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Diocese of Fall River, Mass.

F riday , September 26, 2014

La Salette Retreat House has been a Spiritual haven for half a century

By Dave Jolivet Anchor Editor

ATTLEBORO — For half of a century, the hallowed grounds, chapel and rooms in and around the La Salette Center for Christian Living have been a Spiritual haven, a source for Spiritual renewal, and a beginning of a new Spiritual life in Christ for countless Catholics and non-Catholics who made the commitment to put their hearts and souls in the hands of the hundreds of priests, Brothers, Sisters, and lay people who have ministered there.

September 19 marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of the center, the dream of La Salette Father René Sauvé, founder and Superior of La Salette Shrine in Attleboro, and La Salette Father Giles Genest.

Ground was broken for a 60room retreat house in August of 1963. One year later, in August

1964, Father Genest was named the retreat house’s first director. On September 19 of that year, two La Salette Brothers professed perpetual vows in the retreat house chapel, and the following day, the doors to the new center were opened for a public open house attended by hundreds of area faithful.

It didn’t take long for the retreat house to launch into its mission of providing a quiet, holy space for public and private Spiritual retreats of many, many types.

In October 1964 the inaugural event was a family weekend retreat sponsored by the Christian Family Movement, attended by 32 adults and 42 children.

In a booklet published by the National Shrine of Our Lady La Salette it said, “All weekend long, Father Genest and La Salette Father Arthur Bourgeois Turn to page 20

Seminarian Jack Schrader, center, is seen visiting an orphanage in Benin, Africa recently. On October 2, Schrader, who is studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, will be ordained a transitional deacon for the diocese, at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Jack Schrader to be ordained transitional deacon October 2

By Kenneth J. Souza Anchor Staff

ROME — As he prepares to take the penultimate step towards the priesthood by being ordained a transitional deacon, seminarian Jack Schrader expressed “tremendous gratitude” for his years at St. John’s Seminary in Boston and at the North American College in Rome, where he is currently finishing his studies.

“I thank Bishop Coleman, the priests, deacons and laity of the Diocese of Fall River for

supporting me, allowing me to pray and study for these precious years,” Schrader recently told The Anchor. “During seminary, God has grafted me more deeply into the Vine, Who is His Son, and pruned me so

Because the installation of Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. took place after The Anchor went to press, we will have complete coverage of the event in next week’s edition.

that I have been able to mature into the man God has called me to be. Hopefully soon I will be bearing fruit as a deacon and priest.”

Schrader will be ordained to the transitional diaconate by His Eminence Donald Cardinal Wuerl at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on October 2.

“Studying in Rome has opened my eyes to the deep living tradition of our Church,” he said. “Only our Church has such a strong historical and Turn to page 18

America editor to speak at St. Mary’s Fund Fall Dinner on October 22

The La Salette Retreat Center chapel and dorm rooms are shown above, and below is a small Adoration chapel and Reconciliation rooms at the house that is celebrating 50 years of providing a Sacred space for retreats and gatherings. (Photos by Dave Jolivet)

FALL RIVER — Jesuit Father Matt Malone, to 2009, his writing has appeared in numerous who in 2012 at the age of 40 became the young- national and international publications; he has est editor-in-chief of the national Catholic news been featured in The New York Times and The weekly America, will be the featured speaker at Washington Post among others.

Father Malone was born and raised on Cape the 20th annual St. Mary’s Education Fund Fall Cod and attended Our Lady of Victory Parish Dinner. in Centerville and Christ the King The Fall Dinner will take place on Parish in Mashpee while growing October 22, at White’s of Westport up. He entered the Society of Jesus beginning with a 5:30 p.m. reception. in 2002 and was ordained a priest in Proceeds from the event ben2012. He received his undergraduefit the St. Mary’s Education Fund, ate degree from the University of which provides need-based scholarMassachusetts Amherst and holds a ships to students attending Cathomaster’s degree from Fordham Unilic elementary and middle schools versity, a bachelor of Divinity degree throughout the Fall River Diocese. from the University of London and It was during Father Malone’s a bachelor’s in Sacred Theology from tenure as chief editor that America the Catholic University of Louvain. published the wide-ranging and Father Matt Malone, S.J. Before entering the seminary, he groundbreaking interview with Pope served as founding deputy director Francis, “A Big Heart Open to God of MassInc, an independent political think tank, — A Conversation with Pope Francis.”

Beyond his work with America, where he cov- and co-publisher of CommonWealth, an awardered U.S. politics and foreign affairs from 2007 Turn to page 15

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News From the Vatican Pope Francis: No one can use religion as a pretext for violence

Tirana, Albania (CNA/ EWTN News) — Pope Francis opened his trip to Albania praising the “coexistence” between members of different faiths in the country, while condemning those who “consider themselves to be the ‘armor’ of God while planning and carrying out acts of violence and oppression.”

“May no one use religion,” the pope said, “as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all, the right to life and the right of everyone to religious freedom!”

Such trends lead to “conflict and violence, rather than being an occasion for open and respectful dialogue, and for a collective reflection on what it means to believe in God and to follow His laws.”

Addressing the scores of people gathered outside the presidential palace, where he was welcomed by Albania’s leaders and diplomatic corps, Pope Francis expressed his gratitude for the invitation to Albania, a nation he described as “a land of heroes” and “of martyrs.”

Acknowledging the efforts made over the past quarter century on a path towards “rediscovered freedom,” he stressed that “respect for human rights,” especially religious freedom and freedom of expression, “is the preliminary condition for a country’s social and economic development.”

“When the dignity of the human person is respected and his or her rights recognized and guaranteed,” the pope said, “creativity and interdependence thrive, and the potential of the human personality is unleashed through actions that further the common good.”

The Holy Father praised the “peaceful coexistence and collaboration that exists among followers of different religions” as a “beautiful characteristic” of the country, adding that it is “an inestimable benefit to peace and to harmonious human advancement.”

Such coexistence, he said, must be “protected and nourished” through “education which respects differences and particular identities, so that dialogue and cooperation for the good of all may be promoted and strengthened by

mutual understanding and esteem.”

Pope Francis lauded the “mutual trust between Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims” which exists as “a precious gift” to Albania, adding that this trust is especially important at a time in which “authentic religious spirit is being perverted and where religious differences are being distorted and instrumentalized.”

He then added that this coexistence is “a gift” for which we need to pray. “May Albania always continue to walk this path, offering to other countries an inspiring example,” he said Addressing Albania’s president, Bujar Nishani, the pope acknowledged that “a winter of isolation and persecution” had ended in the country, and “the springtime of freedom has finally come.”

Through “free elections and new institutional structures,” he said, “a democratic pluralism has been consolidated which is now favouring economic activity.” Moreover, the “efforts and sacrifices” of the Albanian people “have improved the life of the nation in general,” he said.

Pope Francis went on to laud the re-establishing of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy in the country, thereby continuing its long-standing tradition. “Places of worship have been built or rebuilt,” he said, including the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Good Counsel at Scutari, as well as schools and healthcare centers. “The presence of the Church and its activities are therefore rightly seen as a service, not only to the Catholic community, but rather to the whole nation.”

Pope Francis added that Blessed Mother Teresa, as well the martyrs of the country, are “most certainly are rejoicing in Heaven” due to the work done towards “the flourishing of civil society and the Church in Albania.”

Turning to the challenges which stem from “economic and cultural globalization,” the pope continued, “every effort must be made to ensure that growth and development are put at the service of all and not just limited parts of the population.” He added that such development “will only be authentic” so long as

September 26, 2014

it keeps in mind “the rights of the poor and respect for the environment.”

The Holy Father emphasized the need for a “greater respect for creation,” and for the rights of those who serve as a “bridge between the individual and the state,” stressing that family is “the first and foremost of such institutions.”

“Today Albania is able to face these challenges in an atmosphere of freedom and stability, two realities which must be strengthened and which form the basis of hope for the future,” he said.

Pope Francis concluded his address by recalling St. John Paul II’s 1993 visit, invoking as he did the protection of Mary, Mother of Good Counsel, and “entrusting to her the hopes of the entire Albanian people.”

“May God abundantly pour People stand behind Albania’s national flag as Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Mother Teresa Square in Tirana, Albania, September out His grace and blessing 21. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) upon Albania.”

Pope’s advisers start first draft toward document overhauling Vatican

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis’ international Council of Cardinals has begun creating the first draft of a new apostolic constitution that would implement a major reform of the Vatican bureaucracy.

The so-called C9, a papallyappointed group of nine cardinal members, held its sixth meeting September 15-17 with Pope Francis at the Vatican to help advise him on the reform of the Vatican’s organization and Church governance.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters that the series of discussions have now begun a more “concrete” phase with “putting ink on paper” in the form of a draft for the introduction to a new constitution.

“It may be assumed that, with the next two meetings of the council — Dec. 9-11, 2014, and Feb. 9-11, 2015 — the draft constitution will reach an advanced stage of preparation, making it possible for the pope to proceed with further consultations,” the priest said in a written statement.

In a first step toward reorganizing the Roman Curia, Pope Francis created the Secretariat for the Economy in February as a way to begin universal oversight and standards for all of the Vatican’s financial assets and activities.

Father Lombardi told report-

ers that the cardinals’ discussions concerning financial issues have concluded, and that they now resumed looking at the different pontifical councils of the curia, as part of a bigger strategy of finding the most effective and efficient way to reorganize the large bureaucracy.

In their three days of talks and study, the nine cardinals “focused on two principle hotspots,” the Vatican spokesman said in his written statement.

The first topic included the laity, the family, “the role of women in society and the Church, youth, childhood, or matters related to lay associations and movements and so on,” he wrote.

The second topic combined the issues of “justice and peace, charity, migrants and refugees, health, and the protection of life and ecology, especially human ecology,” the written statement said.

The way the different issues were divided into two major areas seemed to lend credence to some news reports predicting the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family would be merged into one new congregation, and that the pontifical councils for Justice and Peace, Cor Unum and Migrants and Travelers could be combined, since their areas of focus are closely related and often overlap.

Pope Francis would make the final decisions, Father Lombardi said, based on input from the Council of Cardinals and regular talks with the heads of the curia, other cardinals and bishops.

The Vatican spokesman said the pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors will meet October 4-5, and any announcements or clarifications concerning new members and the group’s statutes would be made around that time.

Since its inception in July, the Commission on Vatican media held its first meeting September 22-24 in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where the pope lives.

The 11-member body has been asked to review and recommend ways Vatican communications structures could be streamlined and modernized.

The commission president is British Lord (Chris) Patten, former governor of Hong Kong, former chairman of the BBC Trust and former chancellor of the University of Oxford. The commission secretary is Irish Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

Greg Erlandson, president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor Publishing and a former correspondent in the Rome bureau of Catholic News Service, is a commission member.

September 26, 2014

The International Church

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Cuban cardinal tells Canadians to start small, ‘we may not get tired’

Retired Bishop Michael D. Pfeifer of San Angelo, Texas, plays basketball with children after concelebrating Mass at St. Justin’s Church in the West Bank village of Nablus recently. Bishop Pfeifer is one of 18 bishops who went on a nine-day prayer pilgrimage for peace in the Holy Land. (CNS photo/Jen Hardy, CRS)

U.S. bishops emphasize importance of prayer during Holy Land pilgrimage

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) — U.S. bishops visiting the Holy Land on a peace pilgrimage emphasized the importance of prayer, with Christians and non-Christians.

“Prayer is so powerful, and it can also strengthen our resolve” to accomplish good “on behalf of all parties involved,” said Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, one of 18 bishops who made the nine-day pilgrimage for peace in midSeptember.

The bishops prayers alongside Jews and Muslims “indicate that, as Pope Francis says, we are all (one) human family praying to one God. We, all believers, can find an opportunity to move forward to unity for the benefit of all believers and nonbelievers.”

The prayers, which were held in some form every day of the pilgrimage, also gave the bishops an opportunity to interact with local Israelis and Palestinians and emphasized that both peoples want the same out of their lives as average Americans, Bishop Pates told Catholic News Service.

Bishop Paul J. Bradley of Kalamazoo, Mich., reflected on the series of joint prayers the bishops held with local Christians and alongside Muslims and Jews.

“Praying together has to be the lifeblood of whatever solution is reached,” he told Catholic News Service.

In Jerusalem, the bishops — donning the traditional Jewish male head covering, the kippa or yarmulke — joined a progressive Jewish synagogue for their evening prayers, welcoming in the Sabbath. The following day they joined part of an

Armenian Orthodox liturgy at the Armenian Patriarchate in the Old City, followed by an ecumenical prayer service for peace that included, among others, Armenian, Lutheran and Anglican faithful.

Another day they also prayed for peace and victims of the Holocaust with rabbis in Jerusalem, and in Bethlehem, West Bank, they prayed alongside Muslims.

During parish visits in Jifna and Nablus in the West Bank, the bishops celebrated Mass with local Catholics and prayed for peace at the traditional site of Jacob’s well. In Galilee they celebrated Mass at the Mount of Beatitudes and at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, N.M., noted that their interreligious prayers with Muslims, Christians and Jews highlighted the fact that everybody has a claim to the Holy Land.

“As Catholics we look to this land as Sacred land, and so for us to be able to come here in a climate of peace is important,” said Bishop Cantu. “To hear the human beings in this Sacred land where our faith began is important, and we should care about what happens here.”

“Anytime you pray and ask something from God, He gives you grace,” said retired Bishop Michael D. Pfeifer of San Angelo, Texas. “It depends on how you use it. Prayer should lead to action. If you do not use the grace God gives you, you are failing God. Our prayer here is a sign of encouragement — to pray with people who do not think like you and accept the prayer is a beautiful sign of hope and encouragement.”

Retired Bishop Bernard J. Harrington of Winona, Minn., said he was returning with a renewed concern for prayer, while the devastation in the Gaza Strip called for a much deeper prayer when action is needed.

“We have very little time and we have to pray and hopefully get our government to help bring about a two-state solution,” Bishop Harrington said.

While some of the bishops have had opportunities to participate in interfaith prayer before, for others, such as Bishops Pfeifer and William F. Medley of Owensboro, Ky., whose dioceses have few religious minorities, the prayers during the pilgrimage provided them with new experiences. “(The opportunity) opened my eyes to a reality which has not been a part of my life. There are not many opportunities in Western Kentucky, but I will speak to encourage people to reach out,” said Bishop Medley.

