The Catholic Spirit - March 23, 2023

BEING NEIGHBORLY Students in preschool through grade five at St. Anne’s School in Le Sueur brought cards to a neighbor who recently had health problems. “Mr. Peterson” lives between the school and St. Anne’s church, and students pass his house each Tuesday on their way to Mass. Mr. Peterson often goes outside to tell the students, “Good morning” or, if inside, waves from his front window. He made a hopscotch pattern with chalk on the sidewalk for students’ enjoyment and, on Halloween, brought treats to the school for all 140 students. In addition to presenting their cards to Mr. Peterson, the students sang the St. Anne’s Blessing: “May the blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

The Basilica Block Party — a live music festival held outside the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis — will not take place this year. Molly Cashman, special events coordinator for the Basilica, issued a brief statement saying the festival is “on a planned hiatus this year.” Cashman said organizers aren’t ruling out a 2024 return for the Basilica Block Party.

Hunter Conrad, a senior at Bethlehem Academy in Faribault, recently received the American Red Cross Certificate of Merit, the highest award given by the nonprofit for someone who saves or sustains life by using skills learned in a Red Cross training course. A lifeguard at Faribault Parks and Recreation, Conrad stopped the car he was driving in Dundas Oct. 4 to help administer CPR for about 10 minutes on a bicyclist who had collapsed. Emergency personnel arrived, the cyclist was airlifted to a hospital and recovered. The Faribault City Council also recognized Conrad for his actions.

A member of St. Peter Claver in St. Paul who has been a university professor, civil rights activist and community leader received the University of Minnesota Regents Award March 13, one of the university’s highest honors. Josie Johnson, 92, received the award at the university’s McNamara Alumni Center to the applause of family, friends and civic leaders. The honor recognizes people, families or organizations that demonstrate “exceptionally valuable and meritorious service” to the university. Johnson was a professor in the College of Education who helped create the university’s African American and African Studies program and the beginnings of what is now the school’s Office for Equity and Diversity. She became the first Black regent of the university in 1971. She also worked for the passage of Minnesota’s Fair Housing Act, the first such act in the country.

Parishioners and school families at St. Therese in Deephaven hit a 1 million-meal milestone March 15 while packing meals for Coon Rapids-based Feed My Starving Children. More than 270 people filled the gymnasium at the parish school for the last leg of the parish’s Lenten service project this year that involved 800 volunteers preparing 108,864 meals — enough meals to feed 298 children each day for one year. St. Therese parishioners also donated $32,255 to pay for the food that was packed. The parish has been helping FMSC since 2013.

Two local Catholic high schools won girls state basketball championships March 18: Benilde-St. Margaret’s in St. Louis Park and Providence Academy in Plymouth.

BSM won the Class AAA title after defeating Stewartville 66-60 in the finals. Senior Sierre Lumpkin led the No. 2-seeded Red Knights with 21 points in the game, and the team finished the season with a record of 26-6. Providence Academy won its second consecutive state title in Class AA with a 74-60 win over Albany in the finals. The top-seeded Lions finished the season with a record of 30-2 and were led by ninthgrader Maddyn Greenway, who scored 31 points in the title game to help her team win Class AA championships back-to-back for the first time since 2014.

PALM WEAVING

Maria Isabel Peralta Tenorio weaves palms at Incarnation church in Minneapolis. She weaves the palms in shapes related to the crucifixion of Christ and teaches palm weaving at the church each year. The parish will sell woven palms before and after Masses Palm Sunday weekend: 5 p.m. April 1 and 7:30, 9 and 11 a.m., and 1 p.m. April 2. Proceeds will go to Incarnation.

COURTESY DEACON CARL VALDEZ

Looking for a meaningful tradition to add to this Easter season? Catholic Charities Twin Cities is asking businesses, faith communities and other groups such as book clubs to participate in its Giving Basket program to collect hygiene, clothing and other items for people in need. Search for Giving Basket at Catholic Charities’ website, cctwincitieS org for information on setting up a Giving Basket as well as where and when items can be dropped off.

Local youth and families in the Catholic nonprofit Servants of the Cross will present its 24th annual Living Stations of the Cross at three parishes Good Friday, April 7: noon at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Maplewood, 3 p.m. at St. Jude of the Lake in Mahtomedi and 7 p.m. at St. Peter in North St. Paul. Those unable to attend can watch a recording at ServantSofthecroSSmn com

PRACTICING Catholic

On the March 17 “Practicing Catholic” radio show, host Patrick Conley interviews Bishop Joseph Williams, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who discusses the value of finding and fostering community in faith lives and parishes. Also featured are David Rinaldi, president of West St. Paul-based NET Ministries, who describes the organization’s strategic priorities; and Kathryn Wehr, managing editor of Logos, a journal of the University of St. Thomas’ Center for Catholic Studies, who discusses the new edition of “The Man Born to be King,” which she edited. Listen to interviews after they have aired at PracticingcatholicShow com or anchor fm/Practicing-catholic-Show with links to streaming platforms.

COURTESY HALEY MADSON

FROMTHEMODERATOROF THECURIA

ONLY JESUS | FATHER CHARLES LACHOWITZER

Slackened sails

The doldrums is a real place. In the equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean, the wind can be absent for days or even weeks. For ancient mariners depending on full sails, the doldrums was a dangerous place. The crew faced the possibility that they would run out of fresh water and food. Sometimes, everyone on the ship died before the winds finally came. Without any living people to guide it, this floating grave would become stranded on some shoal or reef.

Because of this place of nautical lethargy, the doldrums has been used as a description for a chapter in the human condition. Neurological issues aside, the doldrums is a time of little energy and no motivation. While the demands of life can force us to stay on task, the doldrums is when everyday duties beyond our day jobs languish without much attention.

The doldrums of Lent is more than a sink filled with unwashed dishes. It is more than weariness from a long winter. It is a season of disinterest with the spiritual disciplines of Lent. It is not boredom. It is the deadly sin of sloth — a laziness about our lives of faith.

Particularly during the Lenten season, we are invited to be more conscious of the sins we commit as well as the sins of omission. It is the latter that results in the doldrums of

Velas aflojadas

El la zona de las calmas ecuatoriales es un lugar real. En la región ecuatorial del Océano Atlántico, el viento puede estar ausente durante días o incluso semanas. Para los antiguos marineros que dependían de las velas llenas, el estancamiento era un lugar peligroso. La tripulación se enfrentó a la posibilidad de que se les acabara el agua dulce y los alimentos. A veces, todos en el barco morían antes de que finalmente llegaran los vientos. Sin personas vivas que la guíen, esta tumba flotante quedaría varada en algún bajío o arrecife.

Debido a este lugar de letargo náutico, el estancamiento se ha utilizado como descripción de un capítulo de la condición humana. Dejando a un lado los problemas neurológicos, el estancamiento es un momento de poca energía y sin motivación. Si bien las demandas de la vida pueden obligarnos a permanecer en la tarea, el estancamiento es cuando los deberes cotidianos más allá de nuestros trabajos diarios languidecen sin mucha atención.

El estancamiento de la Cuaresma es más que un fregadero lleno de platos sin lavar. Es más que el cansancio de un largo invierno. Es un tiempo de desinterés por las disciplinas espirituales de la Cuaresma.

Lent. So, what do we do when there is no wind in our sails? When our ship is stalled and not going anywhere? When our spiritual lives seem stuck in waters that are too calm? The early Church used the image of a boat. It is a good image for a Lenten reflection, especially when we are in the Lenten doldrums.

Typically, we continue with busy lives and toss a prayer or two that God exhale some wind or at least a divine sneeze. Yet on that ship of the

No es aburrimiento. Es el pecado mortal de la pereza, una pereza acerca de nuestras vidas de fe.

Particularmente durante el tiempo de Cuaresma, estamos invitados a ser más conscientes de los pecados que cometemos, así como de los pecados de omisión. Es esto último lo que resulta en el estancamiento de la Cuaresma. Entonces, ¿qué hacemos cuando no hay viento en nuestras velas? ¿Cuando nuestro barco está estancado y no va a ninguna parte? ¿Cuando nuestra vida espiritual parece estancada en aguas demasiado tranquilas? La Iglesia primitiva usó la imagen de un barco. Es una buena imagen para una reflexión cuaresmal, especialmente cuando estamos en el estancamiento cuaresmal.

Por lo general, seguimos con vidas ocupadas y lanzamos una oración o dos para que Dios exhale un poco de viento o al menos un estornudo divino. Sin embargo, en ese barco del alma, la única fuente de viento proviene del interior. Cierto, el soplo de Dios y el movimiento del Espíritu Santo son la fuerza detrás de los vientos interiores, pero no cuando hemos arriado nuestras velas. Un barco sin velas no va a ninguna parte, incluso cuando sopla el viento. Sin velas, un huracán solo puede empujar el barco en círculos hasta que zozobra por las olas gigantes o se estrella contra las rocas cerca de la costa.

Ahora estamos en un momento de la temporada de Cuaresma en el que probablemente no hayamos hecho lo

soul, the only source of wind is from within. True, the breath of God and the movement of the Holy Spirit are the force behind the interior winds, but not when we have taken down our sails. A ship without sails isn’t going anywhere, even when the wind is blowing. Without sails, a hurricane can only push the ship in circles until it capsizes from giant waves, or it crashes on rocks near the shore.

It is now at a time in the Lenten season when we probably haven’t done

que nos propusimos hacer. Al igual que las resoluciones de Año Nuevo, nuestra lista de “cosas por hacer” del Miércoles de Ceniza puede tener solo unas pocas marcas de verificación de finalización. Tuvimos la mejor de las intenciones, pero puede parecer que sólo el paso del tiempo nos está llevando al Viernes Santo.

No temáis, fieles barcos. Hay un par de cosas que podemos hacer para tener las velas llenas. Una es asegurarse de que la vela esté izada en el mástil. Izar una vela es simplemente nuestra atención a la oración.

La asistencia a la Misa diaria, el tiempo de adoración al Santísimo Sacramento, el rezo del rosario u otras formas de oración, y un examen intencionado de las lecturas bíblicas de Cuaresma son cuerdas y poleas que mantienen la vela en lo alto del mástil. En segundo lugar, si la vela está izada y sopla el viento pero la vela sigue floja, cambie de dirección. Ir a la confesión y tener un sentido más profundo de la enmienda de la vida hace que nuestra vela se vuelva en la dirección del viento.

Por último, podemos renovar nuestro sentido de la misión de la Iglesia a través de una mayor participación en nuestra parroquia. Recuerdo que de joven vi el cartel con la imagen de una de esas goletas con múltiples velas. El pie de foto era de John Shedd, un líder empresarial y filántropo: “Los barcos están seguros en los puertos, pero no es para eso que se construyeron los barcos”.

Nuestro viaje de Cuaresma nos lleva a la

what we set out to do. Like New Year’s resolutions, our Ash Wednesday “to do” list of spiritual things may only have a few checkmarks of completion. We had the best of intentions, but it may seem that only the passing of time is taking us to Good Friday.

Fear not, faithful ships. There are a couple of things we can do to have full sails. One is to make sure the sail is hoisted on the mast. Raising a sail is simply our attentiveness to prayer. Attendance at daily Mass, time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, praying the rosary or other forms of prayer, and a purposeful examination of the Lenten Scripture readings are all ropes and pulleys that keep the sail high on the mast. Secondly, if the sail is hoisted and the winds are blowing but the sail is still slack, change direction. Going to confession and having a deeper sense of the amendment of life turns our sail in the direction of the wind.

Lastly, we can renew our sense of the mission of the Church through a greater involvement in our parish. I remember as a young man seeing the poster with a picture of one of those schooners with multiple sails. The caption was from John Shedd, a business leader and philanthropist: “Ships are safe in harbors but that’s not what ships were built for.”

Our Lenten voyage takes us to the cross of Good Friday. From there, Jesus supplies us a ship not of our own making, which completes the voyage to Easter.

cruz del Viernes Santo. Desde allí, Jesús nos proporciona un barco que no es de nuestra propia construcción y que completa el viaje a la Pascua.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda has announced the following appointments in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis:

Effective March 08, 2023

Reverend Andrew Stueve, appointed chaplain to Chesterton Academy of Saint Croix Valley in Stillwater. This is in addition to his current assignment as parochial vicar of the Church of Saint Charles in Bayport.

Effective March 14, 2023

Reverend Michael Daly, appointed parochial vicar to the Church of Saint Michael in St. Michael.

Deacon Joel Neisen, assigned to exercise diaconal ministry at the Parish of Saints Joachim and Anne in Shakopee.

Reverend Joseph Zabinski, appointed pastor of Saint Albert in Albertville. Father Zabinski has been serving as parochial administrator of the same parish.

iSTOCK PHOTO | JGROUP

If the sail is hoisted and the winds are blowing but the sail is still slack, change direction. Going to confession and having a deeper sense of the amendment of life turns our sail in the direction of the wind.

SLICEof LIFE

Walleye bite is on

Ron Wacker, left, of St. John Neumann in Eagan keeps fresh fillets coming during the parish Walleye Fry March 10. Cheering him on are Father Josh Salonek, center, parochial vicar of St. John Neumann, and fellow volunteer Paul Epstein, a member of the Knights of Columbus Faithful Shepherd Council in Eagan and a St. John Neumann parishioner. Wacker also belongs to the Dakota County Elks, which supplies the walleye plus volunteers to help with cooking. Mark Joerger, parish business administrator, said it’s the first time the parish has done a fish fry in person since before the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. “We’ve got a great partnership between St. John Neumann, the Elks and Knights of Columbus,” he said. “We’re the only Walleye Fry in all of the archdiocese. And, it’s become known and it’s being followed. We’ll have people waiting half an hour before we open, sitting outside the door just waiting in chairs.” St. John Neumann has two more Walleye Frys, March 24 and 31.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Over 350 Archdiocesan Men’s Conference attendees urged to evangelize

By Tim Montgomery For The Catholic Spirit

More than 350 men from across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis gathered for Mass, speakers, songs and prayers March 18 at the first Archdiocesan Men’s Conference since 2019.

Many voiced their support for Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s post-Synod pastoral letter released in November, “You Will be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent from the Upper Room.”

The Catholic Watchmen movement sponsored the day at All Saints in Lakeville, said Deacon Gordon Bird, a conference organizer and Catholic Watchmen leader. “It’s in step with what we’ve been trying to do for a long time in this crisis of spirit — to promote authentic fatherhood and encourage men to step up more,” he said.

The conference’s theme, Men of Faith Walking Together — Raising the Bar, and its focus on men as small group leaders of their families, dovetailed with the archbishop’s pastoral letter which, among other initiatives, supports families as the primary small group. The letter also called for, and has spurred creation of, Synod Evangelization Teams from each parish to “begin the process of creating or growing small group ministries that fosters personal relationships, builds community, and provides formation to help parishioners grow as joyful missionary disciples of Christ.”

Archbishop Hebda celebrated the Mass. His homily centered on the humility needed to realize God’s gifts. Humility is the door through which virtues enter people’s lives, the archbishop said.

Likening the archdiocese’s revitalization efforts through small group evangelization to the tale of a magnificent monastery in Germany, the archbishop told how the monastery flourished for a thousand years until it was suppressed, separated from the Church, and reduced to a building with two monks and a cow. The two monks were committed in their humility to rebuild, the Lord blessed them, and the monastery was restored over time.

“We have the opportunity, brothers, to do amazing things when we put our gifts at the service of the Lord,” the archbishop concluded.

Devin Schadt, co-founder of Fathers of St. Joseph, a Pennsylvania-based apostolate that works for the renewal of authentic fatherhood, gave the keynote address. His daughter Anna Marie, one of five children, was left dependent on a wheelchair for mobility after a delay in medical treatment left her with brain damage, Schadt said. In that situation and others, he has been confronted with his own challenges as a father, he said.

“I hate giving talks,” Schadt began, “because I don’t know your setbacks, your challenges. But I can be a messenger of hope.” Great lives are built with small actions, and sometimes taking little steps is better than waiting for that one big thing before acting, he said.

