The Catholic Spirit - April 6, 2017

Victims/survivors meeting 7 • Fatima visionaries 11 • 100-year-old convert 15 April 6, 2017 Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Behold the wood of the cross This depiction of the 12th Station — Jesus Dies on the Cross — ­ is on display in St. Mary’s Chapel at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul. The stations, designed by Rambusch Decorative Arts Studio in New York and installed in 1930, were put in storage in 1988 and restored and rededicated in 2006. Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday April 9. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

ALSO inside

Karenni converts

A space to hear God

Early Catholic Family Life

St. Bernard in St. Paul to welcome more than two dozen refugees into the Church at Easter.

— Page 5

Catholics seek spiritual direction to deepen their relationship with God during prayer and daily activities.

— Pages 12-13

Parent-child catechetical program provides hands-on learning, family connections throughout local parishes.

— Page 17

2 • The Catholic Spirit

PAGE TWO

April 6, 2017 OVERHEARD

in PICTURES

“I think to be so close for us is a temporarily crushing blow right now. But I’m hoping and knowing that perspective will come with time. And these guys will realize just what an amazing accomplishment they had.

And what an amazing effect they had.”

Mark Few, head coach of the Bulldogs at Gonzaga University, a Jesuit school in Spokane, Washington, after the basketball team’s 71-65 loss to the University of North Carolina Tar Heels in the NCAA Men’s Championship at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, April 3.

NEWS notes • The Catholic Spirit

Chrism Mass at Cathedral of St. Paul April 6 SERVE AND SING Students from St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, sing April 1 at the 10th annual spaghetti dinner in Bloomington sponsored by the Marian Council of Knights of Columbus of Bloomington and Richfield. Front, from left, are Benjamin Baker; Reed Flood; Father Steven Borello, spiritual director; Mathias Rotstein; and Benjamin Wanner. Back row, from left, are Jordan Roberts, Michael Gehrig and Logan Obrigewitch. Seminarians also served dinner to attendees. Over the 10 years, the council, which includes member parishes from Edina and south Minneapolis, has donated proceeds of $58,000 from the dinner toward scholarships for seminarians. Father Eugene Brown/For The Catholic Spirit

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ chrism Mass will be 7 p.m.

April 6 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. The annual Mass precedes the Triduum and includes the blessing of the oils parishes will use for candidates and catechumens at the Easter Vigil and in rites throughout the year. It also includes priests’ renewal of promises.

‘Poverty and Privilege Workshop’ in St. Paul April 8 Difficulties faced by families in poverty will be the focus of the Poverty and Privilege Workshop 9 a.m.-noon April 8 at St. Thomas More Catholic School Auditorium, 1065 Summit Ave., St. Paul. It is free and open to the public. For more information, visit wwww.morecommunity.org.

Speaker to focus on Martin Luther at SPS April 11 Mickey Mattox will present the fourth annual Christian Unity Lecture “Legends, Lies and Luther: The Great Reformer Reconsidered for 2017” 7:30 p.m. April 11 at the University of St. Thomas’ 3M Auditorium, Owens Science Hall, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Mattox is a professor of historical theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee. The event is co-sponsored by the Archdiocesan Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. For more information, contact Sarah Farnes at skfarnes@stthomas.edu.

Way of the Cross in downtown St. Paul April 14 Communion and Liberation, a Catholic lay ecclesial movement, is holding a Way of the Cross procession on Good Friday, April 14.

Participants are to gather at 4:45 p.m. at the State Capitol before processing through downtown St. Paul and ending at the Cathedral of St. Paul at 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.wayofthecrosstwincities.org.

Priests vs. seminarians tournament April 21 Priests and seminarians take to the court in the annual priests vs. seminarians basketball tournament April 21 at St. Thomas Academy, 949 Mendota Heights Road, Mendota Heights. The event begins with a barbecue at 5 p.m. followed by the tournament at 6:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.stthomas.edu/spssod.

Live drama ‘Thérèse’ to be staged in Rogers

SIX STRAIGHT DeLaSalle senior forward Goanar Mar scored a game-high 28 points as the Minneapolis Catholic high school boys basketball team cruised a 72-44 win over Austin High School March 25. It concluded a sixth-straight Class AAA state title run for the Islanders. Mar plans to play college basketball at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, next year. Courtesy Brian Flannery

CORRECTION A story in the Feb. 9 issue about Catholic Charities Office for Social Justice’s mass incarceration and intergenerational poverty presentation incorrectly reported the number of members in its Sowers of Justice group. It should have read 3,000. We apologize for the error.

The Catholic Spirit is published semi-monthly for The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Vol. 22 — No. 7 MOST REVEREND BERNARD A. HEBDA, Publisher TOM HALDEN, Associate Publisher MARIA C. WIERING, Editor

A one-woman show about the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux will be 7 p.m.

April 22 at Mary Queen of Peace, St. Martin campus, 21201 Church Ave., Rogers. “Thérèse: The Story of a Soul” is described as “not the saccharine story of the ‘Little Flower,’ but an honest, loving portrait of a real girl who struggled with anxieties, but overcame these obstacles by trusting in God.” Admission is $5 each or $10 per family. For more information, contact St. Luke Productions at 360-487-9979.

Mass compositions to be performed at Basilica British composer and pianist Stephen Hough is performing his compositions “Miracle Mass” and “Mass of Innocence and Experience” with VocalEssence April 22 at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. A Catholic convert, Hough was in a car accident but unscathed while composing “Miracle Mass,” which inspired the composition’s name. The 8 p.m. concert follows a 7 p.m. presentation by Hough. Tickets begin at $20. For more information, visit www.vocalessence.org.

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FROM THE MODERATOR OF THE CURIA

April 6, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 3

In a world missing its neighborhoods, parishes offer a spiritual home

I

n our newly relocated archdiocesan offices, I have often looked out one of the southern windows and, to whoever is around, pointed to a church on a hill, announcing: “The Church of the Sacred Heart. I was baptized there. And my father was baptized there. And my grandmother was baptized there. And the wedding of her parents, my greatgrandparents, was one of the first celebrated there, shortly after it was founded in 1881.”

On one hand, my family has quite a history at Sacred Heart. On the other hand, as I continue on in my seventh decade of life, I seem to have come full circle, having basically slid down the hill from the church of my baptism.

Back in those days, the older East Side parishes served established communities of European immigrants and their children. Sacred Heart was for the Germans. St. Casimir for the Polish. St. Ambrose for the Italians. The Irish had two choices — St. John or St. Patrick.

Before I started school, my family moved farther east, and I attended St. Pascal Baylon Catholic School. There were more than 1,000 students in first through eighth grade. As was true for many of the parishes founded after World War II, there was no ethnic designation for St. Pascal, just parish boundaries.

After school, we still went home to our own neighborhoods. My first Communion party was with several other first Communion children at the home with the biggest backyard. Many of us were the first generation without ethnic distinction, and we ate food unheard of in Europe. By the 1960s, even the Italians were eating booya, and the Bohemians spoke with an Irish lilt.

Over the decades since, house by house, street by street, the neighborhoods of my childhood went through dramatic changes. It was not just on the East Side. For more than a generation throughout our nation — along old streets with historic names, in the new cities of residential avenues and malls galore, in duplexes and around cul-de-sacs, in multistoried apartment buildings and among condominiums, and even in the center of old towns surrounded by farms — people are saying there is no longer a sense of true neighborhoods. There can seem to be no real connection among those who live on the same street.

ONLY JESUS Perhaps it is because of our mobility, unimaginable a generation ago, that a life of family, friends and co-workers

Father Charles Lachowitzer

Through the workings of the Holy Spirit, complete strangers become one family in the body of Christ. In the ever-changing cultures of a free society, parish life remains a culture of its own.

leaves no time in busy lives and no room in crowded brains for a “neighborhood.” There are always notable exceptions, but in general, the question persists: Where are today’s neighborhoods?

We might have the answer.

In each parish there are the bonds of friendship and a shared mission.

There is a sense of belonging to a community. At each Mass, people are united in worship and transformed by the Eucharist. Through the workings of the Holy Spirit, complete strangers become one family in the body of Christ. In the ever-changing cultures of a free society, parish life remains a culture of its own.

Ushers with name tags, family greeters, hospitality toolkits and welcoming banners are all the outward signs of the invitation to today’s disciples of Jesus Christ to build the relational community of the parish and to create an intentional culture of faith. It is each parishioner’s responsibility to help make a spiritual home — a place where children can safely learn and be formed in the faith, where families are engaged in a meaningful participation in the life of the Church, and where the gifts of each individual are valued and called forth for the good of the parish and in the service of the mission of Jesus Christ.

As we prepare for Holy Week and the sacred Triduum, we renew our identity as an Easter people. May the grace, gifts and blessing of our Easter season inspire us to build and deepen the relationships between our brothers and sisters in Christ. May we recognize that today’s neighborhood is found in our parishes, and may we truly love our neighbor.

En un mundo que está perdiendo sus vecindarios, sus parroquias le ofrecen un hogar spiritual

E

n nuestras nuevas oficinas arquidiocesanas, muchas veces he visto hacia afuera por una de las ventanas que da hacia el sur, y a quien quiera que ande cerca, le señalo la iglesia que está en la subida anunciando “La Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón. A mi me bautizaron allí; a mi padre lo bautizaron allí, y a mi abuela también la bautizaron allí; y allí se casaron sus padres y la boda de mis bisabuelos fue una de las primeras en celebrarse allí poco después de ser fundada en 1881.”

Por un lado mi familia tiene una historia de conexión especial en Sagrado Corazón, por otro lado, a la vez que yo continúo en mi séptima década de vida, parece que he cerrado el círculo completo, como si me hubiese deslizado de la colina de la iglesia desde mi bautizo.

En aquellos días, las parroquias viejas del lado East Side, sirvieron a las comunidades europeas de inmigrantes y a sus hijos. Sagrado Corazón sirvió a los alemanes, San Casimiro sirvió a los polacos y San Ambrosio a los italianos. Los irlandeses tenían dos opciones San Juan o San Patricio.

Antes de comenzar a ir a la escuela, mi familia se mudó hacia el este y yo asistí a la escuela Católica San Pascal de Babilonia. Habían más de mil estudiantes de primero a octavo grado. Como muchas otras parroquias que fueron fundadas después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial San Pascal no tenía una designación étnica, solo los limites de la parroquia.

Después de la escuela, regresábamos a nuestra casa en nuestros vecindarios. La fiesta de mi Primera Comunión la celebramos con varios de los niños que

también hicieron su primera comunión en la casa que tenía el patio más grande. Muchos de nosotros éramos de la primera generación sin ninguna distinción étnica y comíamos comida que nadie conocía en Europa. En los años sesentas, hasta los italianos comían booya (carne de res o pollo o de cerdo, con vegetales y especies) y los checoslovacos hablaban con acento irlandés.

Desde entonces por décadas cada casa, cada calle de los vecindarios de mi niñez ha pasado por cambios dramáticos. Esos cambios no solo ocurrieron en el East Side. Por toda una generación, en toda la nación — a lo largo de las calles con nombres históricos, en las nuevas ciudades con avenidas residenciales, con la proliferación de centros comerciales, en los dúplex y alrededor de las calles sin salida, en los edificios de apartamentos y condominios, aún en las áreas centrales de los pueblos viejos rodeados de fincas — la gente está diciendo que ese sentido de pertenecer a un vecindario ya no se siente. Parece que no hay conexión real aun entre aquellos que viven en la misma calle.

Tal vez es porque siempre estamos movilizándonos, lo que era inimaginable hace una generación atrás, que con la vida tan ocupada, la familia, los amigos y los compañeros de trabajo que ya no deja espacio en nuestras mentes ocupadas para la vida en “en el vecindario.” Siempre hay excepciones notables, pero en general, la pregunta persiste ¿Donde están hoy día esos vecindarios?

Tal vez tenemos la respuesta. En cada parroquia existen los lazos de amistad y una misión compartida,

hay un sentido de pertenencia a una comunidad. En cada misa, los feligreses están unidos al rendir culto y son transformados por la Eucaristía. Por medio de la obra del Espíritu Santo, personas totalmente extrañas la una a la otra se convierten en una sola familia en el Cuerpo de Cristo. En el eterno camino de las culturas de una sociedad libre, la vida en parroquia sigue con esa cultura en si misma.

La presencia de los guías, los gafetes, las familias que dan la bienvenida, los juegos de hospitalidad y los carteles de bienvenida, todas esas señales externas de invitación a los hoy discípulos de Jesucristo para construir una comunidad de relaciones de la parroquia y para crear una cultura intencional de fe.

Es responsabilidad de cada feligrés ayudar a hacer ese hogar espiritual — un lugar en el que los niños pueden aprender bajo salvaguarda y pueden ser formados en la fe, en el que las familias tienen una participación con un significado en la vida de la Iglesia, y en el que los dones de cada persona son valorados y atienden al llamado por el bienestar de la parroquia y para el servicio de la misión de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo.

A la vez que nos preparamos para la Semana Santa y para el Sagrado Triduo Pascual (pasión, muerte y resurrección de Cristo), renovamos nuestra identidad como un pueblo de resurrección. Que la gracia, los dones y las bendiciones de nuestra época de resurrección nos den la inspiración para construir y profundizar las relaciones entres nuestros hermanos y hermanas en Cristo y que podamos reconocer que los vecindarios de hoy se encuentran en nuestras parroquias y que podamos ayudar a que florezcan.

4 • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

April 6, March 9, 2017

‘Angel’ among us The ‘write’ touch

SLICEof LIFE

St. Joseph of Carondelet Sister Avis Allmaras, center, talks with Rose Carter, left, and Irene Eiden at Peace House in Using a tool called a “kistka,” Luciw south Minneapolis Feb. 27. Maria Sister Avis creates egg at visits her home goesatoUkrainian the centerEaster weekly and in St. Anthony March The process, frequent guests like28.Carter.

Eiden, ofwhich is described drawing St. Williamasin“writing,” Fridley, isinvolves a lay consociate designs heated wax on the egg,House then is of thewith Carondelet Sisters.

Peace putting it shelter throughfor a series of dyes, from light a day the poor and homeless. to dark, finally melting waxpeople off “It’s abefore real privilege to knowthe these andand covering the finished with hear their stories,”egg Sister Avis said. “I polyurethane.

Luciw on learned how tolike make could not survive the streets they eggs emigrating from Ukraine do.shortly Thereafter are so many gifted people in 1951 with herCarter siblings and parents.

She here.”

Said of Sister Avis: “She’s hasan taught allShe fourhides of herher children, two ofthat angel. wings under whom still do itShe today.

She estimates sweatshirt. truly is an angel.” she hasDave madeHrbacek/The thousands over the years, Catholic Spirit and she makes about 200 a year for her church, St. Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church in northeast Minneapolis. “I am very passionate theSisters Ukrainian heritage and Nationalabout Catholic Week is Ukrainian culture,” said Luciw, 76, who used March 8-14. An official component of to make the eggs year-round but now Women’s History Month and spends the weeks leading up to Easter headquartered at St. Catherine University making parish, which then sells in St.them Paul,for theher week celebrates women them at its annual Palm Sunday Ukrainian religious and their contributions to the Dinner (11 a.m.-1 p.m. April “This is my Church and society.