“Prayer is a dialogue with God, but it is also a witness to the world that we believe there are good people here with human dignity, who long for human dignity, and we can show the world and to people here that we don’t have to take sides,” he said.

“In each place where we prayed together, there was a great deal of respect,” said retired Oklahoma City Archbishop Eusebius J. Beltran. “We felt we were all saying the same prayer, turning to God and asking Him to help us heal. It gives me great hope that there will be peace here, even though politically now it doesn’t seem so. I have faith there will be peace here before I die.”

BEAUPRE, Quebec (CNS) — Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino urged Canadian bishops to start small, sharing examples that helped renew the Catholic Church in Cuba.

Cardinal Ortega told them how the cathedral parish in Havana would organize a celebration of all young people from the well-populated neighborhoods. Few come for Communion, some are preparing for Baptism, but all will go out and do social service for the poor, he said.

At night, when it’s cold, they will go out and help the people sleeping in the streets, perhaps giving them hot chocolate.

Groups of young people also got involved in visiting a state residence for elderly people. Their efforts attracted the attention of a doctor who worked there. He became friends with these young people, who worked to improve the facility by painting it and continuing their visits.

The doctor became a friend of that community, became baptized, had his child baptized and started to attend Church, the cardinal said. He eventually became the director of that residence and now, every 15 days, Mass is celebrated at that facility.

“We have to start, knowing someone is going up a ladder,” Cardinal Ortega told the Canadian bishops at their recent plenary meeting.

He said in a neighborhood, someone might hold prayer meetings in their home. He might send a seminarian to visit each Saturday. He recalled one woman in his diocese who lent her house for 12 years every Saturday. People filled the garden, the garage, the patio, filling every available space. Even more packed in for Holy Week and Christmas, he said.

“That family was simply unbelievable,” he said.

The community grew to 140 people who go to Mass every Sunday and now have a priest, he said. “That’s how it starts.”

“It starts with this house which is accessible to the neighbors,” he said. “They hear the singing.”

He said one woman, active with the neighborhood defense committee during the

Cuban Revolution, did not go to church. Four doors from her house was a small community that would pray every Friday.

“One day somebody knocks at door. It’s her,” he said. “‘May I come in?’ she asked. ‘Yes, you are welcome!’”

“She becomes quite involved in this small group,” he said. “She took a step and went over the barrier between revolutionaries and Catholics.”

“There are walls, all kinds of walls, bad memories from the past that have also to be brought down, and that’s the way we do it,” he said.

Every year at the Easter Vigil, the Church has catechumens who range from 17 to 25 years old, he said. Very often the people preparing them for Baptism say, “We don’t have enough staff who are competent; the priest doesn’t have enough time.” They often don’t have a Sister available to help.

They have to appoint someone to help out who was baptized only two years previously, he said.

“I think we have to train ourselves through action,” he said. “People start doing something; they are providing a service in the Church.”

But so many people are leaving Cuba, there is constant turnover in those who evangelize.

“We are constantly starting over again,” he said. “We cannot, we may not get tired.”

Cardinal Ortega said that is also the mission for the continent: “It’s going concretely to places in the periphery.” He tied his remarks in with Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” and its relationship to the final document from the 2007 meeting of the Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil.

When the bishops met in Aparecida, they witnessed pilgrims visiting the shrine there.

Seeing the pilgrims during the meeting “stripped us of our prejudices” against the “beautiful simple, religiosity of these simple men and women,” the cardinal said.

The experience at Aparecida “created a humble and committed search” for Spirituality that would “satisfy our peoples’ thirst for God in evangelical Spirit that stresses God’s mercy and invites all of us to a sincere conversion to Christ and to find an abundant life,” he told the Canadians.

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Chicago, Ill (CNA/ EWTN News) — Chicago’s Archbishop-designate Blase Cupich recently introduced himself to his new city, downplaying political interpretations of his appointment and stressing the need to be attentive to God’s voice.

“My priority as a priest and now as a bishop is to recognize that God is already at work in the lives of people,” the archbishop-designate told a press conference in Chicago. “People come to us as priests, as ministers of the Church, because they have already experienced God, and what they want us to do is to confirm, support and nourish people in that call.”

“My first priority is just to be attentive to all that God is doing here already,” he said.

Pope Francis has named Cupich, the current Bishop of Spokane, Wash., as the ninth Arch-

The Church in the U.S. Next Chicago archbishop aims to nourish faith bishop of Chicago. He will be installed on November 18 at the city’s Holy Name Cathedral.

Cardinal Francis George said he is “most grateful” to Pope Francis for appointing his successor.

The cardinal praised the archbishop-designate as “well prepared for his new responsibilities,” saying he brings “a deep faith, quick intelligence, personal commitment and varied pastoral experience.”

Archbishop-designate Cupich voiced a desire to work in a collaborative fashion, noting the importance “to set aside my ego and my agenda.”

“It’s not my Church, it’s Christ’s Church. I have to be attentive to His voice in the lives of people and the Word of God,” he said.

The archbishop-designate spoke about the unexpected nature of his appointment.

reports categorizing him as a “moderate,” the archbishop-designate initially avoided labels.

“Labels are hard for anybody to live up to, one way or another.

I just try to be myself, and I try to learn from great people.”

He said it would be normal for a new archbishop to bring different emphases and approaches.

He said he would learn from Cardinal George and other individuals who “have demonstrated great leadership in the life of the Church.”

“I’m going to try to be attentive to what the Lord wants.

Maybe if there’s moderation in that, then I’m a moderate.”

Archbishop-designate Cupich, 65, became Bishop of Spokane in 2010 after leading the Diocese of Rapid City, S.D., since 1998. His pastoral letters have addressed topics including the renewal of faith, the importance of the Eucharist, and pastoral planning.

Chicago’s next archbishop such as those killed in the July was born in Omaha, Neb., to a downing of a Malaysian Air- family with a Croatian backlines flight, which killed almost ground. He is one of nine sib300 people after a suspected lings. missile strike.

After attending the College The bishops’ letter charged of St. Thomas in Minnesota that Russia-supporting forces and the North American Colhave committed “crimes against lege and Gregorian University humanity,” including the down- in Rome, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese ing of the plane.

In addition to the thousands of Omaha in 1975. He served at of people, including women several parishes.

He later completed postand children, that have been “recklessly killed,” many of the graduate studies at Catholic wounded die from lack of medi- University of America. He was cal supplies, the Ukrainian bish- ordained and installed as Bishop of Rapid City in 1998, before ops said.

“Thousands of people are be- moving to Spokane.

One controversy in the Spoing kidnapped and subjected to torture and public humilia- kane Diocese concerned claims tion against their human dig- in 2011 that Bishop Cupich had nity,” the bishops said, adding barred priests from praying in that hundreds of thousands of front of abortion clinics and takrefugees “are being forced to ing part in the 40 Days for Life flee their homes due to threats campaign, a non-Catholic Proagainst their lives and the dan- Life effort.

In a September 2011 stateger of death.”

With winter now approach- ment, the bishop said he would ing, the number of deaths could never bar conscientious participation in vigils, but he noted that increase tenfold, they warned.

The Greek Catholic bishops most decisions about abortions appealed to the international take place before a woman goes community and “all people of to an abortion clinic. He stressed good will” to “stop the blood- the need to rely on Church-initiated programs, “lest our conshed in Ukraine!”

They urged prayers “for the cerns and our pastoral approach end of aggression and the resto- be defined too narrowly.”

One question at the press ration of a lasting and compreconference focused on the hensive peace in Ukraine.”

Cardinal Dolan said that archbishop-designate’s views of Archbishop Sviatoslav urged abortion clinic protests.

The archbishop-designate him to “just keep getting the said he has always supported truth out!”

“Please don’t let us down!” peaceful manifestations of views.

“We have to make sure that the archbishop told the cardinal.

“Surprise doesn’t come close,” he said. Recalling that Pope Francis’ first act was to ask for others’ prayers, he asked that the people of Chicago pray for him.

The Archbishop of Chicago plays an influential role in the Catholic Church in the U.S. and typically becomes a cardinal.

News of the appointment has already drawn many interpretations, echoed by reporters’ questions at the recent press conference.

Archbishop-designate Cupich was asked whether Pope Francis’ appointment was intended to send a message.

“I think that his priority is not to send a message, but a bishop,” he replied. “And that’s what he’s sending here. Someone to serve the needs of people.”

“I wouldn’t want to in any way overly politicize this or put it in a different context.”

Asked to respond to news

Cardinal: Ukraine ‘flowing with blood,’ America must speak up

New York City (CNA) — Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has urged U.S. Catholics to listen to the “chilling” pleas of Greek-Catholic bishops who say Ukraine is “flowing with blood” due to the Russian military’s actions.

During the Cold War, Cardinal Dolan said, “Catholics in the United States were in solidarity with persecuted Christians in Poland, Ukraine, Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary, and the other countries under Russia’s jackboot. We spoke up for them; our government listened.”

“We had hoped it would now be different. Things looked so bright in Ukraine for awhile. It appeared that religion was free, the Church encouraging a just, open, civil society,” the New York archbishop said in a recent column.

“Apparently, a prosperous, free, independent Ukraine, with freedom of religion leading to a revived faith, is a threat to a neighbor with a history of interference. The jackboots have apparently come out of storage.”

Cardinal Dolan praised the Catholic Church in Ukraine as “young, alive, growing and prophetic” despite the Church being “viciously persecuted” under Stalin and the Soviet Union.

He said Ukraine’s leading bishop, Greek Catholic Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev, is a “confessor of the faith” and a leader bringing peace and hope to “a country threatened by thugs and thieves

within, and an aggressor on the border.”

The cardinal linked to a “chilling” recent statement signed by Archbishop Sviatoslav, Metropolitan Stephen of Philadelphia and other bishops gathered from around the world for the annual Greek Catholic synod in Lviv. Their statement condemned Russian military action in the Ukraine.

The bishops said, “We raise our voice on behalf of the people of Ukraine and call out to the people of the world: ‘Ukraine is flowing with blood!’”

“This peaceful sovereign nation has been subjected to a direct military intervention by a northern neighbor. Hundreds of units of heavy weaponry and technology, thousands of armed mercenaries and soldiers of Russia’s standing army are crossing the borders of Ukraine, sowing death and destruction, in disregard for the terms of the ceasefire and recent diplomatic efforts.

“At the same time, propaganda continues at an unprecedented level of hatred and distortion of the real state of affairs, which is no less damaging than weapons of mass destruction.”

The United Nations has confirmed that 2,729 people have been killed and almost 6,000 injured in Ukraine since fighting began between military forces and rebel groups in April 2014, the British newspaper the Guardian reports. The figures do not include many other deaths,

September 26, 2014

those are done that really produce something in the long run,” he added.

The archbishop-designate has been vocal on Pro-Life issues.

In October 2002, as Bishop of Rapid City, he wrote a letter objecting to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) actively fund raising for the proabortion group NARAL’s political candidate fund.

On Saturday the archbishopdesignate spoke of many public issues. He stressed the need for “comprehensive” immigration reform. He noted the importance of interfaith cooperation in advancing the common good.

He said he hoped that the upcoming Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family would allow “all the issues to be widely discussed and considered” and would provide a framework to ensure “really open, candid and honest discussion.”

Archbishop-designate Cupich, a past chairman of the U.S. bishops’ conference’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, praised Cardinal George’s efforts to implement a “zero tolerance” policy on abuse. He expressed his own intention to focus on protecting children and to “bring about healing.”

The archbishop-designate has served as chairman of the National Catholic Education Association since 2013 and has been on the board of governors of the Chicago-headquartered Catholic Extension Society since 2009.

Archbishop-designate Cupich’s present diocese has about 100,000 Catholics. It is dwarfed by his new home.

By comparison, the Archdiocese of Chicago has about 2.2 million Catholics making up 37 percent of the population.

The Chicago archdiocese has 356 parishes with many Masses in Spanish, Polish and other languages. The archdiocese has 771 active and retired diocesan priests, more than 500 deacons, 674 religious priests, more than 200 religious Brothers and almost 1,700 women religious. The archdiocese says it has more than 200 elementary schools, 37 secondary schools, and three seminaries.

Cardinal Francis George, who has headed the Chicago archdiocese since 1997, submitted his resignation two years ago at the age of 75, as is required by canon law. He has been in failing health, but has often expressed a desire to be the first Chicago archbishop to retire.

The Church in the U.S.

September 26, 2014

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Philadelphia meeting, synods will be part of global debate on families

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon address the congregation during a recent prayer service on the eve of the opening of the 69th session of the U.N. General Assembly at the Church of the Holy Family in New York. Looking on is Father Gerald Murray, pastor of Holy Family Church, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the new papal nuncio to the United Nations, and Auxiliary Bishop Gerald T. Walsh of New York, archdiocesan vicar general. (CNS photo/Chris Sheridan, Catholic New York)

Cardinal O’Malley: Congress must remedy taxpayer abortion funding

Since the passage of the AfWashington D.C. the law but opposed any fed(CNA/EWTN News) — The eral funding of abortion. Those fordable Care Act, members of head of the U.S. bishops’ Pro- congressmen were the last votes Congress have attempted to Life committee has renewed a needed to pass the law through pass legislation that would preserve the Hyde Amendment’s call for Congressional action the House.

The bishops, however, were ban on abortion funding under after a new report verified the bishops’ repeated warnings of among Pro-Life advocates who the Affordable Care Act. Congressional Reps. Chris taxpayer-funded abortion in had warned that the order carried no legal weight since it Smith (R-N.J.) and Dan Lipinthe Affordable Care Act. “This report confirms the was not part of the legislation ski (D-Ill.) along with 163 U.S. bishops’ longstanding con- itself and appellate courts had other members of Congress cosponsored the No Taxpaycern about abortion coverage that we raised both n a recent statement, Cardi- er Funding for Abortion before and after enactment nal O’Malley responded to a Act, which would exclude insurance plans covering of the Affordable Care Act

by Congress,” said Cardinal report by an independent govern- abortion procedures from Seán O’Malley of Boston, ment watchdog detailing how abor- receiving federal tax funds.

