost every religion begins with one massive misperception; it begins by making a fatal distinction between the sacred and the profane. Lowlevel religions put all their emphasis on creating sacred places, sacred time, and sacred actions. While I fully appreciate the need for this, it unfortunately leaves the majority of life “un-sacred.”

I remember reading about an Irish missionary’s attempt to teach the Masai people in Africa about the Catholic sacraments. The missionary said that a sacrament is a physical encounter or event in which you experience grace or the holy. The people were then confused and disappointed when they were told there were only seven such moments (and all of these just happened to revolve around a priest). One Masai elder raised his hand and said, “We would have thought, father, there would be at least 7,000 such moments, not just seven.”

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PRAYING IN THE PRESENT

You don’t have to go to sacred places to pray, or wait for holy days for good things to happen. You can pray always, and everything that happens is potentially sacred if you allow it to be. Once we can accept that God is in all situations, and that God can and will use even bad situations for good, then everything becomes an occasion for good and an occasion for God. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad” (Ps 118:24). Your task is to find the good, the true, and the beautiful in everything, even and most especially the problematic. You can most easily learn this through some form of contemplative practice.

Unitive, non-dual consciousness opens our hearts, minds, and bodies to actually experience God in the now. Ultimate Reality cannot be seen with any dualistic operation of the mind, where we divide the field of the moment and eliminate anything mysterious, confusing, unfamiliar, or outside our comfort zone. Dualistic thinking is highly controlled and permits only limited seeing. It protects the status quo and allows the ego to feel as though it’s in control.

We learn the dualistic pattern of thinking at an early age, and it helps us survive and succeed in practical ways. But it can get us only so far. That’s why all religions at the more mature levels have discovered another “software” for processing the really big questions such as death, love, infinity, suffering, the mysterious nature of sexuality—and whoever God or the Divine is. Many of us call this access “contemplation” or simply “prayer.”

Non-dual knowing is learning how to live satisfied in the naked now, “the sacrament of the present moment,” as Jean Pierre de Caussade called it. This consciousness will teach us how to actually experience our experiences, whether good, bad, or ugly, and how to let them transform us. Once we deal with concrete reality—with ourselves, with someone we love, with actual moments—we find that reality is a mixture of good and bad, dark and light, life and death.

Reality requires more a both/and approach than either/or differentiation. The non-dual mind is open to everything. It is capable of listening to the other, to the body, to the heart, to all the senses. It begins with a radical yes to each moment.

God is right here, right now. When we can be present in this way, we will know the Real Presence. We will still need and use our dualistic mind, but now it is in service to the greater whole rather than only the small self.

AT ONE WITH THE SOURCE OF ALL CREATION

William McNamara called contemplative prayer “a long, loving look at the real.” Within prayer we quite simply receive and return God’s gaze of love. God is recognizing God’s Self in me, and I am recognizing myself in God. This is the new self that can say with Paul, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). In the truest sense, I am that which I am seeking. This primal communion communicates spaciousness, joy, and a quiet contentment. It is not anxious, because the essential gap between me and everything else has already been overcome. I am at home in a sacred and benevolent universe, and I do not need to prove myself to anybody, nor do I need to be “right,” nor do others have to agree with me.

A mature believer, of course, knows that it is impossible not to be connected to the Source, or to be “on the Vine,” as Jesus says (Jn 15:5). But most people are not consciously there yet. They are not “saved” from themselves, which is the only thing we really need to be saved from. They do not yet live out of their objective, totally given, and unearned identity, “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).

For most of us, our own deepest identity is still well hidden from us. We are all Sleeping Beauty waiting for the redemptive kiss. Religion’s primary and irreplaceable job is to bring this foundational truth of our shared identity in God to full and grateful consciousness. Perhaps this was the original intent of our seven sacraments.

THE INVITATION OF THE EUCHARIST

More than a theological statement that requires intellectual assent, the Eucharist is an invitation to socially experience the shared presence of God and to be present in an embodied way. The Incarnation Mystery is repeated and represented in the Eucharist. In it, we have material reality in the form of these universal foods of bread and wine as the hiding place and the revelation place for God. If we deny that the spiritual can enter the material world, then we are in trouble because that is exactly what we are— fully spiritual and fully material human beings. We probably need to encounter Incarnation in one focused, dramatic moment, and then the particular truth has a chance of becoming a universal truth and even our own personal truth.

We are supposed to struggle with this, just as Jesus’ disciples first did (Jn 6:60)! Otherwise, we are not sincerely engaged with it. Human relationship with the divine normally starts with the specific, the concrete, the “scandal of the particular,” and then we universalize from there—but the realization

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In authentic mystical moments, any clear distinction between sacred and profane quickly falls apart. One, henceforth, knows that all of the world is sacred because most of the time such moments happen in secular settings. For examples, look at the lives of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Elijah, Mary, and Jesus. The Franciscans’ official motto is Deus Meus et Omnia—“My God and my All.” Once you recognize Christ as the universal truth of matter and spirit working together as one, then everything is holy. Once you surrender to this Christ mystery in your oh-so-ordinary self and body, you begin to see it every other ordinary place too.

The principle is this: “Like knows like.” As St. Bonaventure, the philosophical interpreter of St. Francis, said (quoting Alan of Lille), “Christ is the one whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”

St. Francis understood that the particular and the ordinary were the gateway to heaven, to union with God. Everywhere he looked, he found the sacred.