Using statistics to paint a picture of the importance of fatherhood in America, he said only 1% of the U.S. population consists of Catholic men

This was a wonderful event. It’s a big enough fight out there as it is without us doing anything. As we’re getting downstream, we’ve got kids, grandkids and great-grandkids coming up. You want to do something for them — you want to make sure they have their faith, because society isn’t providing that.

who attend Mass and pray daily.

“Spiritual fatherhood is a summons to sacrificial duty,” Schadt said. If the Church is to be renewed, the family must be restored, beginning with the father, he said. Yet how many men are in a state of mortal sin and unable to transmit grace, he asked, citing divorce and preoccupations with pornography.

“Hell is loneliness and isolation,” Schadt said. “The devil leaves us alone with ourselves, and we are tormented.”

Don’t be tempted to think God is against people in their trials and tribulations, Schadt said. “The devil is against you and wants you to ... forget yourself and your spirituality,” he said.

Little steps in life can include rising at dawn and praying in a dedicated spot. “Give yourself to God — just tell him where you’re at,” Schadt said. “He knows, but he wants to talk with you about it.”

Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Williams addressed the men and connected the archdiocese’s priority of cultivating small-group parish ministries with the need to strengthen families. “The primordial small group is the family, and this small group leader is the father,” he said, giving the example of how his physician father attended Mass on a daily basis. Bishop Williams also advocated for more than wordless witness. “The Church exists to evangelize, but most of us are asleep to that vocation,” he said.

Deacon Joseph Michalak, director of the Office of Synod Evangelization, followed with some thoughts on the importance of fraternal care — making places where men can support each other. “We love talking about ‘March Madness’ and politics on the surface, but most of us don’t have that place where we can open up and talk about what’s troubling us,” he said.

Deacon Bird said the men’s conference is a place men can be in

community to walk and pray together, energize and equip each other in body and soul.

“We were all being fed in unique ways, spiritually fed — and that was the purpose,” he said.

TIM MONTGOMERY | FOR THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT Archbishop Bernard Hebda greets men March 18 at the Archdiocesan Men’s Conference at All Saints in Lakeville.

Mike Cole, St. Nicholas, Elko New Market

I try to come every year. It’s that solidarity, that experience of this great community and fraternity of men.

Brother Didacus Gottsacker, Franciscan Brothers of Peace, St. Paul

Building Catholic community one Shakespeare play at a time

By Mark Johnson For The Catholic Spirit

The COVID-19 pandemic, a commuter society and digital screens too often replacing face-to-face conversations have set people adrift from one another, and people in the Catholic Church are not immune to that trend, argues Father Joseph Johnson, pastor of Holy Family in St. Louis Park.

“People often don’t even know their neighbors who live next door,” Father Johnson said. “We live in a commuter society, and we were unconsciously practicing a form of ‘social distancing’ long before the coronavirus.” Father Johnson said he sees men as particularly susceptible to the trend of turning inward.

What follows is the story, told by a founding member of what became known as Beer and the Bard, of how a dozen or so men from Holy Family responded to Father Johnson’s invitation to reclaim true Christian community and friendship. They did so from an unlikely source that for most only conjures up half-forgotten high school memories. They decided to meet at one another’s homes each Sunday evening to read aloud and discuss the plays of William Shakespeare.

This is also the story of how these men, who continue to meet four years after their first gathering, found new direction for their lives as husbands, fathers and Catholic men, and how, through this profound friendship, they walked together through serious adversity, even death.

This is the story of a “band of brothers.”

Father Johnson said he believes Catholic parishes should be at the forefront of rebuilding community and friendships. Just before Lent in 2019, he asked the Holy Family congregation, “Who here thinks that when Jesus founded the Church, he meant it to be a bunch of strangers who just happened to sit under the same roof to pray for an hour on Sunday morning?”

But sometimes men have difficulty making good friends, Father Johnson said.

“A man often just has his wife’s best friend’s husband. The women are friends, so the men are thrown together.” Sometimes, he added, that arrangement works and sparks a fruitful relationship. “Other times, it is just another ‘buddy’ without any deep connection. Buddies and work colleagues are common. Deep and meaningful friendships are not.”

Father Johnson challenged all parishioners to take part in small groups throughout Lent. Dozens of new groups formed.

This call to community and friendship resonated with Holy Family parishioner Nate Bullard, 41, a business executive and father of six. Bullard recalls an urgent prayer from his younger years: “God, please send me a good friend.” The desire that prompted that prayer has been with him ever since.

Bullard decided to form a small group that was off the beaten path, as Church groups go. He reasoned that, instead of speaking directly about their spiritual life, a group of faithful men might thrive by exploring something else — a rich, evocative topic that could lead them to deeper places. Shortly before Ash Wednesday, while exercising on a treadmill at the downtown Minneapolis YMCA, he decided the “something else” should be a weekly reading and discussion of the plays of William Shakespeare.

Bullard had never read Shakespeare, but he knew from others that this literary treasure trove contains many of the best, worst, most tragic and comical variations in the high drama that is the human condition. He worried, though, that the subject matter might sound intimidating. To lighten things up, he gave the group a whimsical name that suggested fellowship and good times: Beer and the Bard.

A dozen or so men signed up. Many had only a passing acquaintance with Shakespeare’s work, if that. They ranged in age from their 20s to 70s, and included a physician, tech specialists, a business owner, teachers, a customer service rep, lawyers and some who had retired.

Many had avoided men’s groups in the past. They assumed such gatherings often amounted to sitting in a circle, talking endlessly about “feelings.” One initial skeptic, Will Lasseter, 52, an educator, put it this way:

“So many groups — frankly, including Bible study groups — are not designed for the peculiarities of men. They’re designed to directly pull emotional responses out of you, which rarely works with guys.”

Several of the men were intrigued by the good-time name Bullard had chosen. “I’ve seen too many stonecold sober, midday, chip-and-dip gatherings,” observed founding member John Emmel, 35, a physician.

“To me, Beer and the Bard suggested a more relaxed, even boisterous atmosphere,” member Mark Fischer, 61, a customer service representative, agreed. “Don’t all Catholic men like fellowship responsibly interspersed with some kind of firewater?” he quipped.

All the men who joined Beer and the Bard agreed on one thing: The search for friendship was a primary motive. “People, especially men, are becoming more isolated from one another, lonelier and less anchored to communities,” observed Kit Adderley, 32, a teacher. “I think at this point in history — where we are staring down the barrel of anti-Christian culture — making strong friendships with other serious Catholics is of vital importance.”

Tyler Blanski, 39, a development and sales specialist, added: “Being a Catholic father can be surprisingly lonely. Unlike with dating, there are no ‘friendship apps’ for dads.”

Throughout Lent of 2019, Beer and the Bard members met every Sunday night in one another’s living rooms, around fire pits and in basements. They began with one of Shakespeare’s last plays, “Cymbeline,” about an obscure, ancient king of Britain. They signed up for parts before each session, read one act per evening, and paused to discuss each scene before moving on to the next, finishing the entire play during Lent.

At the end of Lent, there was much support for continuing with Beer and the Bard.

As Bullard had anticipated, members found in Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and histories a vast array of characters, a great storeroom of human nature’s odds and ends, from the most sinister kings to the most uproarious buffoons. “Shakespeare embodies in words the entire human experience,” Lasseter said. “We’re constantly seeing overlap with Catholic thought and culture,” Emmel observed, “whether it be the soulcorrupting revenge in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ or the out-of-control ambition in ‘Macbeth.’”

Men who had rarely been comfortable with deep conversation on “first things” felt a door to such talk open through Shakespeare, especially because it did so indirectly, without requiring members to bare their souls. “Our experience,” Adderley noted, “is that Shakespeare’s work elicits discussion, camaraderie, laughter, tears, suspense, fear, joy, relief and more: the full range of human thought and emotion.”

Members also discovered the conversation benefited from its unique intergenerational character. Except family, most members had little experience speaking of important things with individuals 40 years older or younger than themselves. At Beer and the Bard gatherings, any “generation gap” seemed to vanish.

Reading “Antony and Cleopatra,” the group debated the trade-offs between worldly success and love and pondered the distinction between real love and the destructive allure of Cleopatra’s siren song.

In Shakespeare’s “Henry IV,” the king, sleepless and alone, paces the palace halls late at night, worrying about threats to the kingdom and his son’s errant ways. He mutters to himself: “Heavy lies the head that wears the crown.” Passages like this echoed group members’ perennial worries about successfully meeting their own heavy responsibilities of work and family. As “Henry IV” unfolds, Prince Hal, the king’s wayward son, grows from a youthful carouser to one of England’s greatest kings. In the next history play, “Henry V,” he speaks some of Shakespeare’s most memorable lines as he rallies his men before the watershed battle of Agincourt, where England’s forces are vastly outnumbered:

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition: and gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon St. Crispin’s day.”

These stirring lines — spoken in the face of a seemingly hopeless fight — prompted compelling questions in Beer and the Bard members’ minds: Could our children someday rise above the cultural and personal challenges facing them? Can I be a courageous inspiration to my family despite the odds against me in this culture? Am I capable of standing shoulder to shoulder in a “band of brothers?”

Over time, the scope of Beer and the Bard’s activities expanded well beyond Shakespeare readings on Sunday nights. The group broadened its reach to include poetry reading, music, Shakespeare films, attending orchestra concerts and enjoying dinners with spouses.

As the members’ bonds grew, they found ways to support one another outside of Sunday gatherings: celebrating the births of each other’s children, grieving over the death of a member’s father, acting as godfather for another member’s child, assisting in a move to a new home. They prayed for, and counseled, each other in difficult times. Beer and the Bard became a rock of togetherness for its members during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and members developed a stronger attachment to Holy Family parish.

“We began to bring friendship to each other beyond the borders of the group,” Lasseter said. “We believed we were playing a role in creating a new culture of Catholic

From left, Kit Adderley, Jim Bullard and Father Joseph Johnson read from Shakespeare’s play “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers… Shakespeare, Henry V

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

SHAKESPEARE GROUP

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE community, something well beyond the parameters of the original small group.”

As time went on, members noticed the impact of Beer and the Bard on their personal lives.

“Beer and the Bard opened my eyes to just how rich true Christian friendship can be,” said member Ben Legatt, 46, a software business owner, “and this has led me to pursue depth in my other friendships.” Adderley observed: “I am a better father and a better husband and a better man because of the Beer and the Bard experience. I have found that I am less anxious, happier, more patient and have grown more reflective than I was before joining this group.”

Andrew Acker, 32, a data scientist, said he now thinks more seriously about his responsibilities as a Christian father and husband, and, he added whimsically, “I even notice I’m a better reader to my young children because of all my reading aloud at Beer and the Bard.”

Then at the beginning of 2021, about two years after Beer and the Bard’s formation, something profound occurred, something that required one of the group’s members and his family to walk the way of the cross, something that would call on group members to walk by his side.

Founding member David Swenson was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer on New Year’s Day 2021. David and his wife, Angela, had three small children, their youngest just having celebrated his first birthday. It quickly became clear that David did not have long to live.

Beer and the Bard members instantly showed up. They brought the family “meals for a day” — breakfast, lunch and dinner. When David was hospitalized, members visited to chat about everyday things. “I think that was one of the things David really appreciated,” said Angela. “The guys treated him as they had before he was sick, and this gave him the chance to be himself again, not just a guy with stage 4 cancer.”

Perhaps most importantly, they gave David confidence that they would continue to show up after he was gone. “In the last weeks of David’s life,” Angela recalled, “one of his reassurances to me was that we are in this beautiful community, and the families here will help raise our kids. I know it brought him a great deal of peace and comfort to understand that these men who had become spiritual brothers to him would continue to step up and be father figures to our kids.”

Beer and the Bard members were true to their word.

Just a month after David died on June 28, 2021, Nate Bullard invited the Swensons’ then-6-year-old son to join him and his son for a father-son camping trip. Several families in the Shakespeare group used their holiday break from school to make a multi-family outing possible for Angela and her children. According to Angela, her youngest son, Samuel, has had a particularly hard time understanding where his father went and why he can’t come back.

“He has latched on to a number of the guys in the group, actually calling John Emmel ‘daddy’ for a while,”

Holy Thursday, April 6 Celebra�on of the Lord’s Supper ‐ 7:00 PM

Good Friday, April 7 Sta�ons of the Cross ‐ Noon

Celebra�on of the Lord’s Passion ‐ 3:00 PM

Tenebrae ‐ 7:00 PM

Holy Saturday, April 8 Easter Vigil ‐ 7:00 PM

Easter Sunday, April 9 Solemn Eucharist ‐ 7:30, 9:30 & 11:30 AM and 5:00 PM

Angela said, adding that, at a recent pancake breakfast, “Sam clung to John for the better part of an hour, head on his shoulder, arms wrapped around him.”

For Angela personally, Beer and the Bard’s greatest gift was that the group’s wives, like their husbands, banded together in friendship and offered that friendship to her in her time of trouble. She recalled that two of the women with nursing backgrounds surprised her by showing up in their scrubs when David was placed in home hospice to cover night shifts so she could get some much-needed sleep. On her first night alone without David, Angela said, two of the wives showed up, with pajamas, at her house, prepared to stay with her. “My bed was already full with three kids and a cat, but nonetheless, it was such a beautiful act of friendship, and I love them for it,” Angela said.

This friendship among Beer and the Bard wives continues to the present day. “We now have our own group that gets together as well,” Angela said. “They have become my dearest friends and an unfailing source of support and love.”

Angela’s experience reveals what is at the heart of the deepest Christian friendship. “It cannot be engineered or forced,” she said. “It often comes about because people go through a great challenge together — a tragedy or an extremely vulnerable moment. At these moments, we punch through all barriers to the most profound friendship.”

Beer and the Bard shows no signs of slowing down and has many Shakespeare plays yet to read (“after which we’ll probably start them all over again,” quipped Bullard). More importantly, they continue to pursue with one another an effort to replicate that great gift our Lord offered to his disciples: “But now I call you my friends.”

Father Johnson put it this way: “As individual disciples, we each need a sense of belonging to the Church, but we are also meant to be God’s blessing to each other. We cannot do this as strangers.” He added that “Jesus sent his apostles out ‘two by two.’ We need that sense of shared mission as well.”

At David Swenson’s funeral, Angela asked Beer and the Bard’s members to be her husband’s pallbearers. She said that watching all of them surround his casket was one of the most moving moments of the day.

The men placed a floral display in front of David’s casket at the funeral home for the wake. On the flowers was a card that read: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Editor’s note: Johnson is a Twin Cities writer.

PHOTOS BY DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

ABOVE From left, Robert Champagne, Ben Legatt and Andrew Acker read from “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”

BELOW From left, Legatt, Acker and David Norton enjoy a laugh with other members of Beer and the Bard.

Two new ministries in archdiocese bring the Eucharist, support to abuse survivors

By Rebecca Omastiak The Catholic Spirit

Two new ministries in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis seek to promote healing for those harmed by clergy abuse.

A homebound ministry for victimsurvivors of clergy abuse to receive the Eucharist and a support group for employees of faith-based institutions who experienced abuse are now offered through the archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment.

Paula Kaempffer — the office’s outreach coordinator for restorative justice and abuse prevention — said her personal experience as a survivor of abuse and listening to other victim-survivors helped guide the development of the homebound eucharistic ministry.

“They are Catholics through and through, but they cannot set foot inside of (a) church again because their abuse either happened in the church itself, or it happened by a priest and they can’t face a priest,” she said. But many victim-survivors “have a deep hunger for Eucharist,” Kaempffer said. This ministry, therefore, is a way “to bring them Eucharist … to let them know how much they are cared for and loved by Jesus and the Church.” The Eucharist is brought to them by a minister who also is a victimsurvivor of clergy abuse.

Now members of St. Gerard Majella in Brooklyn Park, Deborah Schiessl and her husband, Peter, became eucharistic ministers for the homebound when they were members of St. Raphael in Crystal. Schiessl said she was attending support groups in the archdiocese as well as through the nonprofit support network Awake Milwaukee as she faced her own experience of abuse.