Although the bishops chairman of U.S. bishops’ tions are covered by most subsidized Committee on Pro-Life health plans offered under the health have called for health care Activities. care law, despite promises to the con- reform in the U.S. for decades, concerns including In a recent statement, abortion funding and conCardinal O’Malley re- trary by President Barack Obama. science rights ultimately sponded to a report by an independent government repeatedly required that federal prevented them from supportwatchdog detailing how abor- health care laws include abor- ing the Affordable Care Act in 2010. tions are covered by most sub- tion funding.

“Only a change in the law During deliberations over sidized health plans offered unenacted by Congress, not an exthe law, they warned that withder the health care law, despite promises to the contrary by ecutive order, can begin to ad- out provisions to preserve the dress this very serious problem ban on federal abortion funding President Barack Obama.

The report by the non- in the legislation,” the bishops required by the existing Hyde Amendment, the legislation partisan Government Ac- said at the time.

Now that these fears have would likely require American countability Office, released last week, revealed abortion been confirmed, Cardinal citizens to pay for others’ aborcoverage present in more than O’Malley urged Congress to tion procedures.

In November 2013, an anal1,000 qualified health plans in take renewed action to separate the insurance exchanges cre- abortion coverage from the rest ysis by the bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities pointed ated under the law. In addition, of the subsidized health plans.

“The only adequate solution to a 2012 Obama Administramechanisms set up under the law to separate abortion cover- to this problem is the one the tion mandate requiring many age from public funding were Catholic bishops advocated insurers to charge all enrollees not being enforced, the report from the beginning of the for elective abortions. health care reform debate in The bishops’ conference found.

Congress: Bring the Affordable pointed out that through this President Obama had promised in an executive order that Care Act into compliance with rule, taxpayers were not only no federal funding would go to the Hyde Amendment and ev- being forced to subsidize inabortions covered in the law’s ery other federal law on abor- surance plans that cover elechealth insurance exchanges. tion funding, by excluding elec- tive abortions, but individuals The action was meant to quell tive abortions from health plans were also being forced to help concerns of a dozen Pro-Life subsidized with federal funds,” directly pay for other people’s abortion procedures.

Democrats who supported he stated.

I

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in September 2015 will serve as a forum for debating issues on the agenda for the world Synod of Bishops at the Vatican the following month, said the two archbishops responsible for planning the Philadelphia event.

At a recent briefing, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, described the world meeting as one of several related events to follow the October 2014 extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family, which will prepare an agenda for the worldwide synod one year later.

Such events, including a January 2015 meeting in Rome with family and Pro-Life groups, will enable a debate on the synod’s agenda “at the international, global level,” Archbishop Paglia said. “It is important that this text not remain an abstract text reserved to some specialists.”

“In this way, the debate at the ordinary synod will be enriched,” the archbishop said.

Pope Francis has said both synods will consider, among other topics, the eligibility of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, whose predicament he has said exemplifies a general need for mercy in the Church today.

“We’re bringing up all the issues that would have appeared in the preparation documents for the synod as part of our reflection,” said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, regarding plans for the world meeting. “I can’t imagine that any of the presenters won’t pay close attention to what’s happening” in Rome.

Archbishop Chaput said as

many as 15,000 people are expected to take part in the meeting, whose program will be kept flexible to allow for topics that emerge from the bishops’ discussions at the Vatican this October.

“But we haven’t approached this as a part of the synod,” Archbishop Chaput said. “It’s a celebration of family life, the Catholic Church’s commitment to support families.”

Pope Francis is widely expected to attend the Philadelphia event, although Archbishop Chaput noted that an official announcement in that regard might not come until well into 2015. If the pope does attend, he said, a “papal Mass could easily draw more than a million people.”

Among the other familyrelated events planned for the coming year, Pope Francis met September 28 with thousands of grandparents and other elderly people, including a married couple who have fled Islamic State terrorism in northern Iraq.

The pope gave the elderly a large-print edition of the Gospel of Matthew and blessed the group, which also included about 100 priests.

The extraordinary synod will meet at the Vatican October 5-19, bringing together the presidents of national bishops’ conferences, the heads of Eastern Catholic churches, Vatican officials and papally appointed delegates, including lay people.

The world Synod of Bishops, which will include more bishops — many elected by their peers — will meet at the Vatican Oct. 4-25, 2015, to continue the discussion on pastoral approaches to the challenges facing families.

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September 26, 2014

Anchor Editorial

Hope from Havana

Page three of this issue has an article which is very surprising.

It describes how the cardinal archbishop of Havana, Cuba went to Canada to give an address to that nation’s bishops that encouraged them in their work of evangelization. The Canadian bishops face a challenging situation, especially in the province of Quebec, which once was the bedrock of Catholicism in Anglo-America (mainly because it was not colonized by England but by France) but has seen a sharp decline in Mass attendance, but also throughout the country.

Michael Valpy and Joe Friesen wrote in the Toronto Globe and Mail Dec. 10, 2010, “Quebec, with its Roman Catholic tradition, leads in religious affiliation, but church attendance is sparse and its residents are least likely to say that faith is very important to their lives. Across the board, the young are giving up on God with increasing haste.”

Although the western provinces of Canada (like the U.S. Northwest) have a rather high level of irreligiosity (with people identifying with no religion), the increase of that trend has been slower in those provinces than in Quebec and the Maritime provinces.

Canadian Catholic News reported that the Vatican ambassador (the apostolic nuncio) “Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, who arrived in Canada seven months ago, acknowledged [that] the Church in Canada faces challenges after decades of secularization. He highlighted the precipitous drop in the numbers of those in consecrated life, noting in the 1960s Canada boasted 60,000 religious, while ‘today, there are little more than 15,000 and their average age is 80 years,’ he said. He added other sources of ‘anxiety and suffering’ for the bishops, including ‘the shortage of priestly vocations, the aging of the clergy, the weakening of the faith.’ Yet, despite the ‘alarming portrait’ from a statistical perspective, the nuncio urged the bishops to see the Church as the Holy Spirit sees her. ‘Do we see a troublesome picture before us? Yes! Days, months and years without apparent results?

This too! Does the Church seem somehow declining? That also! But all of this is accompanied by the certainty — if we trust in the Word of Christ and we cast out the nets — that a miraculous catch lies ahead, the birth or rebirth of a Church more evangelical.’”

Cardinal Jaime Ortega from Havana shared with the Canadian bishops how the Church in Cuba has strived to become more evangelical, more based in the Gospel message to “go out to all the world and tell the Good News” (Mk 16:15). Catholics in Cuba have faced an atheistic Communist dictatorship since 1959, so one would not think that this would be the land which could supply Catholics in Canada (or anywhere) with some hope. Cardinal Ortega knew that although persecution often helps the Church grow, the members of

the Church cannot passively sit by and expect God to do all of the work. God is doing the lion’s share of the work, but God wants our collaboration. The article on page three of today’s Anchor gives some examples of how Cuban Catholics have made the Church present to people in a way which planted seeds in their hearts, seeds which little by little brought them back (or for the first time) to the Church.

On September 6 Pope Francis told the bishops from Cameroon, “Your work of evangelization will be all the more effective if the Gospel is truly lived out by those who have received it and profess it. This is the way to attract to Christ all those who do not yet know Him, by showing them the power of His loving capacity to transform and illuminate the lives of men and women.” The Catholics in Cuba who were spreading the Gospel understood that — and that’s why people were responding to them. People, once they got to know these Catholics, realized that they really were striving to “walk the walk” of Jesus, that their words were not shallow or hypocritical, but really were being put into action. Their Cuban sisters and brothers could see that the Gospel had changed them for the better and this made these other people realize that maybe they, too, could have the emptiness in their lives be filled by Christ in the Church.

World Mission Sunday is coming soon (October 19). Pope Francis, in his message for that day, reminded all Catholics of our need to be joyful spreaders of the Gospel. “Let us not be robbed of the joy of evangelization! I invite you to immerse yourself in the joy of the Gospel and nurture a love that can light up your vocation and your mission. I urge each of you to recall, as if you were making an interior pilgrimage, that ‘first love’ with which the Lord Jesus Christ warmed your heart, not for the sake of nostalgia but in order to persevere in joy. The Lord’s disciples persevere in joy when they sense His presence, do His will and share with others their faith, hope and evangelical charity.” Linda Andrade Rodrigues in her article beginning on the facing page discusses several of the saints whom we celebrate in the autumn. Maybe we can make an “interior pilgrimage” with them in our prayer during these days, asking them to help us savor again (or for the first time) the joy of a lived encounter with Jesus, so that we can then share it with others.

We end with Pope Francis’ good advice: “Let us pray through the intercession of Mary, the model of humble and joyful evangelization, that the Church may become a welcoming home, a mother for all peoples and the source of rebirth for our world.” It worked in Havana. May it work in Massachusetts.

Pope Francis’ Angelus address of September 21 (in Albania) Dear brothers and sisters: Before concluding this celebration, I wish to greet each of you who have come from all over Albania and from nearby countries. I thank you for your

presence and for the witness of your faith.

In a particular way, I wish to greet the young! They say that Albania is the youngest country in Europe and I wish to greet OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER

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you. I invite you to build your lives on Jesus Christ, on God: the one who builds on God builds on rock, because He is always faithful, even if we sometimes lack faith (cf. 2 Tim. 2:13).

Jesus knows us better than anyone else; when we sin, He does not condemn us but rather says to us, “Go and sin no more” ( Jn 8:11). Dear young people, you are the new generation, the new generation of Albania, the future of the country. With the power of the Gospel and the example of your ancestors and the martyrs, you know how to say “no” to the idolatry of money — “no” to the idolatry of money! — “no” to the false freedom of individualism, “no” to addiction and to violence; you also know how to say “yes” to a culture of encoun-

ter and of solidarity, “yes” to the beauty that is inseparable from the good and the true; “yes” to a life lived with great enthusiasm and at the same time faithful in little things. In this way, you will build a better Albania and a better world, in the footsteps of your ancestors.

Let us turn to the Virgin Mary, whom you venerate above all under her title of “Our Lady of Good Counsel.” I stand before her, Spiritually, at her Shrine in Scutari, so dear to you, and to her I entrust the entire Church in Albania and all the people of this country, especially families, children and the elderly, who are the living memory of the people.

May Our Lady guide you to walk “together with God towards the hope that does not delude.”

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived by work of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary ...

Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy Word.

Hail Mary ...

And the Word was made Flesh: And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary ...

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray: Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

September 26, 2014

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here would be several ways one could explain the purpose of the Church: to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth; to continue Jesus’ mission for the Salvation of the world; to abide in and bring about the Kingdom of God; to the salt of the earth, the light of the world and the leaven of the human race; to love God, love others, and make disciples. All of these descriptions are true and complementary.

But another, which I’ve always preferred, is that the Church exists to make saints.

Everything that the Church has been founded by Christ to do has earthly and eternal sanctification as its purpose, to help people enter into God’s holiness through prayer, the Sacraments, and the life of love in this world so as to rejoice in the presence of our thrice holy God forever in the communion of saints.

That’s why what is happening on October 4, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, N.J., is so important.

For the first time in the history of the United States a beatification ceremony will take place, as Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, a young Sister of Charity who died in the Garden State in 1927, is formally raised to the altars.

In the history of the Church, 18 other men and women

Anchor Columnist The reason the Church exists with American ties have been that sanctity is possible. beatified, with 12 of them We see that lesson in the life proceeding on to canonization. and teachings of Sister Miriam But with the exception of St. Teresa.

Damien of Molokai, who was She was born in Bayonne, beatified in Brussels in 1995, N.J. in 1901, the youngest of all of their beatification and seven children of Slovakian canonization ceremonies have immigrants of the Byzantine taken place in the Vatican.

Catholic Rite. She was a brilSo it will be a moment of liant student, receiving double special joy for the Church in the United States when the Prefect of the CongrePutting Into gation for the Causes the Deep of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, proBy Father nounces the formula Roger J. Landry never before heard on our shores, solemnly declaring Sister Miriam Teresa beata in the presence promotions and graduating as of a packed 1,800 in Newark’s salutatorian of Bayonne High stunning Gothic Cathedral. at 16. She wanted to become a I’d encourage you to watch Carmelite but instead chose to the ceremony, which will be stay home and care for her ailbroadcast live on EWTN at ing mother, who would die two 9:30 a.m., Eastern Time. years later.

After reforms made by Pope Her family persuaded her to Benedict XVI, beatifications go to the College of St. Elizanormally happen in the place beth, where she graduated summa where a saint lived or died — cum laude with a bachelor’s while canonizations almost degree in literature, academic always happen in Rome — and achievements that were rare for so we hope that it will be the women at the time. She still was first of many beatifications to interested in the religious life, but take place in our country. in order to care for her father at The Church exists to make home, she took a position as a saints and although few will be high school teacher. formally recognized as such, After she had discerned forwhat happens in beatifications mally that God was calling her and canonizations is meant to to enter the Sisters of Charity, be a reminder to every Catholic founded by St. Elizabeth Ann

Deepen your faith this fall

By Linda Andrade Rodrigues Anchor Correspondent

NEW BEDFORD — A busy time of year, the season of autumn heralds a period of radical change. The school year begins. Days grow shorter and colder. Leaves change color. We bring in the harvest and prepare for winter.

Conversely, amidst this flurry of activity, the Church offers us a time to rest in contemplation.

The time between Christmas and Lent and between Pentecost and Advent is known as “Ordinary Time,” the space outside the seasons of the two great feasts of the Church: Christmas and Easter.

“These two periods of time in the Liturgical year, they are contemplative times,” said Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister in “The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life.” “In this period that is between the two poles of

the life of Jesus, we get to pause awhile — to take it all in. They give us time to contemplate the intersection between the life of Jesus and our own.”

Many Spiritual mentors today recommend that we do some type of contemplative prayer of quiet regularly, including Father Ronald Rolheiser of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

In “Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity,” Father Rolheiser writes about the lack of silence and solitude in our lives.

“And we end up as good people, but as people who are not very deep: not bad, just busy; not immoral, just distracted; not lacking in soul, just preoccupied; not disdaining depth, just never doing the things to get us there.”

To really stretch ourselves, we must delve into the wisdom Turn to page 14

Seton, she needed to detach herself from the care of her father, entrusting his welfare to God. God would respond by calling her dear dad home three days before she was to enter the convent.