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The body of Christ is not out there or over there; it’s in you—it’s here and now and everywhere.

process takes the whole of our lives.

The 16th question in the old Baltimore Catechism was “Where is God?” and it was answered straightforwardly: “God is everywhere.” As the psalmist reflects, if we go up to the heavens or underneath the earth, we still can’t get away from God (see Ps 139:7–10). Either God is in all things, or God is in nothing. Eucharistic bread and wine ground this whole realization in one tremendous thing.

In the Eucharist, we slowly learn how to surrender to the Presence in one place, in one thing, in one focused moment.

The priest holds up the host and says, “See it here, believe it here, get it here, trust it here.” Many Christians say they believe in the Presence in the Eucharist, but they don’t get that it is everywhere—which is the whole point! They don’t seem to know how to recognize the presence of God when they leave the church, when they meet people who are of a different religion or race or sexual orientation or nationality.

Jesus spent a great deal of his ministry trying to break down the false distinctions between “God’s here” and “God’s not there.” He dared to see God everywhere, even in sinners, in enemies, in failures, and in outsiders.

Jesus’ last supper was a meal of deep table friendship with his closest followers. This communion meal was originally somewhat of a secret ritual (especially during times of persecution) by which the community defined itself and held itself together. Frankly, most people have never been ready for the Eucharist’s radically demanding message of solidarity with both suffering and resurrection at the same time. Therefore, we made it into a worthiness contest and something that we could supposedly understand with our minds—both a terrible waste of time, in my opinion.

Catholics even publicly say, “Lord, I am not worthy,” in the Mass, immediately before we walk up as if we are “worthy”—and others are not.

Yes, we are to recognize Jesus himself in the Eucharist, but we are also to “recognize the body” (1 Cor 11:29) of those present as the body of Christ too (as Paul goes on to describe

at great length in 1 Cor 12). There is no true Eucharist without a living assembly because we are being saved together and as one. The message is corporate and historical.

A HOLY MEAL FOR ALL

Divine Incarnation took the form of an Indwelling Presence in every human soul and surely all creatures in some way.

Angels, animals, trees, water—and, yes, bread and wine— seem to fully accept and enjoy their wondrous fate. Only humans resist and deny their core identities. If you read the Gospel texts carefully, you will see that the only people Jesus seems to “exclude” are those who are excluding others.

Exclusion might be described as the core sin. Don’t waste any time rejecting, excluding, eliminating, or punishing anyone or anything else. Everything belongs, including you.

The eucharistic meal is meant to be a microcosmic event, summarizing at one table what is true in the whole macrocosm: We are one, we are equal in dignity, we all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus is still and always “eating with sinners” (for which people hated him) just as he did when on earth. Jesus showed us in practice and in ritual that the spiritual, social, political, and economic move together as one. In fact, that is what makes something “spiritual”—that is, whole—combining sacred and secular, matter and spirit.

The Eucharist offers this message in condensed form so we can struggle with it in a very concrete way. You cannot think about such a universal truth logically; you can only slowly digest it! “Eat it and know who you are,” St. Augustine said. Only slowly does the truth become believable. Finally, the body of Christ is not out there or over there; it’s in you— it’s here and now and everywhere. The goal is then to move beyond yourself and recognize that what’s true in you is true in all others too.

Richard Rohr, OFM, is a Franciscan friar of the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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fiction

The

Name of the Father Everyone longs to be known.

Story by Jennifer Moore Illustration by Mary Ann Smith

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PHOTO CREDIT HERE

The Seven Deadly Chins.” Yes, Father Mark knows what the local lads from the Catholic school call him behind his back. Some of the braver boys even say it to his face, notching up another point in their latest game of dare (or not, as the case may be).

“No, you didn’t say it loud enough; it doesn’t count if he can’t hear you.”

I can hear you just fine, he thinks, giving his chins an extra wobble to be a good sport.

Looking in the mirror now, he’d say three chins was more accurate—four at the most—but he always takes it in good humor. It’s pretty harmless, as name-calling goes, and it makes a welcome change sometimes (just sometimes) from “Father.”

“Please, Father,” they all say.

“Yes, Father.”

“No, Father.”

“Sorry, Father.”

Father. Father. Father. So much love and guilt and duty squeezed into a single word­—for Father Mark as much as anyone.

Father is the name he puts on fresh each morning, along with the clerical shirt and ever-patient smile. Father

PHOTO CREDIT HERE

“

PHOTO CREDIT HERE

PHOTO CREDIT HERE

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fiction is the heavy weight of his vocation, a blessing rather than a burden, but a weight nonetheless—a weight he carries from one end of the day to the other. Only in the small hours of the night, when his mind unravels the tight rows of responsibility, tugging him back through the neatly knitted years of his calling toward childhood, does he become plain old Mark again.

To Mark—to the little boy still trapped within the aging, dog-collared man—Father is the dad-shaped hole in his fifth birthday, a smashed pair of spectacles and an empty chair at the kitchen table. Father is the faded black-and-white photograph above the fireplace, the uncut cake on the scrubbed sideboard, the bloodied cap nesting on the refolded jacket like a broody hen. And afterward (after they explain how his daddy won’t be coming home anymore), Father is the sad-eyed funeral priest with his arthritic blessings, palms as stiff as crab shells against Mark’s small bowed head. Father is Our Father too, of course (capital O, capital F), who art in heaven: he of the “hollowed” name, as Mark mistakenly murmurs every Sunday. Father is the vastness of eternity above the looming spire of St. Matthew’s, reaching through the clouds of Mark’s dreams like a ladder to another life.

