Homily for 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time/June 20, 2010

Don’t you know who I am?

Remember my name – fame…I’m gonna live forever!
I’m gonna make it to Heaven! I’m gonna live forever!
Fame – remember my name!

That is part of the song from the 1980 movie, “Fame”, which was popular enough to launch a hit song, a TV series and a long playing Broadway musical. Seems they were worried about people knowing their name.

We all want people to know our name and we try very hard to remember others’ names too. It is so important where I work that we are trained to use our clients name at least three times in the earliest moments of our interaction.

We take great pains to name our children; looking up names in books and on the internet for some special meaning.

As people of faith, do we turn to the name of Jesus, the Christ? If people asked us who this Jesus is, what would we say?

In today’s Gospel from St. Luke Jesus asks his friends plainly, who do they say that I am? You heard the answers; and perhaps there were more names offered. Jesus then says, but who do YOU say that I am? Peter takes charge and answers spot on: The Christ of God. Notice how Peter answered; he did not say Jesus, but The Christ.

And for this correct answer they hear Jesus tell them that He will suffer, He will be killed and He will rise on the third day.

What is the background for this exchange in Luke’s ninth chapter? This dialogue comes at one of the most crucial moments in the life of Jesus. It is here that Jesus, who has been preaching while traveling away from Jerusalem, turns his face toward Jerusalem to begin the journey to the Cross; His journey to fulfill His Father’s divine plan.

This is a difficult moment for His friends to comprehend. The Christ literally means the anointed one. For the people that encounter Jesus on His mission they believe it means a political and military leader. But no, Jesus tells them to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. How does He want those to follow Him? To the point of losing one’s life for His sake.

Today, we ask ourselves what this means for us as we hear this powerful message. It means that Jesus must be the center of our lives. If necessary, we are being asked to sacrifice our dreams, our comfort zone and our plans and stay focused on The Christ. Can we stand tall for Christ when others criticize? Can we be a witness to the love of Christ in our daily lives and weekly activity?

Today, and in the week ahead, we have an opportunity to do just that. In just a few minutes, we will have a second collection for the retired Priests of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. These dedicated men, who served the Church, who served The Christ, and continue to do so even in retirement are dependent, in part, on our generosity. Some are still as active as can be; others face daunting medical and physical challenges. In all cases, these are men whose hands brought us the Body and Blood of Christ, who preached the Gospel, both in word and deed, who absolved our sins, administered the Sacraments, educated our young, comforted the elderly and prayed for us unceasingly. Today, we are challenged to support them in our prayers and with our financial donation. Can you hear the words of Christ: deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me? Today, we follow Jesus by assisting these retired Priests who helped make Jesus a central part of our lives. What a great way to truly celebrate Father’s Day! Please be generous!

And one last thing! In the week ahead, may we all remember that Jesus Christ is not our savior’s full name? Jesus is the name given Him from all eternity and told to Mary by the angel. Scripture tells us it is the name above every other name. And as mentioned earlier, The Christ is the word for anointed; in Hebrew it is translated Messiah.

Unfortunately, whenever we hear the words, Jesus Christ, uttered aloud together, it is not done with love and respect and worship and adoration. Can we, this week, deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him by never taking His most holy name in vain? Jesus is the name that saves; may we always call to Him in our prayers, in our need and in our love.

Remember my name! No, not fame; but the name of Jesus! And relying totally in Him, maybe then, we can live forever; we can make it to Heaven! Remember His name: Jesus; the Messiah, The Christ of God!

An early summer reflection

While a good portion of the country awaits the start of summer I can tell you we are about 6 weeks deep into the hottest season of the year. June has ushered in some August like tempertures and many days of officially declared heat advisories and warnings. We have even had more than our fair share of summer time rain showers. We have July and August still to go! Ouch! The heat wave is mild in comparison to the heat about 75 miles south of my location as the BP Oil disaster grinds on for now more than 60 days. And there appears no end in sight.

Tempers are flaring and patience is wearing thin in our coastal parishes and across the area. Direct and indirect impacts are beginning to make their way north as New Orleans tourism, not to mention the seafood industry, begins to feel some pain. We are prayerful and hopeful that the rest of the nation will not give up on New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the region in general. We still need your help; much like you helped us post Katrina.

Pardon us in south Louisiana if we feel beseiged and beleaguered. And don't even go there that as a people we are whining and begging the federal government for bailout after bailout. No other area has been under the strain of a catastrophic hurricane, a complete failure of a flood protection system that failed due to governmental and human ineptness and now the most devastating oil related disaster in the history of the United States. For our part; we are dealing with these crisises as best we can. We lean on each other. We turn to prayer. We support some of our local politicos who at least seem to give a darn; unlike a very weak and misguided federal response. For us, we can truly say; been there done that!

In these first few weeks of June I have recovered from the frenzy of a family vacation that was highlighted by the wedding of my son James and his new wife Sara. The Mrs. and I are thrilled that they had a great honeymoon in Belize and are now truly starting those first exciting married days at home, back at work and settling in to the new home. And now we move on to adventure of the summer #2 as just this past week we placed our youngest, Elizabeth, on a plane Europe bound. She will be across the Atlantic long enough to take some college credit for LSU and see some sights. It's certainly a leap of faith to trust one so young to be so far away and so independent. Yet, as parents, we hopefully long for the many years of love and lessons learned producing strong responsible children; frustrations and disappointments along the way. Much like we did when the wedding approached, our prayers are for God to watch over Elizabeth and to trust in faith.