Entering the convent, her spiritual director, Father Benedict Bradley, OSB, recognized she had received very special graces, and with the permission of her mother superior, unbelievably asked her anonymously to write the Spiritual conferences he would preach to her and her fellow young Sisters.

“I believed that she enjoyed extraordinary lights, and I knew that she was living an exemplary life,” he presciently stated. “I thought that one day she would be ranked among the saints of God, and I felt it was incumbent upon me to utilize whatever might contribute to an appreciation of her merits after her death.”

The conferences were eventually published in a book called “Greater Perfection,” which can still be obtained from the Sister Miriam Teresa League of Prayer.

In these conferences, Sister Miriam Teresa stressed that God calls each of us to be holy, regardless of our state of life.

“The imitation of Christ in the lives of the saints,” she

7 wrote, “is always possible and compatible with every state of life. The saints did but one thing — the will of God. But they did it with all their might.

We have only to do the same thing — and according to the degree of intensity with which we labor shall our sanctification progress.”

That sanctification happens, she added, through doing God’s will: loving Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and loving others as Jesus loves us.

“The reason we have not yet become saints is because we have not understood what it means to love. We think we do, but we do not. To love means to annihilate oneself for the beloved. The self-sacrifice of a mother for her child is only a shadow of the love wherewith we should love the Beloved of our soul. To love is to conform oneself to the Beloved in the most intimate manner of which we are capable.”

Her beatification is an occasion for us to ponder her words and life, seek her intercession, and learn to do the will of God with all our might, so that one day we may enjoy her friendship forever in the Church’s triumphant perfection.

Anchor columnist Father Landry is pastor of St. Bernadette’s Parish in Fall River. fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

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September 26, 2014

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esus is always trying to open our eyes to the truth, not with weighty concepts or hard to grasp philosophies, but with the light of our own common sense. Here He wants to get us thinking about what is true obedience, what truly pleases God. To do this, He chooses one of the most common themes of the Old Testament, the story of the two sons: Cain and Abel, Abraham and Lot, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Ephraim and Manasseh; one favored and one not. We all know how it goes. But this is not Jesus’ point here. Here He just asks us to consider who truly does the Father’s will, one who says yes and doesn’t do it, or one who says no and then does. Of course, wouldn’t the best response of all be to say yes and then do it? Yes, of course. That is the way of the saints,

Trust in God but the saints are always should be written in every in short supply. Given the Christian heart. Secondweakness of human nature, arily, he wants us to realize which Jesus is fully aware that those people we think of, doing is always better must be doing God’s will then saying. This is Jesus’ are not necessarily doing so. way: He never hesitates to look hard at human nature and see the Homily of the Week good and the bad.

I call it His Divine Twenty-sixth Sunday realism. He knows in Ordinary Time the human heart

By Father from two directions, Andrew Johnson as the all-knowing God and as a Man Who actually experienced the human heart.

He’s talking here directly to He has human nature down the chief priests in Jerusapat. So what is His point? lem. These are the profesJust that: Doing is always sional religious of His day, better than saying. Actions who were held by most to speak louder than words. be especially close to God, You may here be reminded, but they needed repentance as I am, of another saying too, even more than the of Jesus: “Not everyone who rest. They think they’re the says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter only ones in the world who the Kingdom of Heaven, have said, “yes” to the Fabut only those who do the ther and then gone into the will of My Father.” That vineyard. But you can never

really tell from the outside, so don’t even try to judge others.

Who would ever have thought Jesus would point approvingly to tax collectors and prostitutes as against the chief priests and elders?

Not because they were sinners, or because their sins weren’t serious, but because they had heard the message of John the Baptist about walking in the way of righteousness and then turned back to God. That’s all it takes. That is the first step on the road to holiness.

Finally: the greatest work we are called to do as followers of Jesus is to grow in faith, to trust and love God more and more. If we draw closer to God, all else follows from that: love of neighbor, personal holiness, lasting

joy, eternal life. How do we draw closer to Him? Mostly by prayer and the Sacraments.

By realizing what we are in God’s eyes: deeply flawed and at times, sinful, but still beloved and destined for His Kingdom if we’re ready to turn back to Him and confess that we are sinners. Never ever presuming on God’s mercy, of course. You don’t treat someone who loves you that way. Once we truly know how great God’s love is for us, we seek to please Him. But how weak we are!

“The first son said no, but afterwards he changed his mind and went.” That’s every one of us who in the evening looks back on another disappointing day of weakness and sin and says, “Lord, unbelievable as it may seem, I do love You.” Father Johnson is pastor of Good Shepherd and St. Stanislaus parishes in Fall River.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Sept. 27, Eccl 11:9—12:8; Ps 90:3-6,12-14,17; Lk 9:43b-45. Sun. Sept. 28, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Ez 18:25-28; Ps 125:4-9; Phl 2:1-11 or 2:1-5; Mt 21:28-32. Mon. Sept. 29, Dn 7:9-10,13-14 or Rv 12:7-12a; Ps 138:1-5; Jn 1:47-51. Tues. Sept. 30, Jb 3:1-3,11-17,2023; Ps 88:2-8; Lk 9:51-56. Wed. Oct. 1, Jb 9:1-12,14-16; Ps 88:10-15; Lk 9:57-62. Thurs. Oct. 2, Jb 19:21-27; Ps 27:7-9c,13-14; Mt 18:1-5,10. Fri. Oct. 3, Jb 38:1,12-21;40:3-5; Ps 139:1-3,7-10,13-14b; Lk 10:13-16.

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e are often steered in different directions in our lives, at times having no clue where we are headed. But generally we find ourselves, even though in unfamiliar territory, where we need to be. Yes these roads may be tumultuous, may require a detour or two, and even have us yearning to turn back, but we persevere and allow the possibilities to take hold.

We have been fortunate and blessed to have Bishop George W. Coleman as the shepherd of our diocese since 2003. He has traveled many a road, choosing as the disciples did, to follow Christ, to minister to God’s people.

Our diocese gained a gentle,

Here I am Lord!

kind man as a priest 49 years meaning of the word? Over ago, who went on to become the years, Bishop Coleman has served his people well; our bishop. Not an easy task he has embodied the gifts of to undertake, but yet he did. the Spirit, and has looked to Not many of us will be asked to take on such monu- all as children of God. So what are the requiremental work, to lead people in troubled as well as good times, to be a true servant of God. Yet is not our mission similar, are we not asked to follow the

By Rose Mary example of Christ, to Saraiva serve one another? To be there for those in need, to comfort and ments of being a bishop? console, to insure justice is A bishop is someone who found, to treat each other as equals, to search for and rec- shares fully in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, who teaches ognize Jesus in each and everyone we meet? To be a true doctrine, governs his people, sanctifying the Word and disciple of Christ in every representing the Church. He is someone who embodies the role of the Apostles, who by virtue of the Holy Spirit, is given the tools necessary to spread the Good News to all within his jurisdiction. Living not only by His words but by His deeds and actions, and possessing the qualities deemed vital for this role: morality, piety, a solid faith, wisdom and pru-

Be sure to visit the Diocese of Fall River website at fallriverdiocese.org The site includes links to parishes, diocesan offices and national sites.

In the Palm of His Hands

dence to list just a few.

Bishop Coleman has been this and so much more.

Since coming to work for the diocese in 2007, I have had many opportunities to see our bishop in action. He is truly a man for his people with education and formation foremost on his agenda.

Working as I do for the Office of Faith Formation, I have seen the zeal in which this diocese strives to evangelize the faithful, its dogged determination to help them encounter Christ in their day-to-day lives, and to connect with Scripture, bringing it to life in their current situation.

It has been a pleasure and honor to serve under Bishop Coleman, and to see him strive to empower God’s people. To guide them, leading them to the well, sheltering them from the storm, and giving them a safe haven when trouble was at their heels. Like a true shepherd he stood watch over his flock, leading the way, always bringing them home, and

caring enough to seek out those who had gotten lost along the way.

As a member of your flock, I thank you for your gentleness, your kindness and your willingness to serve the people of this diocese.

You have truly been an example of Christ among us, leading us, teaching us, and reminding us of the greatest Commandment of all, “To love your neighbor, as you love yourself.” We will miss you, and with heartfelt gratitude we pray that God will continue to bless you as you enjoy your much-needed and well-deserved rest, knowing that you have led your people well. And most importantly, we thank you for responding, “Here I am Lord,” when God asked, “Whom shall I send?”

Anchor columnist Rose Mary Saraiva lives in Fall River and is a parishioner of St. Michael’s Parish, and she is the Events Coordinator and Bereavement Ministry for the diocesan Off ice of Faith Formation. She is married with three children and two grandchildren. rsaraiva@dfrcs.com.

September 26, 2014

24 September 2014 — Cathedral Church, Fall River — Installation of the Bishop audeamus, Dioecesis Riverormensis (Latin for: “Rejoice, Diocese of Fall River!”)! Once again we have an Ordinary.

I personally remember several previous Ordinaries of the Diocese: Bishops James Connolly, Daniel Cronin, Sean O’Malley, and, of course, George Coleman. All I remember of Bishop James Cassidy was the event of his death. I remember the doors of my parish church draped in black bunting. I was five years old. They told me the bishop had died. “What’s a bishop?”

I asked. Good question. We’ll come back to it.

I didn’t know Bishops William Stang (1904-1907) or Daniel Feehan (1907-1934).

Six out of eight over 110 years — not bad. I also remember Bishop James Gerrard, but he

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ost people have a favorite chair. Some may recall the comedy “All in the Family.” Archie Bunker had his favorite chair and no one else was permitted to sit in it. There were hilarious situations in which he “invited” family and guests to remove themselves from his chair. The chair became such a symbol of him and that popular sitcom that it became part of a National Museum in Washington, D.C. One of my favorite comedies is the “Big Bang Theory.”

In this TV sitcom, Dr. Sheldon Cooper has his special spot on the sofa. God forbid anyone invade his space.

Occasionally he will explain to others why this is the only space in the apartment that is acceptable for him. Location, breeze, warmth, television access etc., are the reasons he chose this spot in the apartment and will accept no other.

Countless episodes have centered on this issue.

I can recall an episode when Penny, the next door neighbor, accidently shot a paint gun at his cushion. This caused great trauma, not only how to clean the accidental paint damage, but how to explain it. While it does seem trivial, it provided an interesting episode.

Only Cooper could react in a manner that would elicit such

Anchor Columnists First day in Ordinary Time they exercise personally in was an auxiliary or assistant the name of Christ, is proper, bishop of the diocese, not the ordinary, and immediate Ordinary.

“Ordinary” is the technical (#27, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church”). You term for a bishop entrusted know me, dear readers, I’m with the oversight of the pastoral care of souls, usually those in a particular geographical The Ship’s Log area. Bishop Edgar Reflections of a da Cunha, S.D.V., is now responsible for Parish Priest all souls in the cities

By Father Tim of Fall River, New Goldrick Bedford, Taunton, Attleboro and beyond; on Cape Cod and on persnickety about the use of the Islands. He has this day words. I find nothing “ordiceremoniously presented his nary” about the office of an papal letter of appointment Ordinary. The office of diocand formally assumed the esan bishop actually requires bishop’s chair in St. Mary’s someone quite extraordinary.

Cathedral, Fall River. I know Pope Francis (by the grace because I was there in the of God) prayerfully and crowd today. thoughtfully discerned that A diocesan Ordinary has the man for us is Bishop da power and jurisdiction in the Cunha. area to which he has been Bishop da Cunha has now assigned: “This power, which

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accepted three main responsibilities: 1. To teach: He has become the principal teacher and preacher in our diocese.

He must ensure that those delegated to teach and preach in his name (priests, deacons, schoolteachers, catechists, etc.) speak the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.

2. To govern: Bishop da Cunha must do his best to meet the material, social, personal and Spiritual needs of our diocese.

He is ultimately responsible for recruiting, training, and supplying clergy for our 80 parishes; for the finances of the diocese; and for all other Church patrimony. He has the power to make and enforce Church law relating to worship, preaching, Religious Formation, the administra-

tion of the Sacraments, and the safeguarding of faith and morals.

3. To sanctify: Bishop de Cunha is responsible for ensuring that the Sacraments are made available to the faithful, especially Holy Mass on Sundays, solemnities, and major feasts. He is the Ordinary Minister of the Sacrament of Confirmation and as such will visit the parishes of our diocese to administer Confirmation. He also has the authority to ordain priests. Bishop de Cunha belongs to a religious order dedicated to encouraging vocations to the priesthood. After a bishop ordains a priest, he becomes responsible for that priest’s well-being, support, and formation. It is he who shepherds the shepherds.

(To be continued…)

Anchor columnist Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

of a diocese presides over the entire diocese. Attached to the back of the chair is found the coat of arms of the bishop.

In the Cathedral of the Diocese of Fall River, the cathedra is found in the center of the sanctuary. It was moved there from the side during the renovation of the cathedral some years ago.

The cathedral is where Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha was installed at Bishop of Fall River this week. In the first part of the installation rite, the Consultors of the Diocese viewed the letter from Pope Francis naming Bishop da Cunha as bishop of Fall River. The Cardinal Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal O’Malley, and the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Carlos Vigano, then led Bishop da Cunha to his place at the cathedra and presented him with his crozier.

While this is a simple ceremony, it is filled with much theological meaning. It symbolizes the continuation of the Church, having a successor of the Apostles to lead the Diocese. It signifies that the bishop has the teaching and leadership role in the diocese. It reminds us that he presides over all the churches in the diocese.

The cathedra is only used by

the bishop. The pastor or rector of the cathedral sits in another chair when he presides over the Liturgy.

Every pastor presides in the name of the bishop when he sits in the presider’s chair in his parish. When the bishop comes to the parish he uses the main celebrant’s chair.

Since the Diocese of Fall River was founded in 1904, this is the eighth time a new bishop has been installed in the Diocese of Fall River. In this way, Bishop da Cunha officially began his ministry among us.

Adding to the importance and historicity of the event, this was the first time three former bishops of Fall River — Archbishop Cronin, Cardinal O’Malley and Bishop Coleman — witnessed the ceremony. I am sure they wish him well as he builds upon all that they have done and leads us in new ways to know and love God. We, too, wish him well and assure him of our prayers as he begins to serve as our bishop.

