SEPTEMBER 2016 • VOL. 6 NO. 9SERVING CHRIST AND CONNECTING CATHOLICS IN THE DIOCESE OF JUNEAU WWW.DIOCESEOFJUNEAU.ORGCATHOLIC

Southeast Alaska

Continued on page 4

The SoutheastAlaska CatholicCONFE RE NCEREGISTRATION PAGE 15

BY NICOLE MILLERHoly Name Catholic School recently began its 51st year

of service in education to the people of Ketchikan. In order to prepare for another great school year, many hours of hard work were lovingly dedicated to various areas throughout our school.

One of our largest endeavors was the kick-off of our first ever “World Traveler Summer Camp,” consisting of a four week, all day opportunity, for the children of Ketchikan to learn and grow about various cultures, all from the comfort of the small Southeast island we call home. This well-attended and positive event is sure to become a HNCS tradition.

In addition to our camp, many cosmetic updates were also completed on the school facility during the summer months. Our stairwell and lunchroom, known to the locals as “Brindle Hall,” was repainted and re-carpeted, thanks in part to a forty-gallon paint grant from Madison True Value.

Outside the building, the incredible land-scaping job that began on the church side, was lovingly continued to encompass the front of our school as well as the rectory across the street. Children have already been heard saying to their parents, “It is so beautiful and so much better now!”

Our students are even enjoying a “make over” of their own with the ad-dition of polo shirt uniforms this year. The students look wonderful in their matching tops, and the teachers have already noticed a positive change in their behavior as well as the added benefit of a “level playing field” in the area of cloth-ing, regardless of economic situation.

As many of our brothers and sisters in the diocese know, the 2015-2016 school year marked Holy Name’s inaugural implementation of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program. The evidence of the impact of that endeavor on

Christ is the reason for this school

Holy Name begins its 51st year

We would like to thank

our larger Catholic

family throughout the

Diocese of Juneau for

their love, support, and

generosity. You truly do

help to make Catholic

education a reality in

Southeast Alaska.

(Above, left) K/1/2 students on one of their first days together. (At left) HNCS older students on their way to Peace Health Long Term Care Unit for their first visit of the school year with the patients there. (Nicole Miller photos)

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 2 • September 2016

Church

Calendar&Celebrations

September 18 Catechetical Sunday

September 24: Deacon Gary Horton

36th anniversary of diaconal ordination (1980)

September 27: Feast of St. Vincent de Paul

Patronal Feast of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul

September 30 - Oct. 2: SOUTHEAST ALASKA

CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

October 1: Memorial of St. Therese

Patroness of the Diocese of Juneau; Patronal feast of St.

Therese parish in Skagway, and the Shrine of St. Therese, Juneau

October 4: Memorial of St. Francis

of Assisi Patronal feast of St. Francis

Chapel, Tenakee Springs

October 2: Respect Life Sunday

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DIOCESE OF JUNEAU

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soon as possible of any address change, or you may contact

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The Southeast Alaska Catholic is published monthly by the Diocese of Juneau.415 Sixth St. #300, Juneau, Alaska 99801

www.dioceseofjuneau.org

USPS 877-080Publisher: Most Reverend Edward J. Burns 415 Sixth St. #300, Juneau, AK 99801Editor: Mary Stone email: juneaudiocese@gci.net(907) 586-2227, ext. 32 Staff: A Host of Loyal Volunteers According to diocesan policy, all Catholics of the Diocese of Juneau are to receive The Southeast Alaska Catholic; please contact your parish office to sign up or to notify them of an address change. Others may request to receive The Southeast Alaska Catholic by sending a donation of $30. Periodical postage paid at Juneau, Alaska.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Southeast Alaska Catholic 415 Sixth St. #300, Juneau, AK 99801

In This IssueBeing baptized as pastor Page 4 Fr. Andy Sensenig, OMI, gets ‘dunked’ by St. Gregory, Sitka, parish youth

Friends of the Poor Walk Page 4 St. Vincent de Paul fundraiser scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 24 in Juneau

Care for our Common Home Page 5 Deacon Rohrbacher discusses the care of creation as a new ‘Work of Mercy’

The mercy-filled life Page 7 Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa, embodied what Pope Francis teachs

‘Charity - the Heart of Mercy’ appeal begins Page 8 Annual Diocesan Appeal - Faith in Action - begins in parishes

NOVENA to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux —The Little Flower

Sponsored by the S.E. Alaska Catholic Conference 2016

Dear Pilgrims,

A “virtual” Novena (nine days of prayer) in honor of St. Therese will start on September 22 and

complete at a special Mass at the Shrine on September 30th at 1:30 p.m. The Mass date coincides with the opening of the Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference. This “virtual” novena will allow Catholics from the Diocese of Juneau and beyond to pray with one voice to St. Therese for her intercession on behalf of the Conference. May the Lord richly bless all who join this Novena!