I did get my car back; 30 days after massive damage from a freak lightning strike fried the thing. For some reason, although pleasantly surprised at the overall performance of the reonfigured Acadia, I can't get reception on the AM radio. Now I realize most of you are saying, who cares! But I like AM radio. A battle to fight another day!

Ministry takes no time off in these hot weary months. Gleefully, I am excited about the early stages of another inquiry period for possible new aspirants pursuing the possibility of a vocation to the Permanent Diaconate. This while we all prepare with great joy for an ordination in less than 6 months for our class of 2010. I am currently fully involved with both these activities and am also busy preparing a couple for a wedding in October; the 1st that I will be the officiant. And Father's Day brings another Baptism that I so find beautiful and fulfilling. I have been blessed over the past few months to be more involved in our parishes Baptisms as we have to share this responsibility with several Deacons and Priests; a blessing for our parish that is the envy of many neighboring parishes.

My last visit to the prison reminded me in no uncertain terms how much I love air conditioning. While there is some modest cooling in the gathering rooms, it don't cut it for this spoiled minister. And a visit to the dorms where the men sleep is all but unbearable this time of year. But our Catholic community presses on and grows and soon we will have another Baptism and a Confirmation. God's will is being done at Rayburn.

So as many of us settle in for this Father's Day weekend and the long summer still ahead of us, I'm content to work hard, try to keep up with cutting the grass and minister as best I can always praying that it be God's will that I'm participating with.

Continue to pray for the people of the Gulf Coast and southeast Louisiana as we endure this oil disaster and always pray for one another!

Legislature turns to pray to fight BP Oil disaster

A STATEMENT FROM MOST REVEREND GREGORY AYMOND, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW ORLEANS
June 17, 2010

Archbishop expresses gratitude to legislators for declaring Day of Prayer for Oil Spill Recovery

We thank the legislators for declaring Sunday a Day of Prayer. This is a public sign of our humble dependence upon God.

Our hearts and prayers go out to those who were killed in the explosion. Likewise we offer prayerful consolation to their families and friends.

The oil spill has very challenging affects on many people in our community, especially the fishing industry, oil industry and related works. We also need to be attentive to the impact on our environment and economy.

We ask God to reassure us and to walk with us in this very challenging time. We pray that:

• we may not lose hope,
• we will persevere in tough times,
• we will see God’s compassion and love in these trying circumstances,
• God will lead scientists and engineers to a permanent solution soon,
• we will bear this cross with trust,
• we will reach out in prayer and with financial resources to those whose livelihood and family life have been affected.

The Catholic Church through Catholic Charities will continue to be present to those affected by offering food, counseling and other emergency services now and in the long-term.

God never abandons us but walks with us during this challenging time in the history of our state and nation.



Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans

A Father's Day rememberance for retired Priests

Father’s Day collection June 19-20 to aid retired priests
CLARION HERALD

By Peter Finney Jr.

To hear them describe their
ministry as retired priests, life
indeed begins at 75.
Freed from the daily concerns
of parish administration,
they are still celebrating
Mass in parishes across the
Archdiocese of New Orleans
when needed, and they relish
the extra time they now have
for prayer and study.
“We may not be as busy as
we were in the active priesthood,
but retirement has
given us more time to pray
for the church and to pray
for other people,” said Msgr.
John Tomasovich, 85, who
retired in 2000 as the longtime
pastor of St. Andrew the
Apostle Parish.
The ministry of retired
diocesan priests will be a
major focus at all Masses on
Father’s Day weekend (June
19-20). That’s when the archdiocese
will take up a special
collection to help defray the
medical and pension costs of
retired diocesan priests.
The collection is critical
because of demographics
that indicate a graying of the
priesthood.
Caring for their elders
Father Rodney Bourg, who
heads the Priestly Life and
Ministry Committee, said the
archdiocese has 67 retired diocesan
priests, and there are
another 28 priests who are
between the ages of 65 and
75.
“We have a total of 143
active priests right now, so
if you take away 28 from
that total, that means we
will soon be looking at 115
active priests,” Father Bourg
said. “We do not have a secured
retirement fund. We’ve
operated like Social Security,
where the active priests help
pay for the retired priests. But
with those numbers, that’s
not going to work.”
Five priests who are 85
or older are still celebrating
Mass at parishes, Father
Bourg said.
“I substitute whenever the
priests in the River Parishes
need somebody for a week
or a day, and I also celebrate
Mass every weekend,” said
Msgr. Robert Vincent, former
pastor of St. Joan of Arc in
LaPlace, who is 80.
He said his life has been enriched
because he has more
time to visit with neighbors
and friends and pray with
and for them.
“I live next door to a chef,
who brings me all his leftovers,”
Msgr. Vincent said.
“My AC man is three minutes
away, and a nurse lives next
to him. The sheriff lives at the
end of my street. Best of all,
the undertaker lives across
the street and has a key to
my house. If the light on my
porch is not off by 10 in the
morning, he can bring the
wagon over for me.”
Msgr. Tomasovich said
he feels priests who retire
“should be doing something
in service, because if you
don’t do that, then you might
feel useless.”
“I’ve come across a way of
life that suits me,” he added.
“I get up between 4 and 4:30,
and that’s a wonderful time
to pray. I don’t rush it. I try
to remember everybody who
touched my life, living or
dead. I also walk the neighborhood
between 6:30 and
7 and bring the paper to the
door for old people.
“I really feel how much in
need I am of God’s love and
forgiveness,” Msgr. Tomasovich
added.

