Father Jovita talks about Transcendental Spirituality
Wednesdays at the Cathedral to host Free Soup Dinner. Holy Family Cathedral School celebrates Catholic Schools Week. Knights of Columbus prepare for the Season of Lent. 1
by V. Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector of the Cathedral During my formation years in the seminary, I read a work by St. Theresa of Avila as part of the exercise of spiritual reading which seminary formation instills on future priests. I do not remember the particular book but I remember pulling it from the seminary library in the “Spiritual Classics” section. Because I made notes on my readings and read them many times over, I’m able to remember a particular expression of this great spiritual author which stuck with me. St. Theresa of Avila said that there are no plains in the spiritual life. At every point of the spiritual jour-
ney, you are either climbing up or falling down. And so, as we draw close to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the holy season of Lent, my reflection turns to spiritual awakening through which an intentional Catholic measures and becomes aware of his or her whereabouts in the stepladder of spiritual progress or regress. In my previous reflections, I have enumerated behaviors that I consider paramount for attaining intentionality in a person’s Catholic faith and practice. Some of the behaviors already mentioned include voluntary subordination, which is the bases for service and communion; authentic self, drawing us to a full awareness of whom we are and how our Christian self supersedes any other affiliations, ethnic, racial or national; and covenantal relationship, binding us together with Christ and each other. In this edition, I’ll focus on transcendental spirituality as the core principle of the spiritual life to which is aligned our metaphysical dignity and the awareness that there is something in us greater than the tactile, the palpable and the utilitarian. Anyone may choose to deny the spiritual in us but just as the denial of water would not cure thirst, a denial of the spiritual would not succeed in making us only material. We are free to deny the spiritual but we are not free to
get away with the effects of such denial: ennui, boredom, depression, psychoses and the entire war unleashed against humanity by the forces of darkness.
utility; and reproductive right, which reduces the act of human generation to a fantasy of the senses. I could go on and on to enumerate the sacred vessels that decorate the altar of the Gesellschaft. In contrast,
TRANSCENDENTAL SPIRITUALITY Transcendental spirituality is a form of return to the basics and an acceptance of who we truly are – spiritual beings, who have been given a body to act out our existence. Contrary to popular attitudes which present us as mere bodies in search of avenues to prolong and garnish the physical life, transcendental spirituality moves us to return to the roots of our existence and reclaim our true self as images of a transcendent being. The sociologist, Ferdinand Tonnies distinguished between the province of meaning and the marketplace of utility. The shared community of meaning he called Gemeinshchaft, while the marketplace of utility he called Gesellschaft. Transcendental spirituality urges us to leave behind for a moment the Gesellschaft and return to the Gemeinschaft. I am one of those who believe that the average man and woman of today lives a disconnected, compartmentalized and disoriented life. Before you accuse me of hardcore pessimism, I want to declare that I’m aware of my bias toward the transcendental, and such metaphysical density makes me think that religious convictions are truer than even the so-called proved hypotheses, especially of the social sciences. Take a look at the core values promoted in our fast changing society: choice, which means the freedom to do as you wish, not as you ought; radical equality, which forces all the fingers to be equal whether or not they are; killing with dignity, which argues that life is meaningless if it loses its utility and hence, not worth living; genetic carpentry, which seeks to construct and select only super-bodies and destroy weaker bodies, measured by their
transcendental spirituality seeks to restore wholeness, foster a holistic, integrated life, imbue meaning and purpose to life, and renovate the disconnect between the internal self and the external world. LENT AND SPIRITUAL AWAKENING I like to look at Lent from its etymology, Lenten, which means spring. A few years ago, I opted to celebrate Christmas with my brother and his family who live in tropical Florida. As I was concluding the Christmas day Mass, I knew my bag was packed and tucked into the trunk of the car; all I needed to do was remove my vestments, put on my jacket and hop into the car that was already at the parking lot ready to take me to Tulsa International. The Christmas dinner in Miami was scheduled for 3.00pm to accommodate my arrival. I flew from Tulsa to Dallas. No difference; everything looked the same both at take-off and landing. Then I boarded the flight to Miami, Florida. On approach to Miami, the world looked entirely different to me. It felt like I was in a trance as I saw everything look green again. At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening to me, but then I recovered my senses and realized that I was in another segment of the world where people live in everlasting springtime. I rushed out of the plane and felt like embracing the trees, the grasses and the world they inhabited but then came the greatest feeling of all – I felt the kind of warmth in my body that I was used to. The winter coat that I took to Florida became rather a burden that I carried, and I couldn’t wait to get inside the room so I could release myself from
