04.15.22

Bishop da Cunha’s 2022 Easter Message Diocese of Fall River, Mass. † Friday, April 15, 2022

Area priests renew vows, bishop celebrates jubilarians, at Holy Week Chrism Mass

By Dave Jolivet Editor

davejolivet@anchornews.org

FALL RIVER ­— On April 12 at the annual Chrism Mass held each Holy Week, Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. acknowledged 11 priests of the diocese celebrating significant anniversaries in their ministries.

He included himself among the 11, since he was ordained to the priesthood 40 years ago on March 27.

Dozens of priests and hundreds of area faithful attended the service at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River. During the Mass, priests in attendance renewed their commitment to priestly service.

In his homily, directed to his brother priests, Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., referenced the book by Sister Helen Prejean, “Dead Man Walking,” about the nun’s relationship with a death row prisoner, Patrick Sonnier, about to die. The bishop mentioned how Sister Prejean told the inmate

after he was lethally injected and waiting to die, to watch her face. That way the last thing he would see would be the face of someone who loves him. “‘I’ll be the face of love for you,’ she told him.

He does this and dies in love rather than in bitterness,” the bishop relayed.

“In a world filled with so much pain and sorrow, can people who are suffering look to us and see the face of someone who loves them?,” the bishop asked the priests. “Do our people, our parishioners see in us, their priest and their pastor, someone who is there for them, to pray with them and for them, to hold their hand, to console them in their difficult times? That is our mission, my brothers. Like Sister Helen, we need to be able to say, ‘In your sickness, in your sadness, in your loneliness, in your suffering, or even if you are facing bitterness and anger, watch my face and there you will see the face of someone who loves you.’

Dear Friends in Christ, “Yes, Christ my hope is arisen.” With these powerful words sung in the Easter Sequence at Mass, we proclaim the Good News of Easter: that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who took up His cross and died for our salvation, has been raised from the dead.

This is, indeed, the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad (Psalm 118).

We have reached this most joyful celebration after the hardship of Lent and in the midst of a waning — we pray — two-year-long pandemic that has impacted all our lives. We have made the sacrifices; we have endured the losses; we have lived the sorrow. And now, with the Risen Jesus, let us put aside our worries and fears, living as St. Paul reminds us, with “no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God” (Phil: 4:4-6).

Now at Easter, in the Resurrection of Jesus, we find our true hope and joy. In His suffering, Jesus was not defeated but proved victorious. God raised Him to new life, turning darkness to light, despair to hope, and suffering to glory.

This verse sung in the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil reminds us that we all share in the joy of the Resurrection: “Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her, ablaze with light from her eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad, knowing an end to gloom and darkness.”

Jesus, raised from the dead just as He promised, offers salvation to all who follow Him. This victory is our hope and joy at Easter. We are called to embrace and live in this joy. Spring forth in this hope, and as Pope Francis encourages, “The Lord asks us from His cross to rediscover the life that awaits us, to look towards those who look to us, to strengthen, recognize and foster the grace that lives within us. Let us not quench the wavering flame (cf. Is 42:3) that never falters, and let us allow hope to be rekindled” (Pope Francis – Prayer Service, March 27, 2020).

Budding trees, emerging perennials, and greening lawns are sure signs of spring.

And just as nature is renewed each spring, so too should we renew our lives at Easter.

Let us work to let go of any sinful ways, of old grudges that separate us from loved ones, of an apathetic faith.

Let us make Jesus the center of our lives and reflect that in our interactions with all whom we encounter.

Please be assured of my blessings for you and your family, and may we experience the peace of the risen Christ in our hearts.

My prayers and best wishes for a blessed Easter to all of you.

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Gathering planned to close diocesan phase of Synod Page two

dj

”The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17).

Sincerely yours in Christ, Most Rev. Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. April 15, 2022 †Bishop of Fall River 1

Gathering planned to close diocesan phase of the Synod FALL RIVER — The Diocese of Fall River will host a special morning of prayer, reflection, and discussion to conclude the Diocesan Phase of the 2021-2023 Synod.

Parish Synod Ambassadors and any participants in Synod consultations are invited to join Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. for the event on Saturday, April 23, from 9 a.m. to noon, at Bishop Stang High School in Dartmouth.

The morning will begin

with Mass and continue with an opportunity to share, listen, and discuss the Synodal journey experience in the Diocese of Fall River.

Father Riley J. Williams, who is part of the team coordinating the event, explained that in recent months “parishes around our diocese have experienced the kinds of encounters desired for the synod process, in which the current life of our churches is discussed and future growth envisioned.

On April 23 we will have a chance to share these experiences with one another as a way to better understand how our ‘journeying together’ is taking place across our diocese.

“A constant theme of this process is that these conversations relating to the synod — both on the level of the parish and the diocese — are a beginning, and that our common sharing in the mission of the Church will benefit from continued conversations on

how each member of the Church can be listened to and share in that work.”

Persons interested in attending are asked to RSVP through this link: http://bit.ly/Synod23.

Please visit the Synod 2021-2023 webpage (http:// bit.ly/Synod23 ) to learn more about this worldwide process of consultation in which the entire Catholic Church has been called to participate by Pope Francis.

Parish Synod News The opening of the

current Synod of Bishops coincided with Bishop da Cunha’s Pastoral Letter — “Journeying Together.” In the letter, the bishop expressed the hope that the synodal process would be incorporated as an important tool in the post-pandemic revitalization of parishes. Following two successful synodal events attended by 76 people, St. Ann’s parish in Raynham is already preparing to launch “The Journey Together,” gatherings this fall.

Become involved Let us Hear From You! — What do you want to know about the Synod?

— What is your parish doing?

We’re listening: synodinput@anchornews.org Please note, the previous email address shown here was incorrect. If you sent an email and it was returned, please use this email address. Thank you.

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Diocese announces name of new Catholic school in New Bedford NEW BEDFORD — Early in the evening of March 31, families flocked to the current CYO building in New Bedford eager to learn the long awaited name of their new Catholic school. Father Mike Racine, pastor of St. Lawrence Martyr Church, led with a prayer and a blessing for the families, students and faculty of the new school.

Diocesan School Superintendent Daniel S. Roy detailed how the process of merging two New Bedford Catholic schools together began in November 2021 with the creation of a merger team comprised of school leaders, pastors, the Catholic Schools Office, and the Chancery. Subsequently, he requested the school leaders from the two cur-

the faculties from both just been ordained four rent Catholic schools to schools, attendees were days prior on June 10 and assist in the name reveal. invited to look around was in charge of hosting The crowd proceeded to both buildings, speak with countdown, and at the long an international spiritual leader’s visit to the city. The teachers, and become awaited moment, Cristina memory of Mother Teresa’s acquainted with the layout Viveiros-Serra, princiof the new middle school visit has forever touched pal of St. James St. John to be housed School, and “Naming our school the Saint Teresa of in the current Deacon Peter Calcutta School has captivated the entire city CYO buildSchutzler, principal of of New Bedford and beyond. While many other ing. Floor Holy Family beautiful names were suggested, no other name plans were placed at Holy Name represents the city of New Bedford like Saint School, Teresa of Calcutta.” — Diocesan Superintendent each location of a proposed revealed the of Schools, Daniel S. Roy classroom, new school’s office, cafetename as Saint ria, or STEM lab to help vihis heart and soul; thus, Teresa of Calcutta School the name of the new school sualize the transformation to a thunderous applause. of the familiar building.

Father Mike Racine is personal for him as A representative from the well as for the city of New recalled that the day the architectural firm as well most important visitor Bedford. Two members of the Missionaries of Charity as the construction compathe City of New Bedford ny were also available for probably ever experienced, were in attendance at the Mother Teresa of Calcutta, open house and introduced questions.

Feedback from parents

by Father Racine. was a very hot and humid and families was overAfter recognizing June day in 1995. He had

whelmingly positive and the excitement for the new school continues. The goal for enrollment is 325 students and it is likely that this goal will be met and probably exceeded as three classrooms are already filled.

“We could not be happier with the name of the school as it embodies the impact that Saint (Mother) Teresa has had on the city of New Bedford,” commented Father Mike Racine. “She was such an amazing woman who has left such an indelible mark on this city. June 14, 1995 will forever be one of my favorite days as I had the pleasure of celebrating the Mass that Mother Teresa attended and delivered such an inspiring message.”