View9).local events, life,including and I lovetwo it.”art exhibitions, at Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit www.nationalcatholicsistersweek.org.

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LOCAL

The Catholic Spirit • 5

Archbishop Hebda: Goal is ‘fair compensation as soon as possible’ for victims The Catholic Spirit

Father Saw Joseph Kureh, right, of St. Bernard in St. Paul, says a prayer for catechumens and candidates during the second scrutiny at St. Bernard March 26. The group includes, from left, Pu Reh, Daw Reh, Klar Reh, Hwsah Meh, Boe Meh and Ta Meh. The Karenni do not use last names, but rather a masculine (Reh) or feminine pronoun (Meh). Holding the book for Father Kureh is David Neira, RCIA director for St. Bernard.

Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

St. Bernard to welcome Karenni converts at Easter

By Melenie Soucheray For The Catholic Spirit

F

or more than two dozen Karenni immigrants, April 15 will be significant. During the 7 p.m. Easter Vigil Mass, St. Bernard on St. Paul’s near north side will welcome the teenage-tooctogenarian catechumens into full communion with the Catholic Church.

With translation help from Father Saw Joseph Kureh, St. Bernard’s parochial vicar and a Karenni, catechumen Nge Meh said as Easter approaches, the happier she becomes.

“I will be washed and become clean.

I am so happy for that,” said Nge Meh, amid a dozen of her Karenni neighbors at the Arkwright Apartments in St. Paul.

“And, also I am a child of God, so now I am happy for baptism.”

David Neira, St. Bernard’s Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and internship program director, asked her, “If God is the king of the universe, what does that make you?”

Eyes around the room brightened at Nge Meh’s answer: “I am the daughter of the king; I am a princess.”

‘They heard the bell’ The Karen refugees are originally from tribes and villages in an area that straddles the borders of Thailand and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in southeast Asia. When Burmese soldiers destroyed their homes and occupations, the Karenni — a Karen sub-group comprising individual ethnic groups that don’t necessarily share a common language or culture — fled to refugee camps in Thailand.

About seven years ago, after 10 years in the camps with no jobs or money and dwindling food supplies, the United Nations gave the Karenni the choice of staying or moving to Australia, Canada, Finland, Switzerland or the United States.

The Karen Organization of Minnesota estimates about 12,000 Karenni live in Minnesota. St. Paul has the largest and fastest growing Karenni population in the country.

Julia Marksue, a Karenni and St. Bernard’s refugee liaison assistant, estimates about 50 Karen families, from 600 to 750 people, live within and near the parish boundaries. All of this year’s catechumens previously practiced Buddhism or Animism.

St. Bernard’s iconic double bell towers

had a role in drawing them to the parish.

Father Ivan Sant, a native of Malta and St. Bernard’s pastor, explained: “[In] about 2009, the first Karenni refugees came to St. Bernard only by the fact that they heard the bell.”

The sound of the church bell is something the Karenni would have responded to, Marksue said. One family, in search of a church, wandered into a Mass at St. Bernard celebrated by a priest filling in for then-pastor Father Mike Anderson, now pastor of St. Joseph of the Lakes in Lino Lakes. After the priest informed Father Anderson that he had had visitors, the pastor reached out to the newcomers. The visitors said they would come to Mass more often, but they had no transportation. Father Anderson personally picked up the family — then, other families — to bring them to Mass.

“And, of course, the word spreads around,” Father Sant said.

Father Anderson rented a bus and began building a staff for this new ministry. He brought Marksue on board in 2011 to serve as a translator who could also help the Karenni find social services.

She works with Hsawreh Sharpoehtay, the parish’s refugee liaison. A priest of the Diocese of Loikaw, Myanmar, Father Kureh began ministering at the parish four years ago.

“Having a priest who can speak their language, I think, gave a boost for [the Karenni] to be a strong community here,” Father Sant said. “When I arrived here in 2015, it was one of the biggest crowds we had in the parish.”

Father Kureh celebrates two Karenni Masses each month. Most Saturdays, the Karenni pray the rosary in their native language. During Lent, Father Kureh offers the Stations of the Cross in Karenni.

Neira was hired in 2015 and charged with creating an outreach program that brought him into people’s homes, which he visits every Tuesday. He described the Karenni as simple, shy and reserved.

When parish leaders plan to visit their homes, they first ask permission. If they see strangers, Marksue said, they won’t open their doors.

However, with the parish “there’s a sense of familiarity. They know who we are,” Neira said. “Then, the strength is this tender closeness they try to have.

That’s what makes it fruitful.”

Among the regular visitors to the Arkwright Apartments is Jacob Knepper, a junior at St. John Vianney College

Seminary in St. Paul and an intern working with Neira and the team. He heard from fellow seminarians about members of the Karenni community and their faith formation at the parish.

“That resonated with me,” he said, adding that he wanted to learn from the Karenni to help him be an effective minister.

Forming a faith community Last year, eight Karenni joined the Church. This year, classes for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults were packed. Parish leaders expect next year’s class to be large as well. To keep the new Catholics engaged, St. Bernard offers formation via the Neocatechumenal Way, a spiritual renewal movement dedicated to Christian formation.

“Our goal is to keep them growing in their faith,” Father Sant said. “We won’t baptize them and leave them out in the crowd. It doesn’t matter that this year we baptize 25 if we don’t offer anything after that.”

To buttress St. Bernard’s evangelization and formation efforts, Father Sant is working with St. Paul-based Catholic Community Foundation to explore the possibility of receiving help from parish communities. In the meantime, relationships with the Karenni need nurturing. Father Sant says it’s all about one-to-one relating and simply speaking about Jesus.

“This is how the seed of faith is planted in every human being,” he said.

“They tell me Jesus is here,” Neira said.

“They ask, ‘How do I know he loves me in a personal way?’ I tell them, ‘I’m here; I came here for you. I’m your brother, and I love you. I’m not the only one.’”

Knepper recalled a time when he arrived at a family’s home before Father Kureh was there to translate. Once Father Kureh arrived, the conversation progressed, and after a few moments, a Karenni woman told Knepper she wanted to sing for him.

“She sang this beautiful song. It was coming from her heart,” he said. “Father Kureh looked at me, and he said, ‘She’s saying, ‘I am very sad that I’m not like you.

I’m very sad that I don’t know English, and I can’t speak or read or write.’”

Knepper continued, “In my own poverty and awkwardness, I don’t have much to give, except for my faith. [The moment] taught me how beautiful the Karenni are and how much they actually have.”

In a March 26 letter and video message to local Catholics, Archbishop Bernard Hebda said that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is hoping to soon resolve its Chapter 11 Reorganization and provide fair compensation for victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

“I can assure you that our goal has been to provide fair compensation as soon as possible,” he wrote. “We have liquidated possessions, sold buildings, collected other assets, and negotiated with insurance carriers.

We have managed to gather more than $155 million dollars, all with the hope of compensating claimants and finally bringing an end to the bankruptcy.”

He noted that “those who have been harmed deserve justice sooner rather than later” and “that prolonged litigation works counter to our desire to maximize the amount available for victims because of legal fees and costs.”

The letter marked the one-year anniversary of Archbishop Hebda being named the archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He said his message was intended to offer updates, seek advice and express gratitude.

He acknowledged that his appointment came at a “time of considerable uncertainty and unrest” amid “a call for justice and a need for healing, reform and action.”

“I can assure you that through consultation and purposeful corrective actions, and with an unwavering commitment to improve, we are together building a healthier, more responsive and more accountable local Church,” he wrote, noting the settlement agreement the archdiocese entered into with Ramsey County Attorney’s Office in December 2015 for oversight of its child protection protocols.

He acknowledged that uncertainties surrounding the bankruptcy “have made it difficult for many of our parishes and parishioners to stay focused on our mission” and asked for prayers that the bankruptcy might soon be resolved.

He also asked Catholics to continue to pray for victims of clergy sexual abuse and to share ideas on how the Church can better help them.

“I can attest that many have suffered in silence for a long, long time,” he said. “It may be someone sitting next to you at Mass, on the bus or a train, or at your family dining table. We want to create welcoming environments for those who have been harmed while embedding into our culture the changes necessary to create the safest possible environments for all.”

6 • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

April 6, 2017

Faith flavors new Mexican restaurant in Edina

Good Friday collection could help new partner Damascus archdiocese

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit A new Mexican restaurant in Edina run by a Catholic family served 80 guests on its first day of operation, despite serving no meat — or fried fish — on a Lenten Friday.

“I’ve heard of businesses when they open, they were like, ‘Well, we had one or two customers,’” said Alma Moreno, who, with her husband, Gabriel Corona, owns Los Padres Mexican Food restaurant, which opened March 24. “I think for the first day, we did pretty good.”

It didn’t hurt that Moreno and Corona, parishioners of Sts. Joachim and Anne in Shakopee, had a little extra support.“There were so many people that would pass along in here and [say] ‘Oh, we were waiting for you guys to open’ or ‘We know Father Kevin [Finnegan] or ‘Oh, we were sent here by Father Erik [Lundgren],’” Moreno said.

Los Padres, named in honor of the priests who helped the Corona family over the years, offers authentic Mexican food in an atmosphere that displays the family’s reverence for their Catholic faith and the priesthood.

“They’re a beautiful family,” said Father Lundgren, pastor of Sts. Joachim and Anne.

Their restaurant decor includes a large wall display with a priest biretta, a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and historic photos with clergy from St. Mark in Shakopee, which merged in 2011 with St. Mary in Shakopee and St. Mary of the Purification in Marystown to form Sts. Joachim and Anne.

A Latin inscription of the Our Father also runs along a couple of the mustard-orange walls. Father Michael Daly of St. Stephen in Minneapolis gave that idea for the Coronas.

The initial reviews were good.

“I think that the place is nice,” said Delphine Duff of St. Patrick in Edina, who came with her neighbors, Robert and Elaine Sandilla, to try the new restaurant March 25.

Located on Amundson Avenue, Los Padres offers a variety of authentic dishes. The menu includes family recipe, burritos norteños: flour tortillas with seasoned pork, melted cheese and poblano peppers inside, topped with lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and salsa.

Posole verde, a green hominy chicken soup, comes from Corona’s hometown area in Mexico.

Corona, who enjoys cooking, had long desired to start a restaurant, but spent many years working odd jobs before it came to fruition. When the couple decided to give it a go, they found a location less than a block from the original St. Patrick church in Edina, which is commemorated by a historic marker. For them, it was providence.“We have a very good feeling about this place,” Moreno said.

Priests have been a concrete way Corona’s family has experienced God’s providential care. It started

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit

Gabriel Corona, left, and his wife, Alma Moreno, prepare burritos norteños (pictured at right) March 29 at their Edina restaurant, Los Padres Mexican Food.

Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit

early in life for Corona, whose father was raised by a priest as an orphan in Mexico. Over the years, Corona’s family has become friends with many priests.

Moreno said they consider them family.

“Every priest that we’ve met, we get really close to them,” Moreno said.

“Los Padres” also indicates the Shakopee family’s beliefs. The couple strives to deepen their faith by praying the rosary, sending their five children to Catholic schools and attending Sunday Mass.

“We’re teaching our kids that it’s very important, [and] that the only way to get through life is God,” Moreno said.

With the commitment to Sunday Mass, Corona and Moreno have opted to close their restaurant on Sunday, treating it as the Lord’s Day and a time for family. “That’s one of the rules we have in our family — everybody knows that’s family time,” Moreno said.

Whatever income is sacrificed because of that commitment is worth it, she said. “It’s going to hurt us when we die and we don’t go to heaven.”

That faith motivates Corona and Moreno to run their restaurant counter to convention — meatless Fridays in Lent included.

“We wanted to stay true to our religion,” Moreno said.

Local funds from an annual Good Friday collection April 14 to aid work in the Holy Land might benefit the Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Damascus, Syria.

The Center for Mission of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is in the early stages of forming a partnership with the archeparchy, which reports significant suffering, including Christian persecution, among its members amid a civil war.

The Holy Land collection is taken annually worldwide on Good Friday to fund Franciscan-supported ministries in the Middle East, including their presence at sacred shrines and charitable outreaches. Last year, the archdiocese contributed $222,000 to the collection. This year, funds exceeding last year’s collection will go directly to the Damascus archeparchy, said Deacon Mickey Friesen, Center for Mission director.

In the Maronite Catholic Church, an archeparchy is similar to an archdiocese in the Roman Catholic Church. Christians make up less than 10 percent of the Syrian population. Most of the region’s Catholics belong to Eastern Catholic Churches, including the Maronite Church, which is in communion with Rome.

The Archeparchy of Damascus includes eight parishes that once served 15,000 to 20,000 Catholics, according to the Center for Mission. An estimated 40 percent have fled Syria.

The partnership began in response to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ call in 2016 to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Deacon Friesen has been corresponding with Archbishop Samir Nassar of Damascus, who has been sharing the struggles of his local church. Syria has been in a civil war since 2011, and Catholics report persecution from the Muslim majority and the Islamic State. The Church in Damascus currently helps more than 1,000 displaced families through its social services. Meanwhile, it suffers from a clergy shortage, with 27 of its 65 priests having fled the country.

Archbishop Nassar has also shared stories of the Church’s suffering members. He said that one man told him, “I have no home and I have lost all my family. I do not have work, I’m hungry and sick without medication. I can’t get a visa to go to another country. I am like a beetle at the bottom of a cup who cannot get out and runs in circles until it dies at the bottom.”

“Many Syrians feel like this man,” Archbishop Nassar told Center for Mission staff. “It seems to many that all doors to survival are closed.”

Deacon Friesen said the Center for Mission is forming a steering committee for the partnership. The archdiocese also has partnerships with dioceses in Venezuela and Kenya.

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April 6, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 7

Clergy sexual abuse survivors group aims to empower through knowledge

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit Education about sexual abuse and its effects, coping strategies and letting go of feelings of shame is the focus of a six-week, confidential group launching in the Twin Cities to support victims/ survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

Led by Bloomington-based therapist Deb Riba, the group is designed to help survivors feel validated, “more aware” and empowered through knowledge.

The group is also geared toward “secondary survivors,” family members and friends of people who have suffered clergy sexual abuse. The group will meet 5:30-7 p.m. Wednesdays April 19-May 24.

“A big part of this is not to feel alone,” said Riba, a licensed marriage and family therapist who has worked with survivors of several kinds of abuse, including clergy sexual abuse. “Our goal is to have everybody feel comfortable and safe. There’s no right or wrong, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

The group is independent of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. It’s not a therapy group, Riba said, but rather “a starting point” for people healing from clergy sexual abuse. “You can come and not even talk, just get information that we hope is helpful,” she said.

Facilitating the group with Riba will be a clergy sexual abuse survivor, who asked that The Catholic Spirit not use her name. She said the idea behind an education group is to help survivors and secondary survivors “approach the issue with a fuller understanding of what abuse is.”

“Knowledge is power, and this whole crime is about powerlessness,” she said. “Many times people haven’t even started their therapy, and I think this is a first step to learn about the effects of abuse on a

“Our goal is to have everybody feel comfortable and safe. There’s no right or wrong, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Deb Riba

person and on their entire relationships that they have in their whole lives. It does something to that, and those have to be built up again, and that trust has to be built up again. This is a place to start.”