May God grant him many good years filled with much health and happiness.

Anchor columnist Msgr.

Oliveira is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford and director of the diocesan Propagation of the Faith and Permanent Diaconate offices.

The cathedra sized bronze Doctors of the comedy and distress.

The Catholic Church has its Church: Western doctors St. Ambrose and St. Augustine of special chairs as well.

Hippo on the outsides, wearOne of the most famous is ing miters, and Eastern doctors located in St. Peter’s Basilica St. John Chrysostom and St. behind the main altar. It is Athanasius on the insides, called the Altar of the Chair. both bare-headed. The cathedra Above the altar is a large appears to hover over the altar sculpture which supposedly contains the Chair of St. Peter. in the basilica’s apse.”

The chair is enclosed in a sculpted bronze casing Living that was designed by the Gian Lorenzo Bernini and executed between Faith 1647 and 1653. Inside

By Msgr. the chair is a wooden John J. Oliveira throne, which, according to tradition, was used by St. Peter.

There is a feast called the A quick search in WikipeChair of Peter. It is celebrated dia describes the chair: “Like throughout the Universal many medieval reliquaries it Church on February 22. Howtakes the form of the relic it ever, it is understood that the protects, in this case a chair. feast celebrates the unity of the Symbolically, the chair BerChurch with the successor of nini designed had no earthly St. Peter, the pope, not a chair. counterpart in actual contemporary furnishings. It is formed It is a day to recall that the Catholic Church is united unentirely of scrolling members, der one bishop — the Bishop enclosing a coved panel where of Rome — the Holy Father. the upholstery pattern is renToday that person is Pope dered as a low relief of Christ Francis. giving the keys to Peter. Large Each diocese has a special angelic figures flank an openchair. It is called the cathedra. work panel beneath a highly The cathedra is located in the realistic bronze seat cushion, cathedral church of a diocese. vividly empty: the relic is encased within. The cathedra is The name cathedral comes lofted on splayed scrolling bars from the fact that within its walls is the cathedra. It is the that appear to be effortlessly chair from which the bishop supported by four over-life-

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September 26, 2014

Sister Miriam Teresa is on path to become New Jersey’s first saint NEWARK, N.J. (CNS) — Although Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich was personally unassuming, the Spiritual impact she had on other Sisters of

Charity of St. Elizabeth was so unmistakable that they began the effort to have her canonized soon after her May 8, 1927, death in Paterson.

Her cause will advance October 4, when she will be declared Blessed Miriam Teresa at a beatification Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark. She will be the first American to be beatified in the United States.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, will celebrate the Mass, joined by Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, Paterson Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli and Bishop Kurt Burnette, head of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic.

The Church leaders represent local churches that all claim the daughter of Slovakian immigrants — she was born in Bayonne, baptized in the Eastern Catholic Church and educated at St. Elizabeth College in Morris Township, where her remains are entombed in the chapel of her congregation’s motherhouse.

Cardinal Amato will read the declaration of beatification near the beginning of Mass after a short biography is read and a portrait of her is unveiled.

Many Sisters of Charity plan to attend the Liturgy, which

will include a procession with a reliquary containing locks of Sister Miriam’s reddish brown hair, cut after her death of ap-

Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, a Sister of Charity who died at age 26 in 1927, will be the first American to be beatified in the United States. (CNS photo/courtesy of Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth)

pendicitis at age 26.

Sister Miriam was known for her bad eyesight, and her intercession was invoked for Michael Mencer, a New Jersey boy who

was going blind. His complete cure in 1964 was authenticated by the Vatican as having no medical explanation and was endorsed by Pope Francis in December.

In general, one confirmed miracle is needed for beatification and a second such miracle for canonization.

The youngest of seven, Sister Miriam delayed college to care for her invalid mother, who died when “Treat” — as Sister Miriam was called — was 18. Because of her poor eyesight, she was rejected by the convent of contemplatives she wanted to enter before she joined a teaching community.

“Miriam’s life of aligning her life to the will of God is a model for all of us,” said Sister Mary Canavan, a former general superior of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth who is the fourth Sister to serve as vice postulator of Sister Miriam’s cause.

“I don’t know if we need another saint in the Church per se, except that her message that we all are called to holiness is significant to everyone in this troubled world, because it will take all of Continued on page 14

September 26, 2014

Tranquility base here

T

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ranquility Base is more commonly known as the area where U.S. astronauts landed on the moon and walked its surface for the first time in July of 1969. I prefer to refer to tranquility base as the chapel at the La Salette Retreat Center in Attleboro.

The chapel and the retreat house are celebrating 50 years of providing a haven of peace, comfort, and prayer to thousands of people who have passed through the doors there.

Going to La Salette Shrine is always a treat, whether it be for the Festival of Lights, a simple walk around the grounds, or attending one of a plethora of Spiritual events that happen there. But a visit to the chapel in the retreat house is always The chapel at the La Salette Retreat Center has been a haven of peace, contemplation, and prayer for half a century. (Photo

by Dave Jolivet) my favorite destination.

Last week I went to the house to take some pictures of the center for The Anchor for the story that appears on page one of this week’s edition. I made a point to enter the holy ground of the chapel.

My first visit to the chapel was when I made a Cursillo weekend in October of 1986. On that weekend the chapel became a home away from home. My fellow candidates and the team members shared two very special Liturgies there, and there was time for quiet contemplation on my own.

It was truly an oasis in a desert of busyness and sometimes craziness.

My View From the Stands

By Dave Jolivet I later served on team for Cursillo, and also was a member of the Cursillo music ministry, playing guitar at so many inspiring Masses there I can’t even count them.

Having lived the Cursillo experience as a candidate, team member and music minister, I knew very well the transformations that can take place during three days of intense Spirituality. And the chapel was one of the prime sources.

While on music ministry I couldn’t help but watch the faces of the men and women candidates throughout the weekend Liturgies. Most went from exhibiting a countenance of fear or apathy to that of acceptance, reconciliation and peace. I’ve seen (and shed) countless tears of joy, peace and relief in that special chapel over the years.

I also was on team for a parish Confirmation weekend retreat there. It didn’t matter who my Spiritual companions were, the chapel always welcomed me with open arms.

When I entered the chapel last week all the warm feelings rushed back as I genuflected before the Blessed Sacrament. To me, the small, welcoming chapel has an aura about it. I was alone, on the job, yet was still surrounded by God’s grace and peace.

There are very few places on earth — to which I have been — that have filled me with such emotions.

I wish that everyone, at least once in their existence, can enter a place and come away with a lifealtering experience. It’s one of those little gifts from the Father that keeps us going in a world where it’s so easy to give up.

On July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Commander Neil Armstrong said, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” But area faithful can enter tranquility base in Attleboro, and be lifted on Eagles’ Wings.

Dave Jolivet can be contacted at davejolivet@ anchornews.org.

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September 26, 2014

Inspired by Old Testament, ‘The Song’ a modern story of love, faith WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Song of Solomon, the amorous tale of two lovers contained in the Old Testament, has found reincarnation in a modern story of love and faith underscored by American folk music.

“The Song,” the first feature film from writer/director Richard Ramsey, tells the story of an aspiring singer/songwriter and his attempt to preserve his Marriage amid a burgeoning music career and the fame that comes with it.

In a phone interview with the Catholic News Service, Ramsey called the film “a redemptive love story”a based on the writings and life of King Solomon, the famed but flawed king of ancient Israel, and inspired by the Book of Ecclesiastes.

“The Song of Solomon speaks very powerfully to issues of romance and Marriage and intimacy,” Ramsey said.

“Ecclesiastes, I think, addresses an even more foundational issue of where the meaning in life comes from.”

In Catholic editions of the Bible, the Song of Solomon is called the Song of Songs.

While the work is attributed to Solomon in the traditional title, Biblical scholars think it was penned by an unknown poet.

Ramsey noted the parallel between the narrative of Ecclesiastes and the issues that have emerged in contemporary culture, namely the misguided quest by many people to ascribe meaning to their lives through everyday superficialities like work, education and material things.

“I think a lot of people are trying to find meaning and significance in those things and it all ends up empty,” he said.

“This film kind of gives a cautionary tale about the heartache that can come from trying to do that.”

Ramsey became inspired to make the film after reading Ecclesiastes, which he found had a particularly timely message, he said.

“The controlling idea of the movie, like Solomon says in Ecclesiastes is be faithful to God, be faithful to your spouse, that’s where meaning and fulfillment lie,” he said.

As for resurrecting a 3,000-year-old story and applying it to the modern era, Ramsey said there were “fun challenges.”

“When you have Spiri-

tual and religious, specifically Christian, themes in a movie how do you have that there but still keep the movie story-driven rather than message-driven?

I feel like we succeeded in that,” Ramsey said. “As far as adapting the story to today, it’s just a matter of finding the modern parallel. What are the idolatrous attitudes we have today about sex or about meaning or those various things that Solomon addresses?”

Tony Young, executive director of City on a Hill production studio in Louisville, Kentucky, where “The Song” was made, said the studio’s main focus in making the movie was to serve as a teaching point. He cited Pastor Kyle Idleman, the teaching pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville who also works with the production studio, as one of the main reasons for the movie’s Biblical theme.

“Kyle always had a heart for teaching Song of Solomon,” he said. “He feels that in large part the Church doesn’t have that discussion a lot, you know God’s plan for love and sex in a marital relationship.”

Young said the studio’s approach in producing this “musicdriven love story” was to create a film that was “more conversational than conversional.”

“Our goal is to create a new genre within faith film that opens up conversations and dialogue around this teaching subject.”

“The Song” was released nationwide today.

The film’s soundtrack, which Ramsey described as “Americana alt-folk country,” also plays a large role in the story, he said. “(The music) has a raw authentic sound and it also has a sound that (allows people to) sing about God and Spiritual things in a way that audiences, even mainstream music audiences, appreciate,” he said.

Ramsey said the movie has a realistic and accessible depiction of Marriage that he thinks will attract religious and nonreligious audience members.

“There are metaphors going on but there’s also a very relatable love story going on at the same time,” he said. “I just hope it sparks conversation. Anyone who’s willing to sit with an open mind and listen to the story and watch the story and take it to heart, that’s who I’m talking to.”

Dylan O’Brien stars in a scene from the movie “The Maze Runner.” For a brief review of this film, see CNS Movie Capsules below. (CNS photo/Fox)

“No Good Deed” directed again by Michael Win(Screen Gems) terbottom. The lines are blurred Conventionally plotted between real-life documentary thriller about a violent escaped and fictional drama as the duo convict (Idris Elba) who terri- journey from Turin to Naples fies a mother (Taraji B. Henson) in search of fine cuisine, grand and her two young children in hotels, and sites associated with Atlanta. As directed by Sam 19th-century English RomanMiller and written by Aimee tic poets. Along the way the lads Lagos, its devices are all as stale banter about movies, impersonas its dark and stormy night. ate famous actors, make vulgar Gun and physical violence, five jokes, and fret about work and NEW YORK (CNS) — The murders and frequent rough and relationships. Regrettably, what following are capsule reviews crass language, fleeting profanican be an enchanting travelof movies recently reviewed by ties. The Catholic News Service ogue, with breathtaking scenCatholic News Service. classification is A-III — adults. ery and mouth-watering meals, “The Maze Runner” (Fox) The Motion Picture Associa- is offset by some tasteless huCross “The Hunger Games” tion of America rating is PG-13 mor and sexual situations, placand “Divergent” and you’ll have — parents strongly cautioned. ing this film squarely in the this latest angst-ridden drama Some material may be inapproadult camp. Adultery, implied about teen-agers fighting to priate for children under 13. nonmarital sexual activity, sexsurvive in a post-apocalyptic “The Trip to Italy” (IFC) ual humor and innuendo, and world, based on the 2009 novel Two British comedians frequent crude language. The

by James Dashner and directed (Steve Coogan and Rob BryCatholic News Service classifiby Wes Ball. The inhabitants don) set out on a grand tour cation is A-III — adults. Not of a walled-in expanse of grass of the Italian peninsula, in this rated by the Motion Picture and trees are all teen-age boys, follow-up to 2010’s “The Trip,” Association of America. wiped of their memories. They must work together and build a community from scratch (shades of William Golding’s 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies”), all the while looking for a means to escape through an ever-changing labyrinth beyond the walls. A new recruit (Dylan O’Brien) threatens to upset the fragile world order built by the boys’ leader (Will Poulter). He is inspired by the arrival of the first-ever girl (Kaya Scodelario) Sunday, September 28, 11:00 a.m. to wage a new assault and gain freedom. Occasional intense violence, including gory images, and some crude language. The Catholic News Service classiCelebrant is Father Michael S. Racine, fication is A-III — adults. The pastor of St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet.

Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned.

Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

CNS Movie Capsules

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6

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September 26, 2014

A

To serve or not to serve — That is the question

s a lawyer, I belong to a profession that is supposed to be dedicated to service — to justice, to my clients, to due process, to the rule of law. It’s really not fundamentally about me.

Of course, like everyone else, I need to earn my living as well — which I do personally by teaching law, mainly constitutional law, at the law school at UMass Dartmouth. And so I should also be of service to my students, who are my ultimate employer. Occasionally, I also handle cases and causes I believe in pro bono, on a volunteer basis for the sake of the good I might accomplish. In some ways my regular salary gives me the freedom, which many others do not have, to try to be helpful in that way.

The temptation, though, is to view my profession as law professor as some kind of self-justifying status or end

in itself, as if our legal justice you, that you love one another as I have loved you” ( Jn system and university struc13:34). The old Commandture of legal education were ment, of course, was to “love meant to serve me and my kind, rather than the other way around. A calling to serve others risks becoming, sadly in that eventuality, a form of selfservice. I think we need to be reminded

By Dwight G. Duncan of the importance of service and of the serving professions, since our natural tendency is your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus affirms that but also goes to always think of Number beyond it. How did Jesus love One; what’s in it for me? us? “Greater love than this no And so we professionals, one has: to lay down one’s life and I don’t think this is a for one’s friends” ( Jn 15:13). problem restricted to lawyers Jesus lived and died what He or professors, need to be reminded of the salutary teach- preached.