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St. Vincent’s Services announces new CEO, Kristen Dutra

FALL RIVER — Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha S.D.V., of the Diocese of Fall River, recently announced the appointment of Kristen Dutra, MA, LMHC to the position of Chief Executive Officer for Saint Vincent’s Services, Inc. Dutra has been an employee of Saint Vincent’s since February 2000 (22 years) and has held several senior management positions during her tenure, including Clinical Coordinator and Clinical Program Director for the Community-Based Group Home Program and, since 2017, Chief Operating Officer (COO).

In her role as COO, Dutra maintained responsibility for overall clinical and administrative management of agency programs and services and has provided supervision for the members of the Program

and Services Leadership Team. She assumed primary responsibility as Saint Vincent’s liaison with state agencies and has overseen

to include in-home, community-based, and schoolbased services. Dutra has also overseen Saint Vincent’s Quality Management program and functions and has led the agency’s re-accreditation process to ensure that SVS maintains accreditation status with the Council on Accreditation (COA).

Bishop da Cunha appointed a Search Committee consisting of Saint

Vincent’s Board Members and Leadership Staff to recruit and identify Saint Vincent’s next Chief Executive Officer. More than 60 resumes were submitted and, after careful review, Dutra’s application was presented to the Search Committee for consideration as the lead candidate.

The Search Committee interviewed Dutra and recommended her to Bishop da Cunha for the position.

“I was pleased to accept the Search Committee’s recommendation of Kristen Dutra to succeed Jack Weldon as the Chief Executive Officer 8 Turn to page nine

Kristen Dutra, MA, LMHC contract implementation and management functions.

Dutra developed the outpatient behavioral health clinic and has worked with community partners to expand clinic service delivery April 15, 2022 †

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Catholics and the Supreme Court

ver since the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Court in 2020, there has been a bare majority (5-4) of practicing Catholics on the Court, which is unusual given that for most of our history there was a solitary Catholic seat on the Supreme Court.

At one level, of course, a judge’s religion shouldn’t matter. Under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office of public Trust under the United States,” and that includes all federal judges. A judge is supposed to decide cases according to the Constitution and laws of the United States, impartially and without fear or favor. In that sense, justice is rightly portrayed as blind, meaning that the law should be applied irrespective of who someone is, and that everyone is equally bound by the law, Catholics and Protestants, Jews and atheists.

The law is supposed to be applied evenhandedly, so that our government will be one of laws rather than of men and women, all of whom are subject to the law. A Catholic judge has to be a good judge in a way that can be appreciated by people of any faith or of no faith. Given our

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constitutional commitment to freedom of religion and a certain separation of Church and state entailed by the establishment clause of the First Amendment, a Catholic judge cannot simply decide cases according to Catholic moral principles and social teaching. That would be a kind of Catholic sharia, which Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom ruled out of bounds.

But, of course, a judge should be true to his or her conscience, and in the case of a Catholic that should be a religiously informed conscience. If ever the Constitution or laws required something that the judge could not conscientiously follow, then he or she would have to recuse themselves from the case and even resign from office, as the heroic example of St. Thomas More teaches us.

Justice Antonin Scalia was a devout Catholic who is also the Court’s best writer ever. “I’ve been praying the Rosary every morning on my way into the office,” he told his son, Father Paul Scalia. He criticized the Court’s invention of a right to abortion, saying that the Constitution said nothing on the subject. He generally favored expressions

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of religion in the public square, though he also authored the 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith which essentially invalidated constitutional exemptions for religious exercise from generally applicable laws. His jurisprudence was in favor of the death penalty, sidelining recent Catholic teaching on the subject. His originalist

views on constitutional interpretation, together with his focus on the actual text of laws, as opposed to legislative history, have been quite influential. But it also must be admitted that his jurisprudence tended to sideline natural law thinking in order to emphasize written texts at their most specific level.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired from the Court to be replaced

by Brett Kavanagh, was a California Catholic appointed by Ronald Reagan.

He would become a terminally swing vote on the Court, most influential in reaffirming Roe v. Wade in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, and in expanding gay rights and creating a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest serving current member of the Supreme Court, is also a

committed Catholic. He attended Catholic seminary for a while, but fell away from the Church only to come back with a passion: “I am decidedly and unapologetically Catholic. It is this faith that has been the guiding beacon during some difficult and seemingly hopeless times, even when I had turned my heart against Him and turned my back. I have no doubt that this faith will do the same for each one of you,” he told graduates of Christendom College in 2018, “if you let it, and perhaps even if you don’t. It is not a tether. Rather, it is a guide — the way, the truth and the life.” He has argued for the overturning of Roe, and was in dissent in the samesex marriage decision. He wrote the majority opinion in the recent decision vindicating the Little Sisters of the Poor against the contraceptive mandate, though that litigation continues under the Biden Administration.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a Catholic from the Midwest, is generally conservative in his judicial philosophy, and he was one of the four dissenters from the same-sex marriage case of 2015. To me, he seems over-concerned about the short-term prestige of the Court, and so he has striven to overrule as few cases as possible and distinguish precedents, often in trivial and non-consequential ways.

Justice Samuel Alito, a New Jersey Catholic, has been a reliable friend of

religious freedom at the Supreme Court. That is important, for it is the First Amendment that Catholics and other people of faith must rely on in defense of their religion in the face of an increasingly hostile society in the West.

Justice Brett Kavanagh is another Maryland Catholic (as am I), and he was confirmed after the most scorched-earth confirmation process in history. It is too early to tell what kind of Justice he will be, though he, too, is a practicing Catholic.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the most recent member of the Court, was a professor at Notre Dame Law School, went there for law school herself, and has been involved in a Catholic charismatic community.

Again, it seems too early to say what kind of a justice she will turn out to be from a Catholic perspective, though one can certainly hope for the best.

In conclusion, we end with a mixed picture of Catholics on the Supreme Court, which is somehow related to the parable of the wheat and the weeds that Jesus gave for the Church itself, at any one time composed of sinners as well as saints. Hopefully, in this season of Lent we can pray that all the justices do justice on the Supreme Court, Catholics and otherwise, and that we all might one day be in that number, when the saints go marching in.

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

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The night that sets Christian believers apart

he Easter Vigil is by far the most important and beautiful Mass of the entire year. It’s the Mass that contains the Church’s greatest promises. It’s the Mass that impels us to maximize our liturgical love and gratitude to God in celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection and what it means.

Yet it’s also a Mass that many Catholics, including those who otherwise take the faith very seriously, rarely attend. It’s much longer than other Masses and therefore demands greater spiritual stamina and attention. It can also require greater faith and love, since it’s the antithesis of, and antidote for, the religious minimalism that looks, even on Easter, for the fastest way to fulfill one’s Sunday Mass “obligation.”

The bold promise of the Easter Vigil is made at the very beginning of the ceremony, when the priest, after the sign of the Cross, says, “Dear Brothers and Sisters, on this most sacred night in which our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life, the Church calls upon her sons and daughters, scattered throughout the world, to come together to watch and pray.” Those words, “watch and pray,” are exactly what Jesus told Peter in the Garden would help to strengthen His frail flesh to align with His willing spirit.

As we gather to keep that contemplative vigil, the priest for the Church makes an astounding guarantee: “If we keep the memorial of the Lord’s paschal solemnity in this way, listening to His word and celebrating His mysteries, then we shall have the sure hope of sharing His triumph over death and living with Him in God.” The Church gives us an assurance that she makes in no other liturgy throughout the year, promising that if

we learn how to celebrate and live the Easter Vigil, then we will share, in this life and forever, Jesus’ victory over sin and death and abide in communion with Him in the heart of the Trinity.

Because the Easter Vigil synthesizes the entire Christian faith, if we develop the spirituality of the Easter Vigil and make our life a living celebration of its mysteries, we’re promised the most important gifts of all in this world and forever.

If this is what the Easter Vigil promises, how could we not attend with eagerness?

The Easter Vigil is broken down into four parts and each has great lessons for us of the mysteries we’re called to celebrate.