Information and Novena prayers available at: shrineofsainttherese.org

For more information about the Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference, email Peggy Mattson at diocesedevelopment@hotmail.com or find us on

the web at www.dioceseofjuneau.org.

OCTOBER IS RESPECT LIFE MONTH

The Southeast Alaska Catholic September 2016 • 3

Remembering the priests of Sept. 11

Continued on page 6

BY BISHOPEDWARD J. BURNS

Infinite Mercy:Our Gift and our Mission

New SE Alaska Catholic Conference begins Sept. 30

For a number of years in the 1980’s and 90’s, the Diocese of Juneau—under the leadership of Bishop Michael Kenny, and then Bishop Michael Warfel —hosted the annual Diocesan “Called to Share Institute.” Typically held in Juneau at the Juneau Douglas Highschool, participants were able to attend workshops and events led by nationally recognized Catholic speakers, guest musicians, and local diocesan ministers.

Although well-received, the annual Called to Share Institute was an expensive and time-consuming event to organize, and required a great deal of advance planning and work. The planning was led for many years by St. Paul’s parishioner and Diocese employee Louise Miller, assisted by a group of dedicated volunteers. The Institute was changed to a biennial event in the 90’s, and then eventually became too cost-prohibitive for the diocese to continue. The last Called to Share Institute was held in Ketchikan in 2001.

During the Diocese of Juneau 2013 Synod, there was a resound-ing sentiment expressed by Diocesan parishioners that they ap-preciated the Called to Share Institutes of the past and would like to see them return.

Bishop Edward J. Burns responded by initiating planning for the new “Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference” (SACC), set for this September 30 – Oct. 2, 2016, at St. Paul’s in Juneau. The SACC will be smaller in scope than past Institutes, but similar in that participants will have the option of attending breakout workshops and sessions during the day, an evening concert by guest musicians, and a chance to celebrate Mass with parishioners from throughout the diocese. In the past, due to size constraints, the Institute held a final Closing Mass at the JDHS auditorium. Now, since the construction in 2001 of the new and larger St. Paul’s church, the Closing Mass will be held there in conjunction with the other events of the Conference.

As we commemorate the 15th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, I still recall vividly the events of that day. I was serving in Washington DC as the executive director of the Secretariat for Vocations and Priestly Formation at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I walked from my car to the front door of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Washington, DC, looked at the dome on the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and thought to myself that it was a beautiful day. It was to be a busy day because many bishops were coming in for the Admin-istrative Committee of the Bishops’ Conference. The day started with a heightened level of activity due to the presence of the bishops.

But life’s routine changed without a moment’s notice, with the unfolding news that two planes had struck the World Trade Center, then the Pentagon and later, an airline crash in Pennsylvania. The bishops were informed of the attacks, and they released a state-ment. Cardinal McCarrick scheduled a noon Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The bishops and approxi-mately 5,000 others were at the Mass that day. They joined their prayers to God with so many other people throughout the country and world for peace and for the victims and their families.

As the day unfolded, I heard about a Franciscan priest, chaplain to the firemen in New York, who was killed at the World Trade Center. I later learned that his name was Father Mychal Judge, OFM. He died while ministering to a fallen firefighter. His story was covered by the media. He was given a hero’s farewell at his funeral. I learned that in the scope of all the death certificates that came from that day, Fr. Judge’s death certificate was #0001. His fireman’s helmet was presented to Pope John Paul II on November 10, 2001.

Another priest, Holy Cross priest Fr. Francis Gro-gan, CSC, former registrar of Stonehill College, boarded United flight 175 in Boston for Los Angeles to visit his family. His airline ticket was a birthday gift and his seat assignment was 1C. Directly behind him in seat 2C was James Hayden, a 1976 graduate from Stonehill College. While no one will ever know for sure what transpired during those horrific moments, it seems inevitable that the two of them together watched this terrifying

experience unfold before their eyes. In a letter to the Holy Cross Fathers, Mrs. James Hayden expressed her consolation in knowing that Fr. Grogan was present, realizing with a sure and certain hope that Fr. Grogan prayed and, to the best of his abilities, exercised his priestly ministry during those dreadful moments.