“I would listen to people and some of them, their hearts are so connected still to the Catholic Church, but this is a place of trauma for them now,” Schiessl said. She thought about how she and her husband brought the Eucharist to people who couldn’t attend Mass for various physical, psychological or emotional reasons. “And I thought, well wouldn’t that apply here? … Wouldn’t Christ go to those people?”

Schiessl talked with St. Gerard Majella pastor Father Charles Lachowitzer as well as Kaempffer and ultimately brought the Eucharist to a local victim-survivor — the beginning of the new ministry.

Holy Week at the Cathedral of Saint Paul

PAULA KAEMPFFER

Kaempffer said the recipient of the Eucharist from Schiessl attested to it being “such a healing, profound experience, how loving that eucharistic minister was, and how they could talk” about their shared experiences.

Schiessl said it’s transformative for her as well: “Perhaps my woundedness of my own and my own experience of abuse is going to be transformed into something that — which is so like Jesus Christ, to transform death into life — makes me more understanding of others who have been through abuse and useful to them. It feels very good, it’s very healing for me.” Schiessl said through this ministry, she feels that “Christ has a reason for me here in the Church … the Lord has never called me to leave and so I hope he can use me within the Church and wow, here he can.”

Schiessl said she plans to talk about this new ministry in support groups, to bring awareness to it and to encourage attendees to consider it. “I’m hoping to give them an experience of their Church that is a healing experience,” a reflection of Jesus’ healing ministry. “Isn’t it interesting that Christ is using the wounded ones to heal?” Schiessl said. “I really think it has to come from victimsurvivors, how we do healing from this.” She added, “I’m hoping more and more, there are going to be avenues from us this way.”

Another avenue is the support group for employees of faith-based institutions who have experienced abuse in the archdiocese as well as in dioceses nationally and internationally; Kaempffer said that five days after the group was

HOLY THURSDAY • APRIL 6

• Lauds (Morning Prayer) at 7:30 a.m.

• Archdiocesan Chrism Mass at 10:00 a.m.

• Confessions from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.

• Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7:00 p.m.

• Adoration until Night Prayer (Compline) at 9:45 p.m.

GOOD FRIDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION • APRIL 7

• Matins and Lauds (Morning Prayer) at 7:30 a.m.

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

• Stations of the Cross at 12:00 p.m.

• Solemn Celebration of the Lord’s Passion at 3:00 p.m.

HOLY SATURDAY • APRIL 8

• Matins and Lauds (Morning Prayer) at 8:00 a.m.

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

• Blessing of Easter Foods at 11:30 a.m.

THE EASTER VIGIL IN THE HOLY NIGHT AT 8:00 P.M. • APRIL 8

EASTER SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD • APRIL 9

• Masses at 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m. (Solemn), and 12:00 Noon

I have grown myself, personally, tremendously from listening to these victim-survivors and learning from them as well. They have a lot to teach us. They have a lot to teach the Church.”

formally announced, 12 people had already registered. “There is such a need,” Kaempffer said. “Lay ministers in the Church are really hurting from the abuse that they’ve experienced.” Kaempffer said those who have signed up for the group have primarily had experiences with Catholic clergy or staff, but the group is open to people from other religious institutions.

The support group will meet via Zoom on the second Thursday of every month, starting April 13. It’s now the fourth support group offered through OMSSE; the first was established for anyone who experienced clergy sexual abuse, a second was organized for family members of those who experienced abuse, and a third was created for those who experienced abuse by clergy as adults. The groups also address physical or emotional forms of abuse.

Kaempffer said support group attendees witness to each other’s healing. “They have really come to love one another and care for one another and affirm one another’s growth through these groups.” She said, “several of them have called it their church.”

Kaempffer said OMSSE also hosts presentations, typically on the fourth Monday of the month. Experts from throughout the United States present on topics geared toward victim-survivor healing, such as safety advocacy, traumainformed care techniques, and creating a trauma-informed Church.

“We have pastoral care people from parishes, we have therapists who work with victim-survivors, we have victim assistance coordinators who are in every parish” attending the presentations, Kaempffer said. Presentations typically draw 80-200 attendees. Though many attendees live locally, Kaempffer said word has spread and people from throughout the U.S. and other countries

— such as Germany, France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom — have attended.

The response to these efforts is “very positive, the feedback is extremely positive,” Kaempffer said. “I hear from people all over the country, I get emails from people after they’ve attended presentations thanking us at the diocese for putting these presentations on, for the work that we do with victimsurvivors, for trainings that we do, like in the seminary, as well.” Giving a recent example, Kaempffer said she had a virtual meeting with a group from Nigeria that wants to support women victim-survivors of sexual abuse.

Paul Iovino, deputy director of OMSSE and a member of St. Ambrose in Woodbury, said he is “excited and encouraged by these new ministries.” He sees them as being able “to serve people who have been harmed by the Church,” and that he is “grateful our archbishop and leadership are supportive.”

Julie Craven — who serves as ombudsperson for clerical sexual abuse within the archdiocese — agreed. “These pastoral care offerings are central to our faith,” she said.

Craven said it’s apparent through her work alongside Father Daniel Griffith — pastor of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis and director of the University of St. Thomas School of Law’s Initiative on Restorative Justice and Healing, where Craven is associate director — that “the interest in restorative practices continues to grow, in this archdiocese and in other parts of the country. To be able to talk about the availability of Zoom support groups and Eucharist for victim-survivors in our work is vitally important and sets our archdiocese apart in the ways we reach out to those who have been harmed.”

Kaempffer — who has been in her current role since June 2019, having served in Catholic Church ministry for more than 40 years before that — said she’s “very humbled by” her work “and I feel very grace-filled because of it, because I know it’s the Holy Spirit that’s doing the work … I have grown myself, personally, tremendously from listening to these victim-survivors and learning from them as well. They have a lot to teach us. They have a lot to teach the Church.”

Those who would like more information on the two new ministries and other OMSSE resources can visit safe-environment archspm org

Polish bishops defend St. John Paul II, form independent commission

By Paulina Guzik OSV News

The bishops of Poland announced March 14 they will create a commission of experts to investigate cases of abuse of minors by clergy from the past in the country — an investigation that would cover the era that St. John Paul II governed the Archdiocese of Krakow as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla.

The Polish hierarchy also defended John Paul II after a television station’s report accused the Polish pope of “cover up” of abuse when he was archbishop of Krakow from 1964 to 1978, the year he was elected pope.

The headline “John Paul II knew about the abuse when he was archbishop of Krakow” made waves in the media March 6, when the documentary “Franciszkanska 3” by Marcin Gutowski premiered on TVN24, a private commercial TV network in Poland. On March 8, the book “Maxima Culpa” by Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek debuted, showing the same cases depicted in the documentary.

“He is a saint, and his sainthood is not questioned,” Bishop Slawomir Oder, who was installed in the Diocese of Gliwice March 11 and who was a postulator in the beatification process of John Paul II, said in a news conference March 14 in Warsaw.

The commission, however, which the bishops voted unanimously to form, could give context to cases depicted in media reports.

Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno, primate of Poland and delegate of child protection for the Polish bishops’ conference, said at a news conference that the task of the commission would be the “thorough examination of documents contained in both state and Church archives so that its content is shown in its entirety, taking into account the laws and state of knowledge as well as the socio-cultural context” of the times.

regarding how the commission would work and who would be its members, Father Piotr Studnicki, head of the Office of Child Protection of the Polish bishops’ conference, told OSV News.

“But for sure if this commission is aimed to help the victims of clergy sexual abuse, it needs to be fully independent,” he said, adding that “rush is the last thing we want. Rather, it is important to form the commission on solid foundations so that it can work in honesty seeking the truth.”

Concrete decisions are yet to be made. However, the bishops are determined to investigate the cases from 1945 to 1990, and they are considering examining later cases.

The commission would be comprised of historians, lawyers, doctors and psychologists, and it “will not be focused only on priests that committed the crime of sexual abuse in the archdioceses of Krakow when cardinal

Wojtyla was archbishop (but) it will investigate what we know about all abusive clergy in Poland after World War II.”

After media reports accusing Cardinal Wojtyla of cover up were published, historians worked to put media revelations into historical context.

Pawel Skibinski, professor of history at the University of Warsaw, told RMF Polish radio that the work of journalists accusing Cardinal Wojtyla is not a proper historical query.

“I must honestly admit that I am shocked by the level of construction of these materials,” he said, adding that if students brought him such incomplete queries, he would “send them away,” adding that “we are treated very badly as recipients” of media reports.

Journalists Gutowski and Overbeek used mostly archives produced by the communist Security Service which doesn’t give a full picture of the case,

the historian pointed out.

Archbishop Grzegorz Rys of Lodz said at the March 14 news conference wrapping a two-day plenary meeting of all the Polish bishops that “every historical source requires a critique, based on other sources.”

In the past, Archbishop Rys, a historian himself, was a director of the church archives of Wawel Cathedral where Karol Wojtyla was ordained bishop.

He was responsible for studying the Krakow archives during the beatification process of John Paul II. He said that “every page” of the formal and private letters of Cardinal Wojtyla was examined and was “in our hands.”

He underlined that “today there is a question: Who are we going to listen to, remembering the times” of communist Poland, which was, he stressed, “a totalitarian country.”

“The war against the Church and the nation, led by the then-authorities, was also a war for future memory,” Archbishop Rys stressed.

Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan, president of the Polish bishops’ conference, said on Polish television March 12 that “we owe the truth to the next generation.”

“I have no doubts that he (John Paul II) was a shepherd with a sensitive conscience, attentive to every human being,” Archbishop Gadecki said. “Today, John Paul II would like from us the truth that is discovered in in-depth research, not in unreliable media reports. No one embraced the dignity of another human being like him,” Archbishop Gadecki said.

In the March 14 press release issued following the bishops’ two-day plenary meeting in Warsaw, the bishops appealed to “respect the memory of one of the greatest Poles.”

“The canonization process leaves no doubt as to John Paul II sainthood,” the release said.

U.S. Ukrainian Catholic leaders applaud ICC’s arrest warrants for Putin

By Gina Christian OSV News

Ukrainian Catholic leaders in the U.S. are applauding the International Criminal Court’s March 17 decision to issue arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.

The ICC charged the two with the war crimes of “unlawful deportation” and “unlawful transfer” of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian-occupied territory from at least Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, continuing attacks it had begun in 2014 with the attempted annexation of Crimea and the backing of separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

More than 16,200 Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russia,

according to Ukraine’s government. With some 66,000 war crimes reported, Ukraine has filed charges of genocide by Russia with the International Court of Justice.

The ICC’s charges fall under articles specified in the court’s governing Rome Statute, from which Russia withdrew in 2016 after the ICC ruled Russia’s activities in Crimea were an “ongoing occupation.” At present, 123 countries are signatories of the statute.

Although Russia is not a signatory — meaning that Putin and LvovaBelova would not risk arrest or deportation except in participating nations — the arrest warrants “are a major development,” said Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia and head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S. “They point at least to some of the war crimes that had been committed at President Putin’s direction.”

In addition, “the warrants also bring to global attention the plight

of thousands of children abducted from Ukraine,” Archbishop Gudziak told OSV News in a written statement. “Abduction of children is a part of genocidal strategy.”

The 1948 Genocide Convention, to which Russia is a signatory, lists “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” as an act of genocide.

The warrants show that “Putin and Russia will be brought to justice,” said Eugene Luciw, president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America’s Philadelphia chapter and a member of Presentation of Our Lord Ukrainian Catholic Church in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

That message also will serve to “bolster the Ukrainian people” who have “suffered so deeply” since 2014, giving them hope in a decisive victory against Russian aggression, said Luciw.

“At least the road to justice is being traveled,” said Jonathan Peri, president of Manor College in Jenkintown,

Pennsylvania, which has historic roots in the Ukrainian-American Catholic community and serves as a hub of Ukrainian heritage and advocacy. “We pray the international community moves on this swiftly, because the longer it takes, the worse the condition for Western civil society. This all is about Ukraine and more than Ukraine. It’s about global stability and free sovereign nations having the right to self-govern.”

Archbishop Gudziak said “it is very important to move beyond rhetoric and journalistic and scholarly argumentation to legal action,” especially after economic sanctions have only “just surrounded him and touched the Russian financial and political elite.”

Now, Putin “is being named as an alleged criminal,” said the archbishop. “The documentation of the war crimes and the abduction of children is abundant. The victims now have a new hope that in the future justice will be done.”

“Much is yet to be determined”

OSV NEWS PHOTO/CNS FILE, CHRIS NIEDENTHAL St. John Paul II greets the crowd in Czestochowa during his 1979 trip to Poland. The country’s bishops announced they will create a commission of experts to investigate cases of abuse of minors by clergy from the past — an investigation that would cover the era that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future pope, governed the Archdiocese of Krakow. The bishops also defended the late pope after a Polish TV station report said there was a “cover up” of abuse when Cardinal Wojtyla was Krakow’s archbishop.

Wyoming becomes first state to ban abortion pills

By Kate Scanlon OSV News

Wyoming became the first state in the nation to specifically ban the use or prescription of abortion pills on March 17.

Republican Gov. Mark Gordon signed the bill into law with a ruling by a federal judge in Texas still outstanding that could potentially implement a nationwide ban on the drug mifepristone used in medication abortions amid a legal challenge brought by pro-life groups.

Wyoming’s Legislature passed two bills in March that would restrict abortion in the state. Gordon allowed the other bill to become law without his signature.

The other bill prohibits most abortions in Wyoming with narrow exceptions for cases of rape or incest, risks to the mother’s life, or “a lethal fetal anomaly.”

Local media reported that Gordon told reporters during a March 7 news conference he was weighing the bills’ constitutionality, and wanted to ensure there is an understanding of “how they interplay with one another; how they interplay with existing law.”

“And then also whether there are any unforeseen consequences that could be problematic,” he said.

State law gives Gordon 15 days to veto legislation or allow it to become law without his signature.

Gordon announced a list of his recently signed bills March 9, including legislation to boost the state’s tourism economy and efforts to protect the state’s Native American cultures. The abortion bills were not among those he signed at that time.

The ACLU of Wyoming had called on Gordon to veto the bills, circulating a petition arguing that “deeply private, personal, and unique decisions about abortion should be made by pregnant people in consultation with their doctors — who should be able to treat their patients according to their best medical (judgment).”

Students for Life Action, the lobbying arm of Students for Life of America, had urged Gordon to sign both bills, which the group characterized as important efforts to protect mothers as well as the preborn.

“Preborn children in Wyoming needed their representatives to step up to bat for them, and that’s exactly what we saw play out through a grueling amendment process thanks to principled leaders who boldly defended the preborn,” Dustin Curtis, SFL Action vice president of political affairs and operations, said in a statement.

Adam Schwend, SBA Pro-Life America’s western regional director, said in a statement that the legislation sent to Gordon’s desk “values all human life, born and unborn, and the wellbeing of women.”