She said she hoped that “in some small way we can be part of the healing of their souls and spirits and also give them the resources to continue to become whole again.”

Riba stressed the group’s value for secondary survivors.

“There’s so many things that you think you know about abuse, but you don’t,” she said. “It’s not a topic that people like to talk about, so it’s not a topic that you like to ask questions about.”

The survivor-facilitator said she’s especially passionate about helping secondary survivors.

“I saw what my husband went through when I went through therapy,” she said. “I think there are people out there hurting, and the focus, of course, should be on the victims, but there are other victims, too.”

For more information and meeting location, call 612-388-5752.

Supported with care.

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Second local ’24 Hours for the Lord’ welcomes midnight confessions

By Maria Wiering The Catholic Spirit As morning dawned March 25, a handful of people sat in a pew, waiting to receive the sacrament of reconciliation. A few others prayed near the front of the church, adoring the Eucharist in the monstrance on the altar. Adoration accompanying the round-the-clock confessions was new to the event this year. From noon March 24 to noon March 25, priests heard confessions at the Cathedral of St. Paul for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ second annual 24 Hours for the Lord.

Pastor of Good Shepherd in Golden Valley, Father Luke Marquard took a shift from 2-4 a.m. “because confessions are super important,” he said.

Confession “restores us to right relationship with God, friendship and grace, and back on the path toward eternal life,” he said. “If some people are only able to do that at certain hours, or if they want to go to a place where they can be anonymous, I want to do everything I can to make that sacrament available to people.”

Father Marquard appreciated the addition of adoration. “The idea that people were praying with the Lord while people were coming back to be reconciled” was powerful, he said. He also found it meaningful that people go from “having a very real experience of God’s mercy and then be in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.”

Father Daniel Haugan, pastor of Holy Spirit in St. Paul, was also among the 19 priests who heard confessions in shifts. From 6-7 a.m. March 24 there was hardly a lull, he said.

“I know how valuable it is in my life to be forgiven,” he said. “I know how much I need mercy and how good it feels to receive God’s mercy, and I just want to hand on that beautiful feeling of peace and tranquility, and sharing that ministry that God’s given me.”

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8 • The Catholic Spirit

LOCAL

Father Michel remembered as selfless with a heart for Latinos

Commending courage University of St. Thomas senior Emily Heimel greets Sister Carolin Tahhan Fachakh April 4 at a lunch reception at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. A member of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians in Aleppo, Syria, Sister Carolin was among 13 women awarded the 2017 Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award March 29 in Washington, D.C. She was recognized for working “tirelessly to support the needs of Syria’s most vulnerable populations, particularly internally displaced persons and children,” including keeping children safe during a period of intense bombing in a school’s neighborhood, according to a State Department news release. She visited the university as part of a tour of several U.S. cities. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

in BRIEF MINNEAPOLIS

Carondelet teacher honored Middle school science teacher Jill Zastrow of Carondelet Catholic School was named the 2017 K-8 Teacher of the Year by the Minnesota Independent School Forum. Zastrow will receive the award April 30 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The annual award recognizes excellence in Minnesota’s private and independent school community, and serves as the only state-wide awards event for nonpublic education.

“We are proud of Jill and are extremely grateful for her contributions to Carondelet, the community and education as a whole,” said Carondelet Principal Sue Kerr in a March 22 statement.

St. Bridget hosts first ‘Knights Mass’ About 500 people attended the first Knights of Columbus Mass April 2 at St. Bridget to celebrate the work of councils for the past 135 years in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The Mass included a candle-lighting ceremony to remember deceased Knights and prayers for the canonization cause of Father Michael McGivney, who founded the Knights of Columbus in 1882. Father Paul Jarvis, senior associate pastor and fourth-degree Knight, would like the Mass to be an annual event.

Knights award goes to 13 councils Thirteen Knights of Columbus Councils in the archdiocese received a 2015-2016 Star Council award.

Granted by the Knights’ national headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, the award is the highest distinction a council can receive, recognizing outstanding achievement in membership, insurance and service activities. Local councils receiving the award were: St. Timothy, Blaine; St. Gerard Majella, Brooklyn Park; Mary, Mother of the Church, Burnsville; St. Rita, Cottage Grove; St. Joseph of the Lakes, Lino Lakes; Immaculate Conception, Lonsdale; St. Joseph the Worker, Maple Grove; Holy Name of Jesus, Medina; St. Patrick, Oak Grove; Mary Queen of Peace, Rogers; St. Charles Borromeo, St. Anthony; University of St. Thomas, St. Paul; and No. 297 in St. Paul.

April 6, 2017

By Matthew Davis and Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

St. Thomas More to become immigrant sanctuary parish The Catholic Spirit Leaders of St. Thomas More in St. Paul announced at Masses March 25-26 that the parish intends to become a “sanctuary parish” for unauthorized immigrants and is willing to house in its parish center people at risk of deportation. It is the first Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to declare itself a sanctuary parish.

According to a March 27 statement, the parish is especially interested in helping immigrants in cases that “would separate parents from their children or would separate people brought to the United States as children from the only homes they have ever truly known.” The statement was signed by St. Thomas More’s pastor Jesuit Father Warren Sazama and Sarah Mullins, pastoral council chairwoman.

“As part of the discernment process, it was clear to parish leadership that a majority of the responders in our community feel called to participate in more immediate action than advocacy alone can provide,” the statement read. “Many feel a biblical and theological call to act like the Good Samaritan who provided shelter, financial support and comfort to a stranger in need, or the innkeeper who offered Mary and Joseph a place to rest after a long journey. We also recognize that what seems like an insurmountable burden to a handful of individuals can be overcome by a parish community with collective resources.”

The parish made the decision following three discernment sessions and the efforts of four working groups that explored the possibilities and implications of becoming a sanctuary parish. It plans to form an implementation team to create a plan to welcome immigrants into the parish’s spaces; secure financial support; train volunteers and staff; and minimize the parish’s insurance, financial and legal risks. The parish also aims to increase its advocacy work.

St. Thomas More is the second Jesuit parish in the U.S. to become a sanctuary parish; the other is in San Francisco. It is also the second such Catholic church in Minnesota, following St. Mary in Worthington. Three other Catholic parishes in the archdiocese are “sanctuary-supporting” parishes: Ascension, St. Francis Cabrini and St. Joan of Arc, all in Minneapolis.

Father Eugene Michel’s action one winter day in the parking lot of Sacred Heart in St. Paul speaks volumes about the kind of priest he was, said a friend and former parishioner.

Prisciliano Maya, who got to know the Franciscan priest over the last 15 years until his death April 3 at the age of 81, recalled the incident, which took place five or six years ago. It involved a new jacket Father Michel had just received from a parishioner.

“He was wearing a very old jacket” at the time, Maya said, “and, I tried to convince him to use a new one.”

It took a year before Father Michel got one. Then, the first time he wore it, he gave it to a man in need of a coat while walking from his house to his parish office.

“So, he wore the jacket just five minutes,” Maya recalled. “It moved my heart to see that kind of thing. He did that all Father Eugene the time. Whenever a person MICHEL gave him money, he always used the money for the poor.”

Pastor of Sacred Heart from 2003-2015, Father Michel endeared himself not just to Maya and his family, but to the parish’s entire Latino community, which grew under his leadership and remains strong.

Maya said the priest would come over to his house regularly and always asked for his favorite Mexican bean dish, frijolitos calientitos. On Maya’s last visit with Father Michel at Our Lady of Peace Home in St. Paul March 31, the last words he heard the priest utter were in Spanish: “Ayúdame” (“help me”).

“He always was compassionate,” Maya said. “He was a blessing because he knew our culture.”

Father Michel entered the Franciscans in 1956 and professed solemn vows in 1960 before his ordination in 1964. He spent a year in further formation before teaching religion at an all-male, African-American high school in Chicago from 1965-1976. His job required much more than teaching.

“You had to be a father figure and often put in long extra hours after school was over, because you did a lot of things with the kids that absent fathers should have been doing. And Father Eugene was just excellent at that,” said Franciscan Father Christian Reuter, who served there with Father Michel.

Father Michel also served as chaplain to the U.S. Embassy in Bonn, Germany, from 1976-1977 and taught theology at Quincy College in Illinois from 1977-1978. He then served parishes in San Antonio, Texas, and Chicago before coming to St. Paul. He was the last Franciscan to serve at Sacred Heart, as the St. Louis-based Sacred Heart Province ended 106 years of ministry in the parish with his 2015 retirement.

“He was a very dedicated priest,” said Franciscan Brother Robert Gross, who lived with Father Michel in St. Paul. “He would always do the ‘nth’ thing for the parishioners or whoever came to him.”

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April 6, 2017

U.S. & WORLD

Catholic approach to development looks at body and soul, pope says

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service A Catholic approach to development aims at helping people achieve both physical and spiritual well-being and promotes both individual responsibility and community ties, Pope Francis said.

A development that is “fully human” recognizes that being a person means being in relationship; it affirms “inclusion and not exclusion,” and upholds the dignity of the person against any form of exploitation and struggles for freedom, the pope said April 4 at a Vatican conference marking the 50th anniversary of Blessed Paul VI’s social encyclical on integral human development, “Populorum Progressio.”

Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, opened the conference April 3.

“It is in this world that we can perceive God’s love for us,” and it is in this world that men and women are called to learn to know, love and worship God and serve him and their brothers and sisters, Cardinal Muller said April 3. Therefore, one cannot advocate for some kind of separation between concern for the things of God and concern for his creation, especially his human creation.

Holistic or integral development, Pope Francis said, involves “integrating” all people into one human family, integrating individuals into communities, integrating the individual and communal dimensions of life, and integrating body and soul.

“The duty of solidarity obliges us to seek proper ways of sharing so that there is no longer that

dramatic inequality between those who have too much and those who have nothing, between those who discard and those who are discarded,” he said.

Social integration recognizes that each individual has “a right and an obligation” to participate in the life of the community, bringing his or her gifts and talents to share for the good of all, the pope said. But it also recognizes that well-being is not something that can be improved or measured only with economic indicators; it includes “work, culture, family life and religion.”

“None of these can be absolutized, and none can be excluded from the concept of integral human development,” he said, because “human life is like an orchestra that plays well if all the different instruments are in tune with each other and follow a score shared by all.”

One of the major challenges to integral development today, the pope said, is the tendency to focus either exclusively on the value of the individual or to ignore that value completely.

In the West, he said, culture “has exulted the individual to the point of making him an island, as if one could be happy alone.”

“On the other hand,” the pope said, “there is no lack of ideological visions and political powers who have squashed the person,” or who treat people as a mass without individual dignity. The modern global economic system tends to do the same, he said.

Because human beings are both body and soul, working for their well-being must include respecting their faith and helping it grow.

The Catholic Church’s approach to development is modeled on Jesus’ approach to human flourishing, which included spiritual and physical healing, liberating and reconciling people, the pope said.

Syrian refugees Ramy and Suhila and their children, Khodus, Rashid and Abdul Mejid, relax in Rome in 2016 after Pope Francis brought them with him from a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece.

CNS/Paul Haring

Vatican welcomes three new refugee families

By Junno Arocho Esteves Catholic News Service The first three refugee families from Syria welcomed by the Vatican left their temporary homes to start their new lives in Italy, and three new families took their places in Vatican apartments.

The papal Almoner’s Office, which helps coordinate Pope Francis’ acts of charity, announced April 2 that two Christian families and one Muslim family moved to the apartments that housed the first refugee families welcomed by the Vatican in late 2015 and early 2016.

The two Christian families, the papal almoner’s office said, arrived in March after “suffering kidnapping and discrimination” because of their faith.

“The first family is composed of a mother with two adolescent children, a grandmother, an aunt and another Syrian woman who lives with them,” the office said.

The second family is a young couple, who had their first child — a daughter named Stella — shortly

after moving into the Vatican apartment, the Almoner’s Office said. “The mother had been kidnapped for several months by ISIS and now, in Italy, has regained serenity.”

The third family — a mother, father and two children — arrived in Italy in February 2016. The children have been attending elementary school in Italy while the mother has been attending graduate courses and currently has an internship.

The Vatican welcomed the refugee families after an appeal made by Pope Francis Sept. 6, 2015, in which he called on every parish, religious community, monastery and shrine in Europe to take in a family of refugees, given the ongoing crisis of people fleeing from war and poverty.

Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, said that aside from providing a home for the three families, the office also continues to provide financial support to the first three Syrian families, whom Pope Francis brought to Italy after his visit last year to the Greek island of Lesbos, and for the nine additional refugees who arrived later.

The Catholic Spirit • 9 in BRIEF VATICAN CITY

Pope approves provisions to recognize marriages of SSPX faithful Continuing initiatives aimed at a reconciliation with the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, Pope Francis has made it possible for bishops to ensure the validity of marriages celebrated in the traditionalist communities. A letter published by the Vatican April 4 said the pope will allow Catholic bishops to appoint priests to assist at SSPX marriages and formally receive the consent of the couples. The nuptial Mass then would be celebrated by the SSPX priest. In addition, Pope Francis gave bishops the option of granting an SSPX priest the necessary faculties to officiate validly over the marriage rite “if there are no priests in the diocese” available to do so.

The provisions are meant to ensure the validity of the sacrament and “allay any concerns on the part of the faithful,” said the letter published by the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” which is responsible for the Vatican’s ongoing talks with the Society of St. Pius X.

IRBIL, Iraq

Chaldean patriarch supports Holy Week peace march in Iraq The Chaldean Catholic patriarch is supporting a more than 80-mile peace march during Holy Week to urge an end to violence in his homeland and throughout the Middle East. The Chaldean Catholic Church has dedicated 2017 as the Year of Peace. Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad has repeatedly called on Iraqis to engage in “serious dialogue, openness and honesty” to realize national reconciliation and unity among the country’s vast mosaic of religious and ethnic peoples, battered by years of sectarian violence.

WASHINGTON

Bill passes to allow states to redirect funds from abortion clinics The Senate voted late March 30 to override a rule change made in the last days of the Obama administration that prevented states from redirecting Title X family planning funding away from clinics that performed abortions and to community clinics that provide comprehensive health care. “The clear purpose of this Title X rule change was to benefit abortion providers like Planned Parenthood,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities. “Congress has done well to reverse this very bad public policy, and to restore the ability of states to stop one stream of our tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood and redirect it to community health centers that provide comprehensive primary and preventive health care,” he said in a March 31 statement. Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, cast a tiebreaking vote March 30.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

Pro-life advocates who made undercover videos charged Two California pro-life advocates are facing 15 felonies for making undercover videos of Planned Parenthood affiliate officials alleging they committed improprieties regarding fetal tissue and organs.

California prosecutors March 28 charged David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress in Irvine with felonies for filming 14 people without permission between October 2013 and July 2015 in Los Angeles, San Francisco and El Dorado counties. One felony count was filed for each person, and the 15th count was for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy, the Associated Press reported. In the videos, Planned Parenthood officials are shown discussing the illegal marketing and sale of fetal tissue with Daleiden and Merritt, who posed as representatives of a mythical fetal tissue procurement firm.