Jesus served by dying for ing and example of Jesus, Who came “not to be served, us on the cross, but He also served in smaller ways by but to serve, and to give His washing His Apostles’ feet life as a ransom for many” and selflessly instructing (Mt 20:28). He also said, “A them in the ways of justice new Commandment I give

Judge For Yourself

and healing them in their infirmities. We professionals, lawyers, doctors, educators, business people, clergy, etc., would do well to do likewise and always try to serve others, and not just ourselves. This goes for all professionals, and for that matter everyone, since it is an implication of the golden rule, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

We’ve seen health professionals and doctors recently risk their lives to help people stricken with the Ebola epidemic. Lawyers like Charles Hamilton Houston, who pioneered the civil rights movement long before Thurgood Marshall and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came on the scene, sacrificed themselves to see that blacks were treated with

respect and equality before the law during the long struggle over civil rights. But what are we doing now to assure access to justice and respect for human freedom and equality? What am I doing? In that regard, I do not think it is enough to rest on what we’ve done in the past. There is still so much to do. Others, and indeed God Himself, can rightly ask us, “What have you done for Me lately?”

Jesus says in the Gospels: “Whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for Me” (Mt. 25:40). Pope Francis is constantly reminding us to go to the peripheries and outskirts and serve the poor and marginalized. That, in any case, is what Jesus did and taught.

Anchor columnist Dwight Duncan is a professor at UMass School of Law Dartmouth. He holds degrees in civil and canon law.

Pope to bishops: Guard the faith, build hope, love sinners as they are

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Today’s bishops must be as vigilant and courageous as sentinels keeping watch over the faith, and as forgiving and patient as Moses, leading a sinning people across harsh deserts to God, Pope Francis said.

Their vocation is not to be wardens of a failed estate, “but custodians of ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ (the Joy of the Gospel); therefore, you cannot be without the only treasure we really have to give, and that the world cannot give itself: the joy of God’s love,” he told new bishops.

The pope made his comments in a recent written address to 138 recently-appointed bishops from around the world, including 14 from the United States and two from Australia. The pope said he was happy finally to put a real face to their names and resumes, which he told them he was closely familiar with.

In a lengthy address, Pope Francis outlined a series of do’s and don’ts in their new role as bishops, reminding them of their true mission and urging them to return home “with a message of encouragement” even with the problems awaiting them.

Their approach must always be positive, he said, especially with each other.

“Though jealously safeguarding the passion for truth, do not waste your energy in opposition and arguments, but in building and loving,” he said.

The bishops must strike a balance between being audacious sentinels, ready 24/7 to wake up a slumbering world, and gentle, forgiving fathers who unconditionally love the sinning people “God has given you.”

The only way to fulfill this mission, he said, is to be constantly in search of and completely bound to Christ, which takes “familiarity, dedication, perseverance and patience.”

“It’s necessary to always dwell in Him and never run away from Him: Dwell in His Word, in His Eucharist, in the things of His Father and, above all, in His cross,” he said.

Just as a flame is always kept lit in front of every tabernacle to tell the faithful that Christ is present inside, every priest, too, needs to have the light of Christ shining in his gaze so the flock can “encounter the flame of the Risen One.” That is why the Church cannot have bishops who are “switched off or pessimists” or who rely only on themselves and have “surrendered to the darkness of the world or resigned to the apparent defeat of the good, screaming — at this point, in vain — that the tiny fort has been attacked,” he said.

But they do have to be like sentinels, he said, “capable of waking up your churches, getting up before dawn or in the middle of the night to bolster the faith, hope and charity, without letting yourselves be lulled to sleep or conforming to the nostalgic

complaint of a golden past that’s already gone.”

“Don’t be bishops with an expiration date,” who are always on the lookout for a new assignment somewhere else, or “like a medicine that will stop being effective or like perishable food to be thrown out,” he said.

Like Moses, bishops need to be with their people no matter what, he said.

“I also beg you to not let yourselves be deceived by the temptation to change the people. Love the people that God has given you, even when they will have committed great sins.”

Like Moses, the bishop must “come up to the Lord” and advocate on His people’s behalf, praying for forgiveness and a fresh start, he said.

“I am well aware of how our times have become a desert,” he said. And that’s why the people need someone who will patiently guide them and help them mature, and who will not “fear death as exiles, but deplete your last energies, not for yourselves, but to let those you guide enter into God.” Nothing is more important than bringing people to God, he said.

The pope urged the bishops to truly be present and available for their priests.

A bishop who is “reachable” isn’t the one who has endless means of communication at his disposal. He’s the one who always

has room in his heart to really welcome and listen to all of his priests and their “concrete needs, giving them the entirety and breadth of Church teaching and not a list of complaints.”

“And, please, do not fall into

the temptation of sacrificing your freedom by surrounding yourself with courtiers, climbers and yesmen, since the Church and the world have the right to always find on the lips of the bishop the Gospel, which makes them free.”

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September 26, 2014

Deepen your faith this fall continued from page seven

writings, according to Catholic author Matthew Kelly.

“It is in these writings that our intellect comes face-toface with the most profound questions and truths about the world, creation, God, humanity, and our individual journeys,” he said in “The Rhythm of Life.”

“The wisdom writings seek not to entertain us, but to reveal to us who we are and why we are here. The wisdom writings gently call us out of our comfort zones and challenge us to improve, develop, grow, and live life to the fullest.”

During “Ordinary Time” we observe the great feast of All Saints’ Day on November 1, and the fall feast days of saints.

Let us ponder some of their wisdom writings.

The patron of charitable groups, St. Vincent de Paul (1580-1660) founded the congregation of the Priests of the Mission, called Lazarists or Vincentians, and together with St. Louise de Marillac founded the Sisters of Charity. His feast day is September 27.

“The Church is compared to a great harvest field that needs

laborers, but the laborers are wanting,” said St. Vincent de Paul. “There is nothing more in keeping with the Gospel than, on the one hand, to gather up light and strength for the soul in prayer, Spiritual reading, and solitude, and then to go forth and dispense this Spiritual good to men. This is doing what our Lord, and His Apostles after Him, enjoined. This is to join the office of Martha and Mary. This is to imitate the dove, that half digests its food and then with its beak places the remainder in the mouths of its young to feed them. That is how we should act, that is how we should bear witness to God, by our deeds, that we love Him!” A Doctor of the Church, St. Jerome (342-420) succinctly offers us guidance in our work ethic. The saint’s day is September 30. He is invoked by those with failing eyesight and is the protector of students, pilgrims, and librarians.

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ’Til your good is better, and your better is best,” instructed St. Jerome. He also ad-

This week in 50 years ago — The new La Salette Retreat House, located at the north end of the shrine grounds in Attleboro, held a public open house for people to view the 60-room facility, which was completed the prior month. The first retreat at the house was scheduled shortly thereafter.

25 years ago — Celebrating its 50 years of serving the diocese, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin celebrated Mass at the Catholic Memorial Home in Fall River.

A banquet followed the Liturgy.

vised: “Keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you employed.”

We venerate St. Therese of the Child Jesus (1873-1897) on October 1. She is a Doctor of the Church, and the patroness of foreign missions and concerns of children.

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love,” St. Therese said.

The patron saint of Italy and protector of merchants, ecologists, animals, and poets, St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) founded the Friars Minor. We remember him on October 4.

St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”

We memorialize St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) on October 15. A Doctor of the Church who founded the order of Discalced Carmelites, she is the patroness of Spain and protector of Catholic writers and those in religious orders.

St. Teresa of Jesus said, “Let nothing disturb you,/Let noth-

Diocesan history

10 years ago — The Diocesan Health Facilities sponsored its first-ever Pain Management Resource Fair at White’s of Westport. The event, accredited by the American Academy of Pain Management, was open to professionals and the public.

One year ago — After more than 20 years of service, Father Paul F. Robinson, O.Carm., JCD, retired as judicial vicar for the Fall River Diocese and head of the diocesan Tribunal office. His assistant, Father Jeffrey Cabral, JCL, became his successor.

ing frighten you,/All things are passing away:/God never changes./Patience obtains all things./Whoever has God lacks nothing;/God alone suffices.”

On November 4, we honor St. Charles Borromeo (15381584). He is the protector of seminarians, catechists, and teachers.

“If a tiny spark of God’s love already burns within you, do not expose it to the wind, for it may get blown out,” said St. Charles. “Stay quiet with God.” St. Martin of Tours (315397) is venerated on Veterans Day, November 11. He is the protector of soldiers.

“Lord, if Your people still have need of my services, I will not avoid the toil. Your

will be done,” said St. Martin.

“I have fought the good fight long enough. Yet if You bid me continue to hold the battle line in defense of Your camp, I will never beg to be excused from failing strength. I will do the work You entrust to me. While You command, I will fight beneath Your banner.”

The first American citizen to be canonized, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917) founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Her saint’s day is November 13, and she is the patroness of immigrants.

“I will go anywhere and do anything in order to communicate the love of Jesus to those who do not know Him or have forgotten Him,” St. Frances said.

Sister on way to becoming N.J.’s first saint continued from page 10

us to help bring about the reign of God,” Sister Mary told the New Jersey Catholic, Newark’s archdiocesan magazine.

Sister Mary also noted that Sister Miriam embraced selflessness and had an acute awareness of God’s presence in her life.

Because she was baptized in the Eastern Catholic Church, her cause also is championed by the Eparchy of Passaic, which has jurisdiction over the Byzantine churches from Maine to Florida. Also endorsing the cause is the Archdiocese of Newark, where Bayonne is located, and the Diocese of Paterson, whose territory includes the Chapel of the Holy Family in the Convent Station section of Morris Township, where Sister Miriam’s body is entombed.

Sister Miriam was said to be aware of a special call at age three.

“Even before she entered the Sisters of Charity, she was living a saintly life,” Sister Mary said.

After graduating second in her class from Bayonne High School in 1917, she cared for her mother and her family for two years before enrolling at the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station.

She majored in literature and graduated in 1923 with highest honors “but was in a state of perplexity as to the future,” according to a biography by Sister Mary Zita Geis, a Sister of Charity.

Sister Miriam was drawn to a contemplative Carmelite community in New York but was rejected because her poor eyesight would have prevented her from helping with the sewing of the Liturgical vestments the nuns made to support themselves.

The Sisters of Charity hired her to teach Latin and English at the Academy of St. Aloysius in Jersey City, which closed in 2006. She left teaching to care for her ill father, who operated a shoe repair business and after he died, she entered the Sisters of Charity novitiate in 1925.

In the winter of 1927, she was hospitalized several times and so, when she complained of pain just a few months later, her superiors suspected hypochondria.

When she was again hospitalized, it was for acute appendicitis. She died just after taking her vows as a fully professed Sister.

Only after her death did confidantes reveal she had described having a vision of Mary in her sophomore year and of walking with St. Therese, which occurred during her novitiate.

On her body’s return to Convent Station from the hospital, one of the Sisters cut locks of her hair. After her burial, visitors began chipping pieces from the granite cross at her grave.

Sister Mary said her work on Sister Miriam’s cause has helped her to better understand the Gospel message “Many are called, but few are chosen,” which she said is embodied in Sister Miriam, an example of living a holy life.

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September 26, 2014

Sister Dorothy Marie Kelley was the honoree at a recent Mass of Thanksgiving for her 75th anniversary as a Sister of the Good Shepherd. The Mass, held at Holy Trinity Church in West Harwich, was well-attended by her fellow parishioners. During the Mass, Sister Dorothy renewed her vows that had everyone in tears. Colin Sullivan sang an inspiring rendition of “Our Lady of Knock” at the presentation of the gifts. In the program book Sister Dorothy wrote: “I am most grateful for your presence here today. In some way, you have all shared in my journey over these past 75 years. Your love and support have been cherished gifts. I pray fervently that God, our loving and merciful Shepherd, will bless each and every one of you as only He knows how. My love and appreciation. Sister Dorothy Kelley.” Here Sister Dorothy, sixth from left, shares the joy of the event with special friends. (Photo courtesy of Barbara Anne Foley)

America editor to speak at St. Mary’s Fund Fall Dinner continued from page one

winning review of politics, ideas and civic life. Earlier in his career he was chief speechwriter for U.S. Representative Martin T. Meehan.

The annual Fall Dinner is one of two principle yearly fund-raisers to support the St. Mary’s Education Fund, which has since its inception in the early 1990s provided financial help to more than 8,000 students at Catholic elementary and middle schools in the diocese. During the 201314 academic year, more than 700 families students received $548,265 in tuition aid from the fund.

The Fall Dinner will feature a reception and extensive multi-course meal followed by a brief program and Father Malone’s presentation.

Longtime Fall Dinner committee member Sandra Sevigny, who is first vice president and a retirement plan specialist at Plimoth Investment Advisors, has stepped up to serve as chairman of the event this year.

She and committees working in four areas of the diocese are now reaching out to businesses and individuals to extend an invitation to sponsor a table or purchase a ticket for the Fall Dinner in support of tuition assistance.

“The Fall Dinner is the culmination of the efforts of all of the volunteers, bringing together like-minded people of the diocese who have the same goal: to make it possible for every child, regardless of their family’s financial means, to benefit from a Catholic educa-

tion,” Sevigny explained.

She went on to say that the motivation behind her work for the St. Mary’s Education Fund is “the knowledge that the fund enables children to grow and achieve in the safe, nurturing and supportive environment of a Catholic school where they can also grow in their faith.”

Over the past several years, the Fall Dinner Committee has incorporated into the evening program the presentation of the Timothy J. Cotter Friend of Catholic Education Award to recognize longtime outstanding support. This year the award will be presented to Fall River Bishop Emeritus George W. Coleman for his contributions to Catholic education.

Leading the Fall Dinner area committees are, in Attleboro, Paul M. Lenahan; in Fall River, Nicholas M. Christ; in New Bedford, Sevigny; and in Taunton, Rick Clark.

Sevigny encourages all who are able to support the Fall Dinner and, by doing so, the St. Mary’s Education Fund.

“Our children are our fu-

ture,” she said, “and this is a way we can truly make a difference in many children’s lives.

Those interested in supporting the Fall Dinner or obtaining more information on the St. Mary’s Education Fund, should contact Sevigny, any area committee chairman, or Jim Campbell at the Diocesan Development Office at 508-675-1311.

Visit us online at www.anchornews.org

Youth Pages

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September 26, 2014

Students and staff from Holy Trinity School in Fall River began the new school year with a Mass.