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my winter costume, in and out. At table I tried to narrate this feeling to my Florida family, but they looked baffled and were surprised that I was making too much meaning out of what was for them ordinary. And so, Lent can be compared to my journey from Tulsa to Miami; from the dry grapes of winter to the fresh fruits of spring. Living in Florida doesn’t give you that feeling. You have to arrive there from an atmosphere of crushing winter. Lent is our journey of spiritual awakening and connection with our transcendent God through the practice of prayer, almsgiving and fasting. Anytime we are able to move higher in the stepladder of spiritual progress we feel the warmth of God’s love and abiding presence and are caught up with the Spirit of the Living God. FORTY DAYS JOURNEY The forty days of Lent which is expressed in the Latin terminology Quadragesima recalls the various recorded journeys of God’s pilgrim people; which find them always moving away from destruction to life, from slavery to freedom, and from hardship to plenty. We find many images of this journey in the pages of scripture. For example, the journey of Noah and his household to evade the flood (Genesis 6-8), the journey of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldaeans to a land of inheritance (Genesis 15), the journey of Lot and his household out of Sodom (Genesis 19), the flight of Jacob from Laban the Aramaean (Genesis 31:1-32,2), the great journey of Jacob’s children from Egypt to the promised land (Exodus 13:17 -15ff), and the various exilic returns of God’s people from their land of captivity. For the new people of God, the Church, it is a journey which they make with Christ, from the illusion of tempted vices to the uprightness of virtue, from the abandonment of divine justice to the apotheosis of divine mercy; and with the neophytes, a journey from the ruins of the grave to the newness of resurrected life. All these journeys call for an awakening, a recall of lost glory and an embrace of our true identity. Lent is a return to our true homeland where we get caught up with the Spirit of God who made us, according to the Baltimore Catechism,
“to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” And for such a
journey where we find ourselves in pursuit of holiness and wholeness of life, we often realize, according to Fr. Cantalamessa (the preacher of the papal household), that, like the journey of the chosen people of God, it too is a journey consisting of continuous stops and fresh starts. We never stop finally until we reach our goal, which is heaven. To stop thirsting for holiness, to stop climbing the hill and remain on the plain, according to Cantalamessa, is to resign oneself to mediocrity. Fulton Sheen warns that mediocrity is the penalty for loss of faith. St. Augustine admonishes that the entire life of a good Christian is a holy desire (Tota vita christiani boni, sanctum desiderium est). That is why the image of the Church that should be familiar to us is that of the troop of Yahweh, a pilgrim people, a people who know that they are merely resident aliens of the earthly city. NOT MADE FOR THE PLAINS I have been criticized for suggesting that Catholics should be intentional about their faith. I do not wish to answer the critics but state with St. Theresa of Avila the age old principle of spirituality: “Here, there are no plains.” Along the same line, St. Theresa cautioned that a
Christian who does not pray need no devil to cast him into hell; he casts himself there by his own choice. An intentional Catholic Christian cannot be comfortable in the plain. In fact, such plains do not exist. Even in the temporal order, I do not know of any field of knowledge, life or endeavor where people are okay with the plain. For example, businesses survive because their owners continue to strategize and re-strategize according to market forces. They collapse when they are deaf to the realities of the marketplace. Good lawyers are those who continue to improve themselves through rigorous study so that they are able argue cases compellingly for their clients. Last Sunday, I met a physician who told me he went back to school to get his Masters and is currently studying for his doctorate so he could stay competitive. Why do we think that in the Catholic faith, we can be just nominal? Is it hard to see that a nominal Catholic is equally a fallen Catholic? Have you wondered why we have six Catholics and three Jews in the Supreme Court, yet continue to witness the passing
into law behaviors of extreme moral depravity? Choosing the plain in place of the ongoing movement toward transcendence has caused a terrible disconnect in the spiritual and moral values of lax Catholics. When we do not grow in spirituality we inadvertently promote the marketplace of utility and diminish the shared community of meaning. Our connection with the transcendent becomes surrendered and the powerful elite atop our society’s institutions and leadership with agenda to spread a nihilistic monoculture win the battle. Our faith will collapse and fall if we do not intentionally practice it. That is why we are provided numerous avenues to keep it alive. The various movements in the liturgy and even the changes in the liturgical seasons help to form us as energetic people of faith, with each season providing a different flavor and seasoning for our faith-life. If Christmas awakens in us the need to appreciate God’s gift of Himself in His incarnation, and our duty to give gifts to others, Lent calls us to reawaken our spiritual deposit so we may recover from the night of sin and embrace the springtime of God’s mercy and forgiveness. If we do not grow in faith and closeness to God, we rot in our indifference. RECOVERING OUR SPIRITUAL DEPTH This Lent, we are once again challenged to recover our spiritual depth. We can do so by immersing ourselves in the ocean of God’s mercy during this Jubilee Year of Mercy. The Holy Door of Mercy can be a good first step to enter into the transcendent life of God and let our spirit connect with that of our maker. We are invited to join the faith formation classes offered every Wednesday in our parish to equip us with the spiritual arsenal to fight the good fight of faith. We grow toward the transcendent by making it a priority in our lives. God has given us the invitation by coming down to be human like us. We have no guru to meet, no incantations to make; we only need to surrender our lives to Him who alone can make us whole. May the Blessed Mother Mary show us this Lent the merciful face of her Son!