The first part is the Lucernarium, the Liturgy of Light, in which we bless the Easter fire, prepare the Paschal Candle and with it chant the Easter Proclamation. The fire is a reminder for us of how the celebration of Easter is to help us “be so inflamed with heavenly desires that with minds made pure we may attain festivities of unending splendor.”

Lighting the candle from it, we beg that “the light of Christ rising in glory [will] dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.” As we enter the Church, we proclaim that Christ is the light, have our candles lit from the Easter candle (symbolizing being illuminated by Christ) and then light the candles of those around us, an image of the transmission of the faith.

Then the deacon, or a priest, chants the “Exsultet,” the exultation of the Church for the light of Christ’s Resurrection. We beg for the grace to have the Church building “shake with joy, filled with the mighty voices of the

people.”

And then we describe what makes the Easter Vigil different from every other.

“This is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart.” The Easter Vigil, in other words, is what makes Christians Christian.

If we live the spirituality of the Easter Vigil, it proclaims, it separates us “from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading [us] to grace and

joining [us] to [God’s] holy ones.” It has a “sanctifying power” that makes us holy by dispelling wickedness, washing faults away, restoring innocence to the fallen, giving joy and the hope of resurrection to those mourning the loss of loved ones, driving out hatred, fostering peace, humbling the mighty and wedding heaven to earth and the divine to the human. We pray that the light of the Easter Candle, the light of Jesus risen from the dead that illumines us like the candles in our hands symbolic of our vigilant faith, “may persevere undimmed,” and be found by Christ still burning brightly when He returns as Bridegroom. It’s the spirituality of the wise bridesmaids that Jesus describes in Matthew 25.

The second part of the Easter Vigil is Liturgy of the Word, which is the most striking thing that distinguishes the Easter Vigil from every other Mass. Instead of one Old Testament reading and one Psalm, there are seven and seven respectively, each followed

by a special prayer. There is a New Testament Reading, another Psalm and the Proclamation of the Gospel. If we are called to live by every word that comes from God’s mouth, and if the Liturgy of the Word on normal Sundays is considered a feast, then the Easter Vigil is a 17-course banquet of the most important lessons God has taught in the history of salvation.

The priest introduces it by praying that we will listen with “quiet hearts” to God’s word, so that, meditating on how “God in times past saved His people and in these, the last days, has sent us His Son as our Redeemer,” He may complete in us “this paschal work of salvation.”

The third part of the Easter Vigil is the Baptismal Liturgy in which new Christians enter into this history of salvation, previously baptized Christians are received into full communion with the Catholic Church and all of those who have already been baptized renew the graces, commitment and gratitude for their own Baptism. Most of us consider it an honor and a joy to be present at the birth of new family members. How much greater should be our joy at the sacred rebirth of our spiritual brothers and sisters, who are more related to us by Christ’s blood than I am to my identical twin by genes? How impressive it is for new Catholics to experience the joyful welcome of the Church in the presence of their new fellow parishioners!

As the priest blesses the baptismal water, calling to mind how the waters of creation, the flood, the Red Sea, the Jordan, and from Christ’s pierced side were all prophecies of the healing, saving waters of Baptism,

he asks God the Father to send the Holy Spirit into the water to wash us clean from our old life “so that we may be found worthy to rise to the life of newborn children through water and the Holy Spirit.” We light our candles anew, just like our baptismal candles were lit at our Baptism, and renew our baptismal vows, rejecting the devil, his evil works and empty promises and professing once more our total trust in God, in the Church He founded to continue His saving work, the communion of saints interceding for us, the forgiveness of sins that He beckons us to receive and share, and the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting that we’re guaranteed to receive if we “keep the memorial of the Lord’s paschal mystery in this way.”

The fourth and last part of the Easter Vigil is the Liturgy of the Eucharist, similar to other Masses but enhanced, because it’s “on this night above all [we] laud [God] yet more gloriously,” pulling out all the stops, “overcome with paschal joy” at “celebrating the most sacred night of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh.” The Church prepares us, together with our new spiritual siblings across the globe to whom God was “pleased to give the new birth of water and the Holy Spirit granting them forgiveness of all their sins,” for the most incredible reality in human life, when the Risen Lord Jesus who left the tomb on Easter morning enters sacramentally into each of us.

The Easter Vigil is the “most sacred night” in which all of this occurs.

Mother Church hopes to see you there.

Anchor columnist Father Roger Landry can be contacted at fatherlandry@ catholicpreaching.com.

April 15, 2022 †

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Editorial Sharing the triumph of the Victor-Victim

On some Good Fridays, especially those that occur on sunny spring days, it can be spiritual challenging to enter interiorly into darkness that descended upon ancient Jerusalem at the place called the Skull, to meditate vividly on the gruesome details of Jesus’ crucifixion and death, and to consider the reality of evil and the evil one who with earthly co-conspirators sought to put to death the Way, the Truth and the Life.

This Good Friday, after seven weeks of witnessing the passion of the people of Ukraine, scrutinizing the atrocities in Bucha and Mariupol, beholding the bloody images of bombed schools, shelters, train stations, and apartment complexes, and listening to the traumatic horror stories of those who have suffered the massacre of family members and friends, the destruction of homes, neighborhoods and livelihoods, it is far easier to visualize the maleficence of what happened on Calvary.

It is also easier to recognize Golgotha’s saving relevance.

At 3 p.m. on Good Friday, it appeared as if evil had won. Jesus was not just dead, but had been publicly and ignominiously executed, after having been brutally scourged, beaten, spat upon, mocked, and crucified. As if that weren’t enough, there was also an earthquake, an eclipse of the sun, and the shocking event of the veil of the temple — God’s sanctuary — being torn from top to bottom. Everything was convulsing. The real world, it was facile to conclude, shows that might crushes right, death defeats life, and darkness extinguishes light.

But … when we jarringly behold the Pierced One on the cross, bathed in coagulated blood, crowned with thorns, lacerated to the bone with scourge marks, pinned through thick wood, we ultimately don’t see a humiliated casualty. We see the happiest person who ever lived — Who came into the world so that His joy may be in us and our joy be made complete — at the supreme moment of His triumph.

We hear Him proclaim, not in defeat but in jubilation, “It is finished!,” meaning “Mission accomplished!”

He Who had said that to bear fruit, the grain of wheat needed to fall to the ground and die, Who had declared that to save our life, we must lose it, was paradoxically conquering while being conquered. The Cross is His great sign of victory, not failure.

St. Augustine pointed to this paradoxical reality when he wrote in his Confessions that Jesus on the Cross was simultaneously “both victor and victim” and “victor precisely because he was a victim” (Victor quia victima); He was “both priest and sacrifice” and “priest precisely because He was a sacrifice” (Sacerdos quia sacrificium).

Basing himself on Sacred Scripture, Augustine argued that on Calvary, Jesus robbed death of its venomous sting and victory (1 Cor 15:54-55). By His death broke the power of the devil who holds the power of death (Heb 2:14). There Jesus fulfilled what He had announced on Holy Thursday, “Take courage: I have conquered the world!” (Jn 16:33).

On the Cross, therefore, Jesus turns the law of force right-side-up. Whereas in the world the vanquisher is victor and the vanquished is victim, Augustine teaches that Jesus, through becoming victim, in fact becomes victor. By dying He destroyed OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER Vol. 66, No. 8

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our death. Through suffering the worst sin in human history, He exposed injustice in its most pristine form and expiated the sins of the whole world.

But He did more than that: He changed the ultimate meaning of suffering and death, including atrocity crimes, by allowing us to unite our sufferings to His. The Church, as His Body and Bride, is united to Him on Calvary and through, with and in Him, can become victors through being made victims united to Him, a lesson illustrated routinely in the lives of martyrs.

Jesus’ transforming death into life, defeat into triumph, is what allows us to have confidence to live His words and example about how to conquer evil with good.

He calls us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to offer no resistance to those who are evil, to turn the other cheek, to give our cloak to those who ask for our tunic, to walk two miles for those who compel one.

In response to a technologically-advanced but ethically-primitive culture that retaliates with an eye for an eye and even tries to take out both eyes from others before losing one, Jesus proposes a different type of violence: a violence against one’s sinful capacity to treat others as inveterate enemies rather than potential friends, as competitors in the arena of survival of the fittest rather than as siblings and collaborators in building up the kingdom, as hard-hearted adversaries to be feared rather than those to be loved with heartfelt concern.