HEADLINES

uBiden administration works to reduce ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed in March the first federal limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water, a move the Biden administration said will save thousands of lives and prevent some serious illnesses. The proposal would limit toxic PFAS chemicals, or per- and polyfluorinated substances, to the lowest detectable levels. The chemicals are known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in water and are linked to an array of health issues when humans are exposed over time, including lower infant birth weights and kidney or testicular cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also has called for federal efforts to reduce human and environmental exposure to PFAS chemicals.

uSouth Carolina GOP lawmakers’ bill opens up women to death penalty over abortion, a move pro-life leaders reject. South Carolina lawmakers introduced a bill that could subject women who undergo abortions to the same punishments as those for murder in the state, including the death penalty. The proposal, which sparked criticism and controversy, stands in contrast with national pro-life leaders, who have rejected criminalizing women who undergo such procedures. The South Carolina Pre-Natal Equal Protection Act of 2023 would “afford equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization.” It would classify abortion as “willful prenatal homicide,” equivalent to “acts committed against a person who has been born.” Under the bill, an abortion would be considered homicide, subject to sentences of 30 years in prison or the death penalty. National and state pro-life groups condemned the proposal, and pointed to a May 2022 letter that leaders of 70 right-to-life organizations (including the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference) signed and sent to state lawmakers that read: “We state unequivocally that we do not support any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women and we stand firmly opposed to includ(ing) such penalties in legislation.”

uUS extends stay for thousands of Ukrainians as war enters second year. Thousands of Ukrainians who fled their nation in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion can now apply to extend their stay in the U.S. by one year. On March 13, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it would begin considering case-by-case extensions for Ukrainian nationals and immediate family members who entered the U.S. prior to the federal government’s Uniting for Ukraine program, which grants a two-year stay. The move aligns both groups of Ukrainian refugees in the U.S., who remain grateful for U.S. aid and continue to face challenges due to family separation, trauma, lack of employment and language barriers. Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S., welcomed the extension. “Most refugees do indeed want to return to Ukraine. They love their country, their people, their culture,” he told OSV News. “(But) some people don’t have anything to go back to. Their towns and their cities have been destroyed. Others have children already traumatized by the brutality of the war, and they want to wait it out until the victory of God’s truth (in Ukraine).”

uIndigenous Canadians seek support to fight violence against women, girls. Women leaders from among Canada’s Indigenous nations visited the United Nations’ New York headquarters seeking broad support, including from Pope Francis, in their campaign to stop violence against their

communities’ women and girls. “We are united in our collective goal to end violence against Indigenous women,” RoseAnne Archibald, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations in Canada, said in her March 8 address to a nearly empty U.N. press room. Archibald said that in Canada there were “thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.” “It’s a national emergency,” said Archibald, explaining that this unresolved crisis is proof of “ongoing genocide.” Michèle Audette, an Indigenous leader and senator from Canada’s Quebec province, noted that Pope Francis’ Canada visit and subsequent apologies were useful in shedding light nationally and globally on abuses of Indigenous people that Catholic authorities had “covered up” for years. She encouraged him to do more to help hold those people accountable, and to “make an official declaration…of what he saw and heard in Canada” as well as provide access to Vatican archives and return to their nations “our sacred objects from Vatican vaults.”

uAlbany diocese files for Chapter 11; Santa Rosa diocese files for bankruptcy. The Diocese of Albany New York announced March 15 that it has filed for bankruptcy reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Bishop Edward Scharfenberger said the decision is “the best way” to ensure that sexual abuse survivors with pending litigation against the diocese “will receive some compensation” amid what he called the diocese’s “limited self-insurance funds which … have been depleted.” In its official statement, the diocese said it has been “named in more than 400” lawsuits filed between Aug. 15, 2019, and Aug. 14, 2021, under the New York Child Victims Act of 2019, which extended the state’s former statute of limitations by granting a one-year look back for time-barred civil claims to be revived. The Diocese of Santa Rosa in California filed for bankruptcy March 13, days after Bishop Robert Vasa concluded the decision was necessary to address potentially 200 new claims brought against the diocese by survivors of child sexual abuse. Legislation in California opened a three-year window in the statute of limitations, from Jan. 1, 2020, to Jan. 2, 2023, that allowed survivors of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits within that time frame.

u’New pro-life agenda’ sees wins in state battles to expand Medicaid coverage for new moms. The pro-life movement in post-Dobbs America requires robust support for health care and social service programs to accompany parents who choose life, some clergy, legislators and advocates told OSV News — including efforts to expand Medicaid coverage for postpartum mothers. After a two-year clash of political wills, Mississippi’s House March 7 passed 88-29 a Medicaid postpartum coverage extension already approved by the state Senate, after the governor said the legislation was part of the “new pro-life agenda.” Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed a similar expansion into law March 3, calling it a “signature piece of pro-life legislation” that is expected to help as many as 2,000 low-income Wyoming mothers. The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act allowed states to extend Medicaid pregnancy coverage from 60 days to one year postpartum — however, the law’s provision expires in May. “I am grateful for the prayer, hard work and collaboration that brought this bill to the finish line,” Bishop Joseph Kopacz of Jackson, Mississippi, told OSV News. “One big step forward for the common good.”

— OSV News

The Director is responsible for the overall management of six owned and operated cemeteries of The Catholic Cemeteries Corporation

Deadline: April 14, 2023

Dan Delmore • ddelmore@delmore.com

Church in Ireland aims to boost priestly vocations with new program

Irish bishops’ Council for Vocations told OSV News.

The Church in Ireland is launching a Year for Vocations as it grapples with a steep decline in seminary numbers and with aging priests.

Focused on diocesan priesthood, the special year opens April 30, on the 60th anniversary of St. Paul VI’s launching of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations in 1963. It will last until April 2024.

Take the Risk for Christ is the theme of the initiative, which was unveiled at the national seminary in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, March 7 by the Irish Bishops’ Council for Vocations.

It takes place as the Irish Church’s 26 dioceses implement radical structural changes, including parish partnerships and enhanced roles for the laity, to offset the lack of priests.

“I suggest you look at your priest. He may be the last in a long line of resident pastors and may not be replaced,”

Archbishop Francis Duffy told the congregation in St. Mary’s Church, Westport, in the Archdiocese of Tuam last July. His stark warning was borne out by a survey published by the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) last November that showed that a quarter of all priests currently serving in the Irish Church are set to retire over the next 15 years.

The survey revealed that 547 of the 2,100 priests working in the Irish Church are between the ages of 61 and 75 and nearly 300, or 15%, of working priests are 75 years old or older. The survey also showed that just 52 priests — or less than 2.5% of working priests — are younger than 40, and there are just 47 seminarians in St. Patrick’s College. In 1984, there were 171 ordinations in Ireland.

One of the factors that has contributed to the decline in vocations is the clerical sexual abuse scandals. It was publicly underscored recently when a rising political star of the Fianna Fáil party announced he was resigning his council seat to train as a priest. Thirty-year-old Councillor Mark Nestor said he first thought about priesthood in his late teens but was “put off by the various scandals involving the Church in Ireland.”

“There are vocations in Ireland. God is constantly calling; it’s just that in the midst of the loudness of the alternative voices, God is being drowned out a bit at present,” Bishop Lawrence Duffy of the

Ordained in 1976, Bishop Duffy trained for priesthood at Carlow College, St. Patrick’s, one of a string of seminaries across Ireland that no longer offers formation. Bishop Duffy said the Church of the future “will be less clerical and less dependent on a priest” as the Irish Church moves toward “greater lay leadership.” But he underlined, “To say that there are ‘no Irish priests’ is clearly not true.”

A case in point is the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Dundalk, in the Archdiocese of Armagh, seat of the Primate of All Ireland and the place where St. Patrick is reputed to have built his first church. Last year the seminary, which was established in 2012 to form priests for the Neocatechumenal Way, announced it was building an extension to cater to a sustained growth in vocations. So far, four priests have been

OSV NEWS | SEAN MOLLOY COURTESY IRISH CATHOLIC Father Gerard Quirke raises the chalice at Mass Rock overlooking Keem Bay on Ireland’s Achill Island April 4, 2021.

ordained from the seminary, and they are serving in the parishes of the Archdiocese of Armagh and in the Diocese of Dromore. Martin Long, a spokesman for

Armagh, told OSV News that another 16 men from six countries (Croatia, Italy, Malta, Poland, Spain and the U.S.) are currently studying for priesthood there.

If the RMD pushes your AGI above $97,000 (single) or 3.

$194,000 (married filed jointly), you’ll have to pay the

Your increased AGI could also mean more of your 4. high-income surcharge on your Medicare premiums.

Social Security is taxable.

An Alternative to RMDs: QCDs

If you don’t need all of your RMD, there is a way to avoid

some of these tax consequences: donate your RMD

penalty payable to the IRS. Skipping it results in a hefty R T i h n e co ta m x e c f o r d o e m re y q o u ur ir I e R s A th t a h t

e y

3. g

The year you turn 73, the tax law mandates you take a Unfortunately, you can’t avoid those taxes indefinitely. IRAs, allow you to save money and grow it tax deferred. retirement. You know pre-tax retirement accounts, like You spend years working hard and planning carefully for turn 70½. from your IRA the year you qualified charitable deductions

To make the donation a non-taxable to charity.

Not yet 73? You can begin making charity forever. will support your parish or favorite to build a permanent endowment that during your lifetime, you can use QCDs establish a perpetual charitable legacy nonprofit of choice. Or, if you want to the money directly to your parish or (QCD), your IRA custodian must send qualified charitable distribution

Maronite legacy

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

Marian Nasser is living the dream.

Not the American kind, centered on things like wealth, fame, career and travel.

This is a spiritual dream, but as real and tangible as the rosary she began using in 2019 — a sacred treasure passed down from her paternal grandmother, Rose Hitti, who had died a year earlier.

Nasser was 19 at the time, unmarried and trying to discern her future.

One part of that future was clear — she would continue playing the organ at the church she had attended since birth, St. Maron in northeast Minneapolis. She was firmly rooted there, the place where she was baptized by Chorbishop Sharbel Maroun on Jan. 8, 2000, and where she had been playing the organ for Divine Liturgies since the age of 12. At this point, she was looking ahead to the possibility of marriage and family at the tightknit Maronite parish Chorbishop Sharbel has led since 1989. Her grandmother, whom she and others called “Teta,” which means grandmother in Arabic, “was very close to me,” said Nasser, “I just never had the courage to pray from that rosary.”

That changed while getting ready for bed one November night in 2020.

“I fell asleep praying (with) it,” she said. “And then, I actually had a vision that night with my grandmother.”

The dream involved her grandmother and a young man Teta wanted Nasser to meet while they all were talking inside the church. In the dream, Nasser ended up going into the church hall with him and dancing at a Lebanese party known as a “hafli.”

“I woke up, and I remember I still had the rosary in my hand,” Nasser said. “I was, like, shaking because it was so vivid, it was so real. I could remember feeling my grandmother and everything. It was very powerful.”

Little did she know at the time that the dream would come true. She got to know then-25-year-old Alex Nasser, an altar server, in 2020 and they began dating in early 2021. They did, indeed, end up dancing together at a hafli in February 2021, and eventually got married.

Turns out, they had been serving together on the altar at St. Maron for several years before they took notice of each other. Both had grown up in families very involved in the parish, and under the loving guidance of their Lebanese pastor, known affectionately as Abouna Sharbel. By the time they got married, Abouna, which means father in Arabic, already knew more about them than was necessary to confidently consider them ready for the sacrament of matrimony, he noted.

Such is the culture of this mostly Lebanese parish, where families like the Nassers and the Hittis worship together every Sunday and on other days of the week. For them, it only made sense that Alex and Marian

would find each other and get married at St. Maron by their beloved pastor. Not only that, Abouna would go on to baptize their firstborn child.

The bonds that Alex, now 27, and Marian, now 23, formed with Chorbishop Sharbel began on the day each was born. A tradition in the parish involves couples inviting Abouna to come to the hospital the day their child is born. He did this for both Alex and Marian. He also baptized them both, and administered their sacraments of first Communion, first reconciliation and confirmation.

As the two grew up, Abouna took notice of each one’s gifts and invited them to volunteer at Divine Liturgies. Marian sang in the children’s choir, then started playing piano. At Abouna’s suggestion, she tried playing the organ, and immediately found her place on the altar.

Meanwhile, Alex had already been serving on the altar for several years, starting at about age 6. Like Marian, he, too, had been spotted and handpicked for this role by Abouna. Not a hard choice to make, as Alex’s father, Bruce Nasser, had been serving at the altar since Abouna arrived.

During the liturgy, Alex and Marian were stationed on the right side of the sanctuary, just 12 feet apart, but taking little notice of each other until December 2020, when they started talking after liturgies and during other parish gatherings. For Alex, his attraction to Marian was hastened by his grandfather, who pulled him aside one day after liturgy and said, “Have you ever noticed the organist?”

Alex did, and he asked her out on a date in January 2021. This and more dates soon followed, with long conversations and a natural chemistry between them. Then came the annual hafli in February. The two had decided this would be the occasion when they would go public with their relationship. Alex told his family beforehand that he would be coming with a girl but didn’t name her.

Marian came to the hafli not recalling her earlier dream. However, a cousin, whom she had told about the dream, put it all together and told her at the hafli that her dream was coming true that very night, right down to the blue suit jacket Alex was wearing that Marian recalled from the dream.

“It was very emotional for me,” Marian said of seeing her dream come true. That cousin, Mireille AlAhmar, would eventually become a godmother to the couple’s first child.

Alex and Marian got married Aug. 14, 2021, and, naturally, picked Chorbishop Sharbel to be the celebrant. It marked the first time he ever officiated at a wedding of two people he had baptized at St. Maron.

A year later, Alex and Marian had a daughter, Brielle, on Aug. 25, 2022. Once again, they asked Chorbishop Sharbel to perform the baptism, which he did Jan. 7, one day after both his birthday and the anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in 1989 and his elevation to chorbishop in 2015.

Like he had done with Alex and Marian, Chorbishop Sharbel held Brielle in his arms the day she was born at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood. Because of COVID-19 protocols, only immediate family members were allowed inside the room where Alex and Marian stayed after Brielle was born. Chorbishop Sharbel was allowed in, and he picked up Brielle, walked over to the window of the room and held her up for family gathered in the parking lot to see.

What does it feel like to be part of two generations of baptisms, and to go back 33 years with these two families plus many others in the parish?

“It reminds me that I’m ancient,” the 61-year-old

pastor joked. “At the baptism of Brielle, they called me Grandpa Chorbishop.”

To build these kinds of relationships — and friendships — is “incredible,” he said, and creates special feeling and makes you feel united with whole community.”

A grandmother’s rosary, a pastor called ‘one in a million’ help couple find each other

It’s definitely a beautiful story. God put us together, and ... it’s literally the perfect fit.

Marian Nasser

called creates “a the

“This stability in a parish is so important,” he said. “The pastor is a father to the community, and it’s good for the father to stay around for a long time.”

Alex’s parents, Bruce and Julie Nasser, have been at St. Maron their whole lives. They got married there in 1989, just months before Chorbishop Sharbel’s arrival.

Alex is the middle of their three children. All five attend Divine Liturgy together every Sunday, and Alex and Bruce still serve at the altar.

“We’re in church, I’d say, a minimum of two to three times a week, at liturgy,” said Bruce, 60, noting that his parents, Duane and Elizabeth, both grew up

within a block of St. Maron. “We go on Wednesdays, we go on Sundays. Sometimes, we go on Fridays during Lent. During Holy Week, we go every day, which sometimes is eight or nine days in a row — every day at six o’clock. So, I’m blessed to have all my children with me — like bees in a beehive.” He added, “A lot of families don’t have that. Marian’s family is the same way here.”

Because of all this shared history, Bruce considers Chorbishop Sharbel not only a pastor, but also a confessor, spiritual father and friend.

“We’re blessed to have him here,” said Bruce, who recalled his father’s phrase about Abouna: “He’s one in a million.” Bruce continued: “He’s amazing ... whether it’s a little baby or it’s a 95-year-old person, he relates to everybody on a one-on-one basis — makes you feel part of everything.”

For Abouna, the feeling is mutual. He has spent lots of time with the Nasser family over the years, and has made regular trips to their lake cabin in Wisconsin. He has formed lifelong bonds with them all, including Alex, who as a child impressed him with his desire to serve on the altar.

“I remember that at church, he would come as a little kid and say, ‘Do you need any help?’”

Chorbishop Sharbel recalled. “Not too many kids do that at church. You have to grab them from the pews to serve on the altar. But, Alex will come and he will offer his help, and he still does that.”

Today, the Sunday liturgy routine is a bit different. Rather than sit 12 feet away from Marian near the sanctuary, Alex mostly stays in the pew to hold Brielle, with his parents next to him to help. Alex and Marian likely will have more children for Chorbishop Sharbel to baptize, and plan to move from their apartment in Mendota Heights to their own home someday. Rest assured, they will buy a house within a reasonable driving distance to St. Maron, they said.