“Father.” There’s a light note of panic in the housekeeper’s voice. Father Mark turns from the mirror, his three reflected chins swinging the other way, and opens the bathroom door.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Father,” she says, “but I’ve got the hospital on the phone. It’s your mother.”

“The hospital?” He knew it was coming, of course—one way or another it was always going to come—but somehow it’s still a shock. Not yet, he thinks, as he reaches out his right hand for the receiver, his left hand already cradling the worn stone in his pocket. Please, not yet.

I

nching his car along the traffic-clogged roads toward the highway, Father Mark turns off the Palestrina CD and switches to a commercial radio station offering back-toback oldies, “Pistol Packin’ Mama” melding seamlessly into “Jailhouse Rock.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel, replaying the old Saturday nights—his laughing mother shimmying around the front room with an energy and abandon she kept under lock and key during the rest of the week.

“Marky,” she used to call him, beckoning him out of his armchair. “Come on, Marky, it’s no fun on my own. I need a partner.” Up he’d get, groaning with pretend reluctance, and she’d twirl him round in a blur of spinning furniture until he collapsed against her, breathless with laughter. If he could save only a single, timeless memory—a maternal “desert island disc” to fortify himself against the coming shipwreck of emotions—then that would be the memory he chose.

Though perhaps timeless isn’t quite the right word. Time has found them both out, him and his mother, as indeed it does everyone. Everyone except for his father, who still smiles

out (a little more faded than before, perhaps, but otherwise unchanged) from the same dark frame above the fireplace.

Father Mark glances up at the rearview mirror before moving across into a turn-only lane. Yes, time has long since stolen the color from his own hair, filling in the lightly sketched creases around his eyes with ever thicker strokes.

In fact, time has been busy amusing itself at his expense for longer than he cares to remember, attaching stray tufts of hair to his eyebrows, to the insides of his ears and nostrils, hanging extra chins on the bottom of his face while his back is turned.

But inside, nothing’s changed. He’s still the same Mark Peters who spun around the living room until his lungs ached with laughter—only no one calls him that anymore.

Sometimes it seems his mother is the only one left, the only one who still sees beyond the clerical shirt and collar to the Mark Peters within. And soon there will be no one, he thinks, blinking back selfish, secular tears. It’s hard to reconcile the dancing, Saturday-night mother of his memory with the shrunken shell of a woman waiting for him in her hospital bed.

The traffic on the highway is frustratingly sporadic; long lines of cars and trucks slowing and clumping for no discernible reason, before unknotting themselves and accelerating back up to full speed a few miles farther on. There’s no official rush, of course (the hospital didn’t seem to think his mother was in any immediate danger), but as he approaches yet another jam, Father Mark wishes the traffic would part, Red Sea-style, and let him through. At her age, the shock alone might be enough to send her off. It’s a story he’s painfully familiar with—how many times must he have heard it from grieving relatives? “She was as fit as a fiddle, Father. But after her fall . . . after the break-in . . . after she lost her sister like that . . .” As if there’s merely a single thread holding any one life together. Without that, it all falls apart.

There’s something else spurring Father Mark on too, though: a damp-eyed something that feels suspiciously like guilt, a tangible weight emanating from his chest, forcing his foot down on the accelerator whenever the traffic allows.

He knows that story too: “I should have been there, Father; I should have made the time to visit. If only I could turn the clock back and do things differently.”

“What’s gone and what’s past help,” he always tells his flock, “should be past grief.” It’s what he tells himself as he reaches the highway exit and joins a fresh queue of traffic at the roundabout. Sometimes the Bible says it best. And sometimes Shakespeare lends a helping hand.

“

Come on. Come on. What’s the holdup?” The traffic’s always bad along this stretch during the summer months.

Or at least it has been for the past 20 years or so, since his mother swapped his childhood home for a faceless seaside retirement box. Beachgoers clog the roads through sheer

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fiction weight of numbers as they join the dawdling caravan proces“I’ve come to see my mother,” he explains. “Vera sion down to the coast. Gaudy towels lie draped across back Peters. They said she had a fall.” parcel shelves. Poorly strapped surfboards balance precariThe nurse looks relieved. “Ah, sorry, Father, I ously on car roofs. And deep in his pocket Father Mark feels assumed you must be here for . . .” She waves a hand the sea-smoothed stone pressing in against his left thigh as if across her throat. “It’s the collar, you see, I, er . . .” in sympathy, somehow, with the long queue of ocean-bound “Yes, of course,” says Father Mark. “Don’t worry. I get vehicles stretching all the way up to the hospital turnoff and that a lot.” beyond.