— Catholic News Service

10 • The Catholic Spirit

Child protection commission seeks new ways to be informed by victims

By Junno Arocho Esteves Catholic News Service Following the resignation of a prominent member and abuse survivor, a pontifical commission charged with addressing issues related to clergy sex abuse vowed to continue to seek input from victims and survivors.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said the resignation of Marie Collins was a “central topic” of its March 24-26 plenary assembly, and it “expressed strong support for her continuing work” to promote healing for abuse victims and ensuring best practices for prevention.

“Commission members have unanimously agreed to find new ways to ensure its work is shaped and informed with and by victims/survivors. Several ideas that have been successfully implemented elsewhere are being carefully considered for recommendation to the Holy Father,” the commission said in a March 26 statement published by the Vatican.

Among the main concerns the commission addressed was outreach to victims, an issue Collins first raised shortly after she resigned from her position.

In an editorial published online March 1 by National Catholic Reporter, Collins said an unnamed dicastery, a department of the Roman curia, not only refused to respond to letters from victims, but it also refused to cooperate on the commission’s safeguarding guidelines.

In its statement, the commission emphasized Pope Francis’ letter to the presidents of the bishops’ conferences and superiors of institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life, in which he called for their close and complete cooperation with the Commission for the Protection of Minors.

“The work I have entrusted to them includes providing assistance to you and your conferences through an exchange of best practices and through programs of education, training and developing adequate responses to sexual abuse,” the pope wrote Feb. 2, 2015.

Commission members spoke again of their willingness to work together with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith communicating a “guidelines template” to episcopal conferences and religious congregations, both directly and through the commission website, the statement said.

U.S. & WORLD

April 6, 2017

Bishops urge Congress to take bipartisan approach on health care reform Catholic News Service

The letter also pointed out issues that still need to be addressed, such as conscience protections for those Now that lawmakers have withdrawn the American who participate in the delivery or coverage of health Health Care Act, Congress must “seize this moment to care services, problems of rising costs and premiums, create a new spirit of bipartisanship” and make and the obstacles to immigrant access to health care. “necessary reforms” in existing health care law to “Lawmakers still have a duty to confront these address access, affordability, life and conscience, said significant challenges. While a comprehensive three U.S. bishops’ committee chairmen. approach is preferable, some of the problems can be The Republican bill was removed from fixed with more narrow reforms, and in a bipartisan consideration by the House at the eleventh hour way,” the bishops said, suggesting that Congress pass March 24 because its passage looked unlikely, as a the Conscience Protection Act, extend full Hyde number of lawmakers disagreed with several of its Amendment protections to the Affordable Care Act, provisions as well as the process that led to the and enact other targeted laws to remove current and drafting of the bill. impending barriers to obtaining The measure “contained serious health care. deficiencies, particularly in its The 41-year-old Hyde changes to Medicaid, that would Amendment, which has to be have impacted the poor and each year as part of the “While a comprehensive approved others most in need in budget for the U.S. Department unacceptable ways,” the bishops of Health and Human Services, approach is preferable, said in a joint letter to Congress prohibits tax dollars from paying dated March 30 and released for abortion except in cases of some of the problems March 31 by the U.S. Conference rape, incest or threat to the of Catholic Bishops. woman’s life. The Conscience can be fixed with more But the committee chairmen Protection Act would provide also said that withdrawal of the legal protection to doctors, narrow reforms, and in a bill “must not end our nation’s nurses, hospitals and all health efforts to improve health care.” care providers who choose not bipartisan way.”

The letter was signed by to provide abortions as part of Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New their health care practice.

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore York, chairman of the Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter Committee on Pro-Life and Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, of Charity, who is president and Activities; Archbishop William Florida, in a March 30 joint letter to CEO of the Catholic Health Lori of Baltimore, chairman of Association, said her organization Congress the Ad Hoc Committee for is “pleased that the hastily crafted Religious Liberty; and Bishop American Health Care Act did not Frank Dewane of Venice, Florida, garner enough support from chairman of the Committee on congressional members for it to be Domestic Justice and Human approved in the House of Development.

Representatives.”

The bishops stressed that a positive aspect to the In a statement to be published in the April 15 issue proposed legislation was its “critical life protections for of Catholic Health World, a CHA publication, Sister the unborn.”

Keehan said the association remains “concerned about “By restricting federal funding for abortion, its the continued affordability and stability of the providers and the purchase of plans that cover it, the individual health insurance market under the ACA.” bill would have finally resolved a grave moral failing She said she hopes Congress will work in a bipartisan rooted within the very structure of the Affordable Care way going forward to address those challenges, adding Act,” they said. that it has “a perfect opportunity to do that now.”

April 6, 2017

U.S. & WORLD

The Catholic Spirit • 11

U.N. panel: After rescue, trafficking victims need help addressing trauma

By Beth Griffin Catholic News Service

Portuguese shepherd children Lucia dos Santos, center, and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, are seen in a file photo taken around the time of the 1917 apparitions of Mary at Fatima. CNS/EPA

Pope recognizes miracle attributed to Fatima visionaries

By Junno Arocho Esteves Catholic News Service Pope Francis has approved the recognition of a miracle attributed to the intercession of two of the shepherd children who saw Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, thus paving the way for their canonization.

Pope Francis signed the decree for the causes of Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta Marto during a meeting March 23 with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the Vatican said.

The recognition of the miracle makes it likely that the canonization ceremony for the siblings will be scheduled soon. The cardinals and bishops who are members of the congregation must vote to recommend their canonization, and then the pope would convene the cardinals resident in Rome for a consistory to approve the sainthood.

Many people are hoping Pope Francis will preside over the canonization ceremony during his visit to Fatima May 12-13.

The pilgrimage will mark the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions, which began May 13, 1917, when 9-year-old Francisco and 7-year-old Jacinta, along with their cousin Lucia dos Santos, reported seeing the Virgin Mary. The apparitions continued once a month until Oct. 13, 1917, and later were declared worthy of belief by the Catholic Church.

A year after the apparitions, both of the Marto children became ill during an influenza epidemic that plagued Europe. Francisco died April 4, 1919, at the age of 10, while Jacinta succumbed to her illness Feb. 20, 1920, at the age of 9.

Francisco and Jacinta’s cause for canonization was stalled for decades due to a debate on whether nonmartyred children have the capacity to

understand heroic virtues at a young age. However, in 1979, St. John Paul II allowed their cause to proceed; he declared them venerable in 1989 and beatified them in 2000.

Their cousin Lucia entered the Institute of the Sisters of St. Dorothy and, later, obtained permission to enter the Carmelite convent of St. Teresa in Coimbra, where she resided until her death in 2005 at the age of 97.

Following her death, Pope Benedict XVI waived the five-year waiting period before her sainthood cause could open. Bishop Virgilio Antunes of Coimbra formally closed the local phase of investigation into her life and holiness Feb. 13, 2017, and forwarded the information to the Vatican.

Also March 23, Pope Francis signed other decrees recognizing miracles, martyrdom and heroic virtues in six other causes, the Vatican said.

The pope also approved the bishops’ and cardinals’ vote to canonize two Brazilian priests — Blessed Andre de Soveral and Blessed Ambrosio Francisco Ferro — as well as Mateus Moreira and 27 laypeople, who were killed in 1645 as violence broke out between Portuguese Catholics and Dutch Calvinists in Brazil.

Pope Francis also approved the vote to canonize three young Mexican martyrs, known as the child martyrs of Tlaxcala, who were among the first native converts in Mexico. Known only by their first names — Cristobal, Antonio and Juan — they were killed in 1529 for rejecting idolatry and polygamy in the name of their faith.

In addition, Pope Francis signed a decree recognizing the martyrdom of Franciscan Claretian Sister Rani Maria Vattalil, who died in 1995 after being stabbed 54 times, apparently because of her work helping poor women in India organize themselves. With the signing of the decree, a date can be set for her beatification.

It’s not enough to rescue victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation — they must be given supportive care to address their trauma and tools to live economically independent lives free from abuse.

That was the view of speakers at a March 22 United Nations panel that was co-sponsored by the Vatican’s permanent observer mission to the United Nations.

Representatives of religious, nonprofit and government agencies addressed “Economically Empowering Trafficking Survivors to Stay Permanently Off the Streets.”

Trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world today, speakers said. Estimates vary of the number of people ensnared by human slavery, but most agree more than 20 million people worldwide are exploited as modern slaves.

“One of the most hopeful developments in recent years has been the advent of an increasing number of individuals, organizations, governments and advocates at the international, national and local levels to fight against this atrocious scourge and crime against humanity, and help those who have been victimized by it leave slavery, and be rehabilitated patiently and compassionately toward true freedom,” said Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.N. A common misperception is that human slavery and trafficking are restricted to distant places, speakers said.

“Often, good, caring people are unaware that it’s happening in their own backyard and is not limited to poor people overseas. Education is key to breaking these myths,” said Sister Joan Dawber, a Sister of Charity. She is the founder and executive director of LifeWay Network, an organization that operates four safe houses in the New York area for women who have been trafficked.

Peter DiMarzio, victim assistance specialist who works for Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said most of the victims he encounters are U.S. citizens between ages 16 and 35. “Almost all are addicted to heroin, which is a barrier to getting them into drug-free safe houses,” he said.

DiMarzio added that the Homeland Security program offers three types of visas to help foreign nationals who are trafficked to the United States.

Mercy Sister Lynda Dearlove founded Women@The Well, a British charity that helps sexually exploited women and girls leave prostitution and transition to healthy self-sufficiency.

“The buying of sexual acts should be criminalized,” Sister Lynda said.

Sexual exploitation responds to demand. The problem will only be solved when there is a collective decision to tackle the demand and make it socially unacceptable to purchase women’s bodies, Sister Lynda said.

Sweden, the first country to criminalize buyers and decriminalize women in the sex trade, saw a dramatic drop in demand, she added.

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12 • The Catholic Spirit

Listening to thesou Catholics seek spiritual direction to recognize the presence

By Bridget Ryder • For The Catholic Spirit

F

or once, Mary Noble Garcia sat still long enough to notice what was going on in her soul after her body and mind had stopped moving through the motions of everyday life. In her meeting with a spiritual director, she figured out what was happening.

“It was about being silent enough to hear what was going on and having someone help me listen and make meaning of it,” Garcia said of her first experience of spiritual direction some 30 years ago during a student retreat at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.

“That was the hook.”

With more than three decades of life changes, Garcia, 54, who attends Mass at Our Lady of Victory Chapel at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, spiritual direction has remained an integral part of her life. In 2013, one year after earning a master’s degree in theology, she completed a certificate in spiritual direction at St. Catherine University.

Rooted in tradition and flourishing anew Garcia represents an increasing number of lay people who have both sought and offered spiritual direction in recent decades. The practice of seeking a guide for one-on-one spiritual assistance for deepening one’s relationship with God goes back to the New Testament. Father Jon Kelly, spiritual director at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, points to the example of St. Paul. After being blinded on the road to Damascus, Jesus told him to go into the city where he would “be told what to do.” Spiritual direction continued to take shape from the time of the desert fathers

during the Church’s first centuries through the life and writings of saints such as St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis de Sales a millennium later. Today, spiritual direction is receiving increased interest, especially among laity.

“In the last 50 to 60 years, it’s really exploded for lay people,” said Christine Luna Munger, coordinator of the Spiritual Direction Certificate and professor of theology at St. Catherine University.

The program that Munger leads marks its 20th anniversary this year. It began as a response to the “rumbling” for more spiritual direction. According to Munger, there are about 200 different spiritual direction training programs in the United States, some more formal and some less. The certificate at St. Catherine University is a 28-credit program that combines academic theological studies, the study of the discernment of spirits and a practicum.

Sacred Ground Center for Spirituality is also celebrating its 20th anniversary of training spiritual directors. It’s located adjacent to St. Kate’s campus in the Carondelet Center, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.

Though not an academic program, it is still a three-year formation process of personal spiritual growth, education and practice.

Joy Hayes, 54, a parishioner of St. Thomas Becket in Eagan, is in the last semester of the program. Over the last three years, she has learned the art of “sitting with people and holding the space for them,” meaning the sacred space where God is working in their lives. Listening without judgment is one of the most important skills for a spiritual director.

Unlike therapy or pastoral counseling, spiritual direction is not about getting or giving advice, nor finding a solution to problems. It’s about finding the presence of God in the movements of the heart during both prayer and daily activities. To know what to listen for, spiritual

directors also study how the Catholic tradition has come to understand the stirrings of the heart — the ebb and flow of excitement, joy, peace and sadness — in relation to God. Many programs focus on Ignatian spirituality.

“Ignatius reclaimed a lot of the language of discernment from earlier centuries,” Munger said.

Almost a millennium before the life of St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, the desert fathers and mothers were noticing the movements of the spirit in their lives of intense prayer and solitude. In the 1500s, through his conversion and his own prayer, St. Ignatius also started noticing what inspired joy or sadness and how that related to following Christ.

“What it means is that God might be communicating to us in these movements,” Munger explained.

Ignatius distilled and summarized what he had learned into a manual for giving retreats, his famous “Spiritual Exercises.” The last chapter is a list of rules including “Rules for Perceiving the Movements Caused in the Soul.” “[They] are so effective we are still using them 500 years later,” Munger said.

As part of her training, Hayes also went through Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, a series of meditations originally designed to be completed as a 30-day silent retreat, but now often done over a period of several months. The retreatant also meets weekly with a spiritual director.

Deepening one’s relationship with God and receiving spiritual direction are prerequisites to giving spiritual direction.

It is also a calling.

When Mary Boespflug, a teacher and the director of family ministry at St. Edward in Bloomington for 20 years, started spiritual director training through the Center for Spiritual Guidance in St. Paul, she wasn’t sure if she would ever give spiritual direction.

“I wanted to go through it to grow spiritually

and prof it was a c Boespfl own spir — regula ensure th principle Beside home, H ministrie group fo she used the grou difficulti “It wa suffering blessings Knowi it possib God’s ble what spi “Our j presence close rela In 201 director started o parish. T receive s the paris also writ direction Offering the pract to Catho is the pa parishion spiritual Boespflu

Finding

Despit finding a

April 6, 2017 • 13

ul of God

fessionally. As I went through it, I found call,” she said. flug and Hayes continue to receive their ritual direction as well as supervision ar meetings with other directors to hey’re being true to the ethics and es of spiritual direction. es giving individual direction in her Hayes has also used her training in other es. When she was facilitating a support or parents of children with disabilities, d her skills as a spiritual director to move up away from sharing only their ies to perceiving God’s grace. asn’t a support [group] of sharing g, it was a support group of shared s,” she said. ing how to ask the right questions made ble to help the parents not lose sight of essings amid their difficulties. That’s iritual directors help people do. job is to keep them ever focused on God’s e and call in their life. It’s meant for a ationship with God,” Boespflug said.

14, Boespflug and fellow spiritual Jean Buell, who also attends St. Edward, offering their ministry directly to their They are not staff members, nor do they stipends from the parish, but they use sh facilities to meet with directees. Buell tes a short piece about spiritual n for the parish’s Sunday bulletin. g the ministry through the parish makes tice familiar and more easily accessible olics whose main or sole spiritual home arish. Besides the convenience, ners also feel comfortable seeking l direction in their own community, ug said.