Prior to the crucifixion, Jesus’ words on peacemaking may have seemed Utopian. With the crucifixion and all of Jesus’ actions leading up to it, they are the prescription for the medicine our sick world needs.

This truth does not mean that those with tanks and bombs intent on evil should be allowed to pummel the innocent. Good shepherds must always protect the sheep and lambs from the wolves — and be willing to lay down their lives to do so.

But the motivation and spirit of the defense is different. It’s to stop evil rather than commit it. To recognize that we are not battling dehumanized enemies but fellow human beings with mothers and fathers, sometimes sons and daughters. To remember that there’s a far bigger, and eternal, context to our actions, and that winners and losers are not ultimately determined by demagogical declarations, diplomatic accords or history books, but by God. As we look at the Victor-Victim on Calvary, the Priest-Sacrifice wants that glance to transform our heart. Jesus on the Cross demonstrates for us — as Pope Francis mentioned during his Palm Sunday homily — how to love our enemies to the extreme. He shows us how to “break the vicious circle of evil and sorrow, to react to the nails in our lives with love, to the buffets of hatred with the embrace of forgiveness.”

But the Holy Father poignantly asked, “As disciples of Jesus, do we follow the Master or do we follow our own desire to strike back? … Do we follow the Master or not?”

Risen from the dead, that triumphant Master waves to us with gloriously scarred hands beckoning us to pick up our Cross and follow Him along the path of cruciform love, so that we may experience the full fruits of His victory and help Him overcome monstrous present evils with far greater and lasting good.

Daily Readings † April 23 - May 6

Sat. April 23, Acts 4:13-21; Ps 118:1,14-15ab,16-21; Mk 16:9-15. Sun. April 24, Divine Mercy Sunday, Acts 5:12-16; Ps 118:2-4,13-15,22-24; Rv 1:911a,12-13, 17-19; Jn 20:19-31. Mon. April 25, 1 Pt 5:5b-14; Ps 89:2-3,6-7,1617; Mk 16:15-20. Tue. April 26, Acts 4:32-37; Ps 93:1-2,5; Jn 3:7b-15. Wed. April 27, Acts 5:17-26; Ps 34:2-9; Jn 3:16-21. Thu. April 28, Acts 5:27-33; Ps 34:2,9,17-20; Jn 3:31-36. Fri. April 29, Acts 5:34-42; Ps 27:1,4,13-14; Jn 6:1-15.

Sat. April 30, Acts 6:1-7; Ps 33:1-2,4-5,18-19; Jn 6:16-21. Sun. May 1, Third Sunday of Easter, Acts 5:27-32,40b-41; Ps 30:2,4-6,11-13; Rv 5:11-14; Jn 21:1-19 or Jn 21:1-14. Mon. May 2, Acts 6:8-15; Ps 119:23-24,26-27,29-30; Jn 6:22-29. Tue. May 3, 1 Cor 15:1-8; Ps 19:2-5; Jn 14:6-14. Wed. May 4, Acts 8:1b-8; Ps 66:1-3a, 4-7a; Jn 6:35-40. Thu. May 5, Acts 8:26-40; Ps 66:8-9,1617,20; Jn 6:44-51. Fri. May 6, Acts 9:1-20; Ps 117:1bc,2; Jn 6:52-59.

T

he Way of the Cross is a popular devotion during Lent, allowing us to plumb the depths of the Paschal Mystery.

It is a challenging discipline that reminds us of the details of Christ’s suffering, for while most of His disciples had scattered, there were many who did gather to be near Him along the difficult journey of His Passion.

Most of the Stations of the Cross reveal some dimension of the joy to follow: for example, Simon’s assistance would prove the source of tremendous grace for him and his family, Jesus’ determination to continue his salvific work despite three horrific falls provides a lesson in perseverance (as well as revealing the depth of His love for us), and Veronica’s gesture of consolation reminds us that compassion for those who suffer leaves a divine imprint on our lives.

But the Eighth Station isn’t ordered towards renewal and reward; rather, it carries a pall of apprehension and foreboding.

Christ’s assurance to the good thief of impending bliss stands in stark contrast to the message he left to the weeping women along the Via Dolorosa, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children. For indeed the days are coming when people will say: ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ At that time, people will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?” (Lk 23: 27-31).

Far from being words of comfort, anyone hearing them should be aghast, pondering what might be worse than the event those women were wit-

A time for tears nessing.

It is natural to simply bask in the joy of the Resurrection, being relieved that the season of revisiting Jesus’ suffering has come to such a fruitful end. But now is an essential time to stop and reassess that encounter.

Our Lord spoke about children on various occasions, two of which are clearly related to the concern at hand. Once, despite the disciples’ scolding, Jesus encouraged parents to bring their little ones to Him for His blessing (cf. Mt 19:13-15). On another occasion, we hear a warning, one of the harshest admonitions in the entire New Testament:, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come!” (Mt 18:6-7) — one of the harshest admonitions in the entire New Testament.

Both the invitation and the warning should give us pause, for they appear to illuminate His comment to the women on His path. The life-giving promises on offer will prove beyond the grasp of those who harm impressionable children. Moreover, it is not beyond reason to assume that the harsh punishment for such abusers is because the scandal they cause can create such a destructive trajectory for their victims that salvation may

elude their grasp as well. Why else would Christ express such ire?

We have to take this seriously, and reassess those things that we allow to influence our children. The corrosiveness in our culture has reached explosive levels — in the schools, in media outlets, and in the pernicious social constructs that are destabilizing developing minds. No family is safe at the present time from the hideous perversions sweeping our society, and no adult encountering them can fathom the shattering effects they have on children,

who thrive best on stable relationships and bedrock truths.

We cannot shrug this away or merely hope for the best.

Whatever safeguards we count on for our own children are upended by “a landscape with dragons” seeking to devour them and their peers at every turn. The psychological, academic, and physical harms are certainly toxic, but the spiritual harm was frightful enough for Our Lord to prescribe a time of weeping — even as He conquered death. If we want our children and grandchildren to share in that victory, then those dragons must be chained through every means possible.

Anchor columnist Genevieve Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman.” She blogs at feminine-genius. typepad.com.

The men of the Knights of Columbus Council 82 from Annunciation of the Lord Parish in Taunton, and Council 14947 from St. Nicholas of Myra in North Dighton, conducted a good will donation at each of the parishes on March 25, the Day of Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and at weekend Masses in both parishes. ”We Stand with Ukraine” stickers, and Our Lady of Ukraine prayer cards with Pope Francis’ Consecration prayer, were distributed. As a generous expression of solidarity with brothers and sisters in Ukraine $1,100 was collected and will be sent through the Knights. From left: past Grand Knight, Dave Lima; Deputy Grand Knight, Brian Brown; and Past Grand Knight Bruce Blunt.

April 15, 2022 †

7

Parishioners from St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North Dighton gathered to pray the Rosary, on the Feast of St. Joseph, for the sanctity of Marriage. It was a drizzly day, yet the rain held off through the entire Rosary and litany prayers. They also prayed for an end to war in Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of Nancy Brown)

8

† April 15, 2022

On April 3, at Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange, NJ, the four Fall River seminarians preparing for Ordination as Transitional Deacons on May 21 — Brian Connors, John Garabedian, Christopher Hughes, and Thiago Menezes Santos — made their Profession of Faith and took the Oath of Fidelity with their classmates.

St. Vincent’s appoints new CEO continued from page three

of Saint Vincent’s Services.

She brings to the position extensive knowledge of the varied programs and services provided by Saint Vincent’s from her over 20 years of employment there across clinical and administrative management areas.

She is ready to lead Saint Vincent’s forward to continue the agency’s long-time commitment to serving young people and families in this region. I offer Kristen my prayers and best wishes as she begins her new responsibilities” said Bishop da Cunha.

Upon learning of Dutra’s appointment, outgoing CEO, Jack Weldon, said: “As I wind down my 50-year career and prepare to leave Saint Vincent’s after 25 years as Chief Executive Officer, I am confident that Saint Vincent’s will be in capable hands with Kristen in the CEO position.