“That’s her ward down there at the end. Last bed “Look, Mark,” his mother had said, holding the stone up on the right. She might be a bit on the groggy side, but to her eye like a miniature telescope. “The hole goes all the that’s just the painkillers. I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see way through. It must be lucky.” And she’d handed it to him, you.” hair whipping out behind her, laughing “Thank you,” he says, measuring out out loud from the sheer exhilaration of his steps along the corridor with proper the wind on her face. He still remempriestly precision. Resisting the urge to Sometimes it bers that laugh as if it were yesterday. He break into a run. I’m here, Mummy. I’m seems his mother remembers the cold sting of brine against here. his 7-year-old cheeks and the sight of an A chattering family gathered around is the only one entire beach spread out before him like a the middle bed falls silent as he passes, left, the only one postcard, the wide, churning ocean and viewing his clerical garb with ill-concealed cloud-scudded sky stretching off into suspicion. And there’s his mother by the who still sees forever. And later that night, back at the window, sporting a long purple bruise beyond the clerical Island Guest House, she’d threaded it across her left cheek. She must have onto a length of red yarn and knotted it caught it on the edge of the telephone shirt and collar around his neck like a medal. “A lucky table when she fell. to the Mark Peters charm, a holey charm, to keep my Marky I’m here, Mummy. It’s me! Marky. She safe from harm.” looks smaller and frailer than ever, folding within.

It was funny, really, how long he’d in on herself like a flower at dusk. treasured that stone, wearing it under “Hello, Mum,” he says, leaning across his sweater for the next 10 years. Not so the bed to kiss her other cheek. But she much for any luck it might have bestowed upon him, but as shrinks away from him, pressing her head back against a souvenir, both of the island itself and of his Saturday-night the pillow. mother made good for a full seven days. He might have gone “Father?” The thin lines of her eyebrows squeeze on wearing it too, if Peggy Sampson hadn’t pulled away from downward, as if she’s trying to place him. their first fumbling embrace, complaining of something “It’s me, Mum. Mark. Marky. You had a bit of a fall, hard and round pressing into her chest: “Oh, Mark, what is remember? I came to see how you’re feeling.” that?” Afterward, he took to carrying it in his pocket instead, He takes her hand in his, smiling as her eyes scan the pressing his fingers against the cold smoothness in moments sagging contours of his face, searching for the boy he of idleness or upset. Yes, it was funny to think of all that now. once was.

There was a time—a dim, distant time before his calling— “Mark? My Mark?” A spasm of pained incomprehenwhen he’d have torn out his own heart and stuffed it into his sion flickers across her features, and then it’s gone again. pocket if Peggy had asked him to.

“Father?” she asks.

“Oh, Father,” she’d blushed, when chance brought her to He thinks of the stone in his pocket, willing the his church for a Baptism some 25 years later. Not Mark, just woman with the salt-whipped hair and churning waves Father. “That was a lovely service. Thank you.” of laughter back into being. “Father,” she says again, easing her stiffened lips into a polite smile. “How nice of he stone is right there in his hand again as Father Mark you to come and see me.” checks in at the nurses’ station.

Jennifer Moore is a freelance writer and author of children’s books from “Hi, how can I help?” says the young nurse on duty, glancing up from her computer with a ready smile. “Oh, sorry, Devon, England. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous pubFather. I . . . I didn’t realize we were expecting . . .” lications on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Guardian, Mslexia, the Her smile falters as she tries to place him, mentally runFirst Line, and American Short Fiction. She is a previous winner of both the ning through her list of patients and their spiritual needs.

Commonwealth Short Story Competition and the Hart Crane Memorial Holy Communion, she must be thinking, or last rites?

Poetry Contest.

T

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media MATTERS

reel time | channel surfing | audio file | bookshelf

By Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP

Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP

FILMS TEENS OVERCOMING

PHYSICAL CHALLENGES Soul Surfer (2011) Dolphin Tale (2011) The Horse Whisperer (1998) Wonder (2017) Simon Birch (1998)

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W

orld War I has just ended. Holt (Colin Farrell) has returned to his job at the circus after losing his left arm in battle. While he was away, his wife died. Since then, his daughter, Milly (Nico Parker), and son, Joe (Finley Hobbins), have been staying with kind circus performers. It is a sad and awkward homecoming for Holt, but things are about to get exciting.

Max (Danny DeVito), who owns the circus, recently bought Jumbo, a pregnant Indian elephant. When the baby elephant is born, everyone is shocked because he has huge ears. Max’s hopes for using the baby elephant as a crowd attraction are dashed because he sees the ears as a deformity.

Milly and Joe are curious and approach the baby elephant. When he inhales a feather through his trunk, he puffs up and sneezes so hard that his ears flop and he rises off the ground. When the children try to tell their dad, he doesn’t listen.

The children persist and Max agrees to let the baby animal perform, but things don’t turn out well. Some kids heckle him, and he flies around and out of the tent, scaring everyone.

V.A. (Michael Keaton) is an unscrupulous impresario on the lookout for a great act for his permanent circus, a precursor of a modern theme park. He talks Max into selling him the circus, and he hires all the perform-

ers. Colette (Eva Green) is a trapeze artist who trains the flying elephant, now called Dumbo, and together they amaze the crowds.

But when V.A.’s financial backer, Remington (Alan Arkin), comes to check his investment, Dumbo hears the sound of his mother calling and flies off in search of her.

This reimagining of Disney’s 1941 animated classic is directed by Tim Burton and written by Ehren Kruger. This live-action version with CGI animals is told from the humans’ point of view: There are no talking animals here.

However, fans of the original will see all kinds of visual references to it. The lullaby “Baby Mine” adds to the emotional pitch of a film that begins with loss, isolation, and suffering. The film looks at how family is healed, differences are celebrated, and bullies—young and old—learn important lessons.