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The parish’s whole-family catechetical evenings will enter Lent with a large service project and will continue with a mix of discussion panels, guest speakers, and some unique prayer opportunities. The February 10 Ash Wednesday evening is a Free Soup Dinner for the poor and homeless. It will take place in the Cathedral Auditorium from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Much help will be needed to make this event run smoothly. Other events will continue every Wednesday of Lent with the exception of March 23, the Wednesday of Holy Week. There will be no event that evening. Watch the parish website for details about every future Wednesday at the Cathedral:
HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com
Fasting & Abstinence
Father in Heaven, Protect us in our struggle against evil. As we begin the discipline of Lent, make this season holy by our self-denial. -Opening Prayer at Mass on Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
Fridays of Lent
The Season of Lent begins on Wednesday, February 10. Masses will be at 7:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m., 12:05 p.m. & 5:05 p.m..
The Fridays of Lent schedule includes Mass at 5:05 p.m., then Holy Hour with Rosary during the hour. Benediction will immediately follow the Holy Hour and then Stations of the Cross. All of these will conclude at 7:00.
All Masses will be in the Cathedral and will include the distribution of ashes. Bishop Edward J. Slattery will say the 12:05 Mass.
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Various parish groups are planning on offering a Lenten Dinner at 7:00. Watch the bulletin for more information.
Catholics ages 14 and older abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all the Fridays of Lent. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Catholics ages 18-59 abstain from meat and limit themselves to one full meal each day. Catholics are encouraged to pray more during Lent, especially with Scripture. Lent is also an ideal time to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection.
Catholic Education goes beyond the classroom to educate the whole person
After 117 years, Holy Family Cathedral School had a lot to celebrate during Catholic Schools Week at the beginning of February. This nationwide observance gives every Catholic school a chance to remind their local communities of the unique opportunities available to Catholic school students. tic Adoration. Students from each school “House” received holy cards with a specific prayer to each house’s patron saint. Community Day, Thursday, was a treat for the younger students as they spent time with their upper grade buddies. Older students read or worked on crafts with the younger ones. A class gets ready for their Tuesday service project.
Holy Family Cathedral School began the week with the annual Mike Petzet Scholarship Dinner. Mr. Petzet was a widely respected teacher who shared his passion for the Faith and his love of humor with his students. The Scholarship fund aids students who share in his warmth and spirit.
Friday’s theme was Celebrate Holy Family, a day with a balance between scholarship, prayer, and fun. The student body prayed a Living Rosary in the morning. The day ended with the traditional students versus faculty volleyball game, followed by time for every student to shoot hoops, play on the floor scooters, and run around.
The days of the week each had a theme: knowledge, service, faith, community, and a celebration of Holy Family.
Monday - Knowledge day - features a middle school essay contest and an elementary school coloring contest. Each class decorated its door. Service Day was on Tuesday. All students enjoyed free dress as each donated one dollar to charity. Students performed various service projects around the school. Every Wednesday begins with an all school Mass. Faith Day continues with Reconciliation and Eucharis-
Students enjoyed playing basketball on Friday.
Catholic School Week continued to a Sunday February 7 Open House where everyone is invited to tour the school and see firsthand the excellent learning environment at Holy Family.
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BY
MARTIN REIDY
Indeed! The Lenten Season is soon upon us (if not already by the time you receive this newsletter)! Holy Family will schedule the usual Mass, Adoration, Benedictions, Stations of the Cross, and a Friday evening dinner after Stations. Why do I feel defeated in my struggle over sin? Because in my heart I know so well that I'll commit them all again! Once I had so much resolve that - unlike other men I knew that I would never become a slave of sin! Then I heard a rooster crow so very loud and clear reminding me I failed againwhich had been my greatest fear!