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached
at pfinney@clarionherald.org.

A creole chef wants to be a Priest

>>> Nice, good news story from our local paper about a Catholic vocation. Nice to see in the media! My blogger Deacon friend also picked up on this at the Deacon's Bench. I have links on this site to the paper (thru nola.com) and the Deacon's Bench too!

Brett Anderson, The Times-Picayune

There are myriad possibilities as to why a meal at the Upperline could leave a person enriched for reasons that transcend food. One is the communal hug diners feel upon entering the converted Uptown residence. Another is the aesthetic rush of being surrounded by the paintings of local artists while eating food that often pays explicit homage to the work of local chefs.


Upperline Chef Ken Smith is leaving the restaurant for the seminary. Smith wedded the culinary styles of his native Avoyelles parish with local cuisine.

"I remember certain parts of Scripture where there is food involved. That's sort of what keeps me interested in what I am doing if I am having a low point, " said the Upperline's longtime chef. "We come into the world needing nourishment to survive and grow and for our existence, to keep us going. It has a purpose, and it has a purpose that can be traced way back to when Jesus was here."

Anyone who has tried Smith's food at the Upperline -- the dark, dense gumbo, the nostril-flaring Gulf shrimp piquant, the duck-andouille etouffee that is filling in more ways than one -- should not be surprised to discover there is a spiritual component to his cooking. Upperline owner JoAnn Clevenger, who has worked with Smith for nearly 20 years, was still shocked late last month when Smith told her he was leaving the kitchen behind to become a priest.

"I was stunned, " she said. "We are very happy and thrilled for him. We are just sad for ourselves."

Smith, who will cook his final meal at Upperline July 31, said his decision to enter the seminary had nothing to do with wanting to get out of the restaurant business. "I just started paying attention to my life, " he said, "to the priests who were around me, to the spiritual type of lifestyle that I saw in them." Becoming a priest, he said, is "something that I've thought about all my life."

As has, Smith would be the first to admit, cooking. He grew up in Natchitoches, where his mother was a private cook for a local attorney. The job somewhat influenced the way Smith's family dined -- "my sister and I were the only kids on the block eating lobster" -- but his culinary heritage is firmly in the traditional Creole cooking of the Cane River Valley in northwestern Louisiana.

Smith's maternal grandfather was a farmer. "What he picked from the garden we had for dinner, and we had dinner at 2 p.m., " he said. He remembers grillades that weren't quite as spicy as what's found elsewhere in Louisiana. When he's feeling homesick, he says he puts on his copy of the documentary, "A Common Pot: Creole Cooking on Cane River."

Smith's interest in cooking manifested at an early age. He became an avid cookbook reader and collector, a hobby that eventually brought him together with Clevenger. The two were introduced 19 years ago by Jan Longone, proprietor of a vintage culinary bookshop in Ann Arbor, Mich. Smith had recently moved to New Orleans to attend Delgado Community College's culinary arts and hospitality program. Clevenger, a fellow child of north Louisiana, hired him to be an intern in Upperline's kitchen.

Tom Cowan was Upperline's chef at the time. When he passed away in 1994, Richard Benz took over. When Benz left to open Dick & Jenny's, Clevenger hired Smith to replace him, making him only the fourth chef in the 27-year-old restaurant's history -- and one of the relatively few African-Americans to head the kitchen of a prominent New Orleans restaurant.

Smith then spent 10 years executing a menu that bears the mark of everyone who's held his position (beginning with Clevenger's son Jason).

"Chef Tom built on what Jason had started, " Clevenger explained. "Richard built on what Tom and Jason had done. And Ken has built on that foundation."

Smith's considerable influence can be tasted in all of Upperline's food, which draws on influences from across Louisiana -- the Cane River Country Shrimp nods specifically to his native part of the state -- and beyond. But it is perhaps a sign of his selfless, priestly nature that the dishes he holds particularly dear are those that pay tribute to others: Drum Anthony, for instance, an updated version of a special trout dish served at the dearly departed Central City restaurant Uglesich's, or Tom Cowan's Famous Roast Duck.

"Chef Tom taught me the roast duck, " Smith said. "I really respect that dish and respect the recipe of that dish. I've always said that if I went to another restaurant or was blessed with my own restaurant that I would carry that dish with me."

While another restaurant job is almost certainly not in Smith's future, he doesn't expect to let his pans or extensive cookbook collection go unused.

"I read this one story about a priest who cooked for other priests, and it became a sort of cooking club for priests, " he said. "If I'm blessed to be ordained, that's something I can do and still cook in a very small and private way."

Great testimony on Blessed Seelos

>>>This is another beautiful testimony on Blessed Fr. Francis Xavier Seelos, this one from Bob and Penny Lord. We all continue to pray for his eventual canonization!

Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos

Family, we must be the most blessed servants of the Lord on this earth. He allows us to experience the most beautiful and uplifting miracles. We returned to Louisiana last week, where we experienced Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos. I use the term “Experience” because we have never had the gift of seeing the power of the following this Blessed has been given by Our Lord Jesus. His story is fascinating, but even more fascinating is being eyewitnesses to a following of thousands of faithful believers, taking part in a three-times-a-year Mass and Healing Ceremony. You have had to be there to believe how loved this priest is. For the Healing Service, which took place after the Mass ended, there were anywhere from 1500 to 2000 people, waiting on line to be blessed. There were eight priests in four aisles, blessing the people who waited up to an hour to receive this special gift. And this for a priest whose life was snuffed out by Yellow Fever after being on assignment in New Orleans for only 11 months. He has a following the likes of which you have never seen. And hundreds of people give testimony of healings and conversions coming about through the intercession of Blessed Seelos.

But who is this Francis Xavier Seelos, and why is there such a great devotion to him? There are those who had called him a living saint during his lifetime. Very few people could have anything but great admiration and love for him. He was born in Fussen, Germany in 1819. It was obvious to all around him, parents and clergy alike, that this was a special child, destined to do great things for God and for the Church. He always wanted the religious life. He was not always sure how he wanted to serve. As a teenager, he walked for 50 hours from his home town to Einseidlen, Switzerland to ask to join the Benedictines there. He was refused admission, only because he was too young. But the truth is that God had big plans for him in the New World. He had either a vision or a locution from Our Lady, after which he pledged to give his life to evangelizing as a missionary in the New World. He became a member of the Redemptorist Order, and came to the United States. Being a country boy from Bavaria, he was not very happy when he arrived in the United States in 1843, but he wrote to his family that he had made this decision and would live up to it. He spent the next 24 years ministering to the people of the United States.

At first, his ministry was to Catholics in western Pennsylvania. There were only 21 priests for 45,000 Catholics. Eventually, through the direction of St. John Neumann, who was his first pastor in Pittsburgh, he and other German speaking priests ministered to German-speaking immigrants. He went from associate pastor to pastor to the rector of the seminary to the head of the Redemptorists, back to his first love, Missionary work. During the Civil War, years 1862-1865, he and a few other priests went up and down the middle part of our country giving missions and retreats, dodging bullets and the rough behavior of the soldiers on both sides of the conflict. He appealed to President Lincoln to release the priests and seminarians from the draft. He and another priest met with the President, who was very cordial, but could not guarantee that this could be done. However, none of the students were drafted.

For three years prior to his transfer to his last parish in New Orleans, Louisiana, he was in charge of the Redemptorist Mission Band. He and a group of other priests would travel all over the middle states, including Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio;, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. He not only considered mission work to be important, he wrote to his sister in 1863, “It is properly the work in the vineyard of the Lord; it is entirely apostolic work.”

One of his greatest strengths was in the Confessional. He reminds us of Padre Pio and St. Jean Vianney. He would spend hours in the Confessional. He was gentle but firm. He begged the sinners from the pulpit to come to the confessional. He said “O you sinners who have not courage to confess your sins because they are so numerous or so grievous or so shameful. O, come without fear or trembling! I promise to receive you with all mildness; if I do not keep my word, I here publicly give you permission to cast it up to me in the confessional and to charge me with a falsehood.” He chided his fellow priests who did not have compassion for penitents; “The priest who is rough with the people does injury to himself….he sins, at least in ignorance…he scandalizes all who see and hear him…Thousands reject the Church and the Sacraments because they have been badly treated by a priest.”

On September 27, 1866, he began his last journey for the Lord, to New Orleans, Louisiana. As he was traveling on the train to New Orleans, a nun asked him how long he would be stationed in New Orleans. His reply was “I will be there for one year, and then I will die of the Yellow Fever”, which is exactly what happened. He spent just short of 11 months in Louisiana, and on September 17, 1867, he caught the lethal Yellow Fever. He tried to continue with his work, but in short order, he was incapacitated, and on October 4, 1867, he died. But his time in New Orleans and the work he did there was enough for the priests and parishioners of St. Mary’s Church to realize they had a saint among them. The works he did, the kindness towards the people, reaching out to the sick and dying, made them aware they had been given a special gift in Francis Xavier Seelos.\

Work was immediately begun on this Canonization, because they knew he was a Saint. And while it was completed and sent to Rome in 1903, for whatever reason, it was not taken up seriously until the end of the 20th century. His burial place was even lost in the Church. When it was definite that he would be beatified, the officials of the Church wanted to make a shrine for him. And in the construction process, his original tomb in the Church was uncovered. A miracle attributed to his intercession took place in 1967, when a woman, Angela Boudreaux, who was diagnosed with a massive malignancy in her liver, was healed. Her doctor testified that there was no hope for her. However, within a few weeks of praying to Fr. Seelos, she was completely healed. Pope John Paul II beatified Francis Xavier Seelos on April 9, 2000. His is a powerful story, one that you should take seriously. As we said at the opening of this article, we are the most blessed, in that we were able to spend days at his shrine, interviewing Fr. Byron Miller, Joyce Boudreaux, and many other involved in the cause for his Canonization. We are making a program as we speak. We pray it will be ready for our Super Saints series in time for his Feast Day, October 5. Give yourselves a treat. Go to the Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos in New Orleans. You will be blessed. We love you.