As they reflect on their lifelong journey in the parish — serving there, meeting each other there and having Chorbishop Sharbel perform all their sacraments there — they realize they are an anomaly in a secular culture filled with fragmented, disconnected families.

“We’re so blessed — this faith, this parish — and we want to set a good example for other people,” Alex said.

“It’s definitely a beautiful story,” Marian said. “God put us together, and ... it’s literally the perfect fit.”

Chorbishop Sharbel has his own dream he hopes will come true in the years ahead.

“I look forward to baptizing more of their children, and, hopefully, I’ll be around to marry some of their children, too,” he said. “God willing.”

For now, he has one concrete idea in mind: Brielle’s wedding “in 2043, on my birthday. I’ll be 80.”

LEFT From left, Chorbishop Sharbel Maroun stands with Marian and Alex Nasser and their daughter, Brielle, at St. Maron in northeast Minneapolis.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BOTTOM LEFT Chorbishop Sharbel gives his trademark greeting to Marian Nasser while she plays the recessional hymn on the organ at the end of Divine Liturgy Feb. 26 at St. Maron.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

BOTTOM RIGHT Alex and Marian Nasser exchange their wedding vows Aug. 14, 2021, at St. Maron, with Chorbishop Sharbel presiding.

COURTESY ASHLEY DAHL PHOTOGRAPHY

Pouring concrete and changing hearts: the steadfast work of a deacon

By Christina Capecchi For The Catholic Spirit

Deacon Joseph Michalak is performing two jobs for the archdiocese this spring as he wraps up his longtime role as director of the Institute for Diaconate Formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul and begins his job heading up the new Office of Synod Evangelization. And on Sundays, he preaches at the Little Sisters of the Poor in St. Paul. “I’ve got so many unanswered emails,” said the 63-year-old father of five, a member of St. Joseph in West St. Paul. “The key is becoming more comfortable with failing and not being able to reach my measure of how a job ought to be done but simply being faithful to the most important things in any given day.”

Q You’re in a season of transition.

A It’s a training in deeper listening. I feel like I’m back in school — back in the school of the Holy Spirit.

Q What helps you listen better?

A I recently got off Facebook, and I don’t miss it one iota. Daily Mass, if possible. Daily lectio divina. A daily Holy Hour, in addition to the Liturgy of the Hours. You put it all together, and I try to take a couple hours a day in prayer. And the busier I get, the more important it becomes to do that. It sounds counterintuitive, but I know from experience that if I devote more time for prayer, I get more done — and what I do, I do more fruitfully.

Q You also have the support of a men’s group.

A There are four of us, and the range in our membership is from 15 years to 40 years.

Q Your intellectual load is demanding — teaching, preaching, leading retreats. How do you balance that out?

A It’s therapeutic to do physical labor. And it gives me an avenue into reality that simply can’t be gained through cognitive work alone. A very interesting book I read recently was Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soulcraft.” He’s a philosopher and an expert motorcycle mechanic.

I love doing construction. My wife, Anne, and I live in a 1912 two-story brick house in St. Paul that has needed two major remodels. I was the general contractor and apprenticed myself to the

plumber and then learned plumbing. I worked alongside an electrician and now I do all my own electrical, and I do concrete work. It’s sort of Benedictine: Pray and work.

Q I’m hearing from more people taking up hobbies that involve working with their hands.

A When I’m teaching deacons and their wives come along, I can’t tell you how many will be knitting or crocheting in class. They say, “I hope I’m not distracting you, but I receive more if my hands are moving.” I’m honored they want to be more engaged.

Q Does working with your hands help you process the day?

A When I’m doing physical labor, I don’t tend to think about much. I delight in my surroundings. The work itself becomes a form of prayer.

One thing I’d really like to learn is bricklaying. I’ve had a little experience building dry stone walls — walls without mortar. My ideal sabbatical would be to go back to England, where I used to live, and take a summer course out in the countryside learning how to build dry stone dykes.

Q You have more interests than time!

A I always have multiple books going at one time. I ended up in theology, but I’m a student of history and I find quantum mechanics absolutely fascinating — and anatomy and biology. I’m trying to get into the habit of asking God what he wants me to read and study.

Q Does God make it clear?

A Oh yeah! I have a little process, making a pile of books and over several days, I just wait. I don’t go with the first impulse. It’s a good rule of thumb for when you want to buy something.

I know what I want, but I just wait. And over the course of a few days, I end up pulling something out and then others, and then I’m left with one — “Oh, that’s what he (God) wants me to read.” He keeps directing me back to Scripture and to virtue — understanding what virtue is and how it works.

Q Both your parents died last year. Has that loss shifted you?

A Yeah, I’m on deck!

Life simplifies. I find in me a desire to be sure that, of all the things I’d like to do in life still, my children walk with God and they know the joy of doing his will first.

For anybody whose parents die — it’s a complex reality. Both my parents were diagnosed with cancer, and as my mom was dying, my father had a major stroke. She died in April, and he died in December. We like to joke that they couldn’t bear to do a Christmas apart from each other.

One of the hardest things was leaving the home I grew up in. It was the first level of grieving. But as Paul says: We grieve, but not without joy. We always grieve in Christ, which means he doesn’t take away the grief or the suffering, but he’s with us in it. I’ve definitely experienced that.

Q What advice would you give someone who feels spiritually adrift?

A I would say three things. First, ask: What do you want? What are you looking for? Jesus asks that question over and over again in the Scriptures. He’s trying to put people in touch with the deepest desires of their heart.

Second, are you following Jesus? If we’re not following him by engaging him in those daily habits of prayer, worship and Scripture, how can we listen to him?

And third, be generous. Even if we don’t know ultimately what we’re supposed to be doing, respond generously whenever you can. Serve those in need. Because generosity opens us up to receive what God wants for us.

Q What are your key takeaways from the Synod?

A From the beginning, the archbishop always had an end in mind, and the end was the renewal and the reunification of the local Church — ultimately through a re-encounter with the living God. And what rose to the top was parents want to help their children encounter God. People want their parishes to be more outward focused, missionary, evangelistic, to help others encounter God.

That’s why the archbishop’s new pastoral letter so strongly emphasizes the mysteries of the Upper Room, especially the mystery of the Pentecost — that’s the love of God poured into our hearts. We can no longer assume people know that that’s the core of being a Christian, that the love of God is poured into our hearts.

Q That’ll be your focus in your new job.

A I’m not a program manager. My main task is to help hold the vision before us and to help form leaders that themselves will form others in helping as many people as possible turn toward the reality of God.

Q What do you know for sure?

A I know that God is “I am,” and I am not God — however much I sometimes want to be. Secondly, I know that I am loved by him beyond all my deserving. And the last thing is that suffering can be a gift of love because it can bring us closer to the one we love.

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

NASA spacewalk instructor says Catholic faith is her foundation

By John Shaughnessy OSV News

Allissa Battocletti Noffke has one of the coolest nicknames on the face of the earth. She is known as the “Professor of Spacewalking,” reflecting her teaching and training of American astronauts in this rare skill at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Beyond the cool nickname, the 35-year-old Indianapolis native also has a view of the universe — thanks to her involvement in the International Space Station — that directly connects to the Catholic faith she first embraced as a student at St. Lawrence School and Bishop Chatard High School, both in Indianapolis.

“I just marvel at God’s creation, creating this whole universe,” she said. “I get to see it through our country’s space program. It leaves me in awe of all the beauty he has given us.”

Battocletti Noffke also is in awe of the incredible journey she has taken that has led her to work at NASA for the past 15 years. It’s a journey that began with a dream she envisioned for herself after a talk with her dad when she was a little girl. Before she was in the second grade at St. Lawrence, her dad, Tom Battocletti, regaled his daughter with stories of the Apollo space program of the 1960s and how American astronauts landed on the moon during his childhood.

“I thought that was so cool,” she told The Criterion, newspaper of the Indianapolis Archdiocese. So, when her second-grade teacher asked her and her classmates what they wanted to be when they grew up, she told her teacher she wanted to work for NASA and be an

aerospace engineer.

While her dad fueled her dream, her mother, Chris — a longtime technology teacher at St. Lawrence — helped contribute to Battocletti Noffke’s ability in the science, math and chemistry classes she needed to pursue her dream.

She said her Catholic education prepared her for the rigorous degree program she pursued at Purdue University. Her extracurricular interests at Bishop Chatard — playing clarinet in the band, singing in the choir and performing in musical theater productions — also continued at college.

In her first year she applied for and was accepted into a five-year program that let students intern at NASA for half of the

academic year and study at Purdue.

When she got the call she’d been accepted, “I just had a feeling of joy — and a lot of gratitude and satisfaction that something I had been working for my whole academic career proved fruitful,” she recalled. “It was surreal to only be one year out of Chatard and working my dream job.” Even after working 15 years at NASA, Battocletti Noffke still talks about her work in the space program with enthusiasm and joy — the mark of a job that is still a dream.

As part of the Human Spaceflight Operations team at NASA, she is officially an astronaut instructor and flight controller who leads on-orbit operations for the United States’ extra-vehicular

activities on the International Space Station. She also works with Mission Control when American astronauts are in space. She’s operation lead for U.S. spacewalks on the International Space Station and “very involved in putting a plan and a schedule together. It takes about a month to get ready for a spacewalk.”

Training astronauts for their spacewalks revolves around two basic details, she said, the first being “how to work when they’re in their space suits, which are bulky. Secondly, we train them in how to use a lot of hand tools, which are bulky, too. Trying to work in your bulky suit using bulky tools is challenging.”

“I love working with the astronauts,” she added. “It’s very fulfilling to become friends with them and help them. It’s really cool to see someone going from their initial training and not knowing anything, to performing on spacewalks. I specifically teach them everything they know about spacewalking.”

She spent her first three years at NASA learning about all the details involved in spacewalking and “just really fell in love” with it as well as the crew involved on the ground and “being part of the team that supports our astronauts in space.”

Through it all, she’s also relied on a different foundation of support — her faith and her relationship with God. “One of the things I really appreciate about my Catholic education is how it put Christ at the forefront of our lives every day. I’m so thankful for that. We had Mass, we had religion classes and we started every class with prayer. And that emphasized to me that Christ is the most important part of life. I still live that very much today.”

Drama, heart and grace: Three Catholics share their stories of conversion

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

They are of different ages, backgrounds and experiences, but three Catholics agreed to share, in-depth, an important part of their lives they hold in common. Each were at low points of confusion, sorrow and isolation when God reached into their hearts and let them know they were loved.

One was vacuuming her living room. Another was surrounded by loving

friends who stood and prayed over her as she unexpectedly and gratefully wept for hours while in adoration of the Eucharist in a chapel. The third was into street drugs and partying and was tired of where he found himself. His decision to find another way was greeted by the strength and wonder of God’s affirmation, flooding him as he drove away from a party at 18 years old. More than 50 years later, he vividly remembers that night.

The associate director of human

formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Paul Ruff, said he recognizes in conversion experiences the universal truth of God’s love for every person — and physical, emotional and spiritual ways the Lord tries to reach people, to knock on the door of their lives and enter.

For its April 6 edition, during Holy Week and Easter, The Catholic Spirit will publish these experiences in a package titled “Conversion: Embraced by love.”

The package will dive more deeply into

Ruff’s understanding of conversion, and it will include a reflection from Father Rolf Tollefson, pastor of St. Hubert in Chanhassen.

With a grant from Illinois-based 1891 Financial Life, formerly the National Catholic Society of Foresters, The Catholic Spirit produced podcasts allowing readers to listen to the conversion stories, told by those who experienced them, which will be posted April 2, Palm Sunday, at TheCaTholiCSpiriT Com/podCaSTS

OSV NEWS | COURTESY ALLISSA BATTOCLETTI NOFFKE

Known as the “Professor of Spacewalking,” Allissa Battocletti Noffke helps an astronaut use tools for a space mission in this file photo at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Supplying Food to Hungry Families Is the First Step in Transforming Communities

When ministry leaders with Cross Catholic Outreach set out to transform the impoverished communities of Rosa de Lima, Guatemala,they knew addressing the urgent need for food would have to be their priority.

“You can rarely succeed with longterm mission work if you ignore basic human needs. Desperately hungry people are understandably focused on survival, and their first goal is always to make

of Guatemalans without drawing much attention from the world at large, even though most of the victims are babies and young children. Fortunately, through Cross Catholic Outreach — and the support of compassionate Catholics in the U.S. — the local clergy now believe helping families escape the hardships of chronic hunger is possible.

“Malnutrition has a terrible impact on poor children, and this crisis is particularly deadly in Guatemala’s remote, rural regions. There, families live too far from hospitals and clinics capable of helping them. A serious lack of resources and inadequate food production create the perfect conditions for malnutrition to thrive,” Cavnar said. “Poor mothers are forced to choose which of their children to feed on a given day, and they watch in despair as their sons and daughters weaken, grow gaunt and lose the will to live.”

Cavnar went on to explain the major difference between hunger and malnutrition.

sure their children are fed. Only when that need is addressed can they focus on programs to break the cycle of poverty and build a better future,” explained Jim Cavnar, CEO of Cross Catholic Outreach, one of the largest and most successful Catholic charities serving the poor in Latin America.

Within Guatemala, one of the countries that Cross Catholic Outreach serves, the ministry is currently working with Catholic leaders in the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima. There, extreme hunger and the medical hardships it creates have been impacting thousands

“Most Americans think of hunger as a temporary thing — a pain that will eventually be relieved — and, praise God, that’s often the case. A child in the U.S. may go hungry at times, but that hunger isn’t usually a life-threatening issue,” he said. “The poorest Guatemalan children may have to endure hunger for weeks or months on end, and at that point, they begin to manifest signs of mental and physical damage that may become irreversible.”

Stunted growth is one of the most common physical problems Cavnar has seen, and the harm it does to a child’s body is lasting.

Thankfully, Church leaders in Guatemala have been working with Cross Catholic Outreach on an ambitious plan to distribute food where it is needed most. [See related story on opposite page.]

“Santa Rosa’s Catholic leaders are eager to feed the vulnerable in their diocese, but they need our help and they depend on the support of compassionate American Catholics. Contributions will allow Cross Catholic Outreach to ship large quantities of donated food to the diocese for distribution through feeding programs, schools and other diocesan outreaches.

“The more who contribute to this mission of mercy, the more we can accomplish. So we are asking for people to be generous in their response,” Cavnar said. “I’m confident we’ll have a major impact on hunger in Santa Rosa if

American Catholics get involved.” Readers interested in supporting Cross Catholic Outreach food programs and other outreaches to the poor can contribute through the ministry brochure inserted in this issue or send tax-deductible gifts to: Cross Catholic Outreach, Dept. AC02424, PO Box 97168, Washington, DC 20090-7168. The ministry has a special need for partners willing to make gifts on a monthly basis. Use the inserted brochure to become a Mission Partner or write “Monthly Mission Partner” on mailed checks to be contacted about setting up those arrangements.

Cross Catholic Outreach Endorsed by More Than 115 Bishops and Archbishops

Cross Catholic Outreach’s range of relief and development work to help the poor overseas continues to be recognized by a growing number of Catholic leaders in the U.S. and abroad.

“We’ve received more than 115 endorsements from bishops and archbishops,” explained Jim Cavnar, CEO of Cross Catholic Outreach.

“They’re moved by the fact that we’ve launched outreaches in almost 40 countries and have undertaken a variety of projects — everything from feeding the hungry and housing the homeless

to supplying safe water and supporting educational opportunities for the poorest of the poor. The bishops have also been impressed by Cross Catholic Outreach’s direct and meaningful response to emergency situations, most recently by providing food, medicines and other resources to partners in Haiti, El Salvador and areas of Guatemala impacted by natural disasters.”

Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile, Alabama, supports this mission, writing,

“It is a privilege for me to support Cross Catholic Outreach. This organization funds

ministries to our neighbors in need in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Pacific. Through the generosity of so many, the love of God is made visible to many who are coping with the most difficult of daily living conditions.”