I found Burton’s chosen saturated color palette too dark for the story. However, in itself, this is a reference to the original. This is an uncomplicated story with entertaining action sequences, despite moments of peril for animals and humans. In the end, benevolence wins. DeVito and Keaton (in a very bad wig) are especially humorous. And Green, who trained with acrobats for two months, gives an impressive, high-flying performance.

Not yet rated, PG • Greed, bullying, and peril.

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FIVE FEET APART: © 2019 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC./ALFONSO BRESCIANI (2); DIANE: COURTESY OF IFC FILMS

about

Sister Rose’s FAVORITE

DUMBO

LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; DUMBO: 2019 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC. (2)

Sister Rose is a Daughter of St. Paul and the founding director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies. She has been the award-winning film columnist for St. Anthony Messenger since 2003 and is the author of several books on Scripture and film, as well as media literacy education.

FIVE FEET APART

FIVE FEET APART: © 2019 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC./ALFONSO BRESCIANI (2); DIANE: COURTESY OF IFC FILMS

LEFT: COURTESY SISTER ROSE PACATTE, FSP/MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS; DUMBO: 2019 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC. (2)

S

tella (Haley Lu Richardson) is a 17-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disorder that affects various organs, especially the lungs. CF causes the body to overproduce mucus, which becomes a trap for germs and serious infections. Stella is embarking on a new experimental treatment, and she goes about her life as normally as she can while living in a hospital. She is longtime pals with Poe (Moises Arias), who also has CF. He can be annoying, but they have learned to be friends without coming any closer than five or six feet. CF sufferers must maintain boundaries because they can crossinfect one another. This can lead to life-threatening developments.

Will (Cole Sprouse), a new patient, joins the trial. Although Will is depressed and resists medical treatment, Stella is attracted to him. She flirts with him, always maintaining the distance between them. They talk about

DIANE

I their disease and Stella’s hopes for a lung transplant. As they grow closer emotionally, they begin to wonder if they can ever have a future together.

Director Justin Baldoni and writers Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis concentrate on how emotional and spiritual intimacy is possible when touch is impossible in a world of chronic illness. This romantic drama is empathetic without being sappy. It is reminiscent of 2014’s The Fault in Our Stars but asks much more from the characters and the audience in terms of thinking about self-denial and love in a new way.

A-3, PG-13 • Mature themes.

Catholic News Service Media Review Office gives these ratings.

A-1 General patronage

A-2 Adults and adolescents

A-3 Adults

L Limited adult audience

O Morally offensive

t is winter, and Diane (Mary Kay Place) is busy serving meals to the homeless, making sure her sick friends are OK and dealing with her deadbeat, drug-addicted son, Brian (Jake Lacy), who won’t do anything to help himself.

Diane and her friends, who get together regularly, realize that death isn’t that far away, given their age.

Diane carries the responsibility for her community and for Brian, who suddenly sees the light and gets religion. Diane is not impressed as he and his girlfriend try to convert her.

She slows down, deals with regrets, but, true to form, makes plans for Easter because she’s always considering others.

Diane, written and directed by Kent Jones, is a contemplative film about a woman who is ready for the end of the long Lent of her life and the beginning of a springtime of resurrection. Place gives a moving performance in this low-budget slice of life.

Not yet rated • Drug references.

Source: USCCB.org/movies

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media MATTERS

reel time | channel surfing | audio file | bookshelf

By Christopher Heffron

stream UP CLOSE

The Widow

Amazon Prime hroughout her career, Kate Beckinsale has exuded an aloofness that has made warming to her characters something of a chore.

But in Amazon Prime’s thrilling new drama The Widow, Beckinsale’s standoffishness works in her favor.

She plays Georgia, a determined, resourceful, and sometimes unlikable woman whose husband, Will, presumably died in a Congolese plane crash three years prior. When Georgia sees what looks like Will in a present-day news report, she travels to the Congo to prove he’s alive.

So far, so formulaic. But the series is a cut above the standard recipe because, for starters, the central protagonist is a vibrant, flawed, and strong-willed woman.

Secondly, her plunge into a country and a culture so vastly different from her own makes The Widow richer, more multifaceted. The series zigzags into secondary story lines involving human trafficking, child soldiers, bureaucratic red tape, and insipid politicians who further complicate her search.

Beckinsale is supported by a slew of strong players, especially Alex Kingston as Judith, Will’s boss, who knows more about the missing man than she’s willing to share with Georgia.

May 20, Independent Lens on PBS

D

irector Steve James’ 1994 Hoop Dreams is considered one of the greatest documentaries of all time because of its unflinching look at the aspirations of two African American basketball players, as well as the institutional poverty that threatened to derail them. Bused from their poor Chicago neighborhoods to a predominantly white and more affluent high school, the teenagers profiled in the film took viewers into their daily struggles of racial identity, poverty, and redemptive talent.

Channel surfers who tune in to the new documentary Wrestle might find some similarities with Hoop Dreams, but director Suzannah Herbert’s work is no carbon copy: This film stands quite proudly on its own.

The camera follows four promising wrestlers at J.O. Johnson High School in Huntsville, Alabama, for an entire season. Baby-faced Jaquan is earnest, but an arrest threatens his potential for success. Teague’s flirtation with truancy and drug use stunts his progress. Jamario, physically imposing but with a voice barely louder than a whisper, wrestles with his own demons off the mat. And the motherless Jailen, the most disciplined of the four, exhibits a quiet, noble intensity. Guiding the team is the dedicated and dynamic Coach Chris Scribner, who isn’t above tough love (and a lot of profanity) in shepherding these young men in practice and outside of it.

