I wish to reply to a letter written in the Dec. 11 issue of The Catholic Messenger.
The writer bemoans the futility of voting for a pro-life candidate in the general elections. He writes of the almost impossibility of overturning a U.S. Supreme Court decision. He concludes one should vote as he is inclined without taking the pro-life position into account.
But the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed or overturned prior decisons 57 times in the years of our Republic. That figures out to 1 in about every 4 1/2 years. Supreme Court vacancies occur with regularity. All it takes is a like-minded president and a simple majority in the Senate to appoint a judge of their choosing. Wait until a Supreme Court vacancy appears and appoint a judge or judges who agree with the views of the president and a majority of the Senate.
To the Editor:
Wow! Six St. Ambrose University students were at my front door Nov. 2, coming to help me. It was a wonderful gift because of their practical help and generous spirits. Thank you, students. You are a blessing to our community.
When a note came asking if I could use some help, I responded “yes.” I expected one or two students. My plan was to have them paint a railing for my son to install by my back steps, and to rake the grass one last time before winter set in.
I was surprised and pleased to have six helpers. Two girls spent two hours in my kitchen painting the intricate scroll railing because it was too cold to paint outside. They sat one on either side and handed the brush back and forth.
At the same time, two girls and two boys raked my yard – front, back and sides and bagged the leaves. It was wonderful! Before they left, I had them move my yard furniture into the garage.
All this was help offered freely and joyfully. They were a delight to talk to, as well as efficient in what they did.
In this day and age when so many young people are hidden behind their electronic devices, it was inspiring to meet young people who understand the value of service. It is my understanding that the Ambrose students helped about 100 people, mostly seniors like me.
I am writing to say, “Thank you, students and St. Ambrose University for this thoughtful service you provide. May God reward you all.”
As a final capstone to this service project, the university provided a generous supper for the students and recipients. It was a beautiful meal and a time to realize we are all part of the family of St. Ambrose.
Mary Costello
Davenport
As they say, “the stockings are hung with care.” At least they are at my house. I have a huge one for myself and one for each of my dogs. My house and office are decorated. I have my Christmas clothes out and am wearing them every day. If you talk to the staff and parish they say I have ugly Christmas sweaters. If you talk to me, I have beautiful Christmas sweaters. The gifts are all wrapped or won’t get wrapped in time and so I will just put them in a gift bag and call it good. At least one or two gifts can’t be found. I bought them and put them some place safe, never to be seen again. They are in that black hole of lost Christmas gifts.
Fr. Weir
Black Friday was a wonderful experience as it always is for me. They say it is a perfect day to start your Christmas shopping. Who are we kidding? It is perfect day to buy yourself all that stuff that you can live without and know that someone else is not going to get you. I have a lot of new stuff that I can’t live without it. Yeah, the stuff is still in the trunk of my car since Black Friday, but I can’t live without it.
In the United States Santa Claus brings the gifts. I have a Santa tracker app on my phone. I want to know where he is so that I’m sure I’m in bed and asleep before he arrives. In many of the Spanish-speaking countries gifts are brought on Epiphany by the Three Kings. I don’t have a Three Kings app. I did get my picture taken with them once when I was in Mexico for the Epiphany.
People are always talking about not forgetting the “true” meaning of Christmas. Here at St. James Parish in Washington we even gave out pins that said, “Keep Christ in Christmas.” I never worry that people will forget the true meaning of Christmas; you either know it or you don’t. You never forget it. Ok, it is true that some years it is possible to get a little distracted around Christmas Time, but the minute you step into the church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day you know why you are there.
Next Sunday is the true test as to whether or not you understood the real meaning of the incarnation. On Christmas Eve with all of the beautiful music, the candles, the incense and the crowds it is so easy to know that you are loved by Christ and embraced in the arms of mother Church. Next week when you are tired and ready for the family to go home it is important to remember that you are loved by Christ and embraced by mother Church.
There are also cultural differences as to when the manger comes down. In many English-speaking families the manger will be put away before New Year’s or at the latest by the Epiphany. In many Spanish-speaking families it may not be taken down until sometime in February. In the end it doesn’t matter when we return the manger to the box and put it back in the basement, as long as we are packing up statues and not the love of Christ.
The renewal that our heart and faith experience during this season is important. To have had the time to grow in our relationship with Christ and his Church is an honor that cannot be taken lightly. I do not worry about people forgetting “the reason for the season” during the holidays. It is my hope that everyone is still remembering it in July.
I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas from myself and the people of St. James in Washington. If you cannot be with your family this year know that they are missing you as much as you miss them. Maybe next year you will be together. It is my hope that you get what you need for Christmas and at least some of what you want.
(Father Bernie Weir is pastor of St. James Parish in Washington.)
A strange division began ripping the Church this year. Some Catholics, including a few bishops and cardinals, complained that a new emphasis on mercy was undermining the faith.