She has prepared well for this position, brings solid leadership experience, and enjoys the respect of our community partners, contracting agencies, insurers and managed care entities, licensing and credentialing bodies.” Weldon added, “I wish Kristen well in her new position of leadership and know that she will continue to achieve the Mission of Saint Vincent’s, going forward.”

Dutra received her undergraduate degree from Stonehill College, her Master’s Degree in 1997 from Lesley University, and is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. Dutra assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer on April 1.

Established in 1885 as an orphanage, Saint Vincent’s is now a multi-service, behavioral health,

child- and family-serving organization with offices in Fall River. Staff provides

direct care, in-home, and community-based services, outpatient behavioral health, school-based services, residential and group living support, many forms

of support and stabilization, respite for families, and life skills training for older adolescents.

For nearly 140 years, Saint Vincent’s has been

providing Treatment, Care and Transformation.

For more information, please visit www.

SaintVincentsServices.org.

April 15, 2022 †

9

Sacrificial lambs

I

t sets back about 50 yards from the road between Newbridge Village and Ballinamore Bridge. On the other side of the road, in the midst of a rich green pasture runs the River Shiven with the old Daly’s corn mill on its banks.

Killian school, built in the late 1950s to replace the original building, had been vacant for several years because of a declining youth population in the parish. Now in a matter of 48 hours or so it had been restored to its original pristine state by the dynamic efforts of the parishioners of St. Patrick’s Church Newbridge, with the urging of

native, Father Louis Lohan, now retired from his ministry in the southern USA. My sister, Kathleen, and my brother, Johnny, had completed their primary education in its classrooms and my schoolmates and I had learned our first Gaelic football tricks on those hallowed grounds. It would now serve as a center for refugees from Ukraine and its rooms and grounds

The new and fully updated Diocesan Directory 2022 has gone to press. We are now accepting orders.

would again ring with the laughter of children. Today, the sovereign country of Ukraine is being wrecked by war and its people savaged by Vladimir Putin and his cohorts.

We in the so called free world watch this ongoing savagery from the shelter of our living rooms and ask, “Why? Why did this have to happen?”

It did not have to happen if the free world had taken preemptive action months ago, but to put it bluntly, our leaders have no blankety blank.

So our Ukrainian brothers and sisters have become sacrificial lambs for the rest of the world. It is like when Jesus Christ was condemned to death and one man declared that it is “better that one man die than the whole nation.” There has

Only $30 per copy, including shipping

Prayer Service for Healing for Child Abuse/Sexual Assault Awareness month

Please send _____ copy(ies) of Diocesan Directory 2022. I am enclosing $30 for each directory ordered.

Total amount enclosed: $__________.

Please make checks payable to “The Anchor”

Name: ________________________________________________ Address: ______________________________________________ City: ____________________________________ State: ________ Zip: _________________ Telephone: _______________________ Complete and return original form or photocopy to: The Anchor (Attention Directory) 887 Highland Avenue Fall River, Mass. 02720 10

† April 15, 2022

FALL RIVER — April is both Child Abuse Prevention Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

To honor that and continue on its path of healing and prevention as a Church, the diocesan Office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance will host a Prayer Service for Healing on April 28.

been much talk about the rules of war, what we can do and what we can’t do, and what has been done has been a little too late.

As I sit here in my living room, watching the palm trees sway in the wind and hearing the National Park carpenters put a new roof on Kalaupapa’s post office building, my mind’s eye can see those country folks of Newbridge parish where I grew up, working on Killian school, preparing it for the refugees from Ukraine. They are serenaded by the song birds in the adjacent bushes, by the lowing of cattle in the surrounding pastures and the bleating of newborn lambs in the lush green fields. They remember that their ancestors were once refugees, driven “to hell or to Connaught.”

They know what it is to be sacrificial lambs.

Aloha.

Anchor columnist Father Killilea is pastor of St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa, Hawaii.

Lead by Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., the event will take place at the Bishop Connolly High School Chapel at noon, located at 373 Elsbree Street in Fall River.

The office asks that all consider joining in-person or via livestream on Facebook: https//www. facebook.com/fallriverdiocese/

Annual DCCW meeting is May 14

TAUNTON — The Fall River Diocesan Council of Women’s annual meeting will be held at St. Anthony’s Church, 126 School Street in Taunton on May 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., beginning with a 10 a.m. Mass celebrated by Father Michael Racine, DCCW Spiritual Advisor.

The guest speaker will be David Carvalho from the diocesan

Office of Evangelization & Family Ministries, and writer for The Anchor.

This year’s theme is: Evangelization, bringing the Living Gospel, Jesus Christ, to others with Faith & Friendship.

A light lunch will be provided (good will offering). Please RSVP,

by May 7 to judithacorliss @ comcast.net.

Fall River man eclipses 200,000 mark in Rosaries made

the Baptist Parish he “I was put in touch with told The Anchor. “I was continued his tradition.

Editor Our Lady’s Rosary Maknew at it, plus I had my davejolivet@anchornews.org ers in Kentucky, and from job on the force that took And again when St. Jean’s them I learned the techFALL RIVER — It up much of my time.” But closed and he became a nique and also bought the he persisted, slowly at first parishioner of Holy Trinistarted 43 years ago as ty Parish in Fall River. supplies from them.” a personal tribute to his and then became more In 1999, O’Neil retired The Rosary makbeloved father who had adept at the task. “I mostfrom the police force, passed away a few months ing wasn’t just a whim ly made and still make “And then I kicked it up or a short-lived fad for earlier, and it has led chord Rosaries, but I did O’Neil. Just a few months learn to make chain beads a notch with regards to to thousands of people Rosary making. Others being lifted spiritually and back, he completed his as well. I like to make heard of what I was doing inspirationally around the 200,000th set of Rosathe chain beads for First and I started to teach othry beads. The total is world.

Communion children.” ers the craft.” mind-boggling. And the In 1979 William F. O’Neil would make Holy Trinity pastor, beads have been shared O’Neil, a member of the the chain beads for the Father Robert Oliveira locally, and have made Fall River Police DepartCommunion and Contold The Anchor, “Bill has their way to places all ment, lost his father. “I firmation students at his for many years generously over the world. knew my mom would parish, Saints Peter and provided Rosary beads to “When I started back have Masses offered for Paul in Fall River. Then the missions and especialmy dad’s soul, but I want- in the early 80s, it was when St. Pete’s closed ly to a number of shut-ins ed to do something more, slow going at first,” O’Neil and he attended St. Jean something special for me to do for him,” O’Neil told Holy Week, Easter come alive with praying the Rosary for O’Neil The Anchor in a recent interview. “I asked God to “At the Last Supper,

By Dave Jolivet I too, do that at times. We grace me with the disciEditor Jesus shares with His all do. When my children pline to pray the Rosary davejolivet@anchornews.org Apostles His Body and were growing up and they for him. I always had a Blood. He, sinless, shares FALL RIVER — In the angered me in some way difficult time praying it. It His very self with sinners. midst of Holy Week and and I felt they weren’t takes discipline to mediGod manifests Himself in the Easter Triduum and listening, I would withhold tate on the mysteries.” different ways.

And the season beginning, former love to my own children.

O’Neil said that in Rosary leads me to reflect Fall River policeman and a Contemplating on that June of 1980, “I received a on that, especially during parishioner of Holy Trinity in the land where it hapgift from God — the abilHoly Week and Easter. ” Parish in that city, William pened was an awakening ity and the discipline to A few years back, F. O’Neil, shared with The for me and it changed the fervently pray the Rosary. before his beloved wife way I acted, or at least I try I’ve been saying it at least Anchor what the Rosary Barbara died, they made means to him, particularto change.” once a day since.” a pilgrimage to Israel. “In ly during this holiest of O’Neil said that he O’Neil said that when the Holy Land, I found seasons. gained that gift when St. Pope John Paul II a much deeper underO’Neil, 88, recently attending a meeting of the introduced the new Lustanding of self through then-St. Anne’s Fellowpassed the 200,000 mark minous Mysteries, it was a ship in Fall River. “There in Rosaries made to share the Rosary,” said O’Neil. long time coming. “Why it was a guest speaker, Doris with thousands around the “Contemplating on the took hundreds of years for Bernier, who spoke about world. But his true passion Sorrowful Mysteries in the that to come along, I don’t Marian devotion and the is praying the Rosary he so land where it all happened know,” he said. “But it was importance and the pow- loves to share. showed me something I God’s plan, and ultimately er of the Rosary.” He said never before reflected on “Since I started prayit came to be. Those mysthat is when he became ing the Rosary [four a day, — withholding love from teries bring the Resurrecable to pray it. others. most days], it has expanded tion and what followed to But his devotion to “In the Agony in the my understanding of the life for me. praying the Rosary didn’t Gospels relating to the pas- Garden, Jesus is denied “During Holy Week stop there. “I always liked sion, death and Resurreclove from His best friends and Easter, and year round working with my hands tion of Christ,” O’Neil told who couldn’t stay awake for that matter, the Rosary and thought about makwith and for Him. I realThe Anchor. “And the most helps me understand beting sets of Rosaries for ized there in Israel, where ter the Gospels and what important understanding others to share the gift Jesus experienced that I receive is the Eucharistic God is trying to convey to that I was given,” he said. withholding of love, that person of Jesus.