In order to understand the motivations of the four athletes, Herbert, with help from codirector Lauren Belfer, carves deep inroads into their private lives, which makes the experience for viewers that much more galvanizing. These four young athletes are not one-dimensional cutouts: They fail as often as they succeed; they make bad choices; they experience joy, self-doubt, and moments of adolescent rage. Put simply, they’re real. They’re alive.

Wrestle, as powerful a documentary as you will see this year, humanely addresses issues of family, the team dynamic, personal responsibility, and hope in a way that is honest and authentic. It’s a stunning piece of work.

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PATTY SMITH GROUP: ARISTA; JULIA JACKLIN: LIBERATION RECORDS/NICK MCKK; PETE & REPEAT: TOM GREENE

Wrestle

WRESTLE: INDEPENDENT LENS/SINISA KUKIC (2); WIDOW: AMAZON PRIME STUDIOS

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reel time | channel surfing | audio file | bookshelf

By Daniel Imwalle

Retro-spective PATTI SMITH GROUP | WAVE

PATTY SMITH GROUP: ARISTA; JULIA JACKLIN: LIBERATION RECORDS/NICK MCKK; PETE & REPEAT: TOM GREENE

JULIA JACKLIN | CRUSHING

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hese days, popular music, regardless of genre, tends to be overproduced, written for a particular audience, and just plain soulless. With all of the production magic and studio trickery, there isn’t much room for an artist’s raw talent to come across. Fortunately, there are up-and-coming musicians such as Julia Jacklin, who recently released her second album, Crushing.

Though she’s only 28, Jacklin sounds like an old soul, someone who’s loved, lost, and still found meaning afterward to share with her audience. She may be new on the scene, but her songwriting abilities point to a long and promising career.

In Crushing, Jacklin combines lo-fi, indie rock with a touch of alt-country twang to deliver her songs of heartbreak and resurrection. The largely biographical album starts off in a dark place—the dissolution of a relationship—with the opener, “Body.” There are references to her significant other’s substance abuse and a hint that he even body-shamed her toward the end of their relationship. The issues she dealt with in her unhealthy relationship are ones many of us have grappled with, and sometimes the most loving thing to do is also the hardest.

From there, Jacklin embarks on a path of questioning, rediscovery of self, and, ultimately, healing with a newfound maturity and perspective. In perhaps the most powerful song on the album, “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You,” she speaks to the difficult realization that, as she’s gotten to know her significant other better, the initial buzz of love has started to fade, and feelings of confusion begin to emerge. Songs such as “Good Guy” and “You Were Right” show how she learns to love and let go, still managing to see the good in the man who wasn’t who she wanted him to be.

Jacklin lands on her feet by the end of the album, with her singing in “Comfort”: “I’ll be OK/I’ll be all right/I’ll get well soon/Sleep through the night.”

Her life is a work in progress, as it is for all of us. Crushing is musical catharsis, both for Jacklin and for us lucky listeners.

PETE&REPEAT

These scenes may seem alike to you, But there are changes in the two.

So look and see if you can name Eight ways in which they’re not the same.

(Answers below)

GET THE Great fun for BOOK puzzlers of all ages!

Go online to order: Shop.FranciscanMedia.org For ONLY $3.99 Use Code: SAMPETE ANSWERS to PETE & REPEAT: 1) There is a knot on the tree. 2) Pete is wearing boots. 3) An extra row has appeared. 4) Pete’s shirt is longer. 5) Another plant marker is in the ground. 6) There is now a hill behind Pete. 7) The hoe has another screw. 8) The second row is wider.

WRESTLE: INDEPENDENT LENS/SINISA KUKIC (2); WIDOW: AMAZON PRIME STUDIOS

P

unk poet and songstress Patti Smith has long fascinated critics and fans alike with her spoken-word delivery, captivating stage presence, and mix of grit and beauty in both her music and appearance. By the time Wave was released by the Patti Smith Group in 1979, Smith, 33 years old at the time, had been a fixture of the underground art and music scene in New York City for a decade.

The group’s sound on Wave is more accessible and a little less edgy than previous releases, which disappointed some critics at the time. Looking back, though, the album is an intriguing glimpse into Smith’s creative mind before she took a nearly decade-long hiatus from music to focus on her personal and family life.

“Frederick,” the first song on Wave, is a love note to her husband. Smith exudes sincerity throughout the record, from the ecstatic “Dancing Barefoot” to the sweet and meditative “Hymn.”

Wave might not be the most iconic Patti Smith effort, but it does catch the artist just prior to a significant crossroads in her life.

Editor’s Pick

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media MATTERS

reel time | channel surfing | audio file | bookshelf

By Julie Traubert

Newest Mystery for Father Anselm “You don’t always have to talk about everything; the trick is to know when to be quiet. A priest told me that once.”

THE SILENT ONES

BY WILLIAM BRODRICK The Overlook Press

B

ritish author William Brodrick’s sixth novel in the Father Anselm Thriller series deals with the sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. Brodrick was an Augustinian friar before leaving to become a barrister. He writes complex novels now, featuring Father Anselm, who left the

London Bar for the monastery. Part suspense novel and part moral thriller, this story is heavy and requires concentration to keep the characters straight and to follow the intricacies of the plot.