Students at St. Mary-Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro attended a prayer service led by Father David Costa at the school flag pole to honor fallen friends, neighbors, country men and women who died in the 9/11 attacks 13 years ago.

Father Costa told the 272 students that though most of them were not even born when this happened that they should remember how important it is to be kind and caring to each other. The students then said the Our Father followed by the Hail Mary and a prayer for peace by St. Francis. The students all then pledged the allegiance to the flag and hung the flag at half mast in honor of the day.

The students of grades seven and eight at St. Francis Xavier in Acushnet were able to experience a piece of history at the Acushnet 9/11 Memorial. Chief Kevin Gallagher of the Acushnet Fire Department (pictured above) was able to meet them there, where they not only learned more about this historical event and all those who helped to build this striking memorial, but also prayed for an end to terrorism.

Students from St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently enjoyed spending time with their buddies.

In commemoration of a year-long birthday celebration, students and faculty gathered to take an all-school photo to begin the St. John the Evangelist School in Attleboro’s 60th year of providing Catholic education to the area. The seventh-graders formed the “6” and the eighth-graders formed the “0.” All students and faculty received a special T-shirt acknowledging the school’s anniversary.

Students at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield are back in the groove for a new year.

Students at St. Michael School in Fall River held a prayer service in remembrance of the 9/11 attacks 13 years ago. The bags at the base of the flag (see inset) were “Bags of Hope,” created by the students and their buddies.

September 26, 2014

S

eptember is here and autumn has begun. I imagine that most of you are now fully immersed in your studies and giving it your best shot to learn as much as you can. What is your attitude toward learning? Are you willing to go the distance and earn that diploma or that degree in a specific discipline? Are you doing everything you can to reach your full potential and become successful? Remember, the sweetest victory is the one that’s most difficult. Dig deeper so in the end you can echo the words of St. Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:6-7).

Being successful isn’t going to be easy, and it shouldn’t be!

There will be times of failure.

It’s these failures that not only bring about success, but also are good for success! Have you noticed that society doesn’t reward failure? How you look at failure is how you deal with fixing it. Take for example, Thomas Edison, whose most

Youth Pages Never learn just enough best you can’t fear failing. This popular invention was the light bulb. It’s said that it took will help you push yourself him a thousand tries before he forward. John C. Maxwell, a writer and speaker, says in got it right. A reporter once asked him, “How did it feel to his book “Failing Forward: fail a thousand times?” “I didn’t Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success,” “To fail a thousand times,” Edison responded. “The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Thomas Edison didn’t avoid the prospect of failure because he knew he could

By Ozzie Pacheco learn something new from each failure. Just enough wasn’t good achieve any worthy goal you enough. Yet, some of us avoid must take risks.” He points to failure altogether. Don’t get the example of aviator Ameme wrong. Everything we say and do should be well thought lia Earhart, who set several out before saying it or doing it. records and achieved many firsts in her lifetime, includThis minimizes risks, mising being the first female pilot takes and failures. But on the to fly solo over the Atlantic other hand, be open to these Ocean. Although her final failures by looking at them as flight proved fateful, Maxwell life’s greatest teacher. If you’re believes she knew the risk — willing to learn from your mistakes and failures then you and that the potential reward was worth it. Earhart once have a powerful tool in reachoffered advice when it came ing your goals. to risk: “Decide whether or To achieve your personal

Be Not Afraid

Students from St. Joseph School in Fairhaven marched in the recent Our Lady of Angels procession, along with their newly-appointed principal, Faith Piazza. The event is a traditional Catholic-Portuguese Feast and has been held in Fairhaven every year since 1930.

Richard Price, an inductee of the Bugler Hall of Fame, recently played the National Anthem at the Bishop Stang vs. Dartmouth High School football game. Price has been lead trumpeter and soloist with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and also has performed with the Count Basie Orchestra and backed up music greats such as Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Lou Rawls, the Temptations and Mel Torme. Price has performed at the White House, Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall as well as Paris, Sweden, Switzerland, Amsterdam, Japan, Austria, London and South America.

not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.” Of course, the risks you take should be calculated; you shouldn’t fly blindly into the night and simply hope for the best. Achieving the goal or at least waging a heroic effort requires preparation, practice and some awareness of your skills and talents.

We cannot know everything there is to know — no one can.

Recognize this about yourself because it shows that you have the gift of humility. And this alone is reason to keep learning, not just enough, but as much as you can. Make it a lifelong journey, adventure and a personal goal.

Take risks. Step out of your comfort zone. Don’t worry about how you will save the world on your own. Rather, allow yourself to trust another person to build a deeper relationship and together work to do your part in making the world a better place. What you

17

don’t want to do is be complacent. Never think someone else will do it. You have the potential and the talent, so take it upon yourself. You don’t have to know everything nor do you always have to be successful.

Blessed Mother Teresa once said, “God doesn’t require us to be successful. God asks us only to be faithful.” Be true to yourself. Know what you can and cannot do. What you can do, do it well, always finding ways of doing it better. What you cannot do, learn how to do it. Your mind is waiting for you to expand it and make it the beautiful gift God created it to be. Never think just enough.

Never do just enough. Never learn just enough. Live to fulfill your life. Love to fulfill God’s will. Learn to fill your mind!

Oh! And don’t forget to pray. There’s never enough of this! God bless!

Anchor columnist Ozzie Pacheco is Faith Formation director at Santo Christo Parish, Fall River.

Coyle and Cassidy Students could be heard chanting the Taunton school’s Coyle chant while participating in the Walk for Suicide Prevention. In addition to staffing volunteer tables, they all completed the three-mile route. The same group spent this week promoting the need for increased awareness of this very important issue. Ribbons and paper chain links were sold so as to promote solidarity and the idea that we are all “linked” together.

The school drama club at Holy Family-Holy Name School in New Bedford will be performing “Peter Pan” on October 4 at 7 p.m. and October 5 at 2 p.m. For information call the school office at 508-993-3547.

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September 26, 2014

Jack Schrader to be ordained transitional deacon October 2

ther Peschel — who was then continued from page one himself a seminarian — invitSince his father was enlisted theological link to the Lord “Eventually after some ing him to attend the annual Jesus, Who sent His Apostles, in the U.S. Air Force, he and months, I began to take Father feast at St. Michael’s Parish in St. Peter and St. Paul, to Rome. his siblings have lived at vari- Hanley’s invitation seriously,” Fall River.

“It was the first time I had Here they shed their blood for ous military bases with their he said. “I prayed and I thought been to Fall River and to a Porthe sake of introducing people parents over the years. Dur- about this unbelievable invitatuguese feast,” he said. “I was ing the latter half of his high tion to join the ranks of men to the Son of God.” Being able to study at a school career, Schrader was ac- who represent Jesus in a special planning to watch the procession, eat some food, and parseminary situated within close tually living in northern Italy, and powerful way.” proximity to the Vatican and near Aviano Air Force Base, Another important mile- take in the prayers. As I was essentially being the pontiff ’s where his family attended Sun- stone on Schrader’s journey was sitting in the church waiting “neighbor” has been a great day Masses. a stop in Germany in 2005 for for the procession to begin, a It was during this crucial blessing for Schrader.

World Youth Day in Cologne, few men asked me to help them “The North American Col- time in his life that he met Fa- which eventually inspired him carry the statue of Santo Cristo. lege is very near St. Peter’s ther Dennis Hanley, the Cath- to attend the Franciscan Uni- Surprised by the invitation, I excitedly agreed. As we were Square, the place where St. Pe- olic chaplain on base. versity of Steubenville.

“Father Hanley first asked ter was martyred,” he said. “His “With the exemption of first struggling to lower the statue bones still lie under St. Peter’s me to consider being a priest grade, I had always gone to to leave the church through the Basilica. On a tour of the ex- when I was 17 years old,” public school,” Schrader said. “I main doors, Father Jason Brilcavations under St. Peter’s Ba- Schrader recalled. “In my earli- wanted to go to a Catholic uni- hante — also a seminarian at silica, you can see the jawbone er teen-age years, I had experi- versity, and I chose Franciscan the time — looked at me with of the man who professed to enced a deepening of my faith University because there was a wide eyes and expressed to me Jesus, ‘You are the Christ, the because of the example of my priestly discernment program that it was a great honor to be Son of the Living God.’ Of- two best friends. Father Hanley on campus. At the time, my carrying Santo Cristo.

“Two hours later, we reten I go to the Sunday Angelus must have seen that I loved the parents were moving to Caliwith the Holy Father to receive Eucharist and that I was striv- fornia after my dad’s retire- turned to St. Michael’s Church, his blessing and be encouraged ing to be holier through the ment from the Air Force. This my shoulder was in pain, but by his words. Pope Francis Sacrament of Penance. At first, would have made going to a I was filled with joy because echoes St. Peter’s confession of he offered a light-hearted in- seminary very difficult, because I had been chosen to carry faith and brilliantly leads the vitation to consider the priest- I had no home diocese. Going Christ through the streets of hood. Until then, I had never to Franciscan University was Fall River. I look back now and Church.”

While it has often been said thought of becoming a priest one of the best decisions I ever realize that God was beginning that “all roads lead to Rome,” because I had never known a made, second only to applying to let me fall in love with the Diocese of Fall River.”

Schrader’s journey to the Eter- priest personally.” to seminary.”

Looking ahead with great Once planted, that ininal City has been marked by After his first year at Steuseveral key milestones along tial seed began to take root in benville, Schrader’s path veered anticipation to his October 2 diaconal ordination, Schrader Schrader. the way. towards New England.

“After my freshman year, said he is excited that his parmy family moved to Sagamore ents, Steven and Diane SchradBeach, into the Diocese of Fall er, will be traveling to Rome, River,” Schrader said. “I con- along with his sister, Anna. His tinued at Franciscan University grandmother and three aunts until graduation and my subse- will also be there.

Sadly, his brother Sam won’t quent entrance into St. John’s be able to attend because he is Seminary in Boston.” enlisted with the MassachuWhile admitting he could setts Air Force National Guard. fill the pages of The Anchor with The Anchor spends nearly $2,000 “Please pray for him as he inspiring stories of priestly role in postage change fees each year! models he’s met over the years, is currently at pre-deployment Schrader singled out his Spiri- training,” he added.

The Post Office charges The Anchor 70 cents for notificaHe is also honored that tion of a subscriber’s change of address. Please help us tual director at St. John’s Semireduce these expenses by notifying us immediately when nary, Father Philip Merdinger, representatives from Corpus you plan to move. as “a model priest” who he Christi Parish in East Sandwich, St. John and St. Vincent hopes to emulate.

Please Print Your New Address Below “He is a founding member de Paul parishes in Attleboro, NAME: of a religious community, called and St. Patrick’s Parish in the Brotherhood of Hope, Wareham will be making the whose members dedicate trek to Rome for his special STREET ADDRESS: themselves to the evangeliza- day, along with diocesan priests tion of university campuses,” Msgr. Stephen Avila, Father Schrader said. “His merciful re- George Harrison, Father Jay CITY, STATE, ZIP: sponse to my Confessions and Mello, Father Ron Floyd, Fastruggles showed me a priestly ther Jason Brilhante, Father heart and guided me towards Riley Williams, and Father NEW PARISH: a deeper conformity with Je- Richard Wilson.

“Father Williams will be sus Christ, the Priest. Father vesting me in the deacon’s vestMerdinger is in love with God MOVING DATE: the Father and dedicated to the ment, the dalmatic, during the Rite of Ordination,” Schrader Divine Will in all things.”

Please attach your Anchor address label so we can update One of the first people said. “When I was a freshman your record immediately.

Schrader befriended after set- at Franciscan University, he was tling in the Fall River Diocese a senior. As a new seminarian was Father Christopher Pe- in Rome, he was finishing his Clip and mail form to: The Anchor, schel, who was ordained to the last year of studies in Rome as a priest; and during the summer P.O. Box 7, Fall River, MA 02722 presbyterate in June.

Schrader fondly recalled Fa- of 2013, I was assigned with him

Money is flying out the window

in Attleboro. God has allowed Father Williams and I to walk together along the way to the priesthood, so I thought it was fitting that he should vest me.”

On the day following his diaconal ordination, Schrader will gather with family and friends for a Mass celebration at the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on Tiber Island, where the remains of the Apostle are kept in the main altar.

“In addition, St. Pope John Paul II designated this church as a shrine to the ‘New Martyrs,’ that is to the men and women who gave their lives for Christ in the 20th and 21st centuries,” Schrader said.

The side chapels of this landmark church hold relics from many such “New Martyrs,” including Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, who knew that Nazism was incompatible with faith in Christ, and Shabaz Bhatti, a Christian federal minister in the Pakistani government and an outspoken opponent of Pakistan’s severe blasphemy law.

“I want to show my friends and family this holy place in Rome, and it will be a privilege to proclaim the Gospel and preach my first homily there,” he said.

Although he is the only seminarian slated to be ordained for the diocese next year, Schrader has great expectations that vocations will increase in the coming years, especially with the installation of Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha — a Vocationist Father — as the eighth Bishop of Fall River this month.

“I believe that God is calling many men to the priesthood in our diocese,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is often very difficult to hear the voice of the Lord.

One way to help young people hear the call of God is to foster in our homes and in our parishes a culture of contemplative prayer and joyful Christian fellowship. Teach your children and grandchildren how to pray and introduce to them the treasure of encountering God in silence. Without a bit of silence every week, it is nearly impossible to hear God’s call.”

“Bishop da Cunha’s outgoing joy in following the Lord has been contagious to me,” he added. “I think he will continue to manifest the attractive joy of the Gospel as our chief shepherd and young men and women will be inspired by Bishop da Cunha to be courageous in their search for their vocation from God.”

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September 26, 2014

Eucharistic Adoration in the Diocese Acushnet — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the St. Joseph Adoration Chapel at Holy Ghost Church, 71 Linden Street, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

ATTLEBORO — The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette holds Eucharistic Adoration in the Shrine Church every Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. through November 17.

ATTLEBORO — There is a weekly Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 pm at St. John the Evangelist Church on N. Main St. Brewster — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays beginning at noon until 7:45 a.m. First Saturday, concluding with Benediction and concluding with Mass at 8 a.m. buzzards Bay — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, every first Friday after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending the following day before the 8 a.m. Mass.