Homily 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 13th

Those of us around in the seventies may remember two famous lines about the word sorry: “sorry seems to be the hardest word” were lyrics from a popular song and “love means never having to say you are sorry” from a popular movie.

Sorry, but neither statement is true!

Let’s go back in time a couple of weeks, to a warm night in Detroit as the Tigers faced the Cleveland Indians. The Detroit pitcher, Armando Galarraga, had the game of his life; in fact with just one batter left he was pitching a perfect game. 26 batters up, 26 batters out! One batter to go and it’s a slow ground ball to the 1st baseman who pitches the ball to Galarraga, covering 1st base. He’s out by a step and the historic perfect game is in the books. Wait a minute. Umpire Jim Joyce calls the runner safe. Safe! How can you call this ump; he is out by a step? Galarraga, for his part, never argues the call. Fans are outraged, sportscasters are outraged, and bloggers all night long called for the umpire to be fired.

Jim Joyce, after the game watches the replay and realizes he was wrong. He could have said, I called it as I saw it or he could say and do nothing. He immediately went to the Detroit locker room, found Galarraga and apologized. He apologized to the Detroit Tiger manager, to the organization and to the fans. So sincere his apology that the very next day he was greeted with a fair amount of applause and respect by the Tigers and the fans.

How many of us can recall sincerely saying I’m sorry or please forgive me when we were wrong; when we offend; when we disappoint?

As people of faith, do we sincerely seek forgiveness from the One who will forgive us; from the One who can even forgive our sins?

Today’s readings give us powerful lessons on forgiveness. They speak to us of laying bare our sinfulness and our brokenness and seeking the love and mercy that God offers to all of us.

In our 1st reading David confronts his sinfulness; he seduces another man’s wife and has that man murdered yet he is allowed to see his sinfulness and proclaims: “I have sinned against the Lord”. And David hears, through the mouth of a prophet: “The Lord has forgiven your sin”. Imagine David, broken and hurt by his own sins, now hearing those words.

David admitted his need for forgiveness and mercy with his words. The Gospel gives us the example of one admitting sinfulness with their actions. And it is not the host in our Gospel; but the woman. And this woman is of ill repute yet she finds a way to make it inside the home of Simon and fall at the feet of Jesus. With her actions; the bathing of His feet with her tears, the drying of His feet with her own hair and the anointing of His feet with the ointment she declares publically, I am a sinner but I want to end my sinfulness, I seek forgiveness and mercy.

Simon, for his part, felt beyond the need to consider his own sinfulness. In fact, his invitation to Jesus was not to learn from Him, or to love Him, but perhaps to expose Him as a fraud, to trap Him in some fashion. He extended no common courtesies of the day to his invited guest. And Simon is indignant that this woman, this sinner has intruded on his plans. Imagine how Simon must feel when he hears Jesus proclaim to the woman, and all gathered together, “Your sins are forgiven” and again, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

These were very important facts for the author, St. Luke, the physician, to include in the Gospel that bears his name. And they are important lessons for all of us gathered here today and preparing to approach the altar to receive the Precious Body & Blood of the same Jesus who forgives the woman in this Gospel.

We are called to seek the Lord and ask for His forgiveness and to seek His mercy. We are called, by His Church, to be able to hear those same words that David and the woman hear; your sins are forgiven. That happens every time we go to reconciliation. The Priest, acting in the name of Jesus, says these words while making the sign of the Cross: “I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Perhaps this is the week that we return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, make a sincere confession and seek forgiveness and mercy. But we, like the woman, need to take action. Reconciliation requires we go forth, we seek the Sacrament, we go; just like the woman.

In the week ahead, we all can make a personal commitment in our daily activities and prayer life to pray for forgiveness. Do we need a great example; seek the response from today’s Psalm 32: “Lord, forgive the wrong I have done!” Make this part of our morning prayer, or evening prayer or something we can pray in those most difficult parts of our day.

And if there is someone who needs to hear “I’m sorry” or “please forgive me”; then say it, mean it and reconcile with whoever that person may be.

Jim Joyce, an experienced and proud umpire, went to the one he wronged, and asked for forgiveness and mercy. David did the same; and the woman went directly to the Lord.

As we prepare today to go to Jesus in Holy Communion, seek His forgiveness, seek His mercy, rejoice in His infinite Love.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word; I don’t think so.

Love means never having to say your sorry; well, all I can say to that is what Umpire Jim Joyce should have said two weeks ago: You’re out!

The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

This Friday, June 11th brings us the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a powerful Catholic devotion given to us directly from the Lord through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

While principally a private devotion since the 11th century this Feast began to gain widespread acceptance in the 17th century. Celebrated in liturgy first by St. John Eudes, devotion to the Sacred Heart spread because of the visions of St. Margaret Mary. In a particular vision to St. Margaret Mary on the feast of Corpus Christi, Jesus asked her to spread the devotion to His Sacred Heart and celebrate a feast on the 8th day after Corpus Christi, always a Friday.

It would not be til the 19th century that the feast would become a universal Church feast by order of Pope Pius IX.