The novel opens in Father Anselm’s world at Larkwood Priory, interacting with the other monks and a stranger who shows up, as strangers tend to do at a monastery. This stranger, John Joe Collins, develops a rapport with Father Anselm, who keeps asking him to stay.

Meanwhile, another man shows up at the priory asking Father Anselm to find a priest, Father Edmund Littlemore, and leaves a photo of him. Father Anselm recognizes John Joe Collins as the priest the man seeks. This priest vanished after being accused of sexual abuse. Father Anselm then seeks the

Among the Poor of Bangladesh

reason why the child is accusing an innocent man of the crime, and the reader needs to focus as the plot thickens from this point onward.

Because the plot is complicated, I needed to read this novel twice to sort out all the characters and the subplots.

While primarily about child sexual abuse, there are character-driven subplots feeding back into the main plot.

As I read, I wondered if some of these characters and subplots were necessary in telling the story. Yet in the end, the story works well. The reader learns just how complicated child sexual abuse is for those involved, both directly and indirectly. I found myself reflecting on the story well after I had finished reading it.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Pilgrim, a reviewer of both Catholic fiction and nonfiction.

“The poor and I are essentially equals. I am part of a people, and there is no chasm between us. All of us belong to God.”

I

Am Indeed Your Brother: A Servant of Jesus among Allah’s Poor is a collection of annual letters written

by Maryknoll missionary priest Bob McCahill about his experiences serving the poor in various communities in Bangladesh over the past 40 years.

Since 1976, Father McCahill has done mission work for the poor people of Bangladesh, the vast majority of whom are Muslims.

Rather than try to convert the people he serves, Father McCahill lives among the poor as a brother and cares for their needs. The stories of his interactions with the poor are inspirational and eye-opening, revealing the extreme poverty of the people he serves and the simple yet limitless generosity Father

McCahill shows them.

Father McCahill also demonstrates a deep respect for his Muslim brothers and sisters that serves as a powerful model for peaceful interfaith interaction. Some heavily evangelizationfocused Christians may initially be confused by his refusal to convert the people he serves, but he explains that this approach allows him to create better long-term relationships with the communities in Bangladesh.

All in all, I Am Indeed Your Brother is an inspirational collection of stories of some of the world’s poorest people and the ways one man has made every effort to live as Christ did among them, and it will enrich and inspire any Christian reader.

I AM INDEED YOUR BROTHER

BY BOB MCCAHILL Orbis Books

Reviewed by Nick Luken, a freelance writer from Cincinnati, Ohio. Nick has written religious blog posts on his own website and Franciscan Media’s Franciscan Spirit blog since 2013.

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CAUSE OF OUR JOY

SOUL SEEING

BY MOTHER MARY FRANCIS, PCC

BY MICHAEL LEACH AND FRIENDS

Ignatius Press

Orbis Books

“Our Lady is the best reminder of everything we could desire to be.”

“It is about seeing the world as a sacrament and being in the world as an instrument of grace.”

M

C

other Mary Francis’ life reflected the words she so eloquently yet simply stated in this posthumous book, which is filled with the discussions she had about Mary during her 42 years as abbess at the Poor Clare community in Roswell, New Mexico. What’s most striking about her reflections on Mary is that it’s as if she’s talking about her best friend, sharing Mary’s actions and words in Scripture in such a familiar way that her humanity shines and draws readers closer. She expounds on Mary’s various titles in the Litany of Loretto, her feasts and solemnities, and the rosary.

an we see integrity, goodness, and harmony? Yes, we can—with our souls. Longtime publisher, editor, and writer Michael Leach gives powerful examples of changing the way we see the world in this compilation. As the primary writer and creator of the “Soul Seeing” column in National Catholic Reporter, Leach gathered 56 of the best articles from the column written by some of his “friends,” including Richard Rohr, OFM, Alice Camille, James Martin, SJ, and Brian Doyle.

Each writer shares personal stories showing his or her own perspective of seeing with the soul and finding grace and unity in daily life.

What I’m

READING

THREE RULES FOR LIVING A GOOD LIFE

PAULA D’ARCY is a writer, retreat facilitator, and president of the nonprofit Red Bird Foundation, which supports individuals in need of healing and hope through sponsoring retreats and smallgroup gatherings designed to open the heart. Among her best-selling books are Stars at Night, Gift of the Red Bird, and Winter of the Heart.

TWEENS’

BY LOU HOLTZ Ave Maria Press

“A good choice brings us into contact with others and helps us work together to succeed.”

L

ongtime coach Lou Holtz, now 82 years old, knows a thing or two about life. He passes on his wisdom and experiences to readers much as he would coach his team: succinct guidance to lead you on the path to success. Although his intended audience is college graduates, the advice Holtz gives would be valuable to anyone.

Stating three simple rules—do what is right, do everything to the best of your ability, and show people you care—he provides an easy yet sturdy base from which to make life decisions.

This would be an excellent gift for any graduate in your life.

SPOT C

SIDE BY SIDE

BY LORI AND AVA UBOWSKI Ave Maria Press

reated by a mother-daughter team, this is a Catholic journal for tween girls and their mothers. Through writing and sharing thoughts on both personal and spiritual prompts, mothers and daughters can deepen their relationship and explore faith together. The result could become a cherished keepsake.