East Freetown — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. John Neumann Church every Monday (excluding legal holidays) 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady, Mother of All Nations Chapel. (The base of the bell tower).

EAST TAUNTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place in the chapel at Holy Family Parish Center, 438 Middleboro Avenue, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. On First Fridays, Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, from 8:30 a.m. until 7:45 p.m.

FAIRHAVEN — St. Mary’s Church, Main St., has Eucharistic Adoration every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of Reconciliation, with Benediction at 11:30 a.m. Also, there is a First Friday Mass each month at 7 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour with Eucharistic Adoration. Refreshments follow.

Fall River — Espirito Santo Parish, 311 Alden Street, Fall River. Eucharistic Adoration on Mondays following the 8 a.m. Mass until Rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

FALL RIVER — St. Bernadette’s Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has continuous Eucharistic Adoration from 8 a.m. on Thursday until 8 a.m. on Saturday.

FALL RIVER — St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue, has Eucharistic Adoration Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

FALL RIVER — Holy Name Church, 709 Hanover Street, has Eucharistic Adoration Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady of Grace Chapel.

FALL RIVER — Good Shepherd Parish has Eucharistic Adoration every Friday following the 8 a.m. Mass and concluding with 3 p.m. Benediction in the Daily Mass Chapel. A bilingual holy hour takes place from 2 to 3 p.m.

Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

Falmouth — St. Patrick’s Church has Eucharistic Adoration each First Friday, following the 9 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 4:30 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

MANSFIELD — St. Mary’s Parish, 330 Pratt Street, has Eucharistic Adoration every First Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with Benediction at 5:45 p.m.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish, Route 151 and Job’s Fishing Road has 8:30 a.m. Mass every First Friday with special intentions for Respect Life, followed by 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration in the Chapel, concluding with Benediction Saturday morning followed immediately by an 8:30 Mass.

NEW BEDFORD — Eucharistic Adoration takes place 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 233 County Street, with night prayer and Benediction at 8:45 p.m., and Confessions offered during the evening.

Please use the side entrance.

NEW BEDFORD — There is a daily holy hour from 5:15-6:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue. It includes Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Liturgy of the Hours, recitation of the Rosary, and the opportunity for Confession.

NEW BEDFORD — St. Lawrence Martyr Parish, 565 County Street, holds Eucharistic Adoration in the side chapel from 7:30-11:45 a.m. ending with a simple Benediction NORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

NORTH DIGHTON — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Wednesday following 8:00 a.m. Mass and concludes with Benediction at 5 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration also takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

OSTERVILLE — Eucharistic Adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

Taunton — Eucharistic Adoration takes place every Tuesday at St. Anthony Church, 126 School Street, following the 8 a.m. Mass with prayers including the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for vocations, concluding at 6 p.m. with Chaplet of St. Anthony and Benediction. Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m.

Mass.

Taunton — Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament takes place every First Friday at Annunciation of the Lord, 31 First Street. Exposition begins following the 8 a.m. Mass. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed, and Adoration will continue throughout the day. Confessions are heard from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Rosary and Benediction begin at 6:30 p.m.

WAREHAM — Eucharistic Adoration at St. Patrick’s Church begins each Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. and ends on Friday night at midnight. Adoration is held in our Adoration Chapel in the lower Parish Hall. ~ PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION ~ East Sandwich — The Corpus Christi Parish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, East Sandwich. Use the Chapel entrance on the side of the church.

NEW BEDFORD — Our Lady’s Chapel, 600 Pleasant Street, offers Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day. For information call 508-996-8274.

SEEKONK ­— Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish has perpetual Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

WEST HARWICH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street (Rte. 28), holds perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. We are a regional chapel serving all of the surrounding parishes. All are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

Sister Antoinette Landry, SUSC (Sister Anne Pauline)

FALL RIVER — Sister Antoinette Landry (Sister Anne Pauline), SUSC, died at Catholic Memorial Home in Fall River September 13 at the age of 93.

She was born in Chelsea, on Mar. 31,1921, the daughter of the late Francois and Genevieve (Martin) Landry. In addition to her Holy Union Sisters, nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews survive her. Her sister, Leona Rowean and brothers F. Valery, Paul, J. Burton and Frank predeceased her.

Sister Antoinette graduated from St. Rose High School, Chelsea. She entered the Holy Union Sisters in Fall River on Sept. 10, 1938, and pronounced her final vows on Aug. 1, 1946. She received a B.A. in elementary education from Stonehill College.

Sister Antoinette’s ministries included teaching, administration and secretarial work. She taught in parish elementary schools in Baltimore, New York and Fall River.

She was principal at St. Francis de Sales School, Patchogue, N.Y., and Sacred Heart School, Fall River. She served as secretary to the Holy Union Sisters personnel board and taught French at the former Sacred Hearts Academy, Fall River. When she left education, she used her secretarial skills as province secretary for more

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests during the coming weeks Sept. 27 Rev. John W. Greene, S.J., Former Teacher at Bishop Connolly High School, Fall River, 1991 Sept. 29 Rev. J.A. Payan, Founder, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1899 Rev. Roman Chwaliszewski, OFM, Conv., Pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Bedford, 2012 Sept. 30 Rev. John J. Griffin, Pastor, St. Paul, Taunton, 1963 Rev. George Taraska, OFM, Conv., Parochial Vicar, Holy Rosary, Taunton, 1993 Oct. 1 Most. Rev. William O. Brady, S.T.D. Archbishop of St. Paul, 1961 Oct. 2 Rev. Joseph E. Sutula, Pastor, St. Casimir, New Bedford, 1961 Rev. Rene R. Levesque, Pastor, Blessed Sacrament, Fall River, 1999 Rev. Stanislaus T. Sypek, 2011 Oct. 3 Rev. Msgr. Arthur G. Considine, Retired Pastor, St. Mary, South Dartmouth, 1991

than 10 years. She also worked part-time at Bishop Connolly High School, Fall River.

The wake, prayer vigil and Mass of Christian Burial took place at Catholic Memorial Home on September 17. Burial was at St. Patrick Cemetery, in

Fall River. Funeral arrangements were by Waring-Sullivan Funeral Home, Fall River.

Donations in Sister Antoinette’s memory may be made to the: Holy Union Sisters Mission Advancement Office, P.O. Box 410, Milton, Mass., 02186-0006.

Around the Diocese A fund-raiser to benefit the St. Anthony of Padua Parish Food Pantry in New Bedford will be held tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. (after the 4 p.m. Mass). The food pantry, along with support from the Knights of Columbus, is hosting a clam cakes and chowder dinner. Tickets are $7 and may be purchased ahead of time or at the door. Please come join them to support this worthy cause.

Maria Rocha of the Mission From God Healing Ministry will present a teaching and conduct a healing service tomorrow from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at St. Anthony’s Parish, 126 School Street in Taunton. The Sacrament of Reconciliation will be available at 4 p.m. This event is sponsored by The Living Word Prayer Group.

For more information, call Mary Leite at 508-822-2219.

The 40th anniversary of Portuguese Pilgrimage Day will take place Sunday at La Salette Shrine, 947 Park Street in Attleboro. Bishop Edgar Moreira da Cunha, S.D.V., will celebrate Mass at 3 p.m. with music provided by the Our Lady of the Rosary Choir from Providence, R.I. Confessions will be heard from 1 to 4 p.m., with the praying of the Rosary in Portuguese at 1:30 p.m. The shrine cafeteria will be open to serve visitors.

Beginning with its October 3 meeting, the Fall River Area Men’s First Friday Club will meet at St. Joseph Church, 1335 North Main Street in Fall River. The meeting begins with a 6 p.m.

Mass, followed by a hot meal from White’s of Westport, and then a top-notch guest speaker. New members are encouraged to attend. Representing 18 different parishes, this is the longest continuous running First Friday Club in the U.S., having begun in 1947. The club is for men only, although women guests are invited on special occasions. The club meets once a month on the First Friday of the month, October through June, in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The club has no other duties other than the First Friday meetings.

On October 3 at 7 p.m. Bob Curley, whose 10-year-old son Jeffrey was murdered in Boston in 1997, will share his personal about-face journey from vengeance to forgiveness at Christ the King Parish in Mashpee. All are welcome to hear Bob discuss “Beyond an Eye for an Eye” and refreshments will be served.

Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, 2282 Route 6 in Wellfleet, will host its annual Holly Fair on October 11 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on October 12 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The fair will feature beautiful theme baskets, a quilt raffle, books, teacup raffle, homemade items, toys, ornaments, baked goods, wreaths, a silent auction, white elephant sale, jewelry, cookie table, and much more. Free photos with Santa will be taken from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on October 11. Lunch will be served as well. For more information call 508-349-1853 or 508-255-6076.

A benefit concert featuring Father André Patenaude, “Father Pat,” will be performed on October 12 at St. Anne’s Shrine, South Main and Middle streets in Fall River. All children under age 12 are admitted free, and adults are admitted for just $10 each. An international recording star with an amazing variety of inspirational music, Father Pat will perform from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. The proceeds from the concert will be used by the St. Anne Shrine Historical Restoration Committee for continuing restoration of this magnificent shrine, the biggest, best, and oldest shrine in the Fall River area. The Shrine Restoration Committee began salvaging the sacred landmark 10 years ago and has raised, and spent, more than $300,000 which includes in-kind donated labor and materials, bringing the shrine back to its former glory.

The Fall River Diocesan Council on Catholic Nurses will sponsor an educational seminar entitled “How to manage your stress” on October 18 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at White’s of Westport. The seminar will feature speakers Eva M. Conroy, MSN, PM; Susan Caron, BA, RN-BC; Karyl Benoit, BS; Father Leonard Kayondo, MA; and Sister Gloria Vugo, OP, BS. The event is open to all who are interested and five nursing contact hours will be awarded for this program. Deadline to register is October 11. For more information or to register, call 508-678-2373.

Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish will host its annual Holiday Fair on November 7 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on November 8 from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the church hall, Coyle Drive off Route 152 in Seekonk. Super raffles include an Apple iPad Air, 46-inch Samsung LED smart HDTV, scratch tickets, “Kim’s Special Raffles,” famous “Baskets Galore,” and more! There will also be jewelry, hand-knit and sewn items, Christmas items, adults and kids instant win, toys, and more for sale. Enjoy home-baked goods, fudge, candy and meat pies. “Louise’s Café” will be open both days, so plan to stop by and indulge.

St. Mary’s Parish, 106 Illinois Street in New Bedford, is hosting its annual Holiday Fair in November and is looking for crafters. The fair will be held November 8 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and November 9 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information contact Linda at 508-995-4166.

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September 26, 2014

Retreat center marks half century as Spiritual haven continued from page one

(assistant director) played roles of Retreat Master and rocking babies to sleep.”

Since that wonderful weekend, the retreat house has seen thousands of people pass through its doors following a day, a weekend, or a week of prayer, tears, Spiritual relief and healing, laughter, and an experience of the presence of Christ in their lives.

Over the last five decades the center has been home to family retreat weekends; Cursillo weekends; Teach the Children Well programs; Marriage Encounters; high school retreats, Emmaus retreats; retreats that were directed, guided, seasonal, and specialized for mother-daughters, father-son, women only, men only, married couples, single people, divorced/ widowed/separated, religious, A.A., and Charismatic renewals.

Add to that the countless workshops; renown speakers, catechists and religious; and special private retreats by persons or groups who rented the house, the center can be regarded as nothing but holy ground.

Last September, retreat house director La Salette Father Cyriac C. Mattathilanickal said, “The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai: ‘You shall treat this 50th year as Sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to your own property, each of you to your own family. This 50th year is your year of jubilee.’ (Lev 25:10).

“I like to declare, as Moses did, a jubilee year. It is a time to rejoice. It is a time to celebrate. It is a time to count one’s blessings.

It is a time to be grateful. It is a time to return to the family. It is a time to return to the basics, the origins of our home away from home. Mary, at La Salette, called us to return to her Son Jesus through prayer, Penance and zeal.

“Please do come home to La Salette, visit with us, stay for a while, discover your true self in God, rejoice with God and with us.”

Father Mattathilanickal told The Anchor that “more than 100,000 people have benefited from the programs at the retreat house over the last 50 years.”

He said that in the early days, the Cursillo movement was very active at the center. “Now the demographics are changing and there are more ethnic groups that want and need Spiritual retreats and programs here,” he added.

“While the Cursillo program has moved from La Salette, it’s still very active here in the Spanish and Vietnamese communities.

These communities also utilize the center for family retreats now.”

Father Mattathilanickal said that the center serves Haitians, Portuguese, Brazilians, Filipinos, Indians, and Spanish faithful.

He also told The Anchor that the Retreat Center hopes to promote a greater awareness of the Spiritual direction and pastoral counseling available there.

“We have some very capable and well-trained people who minister in Spiritual direction and pastoral counseling,” he said.

Dorothy Levesque, one of those experienced counselors and retreat masters, told The Anchor, “The first word I thought of when I started working here after 25 years in the Providence Diocese was ‘peace.’ And I see the peace I feel coming into the people as they first walk in the doors at the retreat center for a retreat or program.”

Levesque has run retreats for divorced and separated individuals, youth, weekend and day retreats, and ministers with Spiritual direction and pastoral

counseling. “To me, this is like a safe place. Often people come here hurting and angry and with the insecurities that life can deal out. For a weekend or a day, there is a release of those hurts.

They are able to let go and receive the peace that Jesus wants to give them.

“As long as I have been ministering like this, that still feeds me. More than I can feed them.”

Currently, the 50-year-old building is receiving a makeover with a renovation project for all the boarding rooms — new carpets, beds and curtains.

Next year the private bathrooms will receive an overhaul.

A special Mass, open to the public, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Retreat Center will take place on October 12 at 10 a.m. at the Shrine church.

That will be followed by a social and dinner for invitees who have been instrumental in financially supporting the Retreat House.

“This Retreat House is part of our ministry as La Salette Fathers and Brothers,” Father Mattathilanickal said. “We try to keep all retreats, public or private, affordable. We are not here to make money, just to keep the house maintained and functioning.”

Above is a small cozy meeting area for retreatants and below is where faithful at the La Salette Retreat Center break bread and share meals and fellowship. (Photos by Dave Jolivet)