For Father Steven McGraw, a priest from the Diocese of Arlington, it all happened with a wrong turn. On that fateful Tuesday morning, he was on his way to a burial service at the Arlington National Cemetery. He took a wrong turn and found himself in traffic next to the Pentagon. American Airlines flight 77 flew twenty feet over his car, clipped a light pole, and crashed into the Pentagon. After the initial horror, shock, and disbelief, he reached into his glove compartment, took out his stole and holy oils and ran to the scene leaving his car on the road. He was prepared to minister to those in need and equipped to anoint the wounded and dying. As he got there, people were being carried out. He identified himself, prayed with some, anointed others, and offered any words of encouragement he could. He assisted the many workers scrambling on the scene. He encountered a young woman who was seriously burned. As he was ministering to her, she looked up at him and simply said, “Tell my Mom and Dad I love them.” She was then taken to a local hospital by helicopter. It was in the evening that Father McGraw made his way back

to his car, located exactly where he left it earlier in the day, in the left lane of the road. But it was now tagged and marked by the FBI as a witness car.

The first airliner that crashed into the World Trade Center was piloted by Captain John Ogonowski.

He was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which had departed from Boston and was bound for Los An-geles. His funeral was held at the Church of St. Francis in the Archdiocese of Boston with Father Brian Kiely presiding. In his homily, Father Kiely said, “It would be an insult to [John’s] memory and a victory for his murderers if we were to permit any sentiments of ha-tred to diminish our true dignity as sons and daughters of God. Our presence here today is the result of what unbridled hatred can do in the hearts of others, but in this sacred place, we proclaim again that nothing and no one can ever separate us from the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ.”

In response to the events of September 11, St. John Paul II said, “Christ’s word is the only one that can give a response to the questions which trouble our spirit. Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the last word.”

“Christ’s word is the only one that can give a response to the questions which trouble our spirit. Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the last word.” - Pope John Paul II

The Southeast Alaska Catholic CONFE RE NCE

Infinite Mercy:Our Gift and Our Mission

9/30-10/2SEE Pages 15-16

Registration Forms & information

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 4 • September 2016

Holy Name School: Continued from page 1

St. Vincent de Paul Annual Fundraiser

FRIENDS OF THE POOR WALKSaturday, Sept. 24St. Paul’s Catholic ChurchRegistration by donation: 9AM-10AM Walk begins: 10AMSt. Paul’s to Fred Meyer and back - 2 miles

The St Vincent de Paul Mission is to provide material and spiritual charity and to work for social justice for all. To that end, through generous monetary and material donations to the Thrift Store, St. Vincent de Paul in Juneau was able to provide over $47,000 in food, rent, utility, medical and transportation assistance to people in need. It currently owns and manages a 25 room homeless shelter, 29 affordable housing units and manages several other low-income housing units. It distributed 560 food baskets for the holidays and 125 Christmas gifts for children this past year. This work of social and material justice is at the hands of you, the donors. Thank you.

Please join us to walk in solidarity with the poor on Saturday, Sept. 24, 10 AM St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Juneau, or see us on the web at www.svdpjuneau.org.

both our children as well as their families, has far exceeded our expectations. (Yet isn’t that the com-mon utterance of a follower of such a marvelous God!) We are looking forward to opening our Level II atrium in a few weeks, which will officially make CGS our school-wide religious education program.

In the area of enrollment, we are pleased to re-port that registration is up from last year by fifteen students! It hasn’t taken long for all of our children, new and returning, to fill our hallways with love, joy, and a true sense of a close-knit school family.

As the sign in the school office says “Christ is the reason for this school...” It is our mission that any family who wishes for their child to receive a Catholic education will be able to do so. We work with our families, and seek to “meet them where they are at.” As a result, many of our students

require some amount of scholarship in order to be with us. This is all done while also striving for a healthy and sustainable budget that allows us to maintain educational integrity and improve the quality of the services we offer. On behalf of all the students, families, faculty and staff of Holy Name Catholic School, we would like to thank our larger Catholic family throughout the Diocese of Juneau for their love, support, and generosity. You truly do help to make Catholic education a reality in Southeast Alaska.

Please continue to pray for us as we minister to the precious little ones that God has entrusted to our care, and be sure to stop by the school for a visit if you are ever in Ketchikan. Thank you again and may God’s blessings be abundant!

Being baptized as a PastorBY FR. ANDY SENSENIG OMI

One of the most joyful and beautiful aspects of being a priest for almost 19 years as well as being a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate for almost 25 years is administering the Sacrament of Baptism.