Some of us had supposed that Catholic faith mainly meant strict adherence to rules and language and precedent from the past: faith as a set of received doctrines. Suddenly, it seemed, all of this was being pushed to the background. And the pope was blamed. The new man in the Vatican seemed to be all about mercy, not rules and judgment.
If a beginning can be assigned to this development it could be the comment by Pope Francis, “Who am I to judge?” when a reporter asked him about homosexuals in the priesthood. This happened on the plane taking the pope home after a visit to Brazil last year. In the full quote he said, “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” It should have been taken as an unexceptional statement, but we had become too focused on homosexuality as a boundary marker. The official Church was expected to approach it with suspicion at least, not with such open good will toward persons.
Then this year we had the beginnings of the Synod on the Family, which included a suggestion that divorced and remarried Catholics could somehow be accepted in the Church without a trial — what we call the annulment process. No one knew quite how such a thing might be done; only that the current way of handling these situations didn’t seem good enough. We had focused on the formal vision of marriage as a bond of mutual life-giving love. But we weren’t doing well at preparing people for such a bond; our attempt to serve them with mercy when they failed isn’t well accepted.
The synod will continue in 2015 with that question hanging over it, the question of mercy. Doesn’t that come first in our faith?
A strong thread of placing mercy first does run through the history of Christianity. We make saints of women and men remembered for the way they nursed the sick and weak, for the way they served the poor and the outcast. That was the way Mother Teresa of Calcutta, for example, met people and introduced them to the saving presence of Christ. That was her calling card. She didn’t preach first with words; she preached with loving service in a meeting grounded in compassion.
There are rules and limits, of course, but they aren’t the only or the necessary guide to the will of God. The Church is a human institution trying to communicate a spirit and vision that transcend everything we think we know. We can do our best and still know that it isn’t enough. The great temptation is to settle for what we’re doing and have done. In that way we forget that the spirit of God comes in surprise and in the fresh encounter of persons inviting us to look farther and deeper.
Our God is rich in mercy; another name for love. Scripture tells us this in a great many places and ways. It is the great truth of faith that we celebrate especially at this time of year. We call it the Incarnation, or God becoming one of us. Why does God become one of us? Why does the divine accept our degrading limits? So we can see and receive in Jesus the new way to live and love and to pass it on.
We are so poor, so needy, so weak that the mercy we need must be the greatest. We are treated as a mother treats her children. We get to start over. It happens as we refocus continually on Jesus.
A happy new year of mercy is ahead, as always.
I recently caught a segment on television on the topic of “mindfulness.” A reporter was shown at a workshop on meditation aimed at setting aside the plans and stresses that tend to clutter our minds in order to be present to what he was doing at the moment. Before the session, each participant had to shut off her/his cell phone, tablet or any other electronic device and put it into a basket that was passed around the way in which a collection basket is passed in church. The instructor then led the students through exercises that involved concentrating on their breathing, sitting, walking, even eating (in silence) and setting aside any other thought that entered their minds. Neither the reporter nor any of those he interviewed made any mention of faith, religion or prayer, but I am sure I am not the only one who was reminded of various spiritual exercises or at least of ways in which we prepare for meditative prayer.
Corinne Winter
The mindfulness instructor and a number of prominent business people who are convinced of the value of his methods spoke of decreased stress and increased productivity as key benefits. They agreed that our tendency to be constantly connected through phone, Internet, etc., leads in the opposite direction, to constant distraction and inefficiency. They did mention the holiday season, citing it as a time when we might be especially caught up in thinking ahead and stressed about all the extra things we try to get done. They proposed that the practice of mindfulness — of being present to what we are doing in the moment — could lead to a more enjoyable time.
It seems to me that the celebration of the Incarnation of the Son of God calls us to a particular kind of mindfulness. Throughout Advent we have been hearing the calls of the prophets. We often have a tendency as Christians to think of the prophets as foretelling the future — in particular, of foretelling the birth of Christ. But Scripture scholars tell us they were mostly calling the people of Israel to attend to the call of their own covenant relationship with their God — to care for the poor, to be faithful in worship, to avoid temptations around them. These are calls we can apply to our own lives even if the particular needs, ways of worship and temptations look somewhat different on the surface. And as we celebrate the birth of Christ, we find new meanings in the prophetic texts in the light of our understanding of this event as well as in the light of our current experiences.
The other temptation that we Christians often face as we celebrate Christmas is to think of it primarily as an event in the past — something that happened once upon a time, and how wonderful it might have been to witness it in person. For my part, I am not so sure I would have liked living at the time. But the Christmas accounts do seem to say a lot about people who paid attention to words, to announcements, to signs that something important was happening.
The Gospel of John tells us that “The Word was made flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory… (Jn 1:14)”. That line was once read at the “Last Gospel” of every Mass and at least the first line of it was part of the Angelus that we were encouraged to pray in response to morning, noon and evening church bells. Each of these practices could serve as a daily reminder of the reality of the Incarnation, not just as an event in the past, but as a present reality. We are called to pay attention to our lives as a place where God meets us, calls us, loves us, challenges us.