“Certified” spiritual directors don’t exist.

“It’s inappropriate to say that you are a certified spiritual director,” Munger said. “In spiritual direction, there’s always been this resistance to certification because you don’t want to box in the spirit. But there’s also a need for credentials so that you don’t hang a shingle out there and mess someone up.”

but as they start to see where God’s grace is working, “the other things just seem so on the surface.” At the same time, by talking about experiences of grace, “the grace opens up in them,” he said. Through the process, the directee also becomes better attuned to the spirit of God working in them and what is working against it.

Completing a training program is one good credential, but generally, directees need to find someone with whom they feel comfortable and trust, and who is knowledgeable about the spiritual life, preferably both personally and through study of the Church’s tradition. The search can start at one’s parish, as several parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have members who offer the ministry. There are also several spirituality centers that offer spiritual direction.

Potential directees also need to determine if spiritual direction is actually what they need.

In St. Paul alone, the Loyola Center for Spirituality, Sacred Ground Center for Spirituality and the Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality all have spiritual directors. Word of mouth, though, is often the best way to find a spiritual director, as there are priests, religious members and lay people throughout the archdiocese who give spiritual direction. Many lay directors ask for a fee for spiritual direction, though no one is refused for financial reasons.

Receiving spiritual direction Spiritual direction is usually an ongoing relationship with a monthly meeting between the director and directee. Each session lasts about an hour, and directees can discuss anything they want.

g a spiritual director

“If you’re able to bring a prayer experience, that’s great. But you can bring anything, and then the conversation becomes prayer,” Father Kelly said.

te the increase in awareness and training, a good spiritual director can be difficult.

Often, he finds that directees might have six issues in their lives that they want to talk about,

“We are directed primarily through the life of the Church,” said Father Marc Paveglio, parochial vicar at Pax Christi Catholic Community in Eden Prairie and spiritual director at St. John Vianney College Seminary.

For most Catholics, regular personal prayer and participation in the prayer life of their parish, the sacraments, prayer groups and other faith formation opportunities are enough to keep them deepening their relationship with God. There are also other specific ways that Catholics can find more personal direction for their souls. Confession, especially going regularly to the same priest, can be an opportunity for personal direction. Father Kelly also emphasizes the importance of spiritual friendship — having a friend or a group of friends with whom you can share on a deeply spiritual level in a charitable environment. At times, the need might also be for short-term pastoral counseling rather than ongoing spiritual direction.

“It was about being silent enough to hear what was going on and having someone help me listen and make meaning of it.”

Mary Noble Garcia

But whether or not one receives spiritual direction, the increasing interest in the Catholic tradition of spiritual direction, even among people of other Christian denominations and non-Christian faiths, points to the richness of Catholic spirituality.

Father Paveglio said: “It reveals that right in the heart of the Catholic Church are all the graces and channels for people to experience the love of God.” iStock/Boarding1Now

14 • The Catholic Spirit

HOLY WEEK

April 6, 2017

Church leaders: Restoration on Jesus’ tomb signals new cooperation

By Judith Sudilovsky Catholic News Service

L

Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, papal nuncio to Israel and Cyprus and apostolic delegate in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories, talks during a ceremony marking the end of restoration work on the site of Jesus’ tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher March 22. CNS

The restored Edicule is seen during a ceremony marking the end of restoration work on the site of Jesus’ tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher March 22. CNS

ess than a year after restoration work began, the Edicule — the traditional site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection — was inaugurated in an ecumenical ceremony led by representatives of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian churches, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

The 200-year-old structure was rehabilitated for the first time after Israeli authorities deemed it unsafe and leaders from the three churches that share custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher came to an agreement for the work to proceed.

Some did not believe the churches could overcome their centuries-old disagreements, but the project was a sign that “with God, nothing is impossible,” Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said at the March 22 ceremony.

“This apparent ‘mission impossible’ became possible because we allowed God to enlighten our thoughts and our eyes and our relations. Things do not change by themselves. If we are here for this celebration, it is because the different churches and leaders were able to hear the voice of God and understand and realize and accept that it was time to build new relations between us of trust and respect,” he said.

Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, custos of the Holy Land, said it was “providential coincidence” that this year, as the Edicule is restored, all the Christian denominations celebrate Easter on the same date. It was also fitting, he said, that it was around the Church of the Holy Sepulcher that the churches regained a closer relationship.

Armenian Patriarch Nourhan Manougian took the opportunity to mention the three other denominations with a presence in the church — the Assyrian Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Coptic Orthodox.

He asked that the Anglican and Russian Orthodox churches be allowed to offer their holy liturgy at the Edicule once a year, after Easter.

“We must pray earnestly to Jesus Christ to give us the wisdom to be able to absorb literally between ourselves his greatest commandment of love,” said the patriarch. “We have no difference in regard to this commandment and, unless we accept his commandment and express it in our lives and deeds, how can we consider ourselves Jesus’ disciples?”

Several hundred local faithful, pilgrims and international dignitaries filled the main area of the basilica where the Edicule is located, taking pictures and videos of the pink-stoned structure. The metal girders that British Mandate authorities added in 1947 to keep it standing have been removed.

“It is a very exciting day which hasn’t happened in hundreds of years. It is a very big step, we are all united in celebration,” said Marlen Mauge, 53, a Catholic from Jerusalem. “We would like to have more than one united celebration. It is a good message to the world.”

Antonia Moropoulou, a professor at the National Technical University of Athens, directed the work at the site.

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Good Friday, April 14

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More calendar events at www.TheCatholicSpirit.com

HOLY WEEK

April 6, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 15

Baptized at 99

Carol Sullivan can now call herself a Catholic, having been baptized Nov. 17, 2016, at Lake Minnetonka Shores in Spring Park, where she lives. Father Tony O’Neill, pastor of Our Lady of the Lake in Mound, baptized her.

Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit

Woman decides ‘it’s time’ to join Catholic Church

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

A

casual conversation at a nursing home in Spring Park last fall led to the baptism of a woman just two months shy of her 100th birthday.

Carla LaBore, adult faith formation coordinator at Our Lady of the Lake in Mound, was making the rounds at Lake Minnetonka Shores senior community, knocking on doors and asking Catholic residents if they wanted Communion or, perhaps, a priest to come and hear their confession.

She walked in to see Carol Sullivan in October 2016, and inquired about her sacramental needs. Sullivan wanted both Communion and confirmation, but there was a problem — she had never been baptized.

“I almost fell over when she said she had never been baptized,” said LaBore, who makes regular visits to Minnetonka Shores and had visited with Sullivan previously because Sullivan had listed herself as Catholic. “It just blew me away.”

LaBore then posed the delicate request to Sullivan about receiving the sacrament that would initiate her faith journey into the Catholic Church.

Sullivan’s response?

“Well, I think it’s time,” she recalled saying. “You have to get prepared for what comes next.”

She was, of course, referring to the end of her life. Though in good health overall, she adopted a practical approach to why it made sense to receive the waters of baptism well ahead of Easter, when adults typically join the Church.

But first, scrutiny was in order. Finding the admission so surprising, LaBore wanted to be sure it was true. She checked at St. Gabriel the Archangel, which had a copy of Sullivan’s marriage certificate from her wedding to a Catholic at St. Joseph in Hopkins Aug. 2, 1937.

Sure enough, the word “unbaptized” appeared on the certificate. Further exploration in the place of her birth, Hill City in northern Minnesota, came up empty as well. Her parents and grandparents both belonged to the local Methodist church, which had no record of Sullivan being baptized there.

“Somehow, it fell through the cracks,” LaBore said.

The next step was to schedule the baptism. LaBore suggested waiting until her 100th birthday Jan. 25, but Sullivan wouldn’t hear of it. She was too worried something might happen before then.

Instead, Sullivan received all three sacraments of initiation Nov. 17, 2016.

Father Tony O’Neill, pastor of Our Lady of the Lake, baptized and confirmed her and gave her first Communion. Her sponsors were her two living children,

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Jeanne Zuleger, 66, who lives just four blocks away and attends Immaculate Conception in Watertown, and Patrick Sullivan, 79.

“I think it was a great day, and it was something that she wanted and made her feel good,” Zuleger said. “She’s talked about it quite a few times since. So, I think she was more excited than she [admits].”

She remembers that “the priest was very generous with the water,” she said.

“It was running down the back of my head.”

Sullivan had looked into joining the Church as early as the 1940s, and was taking a class at St. Therese in Deephaven. But, she stopped short of finishing the journey. A sticking point was confession.

She continues to be shy about the sacrament today. But, she got some good news about that on the day she joined

the Church.

“She didn’t have to [go to confession],” LaBore said. “Baptism wipes away all of our sins. And, the first time I told her that, she was pretty excited.”

Does she think she will give reconciliation a try now that she’s a Catholic?

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what I have to confess. I mean, what can I do [wrong] here? It’s kind of easy to behave when you can’t do anything [wrong].”

These days, LaBore is sure to have Eucharist with her when she knocks on Sullivan’s door. Every time she walks in, she can recall the scene that took place in the chapel, when a priest baptized someone more than twice his age.

“She had a pretty big smile on her face,” LaBore said. “She was grinning from ear to ear, and she had a nice, fancy suit on. She was all decked out.”

Celebrate Holy Week Palm Sunday

April 9—10:30 a.m.

Easter Triduum Holy Thursday April 13—7:30 p.m.

Good Friday April 14—7:30 p.m.

Easter Vigil April 15—8 p.m.

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April 16—10:30 a.m.

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16 • The Catholic Spirit

FAITH & CULTURE

April 6, 2017

Hooked on helping the homeless Crocheting sleeping mats a twofold service for Most Holy Redeemer ‘Bag Ladies’

By Matthew Davis The Catholic Spirit

E

very Monday, up to 25 women gather at the American Legion hall in Montgomery to make sleeping mats out of plastic bags for the homeless. Started by the Most Holy Redeemer Council for Catholic Women, the group has made more than 45 mats for homeless people around the metro and southern Minnesota.

“We call ourselves the Sisterhood of the Bag Ladies,” said Most Holy Redeemer parishioner Carol Freid during a crochet day March 27.

CCW president Cathy Herrmann introduced the project to the group, which has done many other service-oriented activities, including making prayer shawls and baby diapers to send to Haiti. The group began making mats in the summer of 2016 and has opened up the project to the greater community.

Women from other church congregations now join them.

“That is what we do — to reach out to the poor, the homeless [and] those in need,” Herrmann said.

Making the mats takes a lot of work, starting with folding and cutting the plastic bags, followed by tying the plastic into a ball. Then the women make long strips of plastic yarn that they call “plarn.”

Those who crochet weave together the plastic with crocheting sticks; they plan to make new ones from old drum sticks. Most Holy Redeemer parishioner Nancy Dorshak gets drum sticks from her son, who plays in a band.

Finished mats, usually about 3 feet by 6 feet, have a thick but soft and light feel. The opaque colors and patterns change based on the plastic bag colors.

Dorshak said crocheting plastic is harder than yarn because of the varied thickness, “but we do it, because we’re doing it for a reason.”

That reason has the grocery store in Montgomery saving plastic bags for the group. Their friends and family members also donate plastic bags. It takes 600 bags to make one mat, and time to produce it varies based on crocheting skills, Herrmann said. It takes the group one to two days to make each mat.

The “Bag Ladies” anticipate that the mats could be used indoors or outdoors. They’re easily carried and cleaned with water. The mats’ thickness insulates users from cold floors, and the tight plastic weave

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP From left, Adeline Dietz, Barb Weiers, Mary Kotek, Theresa Daas and Carol Freid cut and fold plastic bags to prepare them for the next step of making mats for the homeless.

A finished mat sits on the table at the American Legion hall in Montgomery, where the women gather on Mondays to make the mats.

Dorothy Kovarik of Montgomery crochets plastic with large wooden needles made from dowels.

Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit keeps the mats clean of dirt and bugs.

For the CCW members, the mats have two purposes: addressing the needs of the poor and helping the environment. “The idea is to recycle the plastic,” Herrmann said.

The mats initially went solely to homeless men and women in north Minneapolis through Streets of Hope Outreach, but now they also go to communities in southern Minnesota, where Herrmann said

Monday 10:00am - 6:00pm Tuesday – Saturday 10:00am - 8:00pm Closed Sunday

homelessness has increased.

Streets of Hope Outreach founder Todd Finney, who picked up 29 mats from Montgomery March 27, said homeless people get good use out of them, especially if sleeping outside or on shelter floors.

“Not only does it create a level of comfort for them, but it is [also knowing] ‘somebody out there cares about me enough to put something like this together,’” he said.

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Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, April 14 Sung Morning Prayer (Lauds) at 7:30 a.m.

Confessions from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m.

Stations of the Cross at 12:00 p.m.

Celebration of the Lord’s Passion at 3:00 p.m. (Solemn) Celebration of the Lord’s Passion at 7:00 p.m. (Simple) Holy Saturday, April 15 Sung Morning Prayer (Lauds) at 8:00 a.m.

Confessions from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m.

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April 6, 2017

FAITH & CULTURE

The Catholic Spirit • 17

Family program helps young children explore faith

By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit

Early Catholic Family Life training

F

our-year-old Sabrina Antonio knows when it’s time to pray to Jesus: not only at bedtime, but also when her family faces a challenge. The preschooler is thinking more about God and prayer after learning about the Catholic faith last fall through a program she attended with her mother, Cathy Antonio, and two younger brothers.

Meanwhile, Cathy connected with other Catholic moms looking for ways to bring home the lessons their children were learning.

The Early Catholic Family Life program helps children ages 5 and younger become more familiar with the faith, said Cathy, 39, who attended the seven-session course at Ave Maria Academy in Maple Grove with Sabrina and sons, Dante, 2, and Leo, 6 months.

“They’re still so little you can’t tell, but they’re like sponges that soak in everything,” said Cathy, who attends St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park with her family. “Even though you might not see it, I feel like they are taking something in, and they’re learning something about their faith.”

Developed in 2000 by a couple in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, ECFL offers a way for children to learn about God with their first educators of the faith — their parents — who, in turn, build relationships and get support and ideas from other parents, say cofounders Alan and Joanne Foley.

“This really gets parents to think about ways to incorporate their faith when their children are little and when it really matters, putting together traditions around faith, making the parent more connected to their beliefs, [and] being conscious about the way they share their beliefs with their little infants,” Joanne said.

Parishioners of St. Peter in Richfield, the couple has trained ECFL facilitators in about 70 archdiocesan parishes and schools, as well as those from other Minnesota dioceses and states. On April 29, they will host an ECFL training session at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.

The program is approved by the archdiocese and once operated under the umbrella of the archdiocese’s Office of Marriage, Family and Life. It has also been translated into Spanish.

Hands-on learning Inspiration for ECFL grew out of Joanne’s experience writing curriculum for the well-known Early Childhood Family Education program offered in Minnesota public schools since the 1970s. In it, parents guide children in learning activities, and parents also discuss early childhood and parenting issues with other parents.

Both 67, the Foleys noted while they were raising their own four children, they experienced a lack of

Cathy Antonio of St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park works on coloring with her children, Dante, left, Leo and Sabrina in their Champlin home. Dave Hrbacek/ The Catholic Spirit

“I had a time to get ideas from other moms about how they’re raising their kids in faith and how to grow in the faith as a mother, too.”