In addition, many of the bishops and archbishops are encouraged that Pontifical canonical status was conferred on Cross Catholic Outreach in September 2015, granting it approval as an official Catholic organization. This allows the ministry to participate in the mission of the Church and to give

concrete witness to Gospel charity.

“Your work with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is a strong endorsement of your partnership with the work of the Universal Church,” Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco said. “By providing hope to the faithful overseas by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, delivering medical relief to the sick and shelter to the homeless, and through self-help projects, you are embodying the Papal Encyclical Deus Caritas Est.”

Families in Santa Rosa de Lima have great faith, but the poverty in their communities is making their life a daily trial. Nutritious meals will help restore their hope.

Catholic Leader Laments the Impact of Guatemala’s Hunger Crisis: “You Can See the Pain in Their Eyes”

In the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima, Guatemala, most poor families rely on farming for survival, and because their remote villages are isolated, many are dependent on the success of their local harvest. This becomes a dangerous gamble in years when nature does not cooperate.

“When harvests are poor, household incomes can also dry up, leading to a critical shortage of food,” explained Jim Cavnar, CEO of Cross Catholic Outreach, a respected Catholic charity working in the region. “In no time, children become hungry and start missing more meals, and the signs of malnutrition start to appear. It’s tragic, and you can see the pain in their eyes.” [See related story on opposite page.]

When Cavnar encountered this crisis on a visit to the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima in Guatemala, it immediately reminded him of a passage in Chapter 16 of the Gospel of Luke, he said.

“There, in Luke, Jesus tells a parable about a poor man living on the doorstep of a man with plenty. The poor man’s needs are ignored, though he longs for something simple — just the scraps from the rich man’s table. When both die, the affluent man is rebuked for turning away from a situation he could easily have helped solve. Simply put, he ignores a neighbor in need. I believe we are faced with a modern-day example of that parable today in Guatemala, a country so close to our own.”

Statistics certainly back up Cavnar’s view. Guatemala — less than a three-hour flight from Houston or Miami — has the highest levels of extreme hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the fourth-highest level in the world. With their limited access to employment and educational opportunities, many of the country’s remote indigenous people have begun feeling hopeless. Some have resigned themselves to eating one small meal of tortillas each day, and they are in anguish seeing their children languishing on the brink of starvation as a result.

Thankfully, in the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima, Catholic leaders are working with Cross Catholic Outreach to end extreme hunger through an ambitious plan that will also set local families on the path to long-term health through

improved nutrition. In partnership with Cross Catholic Outreach, large shipments of food will be secured and distributed to those who need help most.

“My team is committed to providing the food these desperate families need, and I’m confident Catholics throughout the U.S. will join our cause by helping to sponsor those shipments,” Cavnar said.

“This suffering must end.”

Cross Catholic Outreach’s plan is simple but very cost-effective because it relies on obtaining and delivering nutritionally formulated meal packets known as Vitafood. This fortified rice product is specifically designed to improve the health of malnourished children, and is distributed to the parishes. In the parishes, the food is distributed by the parish priest and local community leaders, who determine which families have the greatest need in the community. A single container of Vitafood can make a big impact, according to Cavnar.

“Vitafood is extremely flexible. It is rice- or lentil-based, and it comes in several different varieties. It can be prepared straight from the package or

flavored with additional ingredients to suit local tastes,” he explained. Providing the optimal balance of vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, fat and carbohydrates that a child’s hungry body needs. What’s more, because these Vitafood meals are donated to us, we only need to cover shipping costs to deliver the food to our partner in Guatemala. That means every dollar donated to this project can put 14 nutritious meals in the hands of a family in need.”

Cavnar’s current goal, is to secure the support of American Catholics to fund

How To Help

the effort.

“The diocese is eager for the help, and we have the logistics settled. All we need now is the support of compassionate Catholics willing to help a neighbor in need,” Cavnar said. “And once we have fully addressed the hunger issues in Santa Rosa, more can be done to ensure the long-term prosperity of these people. We have big plans for Santa Rosa, and I believe the world will be stunned by the transformation of that area when our work is done. Our expectation is that thousands of lives will be changed.”

Most of Santa Rosa’s poorest families rely on subsistence farming to survive, and when the weather or pests damage their crops, they have no savings to get through the hard times. That is when the struggle with daily hunger becomes unbearable.

“This suffering must end.”

Jim Cavnar, Cross Catholic Outreach

Invited to come out from the tomb

“Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’” Come out of the tomb. Come out of the darkness. Come out of the stench. Come out of death. “Lazarus, come out!”

Since Jesus’ words are efficacious, the man, formerly dead, was brought back to life and came out, still tied hand and foot with burial bands and his face wrapped in a cloth.

Jesus has done the heavy lifting. Jesus has rolled away the stone for us. But we still must come out. We have to leave the familiar comfort of our tomb. In addition, Jesus invites others to help Lazarus become fully unbound. Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” The theme for this Lenten weekend could be, “Untie him and let him go.”

In this Gospel account, the writer, John, tells of one of the most spectacular examples of Jesus’ liberation: his releasing Lazarus from the grip of natural death. But the deeper level from which Christ speaks is another kind of life that is foretold; a life that is more spectacular, and a more freeing experience, that would soon follow, when Jesus dies on the cross and rises from the dead.

How do I grieve as a Christian?

Q Someone I love recently died. I know that we believe in life after death, but I am still struggling. Am I wrong to be sad? Is it OK that I wish they were still here?

A Thank you so much for your question. And please know of my prayers for you and for all those who love and now miss your loved one. Death is one of those things that can just shake us in the most secret and hidden depths of our souls. Death often reveals parts of our hearts and areas of ourselves that were hitherto unknown. Sometimes we find a new strength to be there for the people who are left. Sometimes we discover a new compassion and patience for others who are hurting. And sometimes we find new wounds; we can experience loss and loneliness, grief and sadness at a depth we hadn’t known was possible.

All of these emotions get to be a part of your grief.

There are no “correct” emotions. I apologize if this is obvious, but there is no emotion that you “ought” to feel, and no emotion that you “ought not” to feel. Emotions are like scents in the air; some might be more pleasant than others, but there is no “right” smell. As long as you can get enough oxygen to your system, you’ll survive.

At the same time (to really stretch the analogy), some smells will give us an indication of what is going on around us. If you smell gasoline, there might be some kind of leak or a spill. If you smell fresh baked bread, it might be almost time for supper. If you smell coffee being brewed, it might be time to wake up. In this case, certain scents can be cues for us; they indicate something about our environment.

Similarly, our emotions can give us an indication of what is going on within us and outside of us. A friend of mine once said, “Our emotions do not reveal the truth about reality, but

While we Catholic Christians recognize that the freedom Jesus wants to give us extends beyond this world to eternal salvation, God wants to give us freedom in this life, too. When we are free from sin, life is so much more beautiful. The air is fresh. We sometimes forget how great it is to live in fresh air. The birds are singing. Our ears are no longer ringing with the noise of me, me, me. Life smells good. Life is beautiful now as we walk to the one who is calling us, as we walk to Jesus. Which can then get us to ask ourselves: What, especially inside of us, blocks our freedom? Or to use the term of the Gospel, what ties us up? Today, we are being called away from our sins — negativity, blaming, accusing, judging, lack of forgiveness, gossip, revenge, complaining, anger, addictions, self-loathing or whatever keeps us from the land of the living.

Once we are freed from what binds us, we have a call to help others. Others who are still bound. We can invite them, like Jesus, to come out of the tombs and come into life. We are called to care for others, re-affirm them, encourage them, let them know that God’s mercy is infinitely greater than sin. We can tell them, “You don’t belong in the darkness, you belong out here in the light. You don’t belong among the dead. You belong among the living.” We can have a hand in untying them, so they also can be free to live. We are called to remind others that they are known, loved and chosen, and that they are beautiful, respected and beloved daughters and sons of God. We see clearly in this passage who has the power not only to love us despite our sins, but also to bring about our freedom in this life and in the life to come.

Father Joppa is pastor of St. Rita in Cottage Grove.

they do reveal the truth about the state of our hearts.” So, we would be wise to pay attention to our emotions. Because of this, you do not need to worry whether your emotions are “Christian enough.” You have human emotions. That’s all. To experience fear or anger or sadness in the face of death is neither right nor wrong. It just is. In fact, the Bible is filled with holy people who experienced normal and powerful sadness when confronted by death. Abraham and Sarah were married for well over half a century. When Sarah died, Genesis 23 states that Abraham “went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.” Jacob mourned for years over the apparent death of his son Joseph. When David’s son Absalom died (while trying to kill his own father), David went up to the gate over the city and could be heard weeping and crying aloud, “My son, my son, Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you! My son, Absalom!”

Even our Lord Jesus Christ was moved to tears by the death of his friend Lazarus. We know the story of how the brother of Mary and Martha had been sick for a time, only to die four days before Jesus arrived on the scene. When Jesus came to the tomb of his friend, Jesus wept. Even though Jesus knew that he would raise Lazarus from the dead in a few short moments, when confronted with death (and with the grief of those who mourned Lazarus), God wept.

Later, when St. Paul was leaving his friends and fellow disciples from Ephesus, they threw their arms around him and wept because they would never see him again in this life.

All of this is to say that Christians grieve. Christians feel the sting of loss like everyone else. Christians know that death is a real parting. It is a real loss.

Christians can wish that we did not have to say goodbye to those we love. After all, we will never again see those people in this life. We do not know when we will see them again. It is only natural that goodbyes would cut a part of us to pieces.

And yet, for the Christian who dies, we believe that “life is changed, not ended.” We believe that those whom we love who die in Christ are alive in Christ. We believe that the souls of the just are in the hands of God, and that no further torment can touch them. We believe that because of Jesus, death no longer has the final word. We believe that, while

ASK FATHER MIKE CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

DAILY Scriptures

Sunday, March 26

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Ez 37:12-14

Rom 8:8-11

Jn 11:1-45

Monday, March 27

Dn 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62 Jn 8:1-11

Tuesday, March 28 Nm 21:4-9 Jn 8:21-30

Wednesday, March 29 Dn 3:14-20, 91-92, 95 Jn 8:31-42

Thursday, March 30 Gn 17:3-9 Jn 8:51-59

Friday, March 31 Jer 20:10-13 Jn 10:31-42

Saturday, April 1 Ez 37:21-28 Jn 11:45-56

Sunday, April 2 Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion Mt 21:1-11 Is 50:4-7 Phil 2:6-11 Mt 26:14–27:66

Monday, April 3 Holy Week Is 42:1-7 Jn 12:1-11

Tuesday, April 4 Holy Week Is 49:1-6 Jn 13:21-33, 36-38

Wednesday, April 5 Holy Week Is 50:4-9a Mt 26:14-25

Thursday, April 6 Mass of the Lord’s Supper Ex 12:1-8, 11-14 1 Cor 11:23-26 Jn 13:1-15

Friday, April 7 Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion Is 52:13–53:12 Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9 Jn 18:1–19:42

Saturday, April 8 Easter Vigil 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, 32–4:4

Ez 36:16-17a,18-28 Rom 6:3-11 Mt 28:1-10

Sunday, April 9 Easter Sunday The Resurrection of the Lord Acts 10:34a, 37-43 Col 3:1-4 or 1 Cor 5:6b-8 Jn 20:1-9

KNOW the SAINTS

ST. FRANCIS OF PAOLA (1416-1507) Francis chose a religious path after his parents introduced him to the Franciscan friars at age 12. He shunned a worldly life and for the most part lived as a hermit. He founded the Friars Minims. He traveled barefoot and his simple life emphasized prayer and penance. He prayed at the bedside of King Louis XI of France and was a friend of his successor, Charles VIII. Francis is patron of seafarers, many of whom have attributed miracles to his intercession. His feast day is April 2.

ASK FATHER MIKE | FATHER MICHAEL SCHMITZ

Pope: Scorn, presumption is a ticket to hell

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service

The faithful must set aside their egos and sense of superiority over others to make room for God and his tender mercy, Pope Francis said at a Lenten penance service.

“Only those who are poor in spirit and who are conscious of their need of salvation and forgiveness come into the presence of God,” he said March 17.

And those whose hearts are filled with haughty, self-righteous comparisons and judgment, “you will go to hell,” he said in his homily.

The pope led the penance service in a Rome parish, rather than St. Peter’s Basilica, to mark the start of the worldwide celebration of “24 Hours for the Lord,” a period when at least one church in every diocese was invited to be open all night — or at least for extended hours — for confession and eucharistic adoration.

The Rome parish the pope visited was St. Mary of Graces at Trionfale, the titular church of U.S. Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey. It also was the first parish in Rome he has visited since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020.

After delivering his homily at the service, there was a moment of eucharistic adoration during which the congregation knelt and the pope stood, head bowed, leaning on his cane.

Customarily, the pope would have then gone to a confessional in St. Peter’s Basilica and knelt in front of a priest to confess his sins. However, this year with increased difficulty with his knee, he went to a quiet corner of the Rome parish church where there were two chairs, put on a purple stole and waited for each penitent to approach. He heard confessions for almost one hour.

Other priests were stationed in confessionals or elsewhere in the small church to hear confessions.

In his homily, the pope talked about the danger of being proud of one’s “religious accomplishments” and believing oneself better than others.

“They feel comfortable, but they have no room for God because they feel no need for him,” he said. Their prayer is more a series of “monologues” rather than sincere dialogue and prayer.

Such people may do good works, join church groups or help the parish and then expect a kind of “payback,” that is, a sense of righteousness or expectation of a “prize” that elevates them above those who don’t meet the same standards, he said.

“Brothers, sisters, let us remember this: The Lord comes to us when we step back from our presumptuous ego,” the pope said.

He asked everyone to look in their hearts and reflect: “Am I presumptuous? Do I think I am better than others?”

What’s Your Plan This Year?

Vacations, family reunions, special celebrations — these are all on your calendar. Is charitable giving?

Now’s the time to make a plan to maximize your tax benefits — and your giving. This is especially true if you might give non-cash assets, like shares of stock or required minimum distributions from your traditional IRA.

To make the most of your charitable gifts this year, start planning now.

The experts at the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota can help.

651.389.0300 ccf-mn.org

ASK FATHER MIKE

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE death can steal our loved ones from this world, nothing can take them from the Father’s hands. We believe that God is good and that he does not abandon us in death. We believe that, because of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, death has lost, death has been defeated, death has lost its ultimate sting.

Of course, there is still the sting we feel here and now. There is still the fact that our loved ones can no longer love us in the way they did while they walked this earth. They can no longer speak to us or hold us. They can no longer give us a word of encouragement or a reminder that they love us. They can no longer drop by and spend time with us.

But they do still love us. They can still pray for us. Those who are in heaven actually love us more perfectly than they ever could while they were on earth, because their love has now been purified, because they now see God as he is, and they can see us as we are. Because of this, they can love us in the exact way that we need. And yet, it is different. As we say, “changed, not ended.”

So, there are going to be times when the ache in our hearts wishes that they were still here. That isn’t a flaw; it’s just how love works. We can have absolute confidence in God’s triumph over death and still miss the people we love. We can fully believe that they are finally where they are more joyful than any of us could imagine and still feel our own

sorrow. We can rejoice that they get to see God and still grieve the fact that we don’t get to see them.

We grieve because we love. But, as St. Paul wrote, “We do not grieve as those who have no hope” (1 Thes 4:13). We get to have moments of boldness and levity in the face of death because we know that they have the one whose heart they were made for. And we can be sad because we do not have them with us.

I invite you: Let the waves of grief come and go. Every time there are tears, let them remind you of the fact that there was someone in your life who loved you and whom you loved, even if imperfectly. And every time you smile at the thought of what they might be doing in heaven with the Lord, thank God for the gift of Jesus Christ who has declared that death no longer has the last word. The last word is life. The last word is love. The last word is Jesus.

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.

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We can have absolute confidence in God’s triumph over death and still miss the people we love.

Little girl lived in castle, obeyed God

This month, I want to dedicate my column to all children, especially the little ones among us who suffer from protracted and painful illnesses. This one is just for you.