I was a fool to think that I alone could conquer sin, that on my own resolve over evil I could win! So! To begin this Lenten Season I'll turn to Christ in sorrow knowing If I do not repent that I'll be the same tomorrow! January was such a quiet and uneventful month that there is little that is new coming out of the Keep! The blood drive on the 24th was a success though we lost some donors due to the waiting time for which we had no control but apologize just the same. The pancake breakfast was a surprising success in that the after 8 crowd was sparse in comparison to past attendance - but the 8 a.m. Mass was equally sparse so the explanation. Then again, the word may have circu6
lated that Jim Gray would not be performing his magic on the grill which may have led some to believe in a drop in quality - though Paul Louderback and other Knights did an admirable job of providing same. Once again, keep us in mind on the 21st!
The 28th was the final Sunday for the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary at the 8 a.m. Mass until Advent. The interim Sunday of the 7th the Illumination Mysteries will be recited with the Sorrowful Mysteries commencing on the 14th and continuing until Palm Sunday. Never heard of the Illumination Mysteries? Well, those were the ones initiated by Pope John Paul and, I agree, are not often recited. Mardi Gras! Once again, it depends upon when you receive this missive whether or not the Holy Family Mardi Gras is either anticipated or remem-
bered. So - if it has not yet occurred we hope that you will attend not only because it is a fund raiser but that it brings the parish together for a few hours of fun and (innocent) frolic of which such celebrations are few and far between. Now, if it is a past event we hope that you did attend and enjoyed yourself for an hour or two before the somber season of Lent commences. A final note is that Valentine's Day occurs on Sunday this year which means you can take your Valentine out to dinner or some such as not only is it not a week/workday but Sundays are never subject to the rigors of Lent. And with that the Council extends our wishes to each one of the ladies of the parish in hopes that they, indeed, have a Blessed and Happy Valentine's Day! Pax!
Do you want your 2015 Contribution statement? Contact the Parish Office at TulsaCathedral@gmail.com or 918-582-6247 to request your statement. The 55+ Luncheon Group is going to meet for lunch on Wednesday, February 17, at 1:00 p.m. at Ti Amo’s Restaurant, 6024 South Sheridan Road. RSVP to Willie or Melba, 918-286-2080 (home) 918720-4787 (cell).
27, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM, at in the Parish Hall at Church of the Madalene. Learn communication skills, tools for problem solving, exercises to help you know your spouse even better - all biblically and spiritually based - sharing a Catholic perspective! Preregistration is encouraged. For more information and to register, visit bit.ly/ LetsTalkFeb2016 or call Jim Killerlain at 918-6296561.
Enrich your marriage - With the Grace of the Lord, make your good marriage great! Attend Let’s Talk - the Diocesan marriage enrichment program will be offered on Saturday, February
Birthright of Tulsa serves struggling parents of little ones and pregnant moms. We need your help to help them! We will pick up items. Thanks a bunch! Contact us at 918-481-
4884.Office location at 6600 S. Yale St., #1307 Warren Clinic. Our wish list includes: Infant and toddler clothes and shoes; diapers - newborn to toddler 6, esp. BOY T4-5; diaper wipes; maternity clothes; children’s plastic hangers; and hygiene products for mom and baby.
The Irish American Club of Tulsa presents St. Patrick Dinner Show, the Kickoff to St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations on Saturday, March 5, 2016, 6 to 9 pm at the American Legion Post 308 Hall, 11328 East Admiral Place. Dinner Menu: Corned beef and cabbage or Irish stew. (Please make choice of dinner known
when making reservation). Drinks: Cash Bar – soda pop; water; wine; Alcoholic drinks; beer includes Guinness on tap. Entertainment: Ryan-Johnson Irish Fiddlers, The Goode Academy of Irish Dance, Hell’s Fringe Border Band. Donation is $18.00 per person (Cash or Check Only). Children under 12 - $ 10.00. For tickets and more information, contact Tom Hinchey at 918-455-3586 or irishclubok@msn.com. Tickets will not be sold after March 2.
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Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Return Service Requested
Please submit articles and notices for publication in next month’s newsletter by the 20th of the month. Please make your submissions to TulsaCathedral@gmail.com or 918-582-6247 by the 20th of the month.
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