I note with great joy that St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was a member of the religious order of the Visitation. This is the same order of the patron saint of my home parish, St. Jane de Chantal and cofounded by St. Francis de Sales. It was while a Visitation nun, in a Visitation convent, that St. Margaret Mary received these visions.

Today, our renovated St. Jane de Chantal Church has a beautiful window dedicated to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Here is the prayer that the Church across the world will pray tomorrow in every liturgy celebrating the Sacred Heart:

Father, we rejoice in the gifts of love we have received from the heart of Jesus your Son. Open our hearts to share his life and continue to bless us with his love.

And another prayer reserved for this special day:

Father, we honor the heart of your Son broken by man's cruelty, yet symbol of love's triumph, pledge of all that man is called to be. Teach us to see Christ in the lives we touch, to offer him living worship by love-filled service to our brothers and sisters.

Looking back at Abita and St. Jane's

>>>This article was recently republished on insidecatholic.com and gives a nice glimpse of both the community in which I live and the Church I worship at and serve as a Deacon. Much has changed since the 1940's but not much about our beloved St. Jane de Chantal Church.


Remembering Abita: Life and Faith in a Southern Town
by Sandra Miesel
6/01/10

Because my parents' marriage failed early, I spent my childhood with my great-aunt Mamie Schlumbrecht and her husband, Albert, on a five-acre chicken farm outside Abita Springs, Louisiana. Abita, which is about 35 miles north of New Orleans in St. Tammany Parish, is now a chic town -- the famous home of an excellent microbrewed beer. But in the 1940s, it was a hamlet of 200 people where all the clocks had stopped after the Crash of 1929.
We didn't actually live in Abita but rather two miles out on Talisheek Road. The flat countryside had been logged clear a generation earlier, leaving swathes of open country dotted with second-growth pine, scrub oak, and gall berry bushes amid grass that was brown all year. We could hear dynamite blasts in the far distance where huge beef cattle farms were clearing pasture. Ours was the only home within sight on our side of the graveled road.
Mamie and Albert had built the house themselves in 1923, a typical bungalow whose rough-sawn clapboards had been stained and weathered to gray. Scattered around it were chicken houses and sheds, vegetable gardens, piles of sand and gravel for construction, and the much smaller house where the black hired couple Rosie and Brown used to live (it was later adapted for raising turkeys). The front of the property was landscaped with neat hedges of box and sweet bay, azaleas, magnolias, a giant gardenia bush, a tall holly that bore no berries, and, right by the front doors, a huge crape myrtle entwined with honeysuckle vines thick as your wrist -- both blooming together in a sweet tangle that drew bees and hummingbirds.
Mamie (née Myra Katherine Klink) was strong and squarely built, with long brown hair braided and coiled around her head and blue eyes behind bifocals. She showed me that a woman should be equally adept with an axe and a needle. I gave up on the axe after one unauthorized attempt left me with a gashed knee at age four. The same year, I learned to crochet and embroider -- skills I've kept for life. Three decades later Mamie would take her crocheting to the hospital lest she fail to keep busy on her deathbed.
Albert was tall, gaunt, and black-haired. He was susceptible to crackpot ideas including eugenics, fruit fasts, and the Lost Books of the Bible. He'd been put out to work after fourth grade and, while still young, lost half his right thumb in a machinery accident. As a result, he had a curl of yellowed bone instead of a first joint (though it sufficed to roll cigarettes from his beloved King Bee tobacco). Albert's many eccentricities didn't impinge on me much as a child, but I eventually realized he'd put Mamie through a very difficult life.

A lapsed Lutheran, Albert didn't believe much in church-going. But Mamie was an intensely devout Catholic. I loved to read about the saints in the onionskin pages of her daily missal, never suspecting that I would one day grow up to write about them myself. Mamie said her prayers on a silvery rosary missing a bead (though her favorite devotion was to the Sacred Heart). To get a precious blessed palm to slide lovingly behind Our Lord's picture, she drove out one Palm Sunday through flood waters pouring over a bridge in three places.
Trying to make a living meant ceaseless toil for Mamie and Albert. From five in the morning until supper, they worked. No one had told Mamie that she could labor without wearing her boned corset, so she did her rounds well-cinched. The electrical generator died during the War and couldn't be fixed, so we depended on kerosene lamps until rural electrification and telephone service arrived by 1948. Happily, we did have indoor plumbing, though we had to boil water in a teakettle for our baths.
Mamie cooked with bottled gas, baked in a woodstove, did laundry on a washboard, and sewed on a treadle machine, often using bright calico that had been cut from feed sacks. The main business of the place was raising chickens: white "broilers" raised indoors in cages and plump Barred Rock or Rhode Island Red laying hens whose airy house had access to the outdoors. I briefly made a pet of one runty Barred Rock and called her "Inquisitor," but she got turned into someone's stewing hen. Chicks were usually chosen from a mail-order catalog and arrived a day old in special cardboard boxes, cheeping at the post office. One year, Albert experimented with breeding his own crosses and incubated a batch of eggs in the house, and I got to watch the hatching process.
While I didn't go out of my way to watch chickens get killed on the chopping block, I can't pretend it disgusted me. The offal went into 500-gallon steel drums until it rotted and was turned out on the garden as compost. Our perfect organic vegetables grew from that graveyard of chicken leg bones and skulls.
Besides chickens, we sold produce -- strawberries, honey, pecans, potatoes, peas, greens, and parsley. I'd go with Mamie as she made deliveries on weekends. So I got to see the full range of Abita's homes, from the rich family whose heavy German furniture was decorated with carved wooden stags' heads to the poor woman who bought chicken feet for soup. At one extreme were the gorgeous summer homes of wealthy New Orleans gentry; at the other, a shotgun house crammed with a family so poor the mother boiled their wash in a cauldron in the yard. But in Abita, respectability was a function of personal behavior, not income.