It’s not often that the Church recognizes the special sanctity of young children. But the Church was so moved by the witness of one little French girl that they made her a venerable, one recognized for having practiced the virtues to a heroic degree. Her name is Anne de Guigné.

Born in 1911, Anne grew up in a castle that overlooked a beautiful lake in southeastern France. Her parents were well-educated, and their faith was the center of family life. Anne, the eldest of four siblings, was strong willed, creative and precocious. For example, when she was very little, she fell seriously ill, and when the doctor tried to examine her, she threw a fit. She declared, “Take your hat and go!” This kind of behavior was not uncommon in her early life, earning her the

CATHOLIC WATCHMEN DEACON GORDON BIRD

Sharing divine truth

Going through The Catechism in a Year podcast — thank you, Father Mike Schmitz — has been a fun and helpful daily activity for my wife (my best friend) and me, keeping both of us centered on what is true as taught by the Church through sacred Scripture and tradition. The double bonus is the time we share together, coupled with the opportunity to discuss and discern how divine truth can be applied to the world in which we live. The Catechism of the Catholic Church can help make and keep us sharp in the areas of faith and reason, although we need to delve deeper into the footnotes that dig into other sources including — the best source of God’s truth — the Bible.

Searching in the Scriptures and working through excellent resources like the catechism, one discovers that divine truth is indeed timeless. It is especially fruitful when engaging with friends in prayer, study and dialogue — as in any small group and faith-based activity. The Scriptures show all that is good, beautiful and true in God’s story of salvation. Together, we can challenge each other with good questions to discuss, to sort out the shades of gray and clutter, to clear up some of the mess that has gotten in the way of truth since that occurrence of the primeval nemesis we call original sin.

The good news is that since the fall of Adam and Eve, God has not given up on restoring us back into his divine friendship, through his word and the sacraments. Jesus is the good news, who became one of us to save us and show us the value that true friendship has for our eternal souls. “The more we share in the life of Christ and progress in his friendship, the more difficult to break away from him by mortal sin” (CCC 1395). Learning with others — in the context of Christ’s

playful title, “the little tyrant.”

But Anne’s young heart began to soften when she was made the godmother of her younger sister. She understood that she was to help her sister, and all her younger siblings, get to heaven. She took this role seriously, earning her a new nickname, “the apostle of the nursery.”

Another turning point came when Anne’s father was killed in WWI. As Anne watched her mother suffer, Anne decided she would do all she could to help her, and one of the best things she could do was to be obedient. Anne didn’t obey simply to avoid any possible punishment for disobedience. Anne obeyed because she didn’t want to grieve those she loved.

VENERABLE

ANNE

DE GUIGNÉ

Her thoughts would often turn to the Eucharist and the best ways she could make the heart of Jesus happy. Her obedience became a gift she could give, like a present she could wrap up and give to the Lord. On the day of her first Communion, she placed this note on the altar: “My Jesus, I love You, and to please You, I resolve to obey You always.”

Anne was constantly encouraging her siblings, not only to be good, but to be generous and to make little sacrifices, like giving up dessert, on behalf of others. She loved to pray for the conversion of sinners and took on “cases” like a spiritual doctor. She would often

friendship — helps us progress by sharing divine truths as in the wisdom of Ecclesiastes: “Where one alone may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily broken” (Eccl 4:12).

Look to the divine friendship Jesus spoke of to his disciples in the Gospels, as he taught and witnessed to what true friendship is. “You are my friends if you do what I command you … I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn 15:14-15). Teaching, sharing and witnessing to the faith with others — starting with our families — develops, grows and sustains bold witnesses with strong wills and intellects that the culture we live in greatly needs.

Many faith-based examples of living the moral life are given by our triune God — the creation of male and female (Gn 1:27), the definition of the sanctity of marriage (Mt 19:4-6), the value of the dignity of life (Ps 139:13-16) and so many others. In his infinite wisdom, God inspired the biblical authors to write things down that would resonate through the ages — including the here and now — to read, teach, protect and practice.

Applying God’s wisdom by encountering Jesus in sacred Scripture is a daily practice for Catholic Watchmen. I truly enjoy the fruits of this discipline, because it helps equip and prepare me for homilies and large group fellowship as well as my daily mission with friends and friends-to-be. I can bring the saving knowledge of Jesus to others in a practical sense, such as when I engage with others at the workplace, over coffee, during hikes and bike rides, and through small group activities. We can share divine truths with friends in our restoration process to divine friendship with Jesus — and hopefully make new friends for our Lord — through his way, his truth and his life.

Editor’s note: Catechism in a Year can be found at tinyurl com/6j58973w

Deacon Bird ministers to St. Joseph in Rosemount and All Saints in Lakeville, and assists with the archdiocesan Catholic Watchmen movement. See heroicmen com for existing tools supported by the archdiocese to enrich parish apostolates for ministry to men. For Watchmen start-up materials, or any other questions regarding ministry to men, contact him at gordonbird@rocketmail com

The Families First Project is an advocacy campaign of the Minnesota Catholic Conference to remove economic roadblocks that Minnesotans confront along their journey of forming and raising a family. This week’s column focuses on a proposal to help young people secure stable employment in the trades.

Many young people lack confidence about their economic prospects and are delaying marriage and parenthood or skipping them altogether. Steadily declining marriage rates and birth rates among middle- and lowerincome earners confirm a growing perception that marriage and parenthood are mere lifestyle choices that can only be sustained by the wealthy and fortunate.

Access to rewarding employment that allows people to support their families is essential to ensuring more people who aspire to the vocations of marriage and parenthood feel confident to pursue them. Yet, the number of jobs that do not pay a wage that can support a family, even with two full-time workers, is concerning. Last year, the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Childhood in the United States reported that “one reason marriage is fragile in many poor and working-class communities is that job stability and income are inadequate, especially for workers without a college degree.” Minnesota can help lessen the costs of family formation by nurturing the employment skills of young men and women without saddling them with the mountains of debt that create further roadblocks to family formation.

Contact your legislators and urge them to support SF596 (Dornink) / HF802 (Mueller). This legislation would create $5,000 grants for individuals enrolled in vocational programs to help pay for training, tools or licenses necessary to enter in-demand career fields. Another bill, SF1599 (Putnam) / HF1996 (Lislegard), would renew funding for the Minnesota Virtual Academy’s Career Pathways Program with Operating Engineers Local 49. This program provides high school students with up to five semesters of courses that lead to eligibility into the Operating Engineers Local 49 apprenticeship program, which trains people to be mechanics and heavy-duty equipment operators.

Not everyone needs to attend a liberal arts college following high school. But post-secondary training is a key rung in the ladder of economic opportunity. These programs can put vocational training within the reach of more low- and middleincome Minnesotans.

“Inside the Capitol” is a legislative update from Minnesota Catholic Conference staff.

FAITH AT HOME | LAURA KELLY FANUCCI

In Lent, let’s learn what it means to be companions

The people we eat with matter. Ask any teenager anxious about where to sit in the cafeteria for lunch. Ask any widow or widower learning to cook for one. Ask a grandparent planning a holiday feast, a parent volunteering to host the team banquet, or anyone taking a head count for how many friends are staying for dinner.

An often-overlooked term, the word “companion” has surprising roots, which translate roughly into “the one with whom we eat bread” (“panis” meaning bread in Latin). More than a matching volume in a set, a soulmate or a seatmate on the plane, companions are “bread fellows,” the people with whom we share food and drink each day.

Jesus modeled companionship for us in unorthodox ways. He ate with enemies and sinners, unexpected guests and unwanted outcasts. Plenty of his meals were shared with family and friends, but he also fed

thousands who followed him, those hungry for his word and for the bread that would sustain them as they listened. He talked about thorny subjects, controversial questions and theological truths over bread and wine. He ate at high feasts, lavish banquets, roadside meals and a last supper that left us a lasting gift.

Jesus taught us everything about becoming companions. How fitting that he chose food and drink to be the ultimate sacrament of his presence. Communion is what we crave, and companionship is how we share it.

Whenever we sit down to a meal — with family or friends, co-workers or strangers — there is God in our midst, again and always. We can glimpse God in the breaking of the bread, the basic fact of having food to eat and the grace of conversation: the abundance of what we share.

Full disclosure: Despite these lovely theological truths, I must confess that dinner is my least favorite time of day. Everyone is tired, blood sugar runs low, and so much remains to be done before bed. One of my Lenten practices has thus become simply sitting at the table instead of leaping up to start the dishes and get the evening’s housework underway. It matters that I am present to my children, sharing conversation and food, learning what it means to be companions in this stage of life.

Perhaps we all have room to grow in our companionship. Could we become more mindful or grateful of those with whom we break bread each night? Could we add another chair to the table and invite someone who might be lonely? Could we change our

habits of consumption to eat more simply so that others may simply eat?

When spouses exchange wedding vows, they promise to become companions in every sense of the word. Usually married couples end up eating more meals with their spouse than anyone else. But even this sacred encounter can quickly become mundane. We may take for granted the ones with whom we share our daily bread.

But with Jesus, food even became forgiveness. Sitting with Peter on the lakeshore after a breakfast he’d cooked for the friend who denied him, the risen Christ gave his closest companion the chance to repent and return. This Lent offers us the same: an opportunity to set aside grudges and share a meal, or the invitation to return to the sacraments after a long time away from God’s companionship.

On the winding journey of Lent, we are like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. The way of companionship means discovering again and again the presence of God revealed to us in the breaking of the bread, both in the sacrament of the Eucharist and the everyday holy of our ordinary meals.

Christ is our ultimate companion, and his compassion can animate our own. May the Bread of Life teach us, through each meal we bless in his name, how to become bread for others.

Fanucci is an author, speaker and founder of Mothering Spirit, an online gathering place on parenting and spirituality.

CATHOLIC OR NOTHING | COLIN MILLER LETTERS

The Church: A foretaste of the kingdom

When we think about social justice — or, often, our world’s lack of it — we usually think of solutions in terms of lobbying, activism, community organizing, ethical consumerism, protests or voting. We do not usually think of the Church itself as having much to do with our society’s struggles, except maybe as a resource base for those other activities.

Yet the Church, I would suggest, is precisely God’s answer to the world’s problems. This is not because I long for a return to the Middle Ages, to Christian kings or papal states, or to the 1950s, when we sometimes imagine that Christianity enjoyed a bit more cultural hegemony. Rather, the Church is the solution to our problems because God intends the Church, right here and now, to be a community that is a foretaste of the kingdom of God.

What do I mean? We know that one day Christ will return to establish his kingdom. His reign will see the sorting out of our messes. There, in Christ’s future kingdom, centered around the worship of Christ in the flesh, we will live in harmony with God, one another and the rest of creation.

That the Church today is a foretaste of this kingdom means that it is meant to consist of little pockets of people who try to live now, however imperfectly and brokenly, the life of that world to come. And the crazy thing is, in God’s wisdom — or folly as it may look to us — he has willed to make these communities the starting point for the transformation of the world.

That the Church is a foretaste explains a lot about the picture Scripture gives us of the Church. We are, here and now, gathered around the Lord’s flesh in the Eucharist, just as we will be in the kingdom. And out of this worship, as we

see in the Acts of the Apostles, comes a tightknit community; so tightknit in fact that they had “all things in common” (Acts 2:44), and “no one claimed anything to be their own” (Acts 4:32).

So, not only is the Church a radical community in the way early Christians were “always together” (Acts 2:46), but it also reordered the hierarchy that their world, and ours, usually attaches to wealth, status and achievement. In the Church there were “no needy among them” (Acts 4:34) because they all “sold their possessions and put them at the feet of the apostles” (Acts 4:35). The poor, foreigners, the homeless, the uneducated and even slaves were given full membership, on equal footing with the well-to-do.

Worship, community and “upside-down” social and economic relations; these should be characteristics we strive for within the Church even now, precisely because the Church is meant to be a little glimpse — a sneak peek — of what the kingdom of God will be like. Then, after all, “the first will be last, and the last first” (Mt 19:30).

The Church is first intended to be the community among whose members social justice truly exists, precisely because it is a little image of that perfect kingdom to come. But importantly, it is also precisely by this community that God has chosen to begin to make a just world. God wants to evangelize the world by each of us individually bearing witness to Christ with our words and in our life. But he does so by giving the world a community — the Church — that is a living picture (however halting and even goofy our efforts are) of what human relationships with God, possessions and one another can be, and one day will be.

In this way, the internal life of the Church is essential to our mission. Our first task is not to change the world, but to be the Church, for it is only by seeing such a real, living, breathing community that our society can come to know that it is not sufficient unto itself, and to see what it could be.

Miller is director of Pastoral Care and Outreach at Assumption in St. Paul. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Duke University, and lives with his family at the Maurin House Catholic Worker in Columbia Heights. You can reach him at colin miller1@protonmail com

Not funny

I was shocked to read a comment by Matt Birk in Dave Hrbacek’s Feb. 23 article, “Matt Birk: Man on a Mission.” When commenting on the support of his wife Adrianna through years of his chaotic life, he jokes: “We got eight kids, it’s not like she can go anywhere. She’s trapped. That’s my joke.” It’s a misogynistic joke in very poor taste and is horrifying to hear from a man who is being held up as a role model. It’s just as horrifying that both the author of this piece and the editor chose to include it. You can do better.

Sarah Cronin Mary, Mother of the Church, Burnsville

A ‘Driver’s Licenses for All’ counterpoint

In response to Loras Holmberg’s complaint about “Driver’s Licenses for All,” (Letters, March 9) maybe the previous law disallowing immigrants driver’s licenses had no heart. Some laws are like that.

When my son was 11 (now 32), he became friends with a family who had come here because America had flooded the Mexican corn market and their father’s corn farm couldn’t sustain them anymore. At the time, licenses were legal, but he couldn’t renew it when the law changed. He was profiled in a traffic stop and kicked out of the country. Through great personal loss he was able to get back in and be reunited with his young family, but again was arrested for driving without a legal driver’s license, and with the threat of years of imprisonment, they — we — kicked him out again, and he never spent a day with his family here again. He died 10 years later in Mexico much too young, missing his family. He will never see his new grandchild, his two boys now grown and U.S. citizens, or his dear wife. This Saturday (March 18) is the anniversary of his death. I feel the resentment in the tone of the letter. I wish for healing, for the letter writer, and for the family of my son’s friends.

Elizabeth Rosenwinkel St. Albert the Great, Minneapolis

Share your perspective by emailing thecatholicSpirit@ archSpm org Please limit your letter to the editor to 150 words and include your parish and phone number. The Commentary pages do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Catholic Spirit. Read more letters from our readers at thecatholicSpirit com

When I was asked to pray and to consider “Why I am Catholic” there was some good reflection that took place before agreeing to give this testimony of my faith. I believe the Lord made it clear to me that I have an experience to share that might resonate with others. Being Catholic is a joy, provides a strong foundation for my life in all things that I do, and my relationship with Christ is nurtured and deepened through the holy Catholic Church.

First and foremost, all honor and thanksgiving to my mother and father (Anne and Bob Miller) who laid the foundation for the entire Miller family to have a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise and glory to our heavenly Father, who established his holy Church so that we would experience his love for us in so many ways.

Mom and dad were daily Mass-goers until their 90s. Besides building a strong family, they were wonderful advocates of the Catholic Church to their children, finding opportunities for each one of us to experience Christ wherever we were in life. If there was an adage that described their advocacy for me, it would be to serve and share. When possible, find opportunities to serve the Lord and share him with others.

For me, serving the Lord began as an altar server at All Saints in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As an altar server, I paid attention to what was going on in the Mass, developed a profound respect for what was

Why I am Catholic

By Tom Miller

happening and developed a love for the Mass. Today, the many young altar servers I see at St. Joseph in West St. Paul reflect the same experience I had. What a tremendous blessing to participate in Mass as an altar server. I hope all parents encourage their children to experience the Lord while serving at Mass.

Today I serve and share the Lord in many ways: Knights of Columbus, Teams of Our Lady and as an extraordinary minister of holy Communion at St. Joseph. As a eucharistic minister, I receive the opportunity to personally share Christ with every person who comes to receive Communion. And I receive the opportunity to share Christ with a smile, reflecting the joy in my heart that these people want to receive Christ. How great is that?