His children.”

By Dave Jolivet

in the parish. For years he also shared his gifts with our young friends in the parish school community.

“Bill is a daily communicant and his presence at daily Mass is a living testimony to the mysteries he weaves on those special beads. Recently he stood as a sponsor for one of his grandchildren for Confirmation. Now retired from the Fall River Police department, he even now continues to share his guardianship of care and support in a special way by the Rosary pathway inspired by Mary’s fiat.”

O’Neil started to get requests from other parishes and individuals for the prayer beads, and when it came to that, “no” wasn’t in his vocabulary.

But God had even bigger plans for O’Neil’s talent and passion.

Father Roger J. Landry, the interim Executive Editor of The Anchor relayed a story about O’Neil’s willingness to share his talents. “In 1999, when I was a baby priest at Saints Peter and Paul Parish, we had a missionary from the Sudan present a homily one Sunday,” Father Landry told The Anchor. “At the time, the Sudan was war-torn and a very dangerous place to be, especially for Catholics trying to live their faith. He told the congregation that it was dangerous for his parishioners to go to Mass, so they would gather for Mass in the early morning hours, and it was a 20-mile journey and snipers would at times shoot at the faithful as they made their perilous journey. The mission8 Turn to page 13

April 15, 2022 †

11

M

T he C hurch and Y outh & Y oung A dults An Artist, His canvas, and our void

y family knows of my love for a specific pop culture icon from the 70s and 80s. My love for this icon is so great that on Christmas they bought gifts themed around this man. I gladly wear my “happy little tree” pair of socks with my Afro covered pajama pants with little trees also printed on them. You ask my kids today who’s daddy’s favorite artist, they won’t tell you: DaVinci, Warhol, Picasso, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, or Van Gogh (although I would be extremely impressed if they managed to pull out those legends). They would collectively scream out: Bob Ross!

Have you ever watched Bob Ross on TV or Netflix?

He is that guy with an Afro who paints “happy little trees.” Ever since I was a young kid, I had a love for this man and his craft. In fact, every time I have been sick my remedy wasn’t saltines, ginger-ale, and Vicks.

It was Bob and Bob; “The Price is Right’’ with Bob Barker and watching Bob Ross paint on TV. Bob Ross would always start with an empty canvas and within 30 minutes that emptiness would be filled with the most glorious sight, “happy little tree” included. I was always thrown back by how nothing could become something instantly. Additionally, throughout the process, I would always doubt that empty canvas could be transformed, “No way … No way” was my go-to response to his work.

How does that mess of paint on his palette become something so beautiful?

12

The man’s mixtures of paints, and joyful banter would create something mesmerizing and memorable. God similarly works with the empty and void to make a more mesmerizing and memorable work of art.

Although I am not a painter, my kids appreciate that I am fascinated by the arts. Therefore, they attempt to fascinate me as well with their creations. My 18-month toddler sees a canvas and she will make dizzying circles until her arm gets tired. I look and I get dizzy myself; but I affirm, “Good job.” My seven-year-old son doesn’t like drawing, but he occasionally will take a jab at it. One time he drew a picture of Jesus. I couldn’t tell if it was Jesus or an octopus. Yet, I looked, I gazed (as if looking at fine art) and I affirmed, “What an interesting picture of Jesus.

Good job.” My eight-yearold daughter on the other hand loves to draw. She will start a beautiful picture and then won’t stop until that canvas is full of all sorts of things. There is very little room for anything. No empty space. Yet everything she placed on there is exactly what is intended to be on there, and she will gladly tell you the story of that picture. I look, I gaze, I stare and I say, “This is very very good.” God has designed us similarly. As artist He creates, He fills His canvas, and He doesn’t leave space for void or emptiness. Yet everything on that canvas is designed

† April 15, 2022

specifically and uniquely for us.

God has always worked in the mess. In the beginning God worked with the formless and void. And He separated. And as He separated, He gave purpose.

This beautiful mess had a sense of order, and details that sometimes go unseen to the naked eye.

Our planet’s axial tilt is 23.5 degrees and because

of that detail in God’s creation, complex life can be sustained. Whereas other planets in our galaxy have an almost perfect perpendicular axis, and complex life cannot be sustained. Our placement from the sun is perfect 93 million miles away giving our earth the surface temperature of 14 degrees Celsius. Whereas Venus’ surface temperature is 462 degrees Celsius (863 F) and 46 million miles away from the Sun, and Mars right next door, has surface temp of -63 degrees Celsius (-84 degrees F). Of all the planets named, only one can sustain complex life forms. I am no scientist, but I am a man who loves great art, and that cosmic artistry is too perfect in its details to not admire. If the creator took time to place this attention to detail in the cosmos, He did so to make sure that you can live within the world He

has created. Additionally, if that much detail was put into the cosmos, then that means that you also were perfectly designed. Your perfections may be invisible to you but are still utterly important. We choose, however, sometimes to live outside of that original design and live in the void.

Sometimes we would rather live in the “formless and void” like before creation began. We think there is more real estate to insert what we want if space is left in our lives. In fact, we even justify that mindset secularly by claiming “that room for more of what we want” is called freedom. Nevertheless, the space that can be taken up

by God’s will in our life, which is true freedom, gets filled by things that truly enslave us. St. Augustine in his famous writing “Confessions of St. Augustine,” famously said that “our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.” That restlessness is the void being filled with everything but God. St. Augustine was a man who had plenty of everything. Money, intelligence, social life, etc., and still his mother, St. Monica, noticed that he was still without God. Through her prayers, he began to see that as well.

He saw that the longing of his heart was always, from the beginning of time, meant to filled by the creator of all things: God. The prophet Jeremiah also known as the “prophet of doom” (which is a great title for a rock band, or a professional wrestler) lived

during the time of immense emptiness and darkness.

Jerusalem was destroyed

by Nebuchadnezzar, and once again the people were in captivity. Nonetheless, Jeremiah was tasked with proclaiming to a broken and hopeless people to hold fast, because God was going to fill the void.

Jeremiah was reluctant but God told him, as He tells us, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jer. 1:5). Later, God would reveal to Jeremiah; “For I will satisfy the weary soul and every languishing soul I will replenish” (Jer.31:25).

God our creator knows us so intimately. He knows of our weariness, exhaustion, and hopelessness because our lives have chosen the void.

As we finish Holy Week, we ought to ask ourselves a life changing question: Do we let God paint our canvas with what He has created for our life?

Do we let him create on our canvas with strokes of His will, so much that there is no void to be filled by anything else, or do we dictate to God what we want, allowing more room for void in our lives to be filled by things not of Him? I will echo in words what the saints communicated with their lives: When we let the creator create, He will always make sure that our life gives witness of the transformation of the tree of life to the “happy little tree” of our salvation.

Anchor columnist Oscar Rivera Jr., is director of Youth Ministry in the diocesan Secretariat for the New Evangelization. orivera@dioc-fr.org

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass on WLNE Channel 6 On Easter Sunday, April 17, the TV Mass expands to one hour, with a different air time: Noon to 1 p.m.

Celebrant is Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V., Bishop of the Diocese of Fall River

Sunday, April 24 at 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Edward A. Murphy, Pastor of St. Andrew the Apostle Parish in Taunton

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass

on the Portuguese Channel Good Friday, April 15 at 9:30 p.m.