Catholic Tradition, it seems to me, is rich in its recognition of the goodness and importance of daily life. We were always reminded of morning offering, evening prayers, meal prayers. Stories of the saints recall lives well lived on a daily basis. May the celebration of Christmas renew our appreciation of the blessings that mark our every day as the Incarnate Word lives among us.
(Corinne Winter is a professor of theology at St. Ambrose University in Davenport.)
West Liberty —Genoveva Aragón estaba aterrorizada cuando la llevaron a la sala de parto a los seis meses de gestación. Su hija nació pesando sólo 2 libras y Aragón temía que la bebé prematura no sobreviviera. Ella puso a la bebe el nombre de María Guadalupe “Lupe” López, y rezó fervientemente a su Santa homónimo — María, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.
Lindsay Steele Padre Gregory Steckel, pastor de la parroquia San José en West Liberty, tocando la batería con Romeo López en el hogar de la familia López. Las familias hispanas en la parroquia han estado preparándose para la fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, la cual tuvo lugar el 12 de diciembre e incluyó una procesión antes de la misa el 14 de diciembre. López tocó las baterías en la procesión.
Veintisiete años después, Lupe López enjugó sus lágrimas cuando su madre volvió a contar la historia en su casa en West Liberty, junto a una imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe. “Creemos que ella es la Madre de Dios, que hace milagros. Creemos “, dijo López.
Las familias hispanas como preparación a la fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, pasan una imagen de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de un hogar a otro, todas las noches desde principio de noviembre.
Las familias hispanas se inscriben para albergar a la imagen de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe en sus hogares. Cada noche, una fami-lia diferente se la lleva a su casa y allí rezan el rosario y las letanías de María, cantan himnos y comparten una comida. Después, se aseguran que la imagen llegue a la siguiente familia en la lista.
Unos 15 miembros de la familia asistieron a la reunión en la casa de la familia Aragón el 5 de diciembre, junto al párroco Padre Greg Steckel y al pastor jubilado Padre Dennis Martin. La familia rodeaba la imagen con flores y velas, leyendo oraciones en español, ya que honraban a Nuestra Señora. Entre décadas del rosario, la voz apasionada de la Sra. Graciela Rangel, abuela de la familia López, encabezó el canto de canciones tradicionales como “Paloma Blanca”. Después, la fami-lia y los sacerdotes comieron un guiso tradicional mexicano, o “pozole”, hecho de carne de cerdo, chile y sémola de maíz. Completaron la comida con chocolate y galletas calientes de vainilla.
Padre Steckel y Padre Martin dijeron que las familias eran muy hospitalarias y que los sacerdotes asisten a estas noches de oración tantas veces como les es posible. Para Padre Steckel, quien ha servido a la parroquia por cerca de dos años y continua trabajando con un tutor para mejorar su español, las tardes ofrece una oportunidad para conocer a los parroquianos, su cultura y su lengua. Actualmente, Padre José Sia, párroco en Columbus Junction, es el ministro sacramental en español en la parroquia de West Liberty.
“Me siento en casa con la comunidad y aceptado por las familias. Me siento más confortable (como su pastor); me siento que encajo”, dice padre Steckel.
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, una aparición mariana, es importante para los católicos hispanos por un sin número de razones. Los católicos creen que Maria apareció en Villa de Guadalupe, México en 1531. Muchos -como la familia López- creen que ella realiza milagros.
Padre Martin añadió que la Virgen de Guadalupe es además importante porque la cultura hispana es muy relacional y las mamás son tenidas en gran estima.
El día de la fiesta fue el 12 de diciembre y la parroquia celebró formalmente a Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe el domingo 14 de diciembre. Antes de la misa ese día, los parroquianos hicieron una procesión a través de cuatro cuadras. Durante la procesión, ellos hicieron el rosario, bailaron, cantaron y tocaron las baterías. La imagen de la Virgen fue llevada en la procesión y fue llevada a la iglesia para la misa. Después, los que participaron de la misa, compartieron los alimentos.
“Las celebraciones son una expresión de lo que ellos son, como una comunidad de fe” dijo Padre Steckel.
KNOXVILLE — The diocesan Social Action office is hosting the first of three Rice Bowl kick-off breakfasts at St. Anthony Parish Jan 10 from 9 to 11 a.m.
The Social Action office is requesting at least one parish or school representative from the area attend the breakfast. A simple meal will be provided, and attendees will receive materials and ideas for using the Rice Bowl to enhance the Lenten experience.
To register, contact Esmeralda Guerrero at guerrero@davenportdiocese.org or call (563) 888-4210 by Jan. 8.
Additional breakfasts will take place at St. Ann Parish in Long Grove Jan. 31 and St. Joseph Parish in Hills Feb 7; further information will be given in a future Catholic Messenger article.