Abita sprawled over a railroad track, neither side "wrong." The eponymous springs -- which had supposedly restored the Choctaw princess Abita to health in the days of Spanish rule -- were covered by a pavilion in the town park. There was also an artesian well in the park spurting an icy torrent. Because several nearby homes had similar wells, some ditches ran with spring water, making a delightful place to play and catch frogs. Abita boasted four groceries, three barrooms, two drugstores, two gas stations, an icehouse, and a pool hall whose owner doubled as a cabbie. The town hall was used for weekly municipal bingo games and housed a tiny library.
Bingo bored me, so on Friday nights I watched television at the home of family friends while Mamie played. Other forms of gambling held no interest either. I realized early on that neither the spinners at the town summer festival nor the slot machine and punchboard at the drugstore were going to pay off. In other places, I now realize, respectable little girls didn't take a pull at the slot machine while they licked their Sunday ice cream cones. But this was Louisiana.
There were two churches in Abita -- the white clapboard Lutheran parish presided over by Pastor Klamm and our red brick St. Jane de Chantal church. People were scandalized when Baptists attempted to form a church because it complicated allegiances: Their appearance even dissuaded a widow with Catholic children from converting to Catholicism. There was also a black Pentecostal congregation at the edge of town. Years before, my Aunt Hermanie and her teenage friends had tried to spy on their services. When they tried a second time, they found the windows covered with newspaper. Mamie scolded Hermanie -- hard.
St. Jane's had been built in the 1920s and never had the funds afterward to install stained-glass windows. But the big wedding-cake white altar had a life-size statue of the Sacred Heart flanked by kneeling angels holding candelabra. The Madonna was Our Lady of Victory -- resplendent in a turquoise gown and filigreed brass crown (completely outshining poor and plain St. Joseph). Our saints were St. Jane in voluminous habit holding a golden heart, St. Thérèse with her roses, St. Rita with her crown of thorns, and St. Anthony holding the Christ Child. Lost and found objects were left at his feet in the back of the church.
Also in the back was the usher's table presided over by Mr. Peters in his white suit and shoes. My aunt always bought the National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor, and the Messenger of the Sacred Heart. Little did I know that I'd grow up to write for the first two.
Our pastor was Father Thomas (properly, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Schwerigkeit O.C.S.O.), a refugee German Trappist who was attached to nearby St. Joseph's Abbey. He had advanced tastes in liturgy and introduced the Dialogue Mass and another practice of startling impropriety: As he said the Canon in Latin, the ladies of the choir read it aloud in English. No one as far as I know questioned this; Father always knew best. Mamie sewed his monk's habit out of fine white wool, and I used scraps of it to dress my teddy bears. In 1948, our beloved Father Thomas contracted cancer and went back to Germany to die.
While the next pastor was a rather gloomy monk named Father Athanasius, he was soon succeeded by colorful Father Aloysius Fischer -- a secular priest who arrived with Miz Martha, his own housekeeper. Father Aloysius was old enough to be retired, with fingers knobby from arthritis. Nevertheless, he was a fiery preacher who disdained the pulpit to stand in the middle of the sanctuary and pound on the communion rail for emphasis.
Miz Martha joined the choir and the Altar and Rosary Society, which were coextensive. While Miz Lustalot played the pipe organ, Mamie sang second soprano to her friend Miz Mamie Rau. The latter was a Railway Express agent with an obese cocker spaniel named Soda who slept in a laundry basket. Miz Mamie wouldn't let me sing in the choir because I "put her out." So in my early years, I'd sit in the choir loft and try to keep still.
At some point after I vomited during the Tre Ore service on Good Friday of 1947, I was sent downstairs to sit with my friend Connie in the first pew on the St. Joseph side. I carefully followed the Mass in my pocket-sized Fr. Stedman's Sunday Missal, which is easier to use and more comprehensive in coverage than today's miserable "worship aids." Sunday Mass usually ended with the hymn "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name," and Benediction followed.