Broadcast from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in New Bedford

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass

on the Portuguese Channel Easter Sunday, April 17 at 7 p.m.

Broadcast from St. Anthony Church in Taunton

Diocese of Fall River TV Mass

on the Portuguese Channel Sunday, April 24 at 7 p.m.

Broadcast from Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church in Providence

Former FRPD officer eclipses 200,000 mark in Rosaries made continued from page 11

ary told us that his people wanted Rosary beads to carry with them because should they be wounded, they wanted the last words they spoke to be ‘And pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.’

“Right during the homily Bill stood up and told the priest, ‘I will deliver 1,000 Rosaries to you tomorrow morning.’

At 7 a.m. the following morning, Bill was there with the 1,000 Rosaries.

He is such a faithful and humble man.”

O’Neil’s handiwork also made it’s way to Kenya. “I was put into contact with Father John O’Mahoney SMA [Society of African Missions], a priest from Ireland who served God’s people in Kenya. They had a need for Rosary beads there and many of the sets I made were sent there,” said O’Neil. “And when Father O’Mahoney went back to Ireland, I sent Rosary beads there as well.”

Father O’Mahoney died in 2008, but O’Neil did get to meet his friend during a visit to Dublin with his wife Barbara.

Next on the docket for O’Neil was becoming friends with Father Leo Polselli, CSC, a chaplain at Family Rosary at the Father Peyton Center in Easton, part of Holy Cross Family Ministries.

“Now, when I amass a batch of 400-600 sets, I deliver them to Father Leo at Family Rosary,” said O’Neil.

“Bill has donated thousands of beautifully crafted Rosaries over the years, and he embodies the spirit of hundreds of

volunteers who allow us to get Rosaries to believers all over the world,” Father Leo Polselli told The Anchor. “Bill is devout, prayerful, and kind; his quiet nature speaks to his humility, and his work ethic is evident in all of his generous work for the faith.”

Family Rosary delivers more that one million Rosaries a year covering 17 countries. Just another example of O’Neil’s labor of love reaching all over the globe.

“The Rosary can do so much for people and bring great healing to families,” Father Polselli continued. “I pray the Rosary every morning on the treadmill. You can pray the Rosary while taking a walk outside, really any quiet moments you can find in your day. Even on the days when you feel unfocused, there is a sense of accomplishment after praying the Rosary; a sense that you have made an effort to find an opportunity to connect with God — and that can be more powerful and fruitful than we can even try to understand in the moment. The world could use more Rosary prayer, and Bill and people like Bill make that possible for more and more people to go to Mary through the Rosary, and to ultimately become closer to Jesus.”

O’Neil shared a story about when he was still with the FRPD. “I was recovering from a surgery so I had desk duty,” he told The Anchor. “I decided to make a set of Rosaries for all of the day shift; men and women in the office, on the beat and

even the chief. He gratefully accepted them and I don’t even think he was Catholic. I don’t know who was or who wasn’t Catholic, but only two people declined the gift.”

Despite O’Neil’s having passed the 200,000 mark on Rosaries made, it’s praying it that brings him the most joy, peace and consolation. “There was a time on the force when I was suffering from PTSD,” he shared. “As a police officer, there is a lot of stress.

It’s not always life-threatening issues, but there is a lot of stress and it was building up inside me and I was bringing it home.

After a couple of heart scares, a doctor friend of mine told me it was stress and I had to relax. I found meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary brought me a great deal of peace. It still does.”

O’Neil prays on average about four Rosaries a day, and he is still making the beads for local students and individuals, and is still delivering hundreds to Father Polselli.

“I could make the beads in my sleep,” O’Neil said. “But the hands aren’t as nimble as they once were, so I’ve slowed a bit.”

But anyone who knows O’Neil knows that even in his “slow” mode, he is still one of the best Rosary makers around.

What started 42 years ago as a gift for his late dad, and a gift for his own spirituality, has since spread across the world.

There may be 20 mysteries of the Rosary, but it’s no mystery where Bill O’Neil’s heart lies — in praying and sharing the peace and comfort of the Rosary.

April 15, 2022 †

13

I

t’s a resurrection story of sorts.

As many who read this column know, I lost my beloved friend of 16 years, my Velcro dog Igor, who was constantly by my side — through good times and bad.

She (yes, she) knew my moods and she acted accordingly to just be the best friend she could be.

I truly believe that dogs are one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and I don’t know how else to say this without sounding almost callous, but losing her was the most heart-wrenching loss I have ever experienced. I lost a infant son, and both my parents, and believe me, those were very painful losses. But I have been able to absorb the pain and loss while never losing my love for them.

But, for some reason I cannot explain or maybe even defend, I cannot get over the loss of Iggy, and it’s been nearly four years.

My wife and other people have told me I should get another dog. As much as I love dogs, I can’t get

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A resurrection of sorts

another. I do not want to go through that loss ever again. And I know I would become attached to another, only to eventually have to say good-bye again. So, I will not get one.

I know so many of you,

some of you personally, who have experienced the gut-wrenching loss of a family member or friend. I also know that some of you have had “visits” from that person — whether in the form of a sign, a dream or some experience of feeling their presence and their love. I do believe that God sends such “visits” to comfort and give us courage.

That leads me to my wonderful encounter last week that came out of the blue.

I went for my daily walk, and I hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards when a beauti-

† April 15, 2022

ful ghost-like white pooch came out of nowhere and started barking at me. I kept walking, but she, being loose, ran from yard to yard barking at me.

I know it’s not the wisest thing to stop and encounter a stray dog, but she was different, and she had a collar. I stopped and bent down. Immediately she bowed down on her front legs. I reached out my hand and she inched forward to me, apprehensive, but curious. She backed off, then advanced to me. I rubbed her neck and without my asking, she gave me her paw. My heart melted.

I stood up and she jumped up to me with her paws reaching both my shoulders — tail flailing happily the whole time.

Again I gave her a neck massage and she dug it, much like Iggy did.

I wanted to get on with my walk, but I didn’t want her to follow me and get lost, if she wasn’t already.

I didn’t want her to be hit by a car. Somehow, she got distracted. I continued on but kept looking back to be sure she wasn’t on my tail, so to speak.

As I walked onto another street, I was comforted and felt it was a visit from Iggy.

When I came back a half-hour later, she was no where to be found. A neighbor called Animal Control and they searched, but came up empty. I hoped she was OK. Later I relayed the story to Emilie and the first thing she said to me was, “It was Iggy.” It brought tears to my eyes that she saw it, too.

Like I said earlier, a resurrection of sorts.

It turns out the beautiful white dog in fact lives a block from me. I met her

again with her young owner. I was relieved to know she was safe.

I rubbed the scruff of her neck, but I didn’t have the same feeling. It was still nice to see her again, but she wasn’t Iggy this time

— but she was in our first encounter, and I thank God for that.

Happy Easter to all, and I hope you get a special God-sent “visit” this blessed season. davejolivet@anchornews.org.