Why am I Catholic? Joy, a solid foundation in my life, and a relationship with Christ that comes through the holy Catholic Church. I have been blessed to serve others and to share this with others.

Miller, 61, is a parishioner of St. Joseph in West St. Paul. He and his wife, Cathy, spend time with their grandkids, children and siblings whenever possible. Miller enjoys his career at St. Paul Regional Water Services and stays active in parish events, hunting and making wine.

“Why I am Catholic” is an ongoing series in The Catholic Spirit. Want to share why you are Catholic? Submit your story in 300-500 words to CatholiCSpirit@arChSpm org with subject line “Why I am Catholic.”

DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

CALENDAR

Episcopal Ordination — April 11: 1 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul. Join in person, or watch via livestream on the Cathedral of St. Paul’s Facebook page, the Episcopal Ordination of Bishop-elect Michael Izen. The ordination will also be carried live on Metro Cable Channel 6 (on cable and online) and broadcast live on Relevant Radio 1330 AM. A reception will follow. Vespers: April 10, 7 p.m. at St. Michael, 611 3rd St. S., Stillwater. A reception will follow. Find additional details at archspm org/events

PARISH EVENTS

Spring Craft and Bake Sale — March 25-26 at St. Peter, 2600 N. Margaret St., North St. Paul. 1–6 p.m. March 25, 9 a.m.–1 p.m. March 26 Crafts, baked goods, Easter baskets. Coffee and doughnuts after all Masses March 26. Hosted by the Council of Catholic Women. (CCW). ChurChofStpeternSp org

St. Catherine’s Ham Bingo — March 26: 2 p.m. at St. Patrick of Cedar Lake, 24425 Old Highway 13 Blvd., Jordan. This is St. Catherine’s first “Ham Bingo.” $10 per card for 20 games. A light meal will be provided. The event will be held in the social hall.

Ham and Cash Bingo — March 26: 2–5 p.m. at Holy Cross, 1630 4th St. NE, Minneapolis. In Kolbe Center. Sponsored by the Holy Cross Council of Catholic Women (CCW). Refreshments available.

ourholyCroSS org

Easter Craft Fair and Bake Sale — April 1–2 at Holy Cross, 1630 4th St. NE, Minneapolis. Located in Kolbe Center. 1–6 p.m. April 1, 8 a.m–1 p.m. April 2. Handmade crafts, baked goods and refreshments. For children: free cookie decorating and crafts, 1-3 p.m. April 1. Hosted by Holy Cross Council of Catholic Women (CCW). ourholyCroSS org

Palm Sunday Brunch — April 2: 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. at Epiphany, 1900 111th Ave. NW, Coon Rapids. Menu includes egg bake, pancakes, French toast sticks, sausage, toast, a fruit cup, coffee, juice and milk. Hosted by Father Reiser Knights of Columbus Council 10138. epiphanymn org

Living Stations of the Cross — April 7: The Servants of the Cross will re-enact the Passion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday with three performances: Noon at Presentation of Mary, 1725 Kennard St., Maplewood; 3 p.m. at St. Jude of the Lake, 700 Mahtomedi Ave., Mahtomedi; 7 p.m. at St. Peter, 2600 N. Margaret St., North St. Paul. Freewill offering. All are welcome. ServantSoftheCroSSmn Com

WORSHIP+RETREATS

Life in the Spirit — March 31-April 1: 6–7 p.m. at St. John the Evangelist, 380 Little Canada Road E., Little Canada. In this Lenten Retreat, Susanne Kenton, Rick Dzurick and Jessica Balzarini share Holy Spiritinspired talks as they lead a prayer-packed, two-day journey during this Lenten season. $15 (includes meals). SjolC org/retreat

Help for Struggling Couples — March 31-April 2 at Best Western Dakota Ridge Hotel, 3450 Washington Drive, Eagan. Retrouvaille Marriage Help. Retrouvaille is a lifeline for troubled marriages. Couples learn the tools to rediscover each other and heal their marriage. 100% confidential. helpourmarriage org

Women’s Palm Sunday Silent Retreat — March 31-April 2 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. Women, step aside from the challenges of this time for a welcome period of spiritual renewal. Experience the theme: Belonging; Connections of the Heart. Includes a refreshing blend of scheduled time to open time. Enjoy confession, anointing, Mass, Holy Hour and prayer sessions in a silent setting. franC SCanretreatS net

Questions and Callings: A Discernment Retreat

— April 1: 10 a.m.–3 p.m. at Carondelet Center, 1890 Randolph Ave., St. Paul. Young adults are invited to a day of personal and communal reflection based on Krista Tippett’s “On Being” foundation series. Sponsored by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and Visitation Sisters of North Minneapolis. SSnd org/eventS/4-1-23

Men’s Holy Week Retreat — April 6-8 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. Men are offered the opportunity to step aside from the challenges of this time for a period of spiritual renewal. The theme of the retreat is Belonging: Connections of the Heart. Holy Thursday and Good Friday Holy Week services. Confession, anointing, Mass, Holy Hour and prayer sessions. Silent on Good Friday. franC SCanretreatS net

Ignatian Men’s Silent Retreat — Thursday-Sunday most weeks at Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House, 8243 Demontreville Trail N., Lake Elmo. Freewill donation. demontrevilleretreat Com

CONFERENCES+WORKSHOPS

Converging Roads: Catholic Health Care Ethics — April 1: 8 a.m.-6:45 p.m. at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota, 2540 Park Ave., Minneapolis. Converging Roads is a regional conference series offering continuing education for health care professionals that equips them to practice the highest ethical and medical standards of their profession. Includes Mass and various speakers/talks.

forlifeandfamily org/eventS/Cr23-tCmn

Catholic Scout Leader Summit — April 22: Noon4:30 p.m. at St. John Neumann, 4030 Pilot Knob Road, Eagan. The Archdiocesan Committee on Catholic Scouting (ACCS) is hosting an afternoon of learning for all Catholic Scout leaders (Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, Girl Scouts, American Heritage Girls). This free event will begin with lunch and end with Mass (optional). Childcare provided. SCoutingevent Com/250-66928

SCHOOLS

Open House: Welcome to Benilde-St. Margaret’s (BSM) — April 6: 6–8 p.m. at Benilde-St. Margaret’s, 2501 Highway 100 S., St. Louis Park. Explore the

campus, meet teachers and administrators, and speak with current parents and students. Learn about academic programs, faith experiences, and activities and athletics.

bSmSChool org/openhouSe

BSM Senior High Spring Musical: ‘Mamma

Mia!’ — April 27-30 at Benilde-St. Margaret’s, 2501 Highway 100 S., St. Louis Park. 7 p.m. performances April 27-29, with a 2 p.m. performance April 30. The Benilde-St. Margaret’s drama department is presenting “Mamma Mia!” as its senior high spring musical, featuring the music of ABBA and a comedic tale performed and produced by BSM students. bSmSChool org/Student-life/aCtivitieS/drama

SPEAKERS+SEMINARS

Lenten Parish Mission — March 26-28 at St. Francis of Assisi, 16770 13th St. S., Lake St. Croix Beach. Presenter: Father Ed Shea, OFM. Reflections on three Gospel texts for Lent: The Woman at the Well, 4–5:30 p.m. March 26; The Man Born Blind, 6:30–8 p.m. March 27; the Raising of Lazarus, 6:30–8 p.m. March 28. Cost: $25 for all three nights, $10 at the door for each night. Music, Gospel reading, Mass, with social reception at the end of March 28 session. Hosted by St. Francis of Assisi. StfranCiSlSCbmn org Great Desire: Pope Francis’ liturgy document and ongoing liturgical reform — March 30: 6:30–8 p.m. at St. Thomas More, 1079 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Father Anthony Ruff, OSB, will present an examination of Pope Francis’ vision of liturgy in his recent document “Desiderio Desideravi.” Sponsored by the Association of Liturgical Ministers. $5 members, $20 non-members. almSpm org/eventS/2023/popefranCiS

Encountering the Compassionate God of the Bible — April 1: 9:30–11:30 a.m. at St. Bridget, 3811 Emerson Ave. N., Minneapolis. Art Zannoni will be presenting on how the Bible reveals both a compassionate God and Jesus as the compassion of God. This program will explore the biblical roots of compassion in both the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the Gospels. All are welcome to this free Lenten teaching. StbridgetnorthSide Com

OTHER EVENTS

40th Anniversary of ‘The Passion of Jesus in Music, Word and Light’ — March 22-25: 7:30–9 p.m. at Sts. Joachim and Anne (St. Mark campus), 350 Atwood St., Shakopee. Come and engage in this moving experience, reliving the final days of Jesus’ life on earth. From Palm Sunday to the Last Supper, and through his torture, crucifixion

Look

CALENDAR submissions

DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication. We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar. Priority is given to events occurring before the next issue date.

LISTINGS: Accepted are brief notices of upcoming events hosted by Catholic parishes and organizations. If the Catholic connection is not clear, please emphasize it in your submission. Included in our listings are local events submitted by public sources that could be of interest to the larger Catholic community.

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and triumphant resurrection. March 22, 23 and 25 in English; March 24 in Spanish. Free admission. Music begins at 7:30 p.m., show starts at 8 p.m. This is the final year of this performance. For additional information or questions, call 612-849-3485 or email kmphilipp7@gmail Com ShakopeepaSSionplay org

Lifeline — April 1: 6–9:30 p.m. at NET Center, 110 Crusader Ave. W., West St. Paul. NET Ministries is excited to partner with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to continue to offer the opportunity for young people (grades 9-12) to encounter Christ. With engaging speakers, improved programming, and an elevated atmosphere. Topic: Called for Freedom: Encountering God’s Love in Service. netuSa org ACCW Convention — April 28: 8 a.m. at St. Peter, 1405 Sibley Memorial Highway, Mendota. The Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women hosts its 90th annual convention: Walking Together — Sharing our Gifts. Annual meeting, featured speakers, Mass with Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Lay Women Volunteer awards, a marketplace (for those special one-of-a-kind gifts), silent auction, delicious meals and camaraderie. Registration and additional information can be found at aCCwarChSpm org

See the full Calendar under Local Events at thecatholicspirit com Check out the Fish Fry Guide for updates at thecatholicspirit com/nomeat

Resurrection Cemetery: 2 Non-Monument Plots.

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Value: $1,980 each or $3,960 for both.

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HARDWOOD FLOORS

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PRAYERS

NOTICE: Prayers must be submitted in advance. Payment of $8 per line must be received before publication

RELIGIOUS ITEMS FOR SALE

www.Holyart.com Over 50k Religious Items & Church Goods.

By Barb Umberger

The Catholic Spirit

For a couple of years, Micayla Ryan, 32, and her husband, Eric, parents of five, have met weekly with other young parents in a family prayer group in Goodhue, a town of 1,250 located about 14 miles south of Red Wing in the southeast corner of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

They meet in a community space on the main floor of a renovated former bank made available to them by the owners of the building, Goodhue natives Pete and Regina Poncelet.

The Ryans and other parents appreciate the toys and books available for their children while they meet, and the Poncelets watching their children so they can freely hold their discussions. Regina usually joins the parents’ group afterward to offer her insights on “how to raise our families in the faith,” Micayla Ryan said.

“They’re a great couple,” she said. “And they are really doing the hands and feet of Jesus’ work.”

The Poncelets, both 57 and self-described high school sweethearts at Goodhue High School, have a track record of making changes to improve the lives of their neighbors. For 18 years, the couple owned a gas station and convenience store with another family. During that time, they replaced the store with a new one.

They lived about five miles outside of Goodhue when they first owned the gas station and store. Later, they moved to town, within a stone’s throw of the businesses. Pete was able to work mostly from home from either home base. Regina taught fifth graders part-time at the local elementary school when their five children were growing up, balancing work and family life, she said. Now their children are aged 21 to 32.

Regina left her teaching job in 2017. The couple sold their share of the business in 2020. Parishioners of Holy Trinity in Goodhue, Regina and Pete prayed about what was next. When they learned the owner of the town’s only grocery store was retiring Oct. 12, 2022, the Poncelets turned to that familiar place: prayer.

“We had been praying about what we were supposed to do, and we jumped on it (the store),” Regina said. The couple wanted the town to have a grocery store, and they wanted to “just enhance the community,” she said. They also knew that “whatever we wanted to do would be a way we could show our love.”

The Poncelets took ownership Oct. 17, 2022, and called it the Goodhue Market. They closed the store for 18 days in January to remodel — with new coolers, coats of paint, flooring and checkout stands. The Poncelets “rearranged things a bit,” Regina said. “We’re there every day … stocking and clerking and ordering.”

Recalling a reflection by Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester on “How does God want us to show our love?”

Regina said she and her husband felt the store “was a way for us to do that.”

“I know it sounds kind of strange at a grocery store, but to show

love for other people,” she said.

The Poncelets also are quick to describe the hard work of family members and neighbors who pitched in to remove, and later restock, all canned and packaged goods, to facilitate the renovations.

Personal touches include messages on two signs painted by a Goodhue resident. One near the baked goods includes a quote from Matthew 6:11: “Give us this day our daily bread.” The second sign, over the produce aisle, quotes St. Teresa of Kolkata: “Love is a fruit in season at all times.”

While it might take courage to post a Bible passage on the store’s wall, Regina said the couple didn’t hesitate. “That’s important to us,” she said.

Regina said she’s had conversations with customers that lead her to pray for them, such as when she learns a baby is born to a customer’s family or someone expresses worries while in the store.

When Regina works Sundays, she finds herself telling customers, “Have a blessed day.” “And a lot of times they turn around and say, ‘You, too,’” she said. “I’m trying to get more comfortable doing that, or saying, ‘I’ll pray for you’ if they bring up something,” she said.

Repurposing a second building

The Poncelets bought the former bank building in 2014, which was built in 1901 and a few doors down and across the street from the store. The couple remodeled that space, too, and kept much of the original woodwork and details. They live on the second floor.

The couple opened the main floor as a community space for baby and wedding showers, homeschoolers’ plays, school groups, a church youth group, two Bible study groups and that “young family prayer group.” Regina teaches faith formation classes there, something she has done for her parish for most of the past 30-plus years.

The first floor has “a coffeehouse feel,” Regina said. It includes beautiful, decades-old solid wood chairs and tables

and repurposed elements from the former bank, such as single-serving coffee available in a wood-slatted section under a counter that once held deposit and withdrawal slips. A quilted wall hanging behind it adds to the room’s warmth.

They charge a fee for groups to rent the facility, but some days, “women come in and just play cards, so we don’t charge for that,” Regina said.

A children’s play area includes toys to keep them busy while parents are at Bible study or other group activity, and Regina and Pete are quick to step in to help entertain the children so their parents can concentrate on discussing Scripture. It’s one way the couple can help support marriages, which leads to stronger families, Regina said.

Seven families meet regularly in the young family prayer group, Micayla Ryan said. They bring about 20 children with them. For the first three meetings after the group started, women from Holy Trinity brought dinner to the families before the group discussed “a formation topic,” she said.

The community space is very welcoming, she said, and the Poncelets are flexible on building availability. The “tons of tables” help the group spread out and organize boxes when they assemble items for a “Christmas shoebox project.”

When the group started, the couples began by praying a decade of the rosary. The children were part of that, too, Micayla Ryan said, and some built the confidence to lead it.

Pete converted the former, large walkin vault at the back of the bank building into a cozy, carpeted reading room with soft, upholstered chairs and a coffee table in the middle. Books fill each of six shelves on three walls, many from his stash of books on history and religion.

Independent business owners take a risk, Regina said. It is a leap of faith, but they want to “make a difference and be a good neighbor.” After praying, she said, the Poncelets trust that “this is what God wants us to do.”

Regina and Pete Poncelet stand in the grocery store they bought and remodeled after the previous owner announced his retirement.

DAVE HRBACEK THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Goodhue couple ‘doing the hands and feet of Jesus’ work’