St. Jane's had a varied congregation. Names like Abadie, Hébert, Privette, Marieuse, Kustermacher, Matranga, O'Brien, McNeeley, Miller, Perez, and Alcantara were common. People ranged from poor Archie who'd been shell-shocked in the War and trembled incessantly to tiny Miz Bébé, the grocery clerk. One regular attendee turned out not to be Catholic at all. When Mamie found her dead in her home, the priest refused to have the church bell tolled because the lady was actually Jewish and had never formally converted.
Black parishioners sat in the back row as the customs of the time required. These were, after all, the days of legal segregation. (Archbishop Rummel's heroic resistance to racism lay some years in the future.) The black population of Abita led almost entirely separate lives. Mamie was remarkably free of prejudice, when she could recognize it. (She didn't while reading me the hopelessly racist pages of a classic Southern children's book, Miss Minerva and William Green Hill.) But she would cheerfully give Annie the housemaid a ride when she saw her walking along the road in broken shoes. And Mamie had no problem accepting a ride to church from our black fellow parishioners when ours was unavailable.
They were a mixed-race clan that kept to itself on several small farms up Talisheek Road. Mamie bought an old Wurlitzer piano from them so that I could take lessons, but its sound board was so damaged (even after we removed the beans, pebbles, and mud dauber nests) that I never learned what the notes were supposed to sound like. It pains me now to describe their poverty: a tiny cabin perched on a sea of cracked mud with chicken wire -- not screens -- in the windows and fat flies swarming over their baby. It horrified me that these unusually beautiful and obviously honest people had to live that way.
There were, of course, no black children in our schools and -- I confess -- I never really wondered where they were educated. But Louisiana allowed parochial school children to ride public buses. That's how Abita's Catholic children got to St. Peter's School in Covington, three miles away. What went on in Abita's own public grade school I never knew, although my best friend, Li'l Harold, went there.
In those days, school buses had no stop signs to swing out. When I was in second grade, a public school girl was killed on the highway by a car speeding around the bus. All I saw was an explosion of papers and a thin line of dark blood across the asphalt. Ever after, I imagined seeing that glossy red line every time we drove across the spot.

St. Peter's School must have run on thin air because it charged two dollars a month for tuition and an extra dollar for lunch. It was staffed by Benedictines whose motherhouse was in the next block where they also operated St. Scholastica Academy for girls. The congregation no longer exists, but I have happy memories of them. Thank you Sisters Philippine, Anthony, Stephen, Agatha, and Anna -- not to mention our lay teachers Miz Edwards and Miz Viola. Yes, there were ruler slaps and the principal once spanked me for swatting another girl with a jump rope, but none of my teachers was ever mean.
The school was funded by St. Peter's Parish, whose unusually contemporary church opened in 1946. Vaguely Norman in style, its interior walls were plain rose brick and its stylized statues were carved from pale wood. By 1950 it acquired some marvelous modern stained glass tracing the life of St. Peter. Around the same time, though, a parishioner donated life-size, glass-eyed plaster statues of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Fatima, which rather spoiled the effect.
St. Peter's School, in contrast, was a wooden relic two stories tall, with every classroom's walls and ceiling paneled in dingy beadboard pine. The lower floor (called the basement) housed a stage, foul restrooms, and a cafeteria that served hideous food. The school occupied an entire city block -- plenty of space for 200 pupils -- with trees and grass as well as game courts of packed yellow clay. Spanish moss from the live oaks was a favorite play material. A surprising number of students came from divorced or widowed homes, and families were generally small. Diversity consisted of a single Colombian girl who boarded at St. Scholastica's.
In most respects, St. Peter's offered an average education for its time and place. The state provided our texts in secular subjects, supplemented with the Baltimore Catechism, Bible history, and the magnificent Loyola Voyages in English series, which taught me all the grammar I know. Reading was taught through the worthless "look-say" method, but the nuns zealously encouraged us to read. The best students got the first shot at new books, ceremoniously presented in front of the class. But there was nothing done for the worst student in my class, a boy who was probably retarded and certainly had behavioral problems. The nuns much preferred two angel-perfect cousins who strolled rather than played at recess, lest they muss their crisp uniforms.
A lot of our religious formation came through osmosis. We had plenty of occasions for Mass, including First Fridays when the communicants would get hot cocoa afterward to break their fast. Prayer opened the school day, and we said the Angelus before lunch. May crowning was an elaborate event that featured small girls strewing rose petals down the church aisle ahead of the procession. We fought over the privilege of providing flowers for the Blessed Mother's altar in each classroom, fashioned spiritual bouquets, and collected money to ransom pagan babies.
There were many mansions in the realm of Catholic culture. We read Our Little Messenger and Treasure Chest Catholic comics, although I preferred pretty booklets on the lives of female saints. There was much talk about the evils of Communism, made vivid by the presence of a Hungarian refugee family in the school.
Not only did we troop off to watch religious-themed movies in town (Guilty of Treason and The Next Voice You Hear, for example), the nuns also showed us explicitly Catholic films in the school basement -- Italian lives of St. Benedict and St. Francis and a particularly hokey Mexican account of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The St. Benedict story -- straight out of The Dialogues -- made an unforgettable impression on me in second grade. The prologue ended with a crawler, "The barbarians were at the gates," and faded to show a bunch of howling savages clad in skins menacing a set of wrought-iron gates. For years that was my image of the fall of Rome. I also naively asked Sister Anna why the floating image of a woman's face constituted a temptation for Benedict.
I left Louisiana just before my eleventh birthday. Rickety old St. Peter's School was replaced long ago and then closed, and Abita has been renovated for yuppies. But when Mass at my present parish ends with "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name," I close my eyes and I'm back in the first pew at St. Jane's. And Aunt Mamie is waiting for me by the church door.


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Sandra Miesel is a veteran Catholic journalist, and co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax. This article originally appeared in the December 2003 issue of Crisis Magazine.