In Your Prayers Please pray for these priests and deacons during the coming weeks: April 23 Rev. John J. Murphy, Retired Pastor, Holy Name, New Bedford, 2007 April 24 Permanent Deacon Robert G. Lorenzo, 2021 April 25 Rev. John J. Wade, Assistant, Sacred Heart, Fall River, 1940 Rev. Raymond J. Lynch, Chaplain, Catholic Memorial Home, Fall River, 1955 Rev. Charles A. Murray, M.M., Maryknoll Missioner, 2017 April 26 Rev. Ubalde Deneault, Retired Pastor, St. Joseph, Attleboro, 1982 Rev. James F. Greene, Pastor, Our Lady of Fatima, New Bedford, 2002 April 27 Rev. James Murphy, 1869 Rev. Francis J. Bradley, D.D., Retired Rector, St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fall River, 1925 Rev. Romeo D. Archambault, St. Anne, New Bedford, 1949 Rev. Edward F. O’Keefe, S.J., Retired, St. Francis Xavier, Boston, 1973 April 28 Rev. Stanislaus J. Goyette, Pastor, St. Louis de France, Swansea, 1959 Rev. Wilfrid J. Vigeant, S.J., 2011 Rev. John P. Cronin, 2014 April 29 Rev. James Leo Maguire, Pastor, Diocese of Monterey, Calif., 1987 Rev. Adolph Szelagowksi, OFM Conv., Parochial Vicar, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Bedford, 1989 Rev. Peter P. Mullen, M.M., Maryknoll Missioner, 1999 Rev. John M. Breen, M.M., Maryknoll Missioner, 2005 April 30 Rev. John A. Hurley, Pastor, St. Mary, North Attleboro, 1900 Rev. David F. Sheedy, Pastor, St. John Evangelist, Attleboro, 1930 Rev. John Moda, Pastor, St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church, Ford City, Pa., 1993 May 1 Rev. Francis J. Quinn, Founder, Immaculate Conception, North Easton; Founder, Sacred Heart, Fall River, 1882 Rev. Joseph F. D’Amico, Pastor, Sacred Heart, Oak Bluffs, 1996 Rev. Walter A. Sullivan, Pastor, St. Mary, South Dartmouth, 1997 May 2 Rt. Rev. Msgr. M.P. Leonidas Lariviere, Pastor, St. Jean Baptiste, Fall River, 1963 May 5 Rev. Leo M. Curry, Retired Pastor, St. Dominic, Swansea, 1973 Rev. Albert Rowley, SS.CC., In Residence, St. Francis Xavier, Acushnet, 1985 Rev. Raymond A. Robida, Catholic Memorial Home, Fall River, 2003 May 6 Rev. Thomas P. Elliott, Founder, St. Mary, Mansfield, 1905 Rev. Asdrubal Castelo Branco, Retired Pastor, Immaculate Conception, New Bedford, 1980 Rev. Ernest E. Blais, Pastor, Notre Dame de Lourdes, Fall River, 1994 Rev. John P. Driscoll, Retired, Catholic Memorial Home, Co-Founder of The Anchor, Former Pastor of St. Lawrence Martyr and St. Francis of Assisi Parishes, New Bedord, 2019

Wonderful tradition of the Chrism Mass celebrated during Holy Week continued from page one

“That is our mission, that is what the Lord is asking of us. As we heard in the readings today, ‘The Lord has anointed me; He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, … to comfort all who mourn. To give them oil of gladness in place of mourning, you yourselves shall be named priests of the Lord, ministers of our God shall you be called’ (Is 61:1-6).

“This is a consoling message and, at the same time, an awesome responsibility.

This is our call, our vocation and the mission entrusted to us: To bring healing, consolation and hope to those who are suffering.

“We do this in various and diverse ways. Through our preaching, through the celebration of the Sacraments, and though our presence.

“And because we are able to touch the lives of so many people by bringing God’s consoling and healing presence to their lives, we can say with the psalmist: ‘Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.’

“We need to tell the people we serve: ‘Hold my hand and resist bitterness.

Forgive, let go, be at peace.’

Thus, anyone of us who visits a dying person, regardless of how inadequate and stuttering our actual words may be, we can anoint that person, just as a priest does during the Sacrament of the Sick.

“It is good to offer prayers for those who are suffering, but it is even more important and more meaningful to be there, to be present, so that they can look into our eyes, gaze upon our face and know they are not alone, know

that they are loved. We don’t have to wait until they die to tell them they are loved; they need to hear this before they die.”

Also in the context of the Mass, Bishop da Cunha blessed the sacred oils that will be used in the coming Liturgical year. Prior to the sharing of the Eucharistic Body of Christ, the bishop blessed the oil of the sick.

Following the Lord’s Supper, the bishop blessed the oil of catechumens used at Baptisms and during the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. Finally, he consecrated the chrism used at Confirmations and at the ordinations of priests and bishops and in the dedication of churches and altars.

“Today we are blessing and consecrating the three oils used for anointing,” the bishop said in his homily.

“Anointing those preparing for Baptism, anointing those who receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit during the Sacrament of Confirmation, anointing the hands of priests, the head of Bishops and the consecration of altars. And anointing those in preparation for death and seeking healing.

“We forget sometimes that the power of healing comes not only with the

anointing with oil, but it comes also with the ‘anointing’ of presence, of a gentle touch, of a friendly word, of a contagious smile.”

Recognized along with the bishop for major priestly milestones, all celebrating more than one-half century of service, were, at 60 years: Msgrs. Ronald A. Tosti and Barry Wall, and Father Philip A. Davignon. Recognized for 50 years of service were: Msgr. Daniel F. Hoye and Fathers George C. Bellenoit, Marcel H. Bouchard, Richard Furlong, Timothy J. Goldrick, Michael Nagle and Gastão Oliveira.

The Anchor reached out to several jubilarians for some thoughts on such a wonderful journey of faith. Msgr. Wall shared, “Anniversaries allow us to pause and to give thanks to God for so many gifts, for a loving family, loyal priest friends, and for the encouragement of the many faith-filled people encountered in parish ministry over the years. Ordained shortly before the Second Vatican Council convened I have been blessed to serve this local Church under five of our eight bishops in extraordinary times.”

“It is hard to believe 50 years have gone by since my

ordination,” Msgr. Hoye told The Anchor. “I have great memories of the parishes I have served and the years spent in various national assignments.

“I am glad to say my years have been happy ones.

I pray that other young persons will be open to giving their lives over to the Lord.”

Father Bouchard said that the greatest joy of his priesthood is celebrating the Sacraments. He added, “My first thoughts lead to gratitude: Appreciation for all the people with whom I have been called to serve, to whom I have been sent to serve, and who have served me. Holding all his together is the Lord’s mandate to serve as He has.

“I am unworthy, but the Lord equips those whom He calls to do the work that is His — serving, sending forth, meeting needs, challenging, and reconciling.

“All along I have felt the support of God’s holy people keeping me in their prayers.

All along I have been encouraged by the example of good, loving, hard-working priests — most from our own diocese and from religious communities serving here.”

Like his brother priests, Father Bellenoit marvels at how quickly the last 50 years have passed. “Fifty years,

where have they gone? It seems like just yesterday that I began priestly ministry.

“As I reflect on those years, I am extremely grateful for all the people whom I have had the opportunity to minister with and to over the years.

“Jesus talks about having come not to be served but to serve. This statement has guided me over the last 50 years. Whether in parish ministry, hospital ministry, school ministry, or in administration, serving God’s people a diet of God’s love, mercy, and compassion has been my motivation. With His help I look forward to continuing to serve them in the days ahead.”

The bishop concluded his homily encouraging his brother priests, “We have to recognize the tension we face and this is not easy. We are pulled in one direction by our human condition and sinful tendency and at the same time are called, urged, attracted, committed to the sublime, the pure, and the holiness. We constantly feel this tension. Or as the story goes: There are two wolves fighting inside each of us.

One is a peaceful, gentle and loving wolf. The other is a violent, brutal, arrogant, selfish wolf. And the question is: Who wins the fight?

The one we feed.”

April 15, 2022 †

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Please visit The Anchor website at www.anchornews.org Name of new Catholic school in New Bedford announced continued from page three

Roy concurred, “Naming our school the Saint Teresa of Calcutta School has captivated the entire city of New Bedford and beyond.

While many other beautiful names were suggested, no other name represents the city of New Bedford like Saint Teresa of Calcutta.”

The naming process allowed families and members of the city to submit recommendations to the Catholic Schools Office, who brought forth the top contenders to Bishop Edgar da Cunha, who made the final decision.

“It was of utmost importance to me that the name of the new school be representative of the city of New Bedford and there is no doubt that St. (Mother) Teresa continues to touch the hearts of many people and, I am sure, shower with her prayers, intercession and blessing the beautiful city of New Bedford,” says Bishop da Cunha.

Despite limited availability, opportunities to enroll in Saint Teresa of Calcutta School continue. All interested families can contact the current St. James St. John School at (508) 996-0534 or Holy Family Holy Name School at (508) 993-3547 for more information or go to www.sjsjschool.com or www.hfhn.org.

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† April 15, 2022

From left: Deacon Peter Schutzler, principal of Holy Family Holy Name School; Cristina Viveiros-Serra, principal of St. James St. John School, both in New Bedford, and diocesan Superintendent of Schools, Daniel S. Roy, reveal the name of the new Catholic school, the creation of the merger of St. James-St. John and Holy Family-Holy Name schools, as Saint Teresa of Calcutta School.