The Universal Christ, by Richard Rohr, OFM Upstream, by Mary Oliver

Books featured in this section can be ordered from:

Souls in the Hands of a Tender God, by Craig Rennebohm

1909 West End Avenue • Nashville, TN 37203 • 800-233-3604

A Country Between, by Stephanie Saldaña The Way of Rest, by Jeff Foster

back pages 0519.indd 53

St. Mary’s Bookstore & Church Supply web: www.stmarysbookstore.com e-mail: stmarysbookstore@gmail.com

StAnthonyMessenger.org | May 2019 • 53

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POINTSOFVIEW | FAITH & FAMILY

By Susan Hines-Brigger

The Ball and the Box

Susan has worked at St. Anthony Messenger for 24 years and is an executive editor. She and her husband, Mark, are the proud parents of four kids—Maddie, Alex, Riley, and Kacey. Aside from her family, her loves are Disney, traveling, and sports.

Susan welcomes your comments and suggestions!

E-MAIL: CatholicFamily@ FranciscanMedia.org MAIL: Faith & Family 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202

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his year on Mother’s Day, if you’re looking for me, you will find me outside digging in the dirt at my house. It is the same place I have spent Mother’s Day for about the past 10 years. For the past five years, though, it’s been a bittersweet endeavor. You see, five years ago, the ritual changed when my mom died.

I had always helped my mom plant flowers in the gardens of her and my dad’s home— now my family’s home. Gardening and cooking were “our things.” Somehow, over time, it turned into a Mother’s Day tradition. I’m not sure if it was her idea or mine to make it my gift to her. It just happened.

Even after I had kids, the day was not about me. It was about spending my day in the garden with my mom. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

AN ONGOING GRIEF

The first Mother’s Day after she died, I didn’t want to go in the garden. It seemed too painful and just didn’t feel right. But at the same time, I felt drawn there. So I begrudgingly went to the garden store and cried my way through picking out flowers for the front and back garden beds—just as Mom and I had done the year before. I brought them home and got to work, carefully remembering all of the notes and plans we had made for this year’s design.

Slowly, I began removing and cutting back the past year’s dead foliage in order to make way for the plants that were pushing up through the soil. I dug my hands into the dirt and carefully placed the new plants—some of which were from the funeral—into the ground.

The next year I did the same thing—and

the third year. But each year seemed just as tough as that first year when I forced myself to meet my mom in the garden. For some reason, I kept thinking that it was going to get easier with time. It didn’t.

Then, about a year ago I discovered the button and the box. What is that, you ask?

Well, it is an analogy that tries to help to explain why people struggle to “get over” grief.

According to the theory, grief is like a ball in a box with a pain button inside the box. In the beginning, the ball is huge, which makes it difficult for the ball to avoid hitting the pain button as it bounces around the box. I remember that feeling all too well.

Over time, the ball begins to shrink. Every once in a while, though, it still hits directly on that button. There is no rhyme or reason as to what sends the ball careening into the pain button.

It could be anything—seeing someone who reminds you of the person you’ve lost, a certain scent, a picture you find, or maybe it’s a tradition like spending Mother’s Day in the garden.

A NEVER-ENDING PROCESS

I’m never going to get over losing my mom.

It’s just not possible.

The best I can do is wake up on Mother’s Day, head to the garden store, pick out the flowers I think my mom would like, and get to work putting a fresh face on the gardens that she loved so much. In the process of doing so, I will once again come face-to-face with the pain of death and then clear it away to make room for the joy of life—both in my heart and in the garden—at least until the next time the ball hits my pain button.

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Susan Hines-Brigger

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in the kitchen

My Mom’s Ricotta Pie

Prep time: ~30 minutes | Yield: Serves 6–8

Ingredients:

2 15-oz. containers of ricotta cheese 2 eggs slightly beaten /3 cup sugar

1

1 tbsp.

grated orange peel

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Pastry dough for 9-inch piecrust, plus top

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This recipe was sent in by St. Anthony Messenger subscriber Toni Antoinette Kelhoffer.

Instructions: In a large bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, eggs, sugar, and orange peel.

Roll half of the pastry out to fit a 9-inch pie pan.

Fill the piecrust with ricotta cheese mixture.

Roll out the remaining pastry.

Cut into wide strips.

Lay the strips in a lattice pattern across the top of the pie until it is covered.

Bake at 425 degrees for 40–45 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

THE FOOD WE prepare and consume with gusto ought to be fresh and full of surprises, never dull and drably routine.

One day we need a soft touch, another a brisk knock. Is it possible that there could be an analogy between spiritual living and making piecrust?

At times, it comes out flaky and baked to perfection; at other times, it is too tough, too loaded with shortening to digest, or simply too overworked. “Don’t try too hard to make it happen,” Mother reminded me. Learn to let go, to let be, and to live lightly.

By Susan Muto We are always on the lookout for tasty, easy recipes. If you have a favorite recipe you want to share with SAM readers, send it to us.

By sending your recipe, you are giving us permssion to reprint/post the recipe.

Please include your contact information in case we have any questions. Photos of the finished dish are welcome.

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reflection

“If the angels could be jealous of men, they would be for one reason: Holy Communion.”

SYLDAVIA/ISTOCK

—St. Maximilian Kolbe

56 • May 2019 | StAnthonyMessenger.org

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