Cathy Antonio

formal faith instruction for young children in the archdiocese. Alan called it “a gap between baptism to first Communion where you’re not doing anything to bind the parents to the parish.”

So the couple decided to develop a Catholic program based on the Bible and Catechism of the Catholic Church with the merits of the Early Childhood Family Education program.

In each two-hour session, children and one or both of their parents spend the first hour exploring together different play stations that help them understand a particular faith topic. During the second hour, the children, guided by facilitators, continue playing while parents meet separately to learn, exchange advice and build community.

Children learn about the Eucharist, baptism and other aspects of the faith in small classes through structured play with a variety of objects and crafts. During largegroup time, they also learn prayers, songs and listen to stories, the couple said.

Some aspects of ECFL are like those of another faith

Early Catholic Family Life is hosting a seminar to train ECFL program leaders 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

April 29 at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Two individuals should attend per interested parish. Cost is $200 for two individuals, plus $200 for leader guides and workbooks.

For more information about ECFL or to register for the training, visit www.alanfol.wix.com/ earlycatholicfamlife or contact Alan and Joanne Foley at 612-704-7306 or alanfol@gmail.com.

program for young children, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, but the latter doesn’t include parent time and education, Joanne said. Alan noted that parents also appreciate the chance to share with others instead of listening to a talk, adding that some can feel isolated in their own faith.

Some parishes offer ECFL on weekdays when it’s convenient for stay-at-home parents. Others schedule classes for evenings and Saturday mornings. The cost to attend the program is usually less than $50.

Parent connection Some parents form friendships and community through ECFL, connections many families are looking for, Joanne said.

That’s been the case for Erin Murphy, an ECFL facilitator at Ave Maria Academy who participated in classes at Sts. Peter and Paul in Loretto with her daughters, Abigail, now 8, and Julia, 6.

A parishioner of Mary Queen of Peace in Rogers, Murphy, 34, said she and her friends have helped each other find ways to make faith important in their homes, including having more meals as a family, scheduling regular family prayer time and making Sundays special.

She recognizes “the value of Catholic education just for how it forms the whole family, and how being part of a community is so formative for both parents and children.”

Cathy, Sabrina’s mother, even thought of her ECFL class at Ave Maria Academy as a “mini retreat” of sorts.

“I had a time to get ideas from other moms about how they’re raising their kids in faith and how to grow in the faith as a mother, too,” she said.

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18 • The Catholic Spirit

FAITH & CULTURE

April 6, 2017

Four-year ‘encuentro’ process begins in U.S. with Latinos

By Rhina Guidos Catholic News Service

I

n Spanish, the word “encuentro” means encounter, and in the modern Church in the U.S., it refers to a series of meetings that will take place over the next four years aimed at getting to know Latinos and producing more involvement in the Church of its second largest and fastest growing community.

“The intent is for Latinos to have an encounter with the entire Church and for the Church to have an encounter with Latinos, understanding who they are, how they think [and] how they live their faith, so we can work together and move together and build a Church together,” said Mar Munoz-Visoso, executive director of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A recent report by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University commissioned by the U.S. bishops shows that more than half of millennial-generation Catholics born in 1982 or later are Hispanic or Latino. Those numbers alone call for the Church to have a plan for how it will bring Latinos in the U.S. into the Church’s leaderships roles, its vocations and their role in society, Munoz-Visoso said.

“You cannot plan the future of the Church without having an important conversation about this population,” she told Catholic News Service. “This effort is very important.”

While the numbers of Latinos in the Church are growing, “there is a gap between the numbers of Latinos in the pews, and the numbers of Latinos in leadership, and the numbers of vocations, or [Latino students] in Catholic schools,” Munoz-Visoso said.

The first part of “encuentro,” as the process is called, started in early 2017. It’s the fifth such process of its kind. Encuentros in the U.S. Church took place in 1972, 1977, 1985 and 2000, but the Fifth National Encuentro, also known as “V Encuentro,” is expected to be the largest in terms of attendance.

Participants first meet in small Christian communities at the local level to discern, dialogue and reflect on faith and the baptismal call, Munoz-Visoso said. Later in the year, parishes will hold encuentros of their own, which

Father Manuel Dorantes, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Chicago, talks with Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles during the 2016 opening Mass of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders annual conference in Chicago.

CNS/Karen Callaway will later lead to diocesan, regional and, finally, a nationwide encuentro Sept. 20-23, 2018, in Grapevine, Texas, in the Diocese of Fort Worth. The final part is a “post-national encuentro” that will include publishing a national working document about ways to implement what was learned during the process.

Encuentro organizers hope the process will yield an increase in vocations of Latinos to the priesthood, religious life and permanent diaconate, and an increase in the percentage of Latino students enrolling at Catholic schools. It also hopes to create a group of Latino leaders for the Church, and enhance Latinos’ sense of belonging and stewardship in the U.S. Church.

At the fall 2016 meeting of U.S. bishops in Baltimore, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley expressed concern that the younger generation of Latinos “is a demographic that is slipping away from the Church, and I think we

have a window of opportunity, and the window of opportunity is closing.”

Many Latinos are “joining the ranks of ‘nones,’” said Cardinal O’Malley, referring to the growing number of Americans who are choosing to be unaffiliated with any organized religion.

“We have very few, relatively, Hispanics in our Catholic schools. They’re underrepresented in our religious education programs, and I’m hoping that the outreach that is going to be done as part of the preparation for this ‘encuentro’ will make a difference,” he said.

Munoz-Visoso said Latinos are being courted by all kinds of groups, not just other church denominations.

“And we are at this juncture in history where we have this dilemma, where the majority of the Catholic Church in the country is becoming Latino, but at the same time, more Latinos than ever are leaving the Church,” she said. “So, we have to address this situation, because we have to really engage them, reenamor them [with] their faith and make sure they’re committed to their faith.”

Estela Villagrán Manancero, director of the Office of Latino Ministry for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, was recently re-elected for a second threeyear term as president of the National Catholic Association of Diocesan Directors for Hispanic Ministry.

She holds leadership positions on the national and regional “accompaniment” teams for V Encuentro.

Her role is to closely oversee and support diocesan Hispanic ministry directors during the process, noting that they “are the ones at the field [level] supporting and accompanying their parishes during these processes of consultation.”

More than 5,000 parishes have signed up to participate, Munoz-Visoso said.

Parish-level encuentros take place in May and June.

Diocesan encuentros will take place in the fall in more than 150 dioceses with a total of 200,000 participants.

The regional encuentros are slated for March-June 2018, with 10,000 delegates expected to attend.

— The Catholic Spirit contributed to this story

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FAITH & CULTURE

April 6, 2017

Considering ‘The Benedict Option’ Author: For Christians, it’s the end of a world as we know it

By Julie Asher Catholic News Service

A

uthor Rod Dreher’s critics call him an “alarmist” for proposing that Christians today “put some distance” between themselves and “the chaotic mainstream,” or Christianity will not survive.

Those critics are right, he said.

“I am alarmist about the state of our culture and of our civilization and the condition of the Church within it,” Dreher told a Washington audience. “If you’re a faithful Christian and you’re not alarmed, I think you’re failing to pay attention, you’re failing to read the signs of the times.

“I do not claim ‘the’ world is coming to an end. ...

What I am claiming, though, is that ‘a’ world is coming to an end,” he explained. “And if believing Christians don’t take radical action right now, the faith that made Western civilization will not survive for long into Western civilization’s post-Christian phase.”

Dreher, senior editor at The American Conservative and author of several books, has written “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a PostChristian Nation.” He spoke about his book at the National Press Club at an evening event sponsored by the Trinity Forum March 15.

He said the term “Benedict Option” comes from “the famous final paragraph” in philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s 1981 book “After Virtue.” In that book, MacIntyre explains “how Enlightenment modernity overthrew the old traditional source of moral order rooted in Christianity and classical philosophy,” Dreher said. “But it could not produce an authoritative binding replacement for it. The West, in MacIntyre’s view, has been unraveling for some time now, and it’s finally reaching a point of reckoning.”

Dreher also quoted a “noted public intellectual” who once said, “It is obligatory to compare today’s situation with the decline of the Roman Empire,” and who lamented “the collapse of the spiritual forces that sustain our civilization.” It was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. Dreher strongly believes the “reckoning” MacIntyre described is a clarion call that Christians need to “put some distance” between themselves and “the chaotic mainstream,” and what has been a “steady erosion of catholic_spirit_ad_jan2017_v4.pdf 1 12/16/16 6:51 AM authentic Christianity by the relentlessness of individualism, hedonism and consumerism”

C

M

Author Rod Dreher speaks March 15 at the National Press Club about his new book “The Benedict Option.” The concept, he says, is for Christians to “put some distance” between themselves and “the chaotic mainstream,” or Christianity will not survive. CNS in the culture.

“The Christian faith is flat on its back in secular Europe,” he continued. “The United States has long been thought of as a counter-example to the secularization thesis, but that’s no longer tenable” as “the U.S. is on the same downward path to disbelief pioneered by our European cousins.”

Dreher pointed to statistics including a Pew Research Center study showing that one in three 18- to 29-yearolds in the U.S. has put religion aside, “if they ever picked it up in the first place.” Another study showed, he said, that among 18- to 23-year-old Christians surveyed, “only 40 percent said that their personal moral beliefs are grounded in the Bible or some other religious sensibility.”

For his book — and some lessons in how Christians today can “start the rebuilding, the reseeding and the renewal” of Church and society — Dreher interviewed

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The Catholic Spirit • 19 the Benedictine monks in Norcia, Italy. Their founder, St. Benedict of Nursia, patron saint of Europe, was the fifth-century father of Western monasticism. He founded monasteries at a time when Europe was experiencing a crisis of values and turmoil caused by the fall of the Roman Empire, decadence and the death of traditional customs.

“Monks moved all over barbarian-ruled Europe,” Dreher said. “They brought the faith to unchurched people. They taught them how to pray, but they also taught the peasants how to make things, how to build things, how to grow things, skills that had been lost in Rome’s collapse, and in their rituals and in their libraries, the monks kept alive the cultural memory of Christian Rome.”

He interviewed Father Cassian Folsom, Norcia’s prior at the time, who told him “the forces of dissolution from popular culture are too great for individuals or families to resist on their own. We need to embed ourselves in stable communities of faith.”

So “does the Benedict Option call for all Christians to head for the hills,” as St. Benedict did when he fled Rome, or to “build high walls to keep the impurity of the world far away? Not at all,” Dreher said. “Let me underscore this: not at all.”

“We have to evangelize. We have to serve the world, or we are failing the great commission,” he explained.

“We have to serve our neighbors, or we fail to serve our Lord. Put all thoughts of total withdrawal out of your mind.”

The Benedict Option calls for “a strategic separation from the everyday world,” Dreher said. “We have to erect some walls, so to speak, between ourselves and our communities and the world for the sake of our own spiritual formation and discipleship.”

He said Christians must strengthen their churches, start schools, build up the local community, and, “to stay true to our faith, must listen to ... authoritative voices from the Christian past, especially the premodern era, including most of all the early Church.”

“If the Church is going to be a blessing for the world that God means for it to be,” Dreher continued, “then the Church is going to have to spend more time away from the world, deepening our commitment to God, deepening our knowledge of Scripture, deepening our relationship to the tradition and our knowledge of the historic Christian Church, and thickening our relationship to each other. We Christians cannot give the world what we do not have.”

Christians still have to stay active in conventional politics, he added, “working, as we are able to, for the common good.” One crucial fight is “to protect religious liberty upon which so much depends,” Dreher added.

He closed with some words from Father Folsom, who told him, “If Christian families, churches and communities in the West do not do some form of the Benedict Option, then ‘they’re not going to make it.’”

20 • The Catholic Spirit

SUNDAY SCRIPTURES

Deacon Tyler Mattson

Hosanna and the cross “Hosanna in the highest!”

The crowds in Jerusalem called out, “Hosanna to the son of David!” as Jesus entered into the city, and they laid their palm branches on the road. As Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple, even the children cried out “Hosanna!” Hosanna is an untranslated Hebrew word meaning something like “save me.” The Jews used it as an acclamation of praise to God during their highest feasts. We proclaim this at every Mass right before the Eucharist.

The Palm Sunday liturgy starts with that “Hosanna” of the crowds as we take palm branches of our own in order to adore the King of Kings. We then hear the full Passion narrative from Matthew’s Gospel, and we hear how our king is enthroned on a cross with only a crown

FOCUS ON FAITH of thorns. The crowd’s praise of Jesus is transformed into mockery. The only sign that this man dying on the cross is a king is the death sentence written over his head, “This is the King of the Jews.”

Our challenge this Palm Sunday is to see the intimate connection between the Hosanna and the cross, between powerful praise and the suffering of the Son of God. The Mass that we celebrate every week gives us our answer.

We sing the “Hosanna” right before the gifts of bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We sing “Save me” right before the savior of the world is made present to us. We cry out in praise right before the saving event of the cross is made present anew at the Mass. In other words, we get to become participants in the very moments that we just heard proclaimed in the Gospel account of the Passion.

Jesus is a king like no other. He is a king who humbles himself out of love for us. As St. Paul says in the reading for April 9, “Jesus humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Have you ever loved someone so much that you would have done anything for them? Jesus’ love is like that for us. He loves us so much that he is literally consumed by this love as he humbles himself to die on the cross.

Now can you see why we sing praises? Now can you

April 6, 2017

Sunday, April 9 Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion Readings • Is 50:4-7 • Phil 2:6-11 • Mt 26:14 – 27:66 see why we cry out, “Hosanna, save me”? It is because Jesus did save us, and he continues to save us.

Imagine if every choice we made, every thought we had, every desire of our heart was a calling out in praise to Jesus, “Hosanna, save me!” What if we never lost sight of what Jesus did for us on the cross and how we can participate in it at every Mass? I think our lives would be consumed by love, just like Jesus. I think we would have the joy the world cannot give, knowing we have such a king of love. Hosanna to the son of David!

Hosanna in the highest!

Deacon Mattson is in formation for the priesthood at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul for the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His teaching parish is Holy Family in St. Louis Park, and his home parish is Christ the King in Sioux Falls.

DAILY Scriptures Sunday, April 9 Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion Is 50:4-7 Phil 2:6-11 Mt 26:14 – 27:66 Monday, April 10 Is 42:1-7 Jn 12:1-11 Tuesday, April 11 Is 49:1-6 Jn 13:21-33, 36-38

Wednesday, April 12 Is 50:4-9a Mt 26:14-25 Thursday, April 13 Holy Thursday Ex 12:1-8, 11-14 1 Cor 11:23-26 Jn 13:1-15 Friday, April 14 Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion Is 52:13—53:12 Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9 Jn 18:1—19:42

SEEKING ANSWERS

Father Michael Schmitz

Gluttony is not joy Q. It seems like every time I want to do something that I think will be fun, the Church has a rule against it. Why is the Church so against pleasure?

A. This is a great question. It is connected to how profoundly misunderstood God’s rules and the Church’s teachings are. You mention that there seem to be so many “noes” for those who want to follow God that we can be tempted to think that God dislikes pleasure and enjoyment. But is that really the case?