There is a joy of the parents, the steadfastness of the godparents, the pride of grandparents, and the watchfulness of the brothers, sisters and cousins of the child about to be baptized -- who is at times at a loss as to what is going on, especially when the waters of baptism touch their head.

I have had the baptized child cry; get mad and other reactions that are better not mentioned in polite company.

Well, on August 20, 2016 at our parish picnic, here at St. Gregory Nazianzen in Sitka, the shoe was on the other foot. I got into a dunk trap on loan from our local fire station and children got an opportunity to baptize the pastor.

I never saw children so patient in waiting to throw a softball. They were encouraging each to take a “good aim” and “throw hard” so yours truly got wet. Thank God for a generous person who lent me a dry suit, or I would have frozen for sure.

The most memorable comment of the day came from an older parish-ioner who shared with me that he was envious of the children, not because of their opportunity to get the pastor dunked, but that the children here have a pastor who is a friend of the children. He said that he was raised to fear the pastor. He is grateful that children here are learning a different way to relate to their pastor.

With that said, all the splashes in the cold water and joyful squeals of laughter were worth it and then some. Life is good being a parish priest in Southeast Alaska. Joy is never in short supply.

The Southeast Alaska Catholic September 2016 • 5

ROHRBACHER

Along the Way

Deacon Charles Rohrbacher

A new work of mercy: care for our common home2016 isn’t even over and its record-breaking temperatures since

January have surpassed those of last year, 2015, which was the hot-test year on record. In August NASA scientists reported that 2016 is now the hottest year on record, not just since temperature records began to be reported in the 19th century, but for the past 1000 years.

As Pope Francis wrote in the encyclical “Laudato Si” last year: “Global warming, that is, rising atmospheric temperatures, the result of CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted by the burning of fossil fuels are responsible for increasingly severe changes in the climate and in the natural environment. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. …If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.”(LS 23-24)

We are already experiencing some of the impacts of climate change due to global warming, including but not limited to droughts; changes (for the worse) in the frequency and intensity of storms and rising sea levels brought on by the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and glaciers, including here in Southeast Alaska.

Around the world tens of thousands of species of plants and animals are threat-ened with extinction because they are un-able to adapt to the impact of relentlessly rising global temperatures or to the impact of the destruction, directly or indirectly, of the eco-systems upon which their sur-vival depends. For example, because the oceans have absorbed so much dissolved CO2, their chemistry has changed and the water is becoming increasingly acidic. Oceanographers fear that acidification will adversely affect the ability of marine organisms like coral, crustacians and mollusks to build their shells. They are even more alarmed that acidification may threaten phytoplankton and zooplankton, the tiny organisms that the entire marine food chain depends on.

As for the poor, the majority of the people with whom we share this planet, they suffer the most from the heat, drought, flooding and rising sea levels caused by global warming and climate change.

The present ecological crisis, with its impacts on the environ-ment and the poor, is not only a scientific, political or economic issue but a profoundly spiritual and moral one. It is for this reason that Pope Francis, echoing the warnings of his predecessors, Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict, has spoken out repeatedly on the seriousness of the crisis and the urgency of acting quickly to reduce and eventually eliminate CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

A year ago, Pope Francis, in the encyclical letter, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, called for what he termed, “ecological conversion,” noting that “living out our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue.”(LS 216)

In his message “Show Mercy in Our Common Home,” for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on September 1st, the Holy Father called on us to examine our consciences and repent, so

that during the remaining months of the Year of Mercy we might “learn to implore God’s mercy for those sins against creation that we have not hitherto acknowledged and confessed.”

But he stresses that it is not enough to repent and seek God’s forgiveness for the harm we have done and are doing to our common home. Forgiveness should lead us, to “a firm purpose of amendment … [to adopt] concrete ways of thinking and acting that are more respectful of creation.”

The Holy Father proposes that we add to the traditional seven corporal and spiritual works of mercy an eighth work of mercy: care for our common home. Quoting from Laudato Si, he explains that “as a spiritual work of mercy, care for our common home calls for ‘grateful contemplation of God’s world’ which allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us (LS 214)”

He goes on to further propose that “as a corporal work of mercy, care for our common home requires ‘simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness …and makes itself felt in every action which seeks to build a better world.”(LS 230-31)

And finally, he urges us to pray. “Despite our sins and the daunting challenges before

us, we must never lose heart. ...The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us… for he has united himself defini-tively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward.”*

“Let us pray today, and indeed throughout the year, for the grace to show mercy to our common home.” - Introduction to the Holy Hour for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace)

In the eyes of the world, prayer may seem inconse-quential in the face of a threat of truly biblical proportions, but then again, prayer is always the biblical response when threatened with catastrophe. It is easy to forget that the beautiful canticle calling on all creation to praise God was sung by the three youths in the fiery furnace: (Daniel 3:57-88)

Fire and heat, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.Cold and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.Dew and rain, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.Frost and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

So in the (metaphorical, for now) fiery furnace of our own era (and unfortunately, of our own making), let us make their prayer of praise and hope, our prayer!