For example, think of all the amazing things in this world that we are made to enjoy. Consider that we only emphasize God’s noes because if we tried to emphasize all of the yesses, there would be too many. The great Catholic convert G.K. Chesterton once noted, “The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity.”

God approves of so much joy! He made a good world and then set his beloved humans in the midst of this world and bid us to enjoy it.

Our problem is not that God has prohibited joy; our problem is that we do not know how to enjoy the good things God has given. Every one of us tends toward

Saturday, April 15 Holy Saturday Gn 1:1–2:2 Gn 22:1-18 Ex 14:15–15:1 Is 54:5-14 Is 55:1-11 Bar 3:9-15, 32C4:4 Ez 36:16-17a, 18-28 Rom 6:3-11 Mt 28:1-10

Sunday, April 16 Easter, Resurrection of the Lord Acts 10:34a, 37-43 Col 3:1-4 Jn 20:1-9 Monday, April 17 Acts 2:14, 22-33 Mt 28:8-15 Tuesday, April 18 Acts 2:36-41 Jn 20:11-18

using good things in the wrong way or at the wrong time. We find something that gives pleasure, and we will binge on that thing until we no longer enjoy ourselves. And then we find that we can’t stop. Isn’t this a common phenomenon in our lives?

Students tell me about the entire season of a television show that they watched over one weekend on Netflix or Hulu. Others will joke about how they started eating some Doritos and didn’t stop until they hit the bottom of the bag. We have all had the experience of enjoying some kind of food or drink so much that, in the middle of eating one piece or drinking one glass, we ordered another, only to find that it was “too much.”

Not only did we take in too much, but we found that we were no longer able to enjoy it.

This is a brief description of the rarely-confessed sin of gluttony. We find something that we enjoy. This thing is almost always good in itself. But then we choose to use it in such a way that we a) no longer truly enjoy it and b) become enslaved to it.

Gluttony, or intemperance, afflicts every person who finds it difficult to say “no” to a thing.

Now, you might say, “I don’t struggle with gluttony! I don’t eat too much!” That’s interesting, because we normally associate gluttony with those outward signs of being unable to say no. But things like a lack of fitness or drunkenness are not the only indicators.

When discerning whether gluttony is present, a person could pay attention to four areas: quantity, quality, when and why. Gluttony is most obvious when it involves a large quantity of a thing — the super-sized meal, the extra large shake or the entire bottle of wine.

But there is also gluttony less associated with quantity and more associated with quality. C.S. Lewis describes this as the person who needs food to be “just the way I like it.” They might not eat a large amount, but if they are served something that isn’t prepared how they like

Wednesday, April 19 Acts 3:1-10 Lk 24:13-35

Saturday, April 22 Acts 4:13-21 Mk 16:9-15

Thursday, April 20 Acts 3:11-26 Lk 24:35-48

Sunday, April 23 Divine Mercy Sunday Acts 2:42-47 1 Pt 1:3-9 Jn 20:19-31

Friday, April 21 Acts 4:1-12 Jn 21:1-14

it, they are unable to rise above that. This is one reason Aristotle called intemperance a “childish fault.” Some children will only eat certain foods or foods presented in a certain way. They will, hopefully, grow out of that through discipline and gratitude, but we all know people who seem stuck in perpetual petulance.

But there is also “when” and “why.” Are you familiar with the term “hangry”? It refers to the fact that some people can’t seem to control their temper when they get hungry. This inability to wait or say “not right now” gets many people in trouble.

When I cannot wait for a good thing, I am not free. In addition, when I cannot wait for a thing, then I cannot truly enjoy it, either. If I must have it now, then I can’t savor it at all.

The same is true for “why.” Many of us eat because, well, we don’t know why we are eating. We don’t know what we are hungering for. We don’t know why we are pouring that next drink. We don’t know why we don’t just turn off the device and go to sleep.

Gluttony can be when I consume a good thing, but I am doing it for the wrong “why.” This isn’t freedom, and this isn’t even pleasure. It is merely desperation.

But you are made for freedom. And God has placed you in this world so that you can truly enjoy the good things in life. This is one of the reasons God asks us to say “no” to good things at various times in our lives: Not because he is trying to spoil our fun, but because he wants us to freely and truly live. I invite you to make a regular practice of saying “no” to at least one good thing a day. You will not only find more freedom, you will find more enjoyment of what you say “yes” to.

Father Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

Reach him at fathermikeschmitz@gmail.com.

THIS CATHOLIC LIFE • COMMENTARY

April 6, 2017

The Catholic Spirit • 21

LENT

Liz Kelly

Leave it all on the course “Leave it all on the course.”

I first heard this expression some years ago when my brothers were running triathlons. One brother is an actual Ironman, having completed events composed of a 2.4-mile swim, 120-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile marathon. So when I decided to run a few mini-triathlons just for fun, my brother the Ironman would send me encouraging emails that closed with “Leave it all on the course.” That is, hold nothing back. Don’t finish the race only to discover you had hidden reserves left unused, a little kick that might have gotten you across the finish line faster.

This phrase has been coming back to me in recent years. Entering what is certainly the last half of my life — unless I live into my 100s — there is a growing sense that I want to leave it all on the course; that is, do all that God might ask of me, let these last years be my best years in service to the Lord.

St. Teresa launched her Missionaries of Charity at 40; she’d already lived a full, productive life when she said “yes” to the most demanding work yet. I think to

TWENTY SOMETHING

Christina Capecchi

Evangelization by hitchhiking: How to find an on-ramp The place infants nod off and teens open up is also where road-weary adults will probe their spirituality — in the car.

That’s the secret behind a new religious community, the Little Poor Friars and Poor Nuns of Jesus and Mary, who dress and live like St. Francis of Assisi: in poverty, entirely dependent on God’s providence.

They were founded in 1999 by a 25-year-old Sicilian and approved by the Catholic Church in 2014.

They are a throwback order, offering something that feels like the original to young adults wary of cheap imitations. Thirty-some Catholics already have joined, fulfilling a bold mission: to make like the apostles and spread the good news. So they stand at the edge of a highway in their khaki-colored habits ­— garb that resembles sackcloth — with Bibles on their backs and sandals on their feet — the women in veils, the men with their St. Francis hairstyles shaved into a crown — and stick out their thumbs.

Evangelization by hitchhiking.

Sister Effata was 24 when she set out hitchhiking for the first time as a Little Nun, intending to travel with two friars from Sicily to France, their community’s new home. She stepped outside and promptly asked: “OK, do we have to go to the right or the left?”

Surrendering to the unknown thrilled her. “I had that radical call in my heart,” she said. “I wanted to be all in.”

Born Mirijam, the young German chose the Hebrew name Effata as her religious name because it means “be open.”

Entering what is certainly the last half of my life — unless I live into my 100s — there is a growing sense that I want to leave it all on the course; that is, do all that God might ask of me, let these last years be my best years in service of the Lord.

myself, “There’s still time, God willing, to do some mighty work for the kingdom.” I don’t wish to advocate spiritual burnout or throwing away energy foolishly, but I do want to spend myself well and without reserve for whatever work God asks of me.

Finish strong At about this point every year in Lent, I’ve grown a little weary, maybe a little lax in my Lenten resolutions. The world is drab and cold and without color, and my Lent might be, too. But there’s still time to re-embrace my earlier fervor. No matter what kind of Lent I’ve had to this point, there’s still a chance to finish well.

I once had a wonderful neighbor who recently died at 100 years old. Her children, 10 of them, faithfully took turns living with her so that she might remain in her own home until she was 98. I would occasionally chat with one of her older sons who frequently stayed with her for days at a time in his retirement. While I watered my flower beds, he would have a smoke and sometimes lament his youth. By his account, he was a wild kid and a bit of a worry to his parents. He clearly

regretted that. One day I simply said, “But you’re here now, caring for her, and that’s what matters.” He looked up from his cigarette, smiled at me and said, “You’re all right, kid.”

Even St. Teresa of Avila had her “prayer to redeem lost time.” I pray it often: Source of all mercy! ...

While recalling the wasted years that are past, I believe that you, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain. ... I firmly believe that you can do all things.

Please restore to me the time lost, giving me your grace, both now and in the future. ... Amen.”

When I am tempted to imagine that my past — or even my Lent — is unredeemable, I think about my neighbor’s son and about my brother’s encouragement. Whatever kind of Lent — or life — you’ve had to this point, our God is still the source of all mercy and perfect restoration. There’s still time to leave it all on the course, to finish strong. I’ll join you.

Kelly is the author of six books, including “Jesus Approaches: What Today’s Woman Can Learn about Healing, Freedom and Joy from the Women of the New Testament” (Loyola Press, 2017).

“It’s an experience of letting yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing to have that freedom, to go in the direction of the highway, stand there and stick out your thumb and wait till someone stops and can give you a ride to the next town.”

Sister Effata

istock/Nikuwka To hitchhike as a Little Nun was to embrace the open road, she felt, to be born of the Spirit, like the wind: “You do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (Jn 3:8).

“It’s an experience of letting yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit,” Sister Effata said. “It’s amazing to have that freedom, to go in the direction of the highway, stand there and stick out your thumb and wait till someone stops and can give you a ride to the next town.”

One morning during her first hitchhike, Sister Effata had a premonition that she would meet someone who had attempted suicide. This was close to her heart; as a teen, she had plunged into anorexia and depression and attempted suicide before finding God. Sure enough, the trio soon encountered a young woman who had tried to take her life the day before.

Her name was Miriam.

“God works mysteriously,” Sister Effata said. “When we pay attention, we can catch those moments when we can really touch people’s hearts.”

Now 37 and working toward a master’s of theology from the Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Sister Effata has spent thousands of days hitchhiking.

“People will bring up their most profound struggles.

When we enter their car and say, ‘Peace to this car and peace to all who enter it,’ sometimes people will respond, ‘I need some peace.’ It can happen quickly.

They get emotional or share a struggle.”

In turn, Sister Effata has learned to accept the invitation of strangers to join them for a warm meal and to sleep on the couch. “I have seen how God’s providence works through people. God takes care of us all, like the birds of the sky.

“There is so much evil in the world, but when we hitchhike, we meet so much goodness. You have to dig for it. You have to make a sacrifice to reach it. It’s why we need to evangelize — to bring that good forth, to make it shine.”

Capecchi is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights and the editor of www.sisterstory.org.

22 • The Catholic Spirit

THIS CATHOLIC LIFE • COMMENTARY

FAITH IN THE PUBLIC ARENA

Jason Adkins

The light of faith in public life Catholics must play an important part in the renewal of public life. And they should do so as Catholics, not just as citizens who happen to be Catholic.

One of the objections to Catholic participation in the public square is that we are trying to impose our beliefs on others. This is a mistaken perception. Catholics, and the Church generally, are not trying to coerce the public to embrace specific religious practices or matters of revelation, such as abstaining from meat on Friday, going to Mass weekly, making a good confession regularly or professing the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.

Catholic political engagement instead focuses on helping officials and the public better see the objective reality of our human nature, a reality that is accessible to non-Catholics and which provides our society with the principles needed to foster human flourishing. To live “faith in the public arena” means bringing a perspective rooted in reason (but illuminated by the light of faith) to bear on important public questions. We propose, we do not impose.

Facts, not values Consider some of the principles that guide the Catholic Church’s social advocacy: the dignity of the human person at all stages of life; helping the poor and vulnerable as a matter of justice; the value of civil law as a pillar of social order; the challenge of racism; the importance of work for sustenance and dignity; the right to migrate; the evils of war and torture; the peril of

WORD ON FIRE

Bishop Robert Barron

Love is both tolerant and intolerant Every community, inevitably, has a value or set of values that it considers fundamental — some basic good that positions every other claim to goodness.

For most of the modern liberal democracies, for example, freedom and equality play this determining role in the moral discourse. In Communist societies, economic justice, construed as the elimination of the class structure, would provide such a foundation. In the context of German National Socialism, the defense of the Fatherland and the will of the Führer anchored the moral system, however corrupt. There is a rather simple means of identifying this ultimate value: In regard to any particular moral or political act, keep asking the question, “Why is this being done?” until you come to the point where you find yourself saying, “Well, because that’s just a good thing.” The “just a good thing” is the value that your society or culture considers nonnegotiable and which in turn determines all subordinate values.

As a liberal society, ours has been, as I stated above, largely shaped by the values of liberty and equality. But in recent years, the ground has shifted a bit. Even a casual survey of the contemporary cultural scene reveals that the non-negotiables, the values undetermined and all-determining, seem to be inclusivity, tolerance and

Ask lawmakers to make anti-poverty programs more marriage friendly Marriage is vitally important for family formation and stability. Yet, low-income people accessing the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) are discouraged from pursuing marriage because it often might mean an immediate loss of access to MFIP support once a couple pools their income.

There is currently legislation (H.F. 1453/S.F. 1165) that aims to make MFIP more marriage-friendly by giving newly-married couples a 12-month grace period before moving on from MFIP support. This legislation accomplishes the twin goals of promoting marriage and fostering economic self-sufficiency.

Please contact your state senator and state representative and ask them to support H.F. 1453/S.F. 1165, and to make sure the it is included in the Health and Human Services omnibus bill.

To find contact information for your state senator and state representative, call 651-296-8338 or visit www.gis. leg.mn/imaps/districts. environmental degradation; the humanity of the unborn; and the importance of marriage between a man and a woman as the foundational building block of society.

These are not just “values” but truths and facts of our existence that are accessible to all people, because each person is endowed by the creator God with the faculty of reason — whether he or she believes in him or not. Indeed, many non-Catholics recognize the important realities listed above and work to

diversity. If you asked most people today, especially the young, why you should be inclusive, tolerant and accepting of diversity, the answer, I imagine, would be a puzzled, “Well, those are just good things to be.”

And here I would like to draw a contrast with the community of the Church. Within a properly Christian context, the ultimate value, which positions and determines any other value is neither tolerance, nor diversity, nor inclusivity, but rather love. I’ll admit that things can get confusing at this point, for the fundamental goods of the secular society today do have much in common with love, which is indeed often inclusive, tolerant and encouraging of diversity. But not always — and thereupon hangs a tale.

To love is to will the good of the other as other. It is to break out of the black hole of one’s own self-regard and truly desire what is best for another. Therefore, to be sure, love is inclusive in the measure that it recognizes the essential dignity of each individual; love is tolerant, inasmuch as it respects the goodness of even those who hold errant points of view; and love encourages diversity, to the degree that it eschews the imperialistic imposition of one’s own ego upon another. However, sometimes love is exclusive, intolerant and unaccepting of diversity — precisely because it wills the good of the other.

To illustrate this counter-intuitive proposition, let me begin with a rather ordinary example. Suppose you are the coach of a college baseball team, and you are presiding over tryouts. You survey a number of players of varying skill levels, and you are compelled to make your selection of, say, 20 players out of 100 candidates.

Your choices will exclude far more than they include; they will sow unhappiness more abundantly than joy.

But if you are a good man, they will be done out of love.

You will be willing the good of those advanced players who can and should practice their skills through heightened competition and who will delight the fans who will attend their games; and you will be willing the good of those less advanced players who should

April 6, 2017

advance these principles.

We know, however, that the human mind is darkened by sin, and that we are plagued in our fallen state by concupiscence. As a result, it is difficult for people or even whole societies to recognize the truth, see plainly the reality of our condition or propose the proper solutions to problems. And sometimes, people — Catholics included — may ­­ acknowledge some truths and facts of our existence, but fail to see the whole.

Light of faith This is where the light of faith comes in. Faith, both as a body of revealed truths (“the Faith”) and as a supernatural virtue infused by grace, is indispensable in the pursuit of a more perfect society. Faith in the public arena is not a grab bag of religious practices, subjective viewpoints or sectarian values unique to Catholics that we try to make non-Catholics embrace.

Instead, it is a way of seeing the whole — the full truth about how God created the world, the reality of who we are and how we fall short of the demands of justice, and the tools needed to fix a broken social order — to “restore all things in Christ,” that is, to the intention of the creator God who providentially ordered this world for our stewardship.

As our witness is about helping the public see properly the facts in front of them and the truths and principles that should guide the discourse about a specific question, we need not preface our remarks with “the Church teaches” or “the Gospel demands.” The light of faith helps us see reality, but in our public witness as a Church, we talk about the facts of reality.

These facts are binding on everyone who dwells in this world, whether or not they acknowledge them.

Catholics, therefore, gifted with the light of faith, abdicate their responsibilities to their fellow brothers and sisters and their duties as citizens of a community when they fail to participate in public life. It is a sin against both charity and justice to not propose to the world those truths that foster human flourishing and the common good. It is hiding our light under a bushel.

Adkins is executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference.

not be permitted to compromise the integrity of the team and who should probably enter into some other arena of endeavor. In a word, both inclusion and exclusion will be acts of love, which proves that love is a more fundamental and positioning value.

Now a somewhat more elevated example. The Church of Jesus Christ is radically inclusive, for its ultimate purpose is to draw all people to the Lord. The Bernini Colonnade in St. Peter’s Square, reaching out like arms to embrace the massive crowds, is evocative of this aspiration. Jesus said, “Go and teach all nations,” and “declare the Gospel to the ends of the earth.” Thus, inclusivity is without doubt one of the dimensions of the Church’s love.

However, the Church is also exclusive and intolerant, for it discerns that certain forms of behavior are repugnant to its own integrity. Thus, for a variety of reasons, it excludes people from receiving Communion, and in extreme cases, it formally excommunicates others. It solemnly declares that those who are in the state of mortal sin are not worthy to approach the eucharistic table unless they first receive sacramental absolution. And it unapologetically asserts that the Christian life has a formal structure, which by its very nature excludes certain styles of life that are incompatible with it. These discriminations, judgments and exclusions are, if I might put it this way, modes of “tough love.” Though they seem harsh, they are ways of willing the good of the other.

A song that has been widely played in Catholic circles these past 20 years or so includes the line, “All are welcome in this place.” Cardinal Francis George once archly remarked, “Yes, all are welcome in the Church, but on Christ’s terms, not their own.” Real love both includes and excludes; real love is both tolerant and intolerant.

Bishop Barron is an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

CALENDAR

April 6, 2017 Music “The King of Love” — April 9: 3 p.m. at St. Casimir, 934 Jessamine St. E., St. Paul. Free musical Passion play written by Robert E. Hindel, performed by Cantabile singers and ensemble.

“The King of Love” — April 10: 7 p.m. at Sacred Heart, 840 Sixth St. E., St. Paul. Free musical Passion play written by Robert E. Hindel, performed by Cantabile singers and ensemble.

Ongoing groups Faithful Spouses support group — Third Tuesday of each month: 7–8:30 p.m. at the archdiocesan chancery, 777 Forest St., St. Paul. For those who are living apart from their spouses because of separation or divorce. 651-291-4438 or faithfulspouses@archspm.org.

Parish events St. Agnes Lenten Lectures — Fridays in Lent: 7:45–9 p.m. at 538 Thomas Ave., St. Paul. www. churchofsaintagnes.org/events/2017-lenten-lecture-series.

The Passion of Jesus in Music, Word and Light — April 6-8: 7:45–9 p.m. at Sts. Joachim and Anne, St. Mark campus, Fourth Avenue and Atwood Street, Shakopee. www.shakopeepassionplay.org.

St. Boniface Christian Mother’s Guild Easter Boutique — April 8: 10 a.m.–2 p.m. at 629 Second St. NE, Minneapolis. 612-670-7145.

Holy Name spring salad luncheon — April 8: 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. at Garvey Hall, 3637 11th Ave. S., Minneapolis.

St. Vincent de Paul ham bingo — April 8: 6:30–9 p.m. at 9100 93rd Ave. N., Brooklyn Park.

St. Victoria Lenten mission — April 9-11: 6:15– 7:30 p.m. at 8228 Victoria Drive, Victoria. www. stvictoria.net.

St. Pius X Living Stations of the Cross — April 9: 2 p.m. at 3878 Highland Ave., White Bear Lake. www.churchofstpiusx.org/events.

St. Pius X Living Stations of the Cross — April 12: 6:30 p.m. at 3878 Highland Ave., White Bear Lake. www.churchofstpiusx.org/events.

Living Stations of the Cross — April 14: Noon at St. Jude of the Lake, 700 Mahtomedi Ave., Mahtomedi. www.servantsofthecross.com.

Charles Gounod’s Seven Last Words of Christ

— April 14: 2–3 p.m. at All Saints, 435 Fourth St. NE, Minneapolis. www.fsspminneapolis.org.

The Catholic Spirit • 23

13-15: 1–3 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood 651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Living Stations of the Cross — April 14: 3 p.m. at St. Rita, 8694 80th St. S., Cottage Grove. www.servantsofthecross.com.

CALENDAR submissions DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication.

Recurring or ongoing events must be submitted each time they occur. We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar.

A Weekend Hermitage — April 21, 22 and 23: 1–3 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Living Stations of the Cross — April 14: 7 p.m. at Blessed Sacrament, 2119 Stillwater Ave. E., St. Paul. www.servantsofthecross.com.

LISTINGS: Accepted are brief no­tices of upcoming events hosted by Catholic parishes and institutions. If the Catholic connection is not clear, please emphasize it in your press release.

Schools

St. John Vianney rummage sale — April 20-22: at 840 19th Ave. N., South St. Paul. www.sjvssp.org.

Notre Dame Academy spring information sessions — April 11: 10 a.m. or 6:30 p.m. at 13505 Excelsior Blvd., Minnetonka. www.nda-mn.org/choosing_NDA/ open_houses.asp.

Live drama of St. Therese: The Story of a Soul — April 22: 7–8:15 p.m. at Mary Queen of Peace (St. Martin campus), 1304 Church Ave., Rogers.

Admission: $5 each/$10 family. 763-428-2585 or parishoffice@mqpcatholic.org.

ITEMS MUST INCLUDE the following to be considered for publication: • Time and date of event • Full street address of event • Description of event • C ontact information in case of questions.

(No attachments, please.)

Conferences/seminars/ workshops

Prayer/worship

Soul Collage: An Exercise of Religious Imagination — April 7: 9 a.m.–3 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Ecumenical Taize prayer — first Friday of each month through May 5: 7:30 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield. www.strichards.com/first-fridays.

ONLINE: www.thecatholicspirit.com/ calendarsubmissions

FAX: 651-291-4460

St. William Spirituality Series — April 8: 9 a.m. at 6120 Fifth St. NE, Fridley. www.chofstwilliams.com.

Taize prayer — Third Friday of each month: 7 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. 651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

MAIL: “Calendar,” The Catholic Spirit 777 Forest St., St. Paul, MN 55106

Breaking Bread with Jesus: Meals in the Gospels — April 10: 6:30 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield. sosacho@strichards.com or www. strichards.com/lent.

Solemn Good Friday Prayer Vigil at Planned Parenthood — April 14: 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m. at 671 Vandalia St., St. Paul. www.plam.org/call-to-action/good-friday-prayer-vigil.

Speaker: “ADHD in Youth” — April 11, May 9 and June 13: 7–8:30 p.m. at St. Richard, 7540 Penn Ave. S., Richfield. RSVP one week prior for child care. www.depressionsupportcoalition.org.

A Day of Quiet — April 22: 9 a.m.–4 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. 651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Pro-Life Across America Culture of Life Banquet — April 19: 5:45 p.m. at St. John the Baptist, 835 Second Ave. NW, New Brighton. Guest Speaker: Archbishop Bernard Hebda. Cost: $60. Reservations: Christine at 612-782-9434. www.prolifeacrossamerica.org.

Retreats Encountering God in Everyday Life — April 7-8 and May 5-6: 5–6 p.m. at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Women’s Palm Sunday Retreat — April 7-9 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. www.franciscanretreats.net.

Men’s Holy Week retreat — April 12-15 at Christ the King Retreat Center, 621 First Ave. S., Buffalo. www.kingshouse.com.

Men’s Holy Week retreat — April 13-15 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. www.franciscanretreats.net.

A Guided Journey Through the Triduum — April

On Care for Our Common Home — April 23: 1–3 p.m. at The Benedictine Center at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood.

651-777-7251 or www.stpaulsmonastery.org.

Catholic Divorce Survival Guidance — Mondays through May 22: 7–8:15 p.m. at St. Edward, 9401 Nesbitt Ave. S., Bloomington. www.stedwardschurch.org.

More online St. Thomas Woulfe Alumni Hall, Anderson Student Center, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Register for the free event: www.stthomas.edu/murphyinstitute.

Inaugural Tegeder Talk: “Women in the Church”

by Sandra Schneiders, IHM — April 7: 7 p.m. at St. Frances Cabrini, 1500 Franklin Ave. SE, Minneapolis. www.cabrinimn.org/tegeder-talks.

“Grandparents’ Influence is Needed Now More Than Ever” with Mary Ann Kuharski — April 25: 8:45 a.m. at Steiner Hall, Nativity of Our Lord, 1900 Stanford Ave., St. Paul. Lilee 651-414-9367.

Speakers

Other events

Commentators Ross Douthat and Cornel West discuss “Christianity and Politics in the U.S. Today” — April 7: 5:45 p.m. at the University of

Knights of Columbus Wednesday Night Bingo — Wednesdays: 6–9 p.m. at the Solanus Casey Council Hall, 1920 S. Greeley St., Stillwater.

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24 • The Catholic Spirit

THE LAST WORD

April 6, 2017

Bringing home the Holy Land Teacher-pilgrims from Our Lady of Grace in Edina to enhance school’s Holy Week experience

By Jessica Trygstad The Catholic Spirit

W

ith the Holy Land fresh in their minds, 13 educators from Our Lady of Grace Catholic School in Edina will enter Holy Week with a renewed sense of Christ’s Passion and share it with their students and the school community.

In early March, Father Neil Bakker, parochial vicar of Our Lady of Grace, led the group on an eight-day trip to the Holy Land, thanks to a grant from the Minneapolisbased Catholic Schools Center of Excellence and school benefactors. Teachers in their 10th year or more at the school were eligible for the trip.

Ordained last year, this was Father Bakker’s second trip to the Holy Land, his first as a priest.

“I think the greatest thing for me this time was being with the teachers and bonding with them and seeing their faith grow, and seeing them experience this — all of these different places — and being able to pray in these different places and allowing the Scriptures to come to life,” he said.

Assistant Principal Rikki Mortl, who’s served at the school in various roles for 12 years, experienced the trip with her husband, Joe, who teaches sixth-grade social studies and writing. She said they were able to grow in faith not only as a couple, but also with their colleagues.

“I had no idea how emotional it would be,” said Mortl, 33, a parishioner of St. Joseph in New Hope. “I think I cried at every place. I’ve never felt closer to Jesus.”

Several pilgrims attended Mass together on the feast of the Annunciation March 25 at Our Lady of Grace.

They met for coffee afterward to reflect on the feast’s heightened significance, given their visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

“I’ve been a Catholic my entire life, and it’s never been as meaningful as it is now,” Mortl said.

During the trip, teachers stayed connected to their students using apps that allowed them to post pictures and videos that the students were able to comment on and ask questions about. They also used Skype and FaceTime to visit with students during the school day, even FaceTiming with the entire school one day before its 9 a.m. Mass.

Because Our Lady of Grace will be in session during Holy Week this year, teachers are taking the opportunity to enhance their students’ understanding of and reverence for the Passion. On Good Friday, teachers plan to post on the campus’ trees pictures of the Stations of the Cross from the Via Dolorosa, a street within the Old

ABOVE Teachers and staff from Our Lady of Grace Catholic School in Edina pose near the Sea of Galilee in Magdala during their pilgrimage to the Holy Land March 5-14. They are, front, from left, Greg Aitchison, Michelle Hannan, Rikki Mortl, Marianne Brekke and Katie Foley, and back, from left, Joe Mortl, Mike Benson, Claire Solnitzky, Deb Skinner, Lisa Moeller, Chris Strantz, Jennifer Maurice, Katie Brown and Father Neil Bakker. Courtesy Father Neil Bakker LEFT Marianne Brekke, a first-grade teacher at OLG, reverences the spot where Jesus was born in Bethlehem at the Church of the Nativity. Courtesy Father Neil Bakker

City of Jerusalem believed to be the path Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus’ tomb is located. Seventhgraders will be at each tree to explain the Stations to younger students.

“We’re taking the stations we got to experience over there and bringing them back to the kids,” Mortl said.

On Holy Thursday, the second-grade class will host a Seder meal, which some Christians observe because the Last Supper, at which Jesus instituted the Eucharist the night before his death, is traditionally believed to have been a Seder meal.

Kindergarten teacher Katie Brown said her students were excited for her to return from the other side of the world.

“Knowing that I was in these places that I have taught them about and they were continuing to learn about, I think, was really neat for them,” said Brown, 35, a parishioner of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville.

She has taught at Our Lady of Grace for 13 years and said she’s been waiting until Holy Week to share her experiences with her students, for whom she offered Mass in the Holy Land.

“I feel like the very personal, faith experiences that I had will really impact the depth of which I can share those experiences, even with 5- and 6-year-olds,” she said. She plans to use pictures and artwork to help students understand Holy Week even more.

Brown said all the pilgrims are grateful to CSCOE and the benefactors for the opportunity and recommends that all Catholics who want to visit the Holy Land not let it be “just a dream.”

“I grew in my faith more than I could have expected,” Brown said. “I think I still have yet to see how it will continue to impact my teaching, but I know it will.”

To read Father Bakker’s blog detailing the trip, visit www.olgparish.org/our-lady-of-grace-blog/2017/3/18/holyland-pilgrimage-recap-part-1-of-3.

“To change the world, we must be good to those who cannot repay us.”

Do Pope Francis’ words describe someone you know? Someone who has the courage, humility and spirit of service to Lead with Faith at their workplace?

The Catholic Spirit is celebrating the 16th year of our Leading with Faith Awards, which recognize women and men in the archdiocese whose Catholic values shape their work ethic and service to others. Nominate a deserving candidate today.

NOMINATIONS DUE: May 5, 2017 www.TheCatholicSpirit.com/LeadingWithFaith or call 651-251-7709 for more information.