- Deacon Charles Rohrbacher is the Office of Ministries Director for the Diocese of Juneau. Phone: 907-586-2227 x 23. Email: charlesr@gci.net

YOU, YOUR PARISH, AND/OR ORGANIZATION

CAN TAKE THE

St. Francis Pledgeto pray, act, and advocate

to solve climate change

Taking the St. Francis Pledge commits you or your organization to respond to the moral call for action on climate change. By pledging, you commit to praying, acting, and advocating to solve climate change. How you fulfill those commitments is up to you.

Here are a few ideas for how to fulfill the Pledge commitments:

PRAY• Set a time to pray for climate action.• Pray as a family or as a church group.

• Keep a prayer journal.• Publish prayers via a blog or newsletter.

ACT• Investigate solar and renewable options.• Learn how climate affects the vulnerable.

• Calculate your carbon footprint.• Take steps to reduce your footprint.

ADVOCATE• Connect with policy makers.

• Connect with your municipal council.• Explore sustainable policies at work.

• Hear your pastor’s position on ecology.

LEARN MORE AT THESE CATHOLIC CLIMATE WEBSITES: • catholicclimatemovement.global

• catholicclimatecovenant.org

The Global Catholic Climate Movement

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 6 • September 2016

BY NOLIN AINSWORTH, FOR THE CATHOLICANCHOR.ORG

As a new school year begins for teenagers across Alaska, so do tales of new jobs, family vacations and summer adventures. Amidst all the chatter, a small number of students will be recollecting their recent pilgrimage halfway across the world with millions of other young Catholics.

In other words, World Youth Day 2016, which took place July 25-31 in Krakow, Poland.

The gathering occurs every two to three years, and includes prayers and Masses with the pope and millions of fellow pilgrims.

Most of the time in Poland was dedicated to bolstering faith in the youth, who gathered from all corners of the earth — nearly 200 countries. Bishops met with the pilgrims and expounded on the core theme, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,” one of the eight beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew.

According to the official World Youth Day website: “All of the World Youth Days — according to their founder and patron saint Pope John Paul II — focus on one biblical thought, which often refers to the spirituality of the particular host city.”

“WYD was not invented by Pope John Paul II but by Father Karol Wojtyla, who lived in Krakow. Coming back to Krakow is like getting back to the source,” World Youth Day speaker Father Thomas Rosica said of the adventurous Polish priest become the transformative Pope John Paul II.

On the second to last day of activities, Pope Francis led a prayer vigil, reminding his listeners that, “Following Jesus demands a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in

the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths.”

After walking upwards of eight miles per day in 90 degrees heat, most Alaskans

were more ready to trade in their walking shoes for a sofa. Pilgrims needed to stay well hydrated to ward off heat stroke.

Alaskans return tried and tested from World Youth Day

Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference: Continued from page 3

“Infinite Mercy: Our Gift and Our Mission” will focus on themes of the Year of Mercy and center on several key-note addresses by guest speaker Jonathan Reyes, Executive Director of Justice, Peace and Human Development for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In addition, attendees will benefit from the ministry of Missionary of Mercy, Father John Paul Mary Zeller, MFVA, who will preside at a Reconciliation Service on Friday evening. Other guest presenters from outside the diocese include contemporary musician Craig Colson from Arizona, and Srs. Cecilia Rose, SV and Maris Stella, SV, of the Sisters of Life order.

Diocesan employee and St. Paul’s parishioner, Peggy Mattson, and Diocese Youth Minister, Heather Shaw, have been spearheading the planning for the September 2016 event, supported by a steering committee made up of Fr. Pat

Travers, Fr. Mike Galbraith, Sr. Marie Lucek, Deacon Mike Monagle, Deacon Charles Rohrbacher, Anne Morris, Ann Klausner, Leora Houtary, Robbie Izzard, and Sandy Nolan.

Registration forms are available at parishes, online at the Diocese website (www.dioceseofjuneau.org), and on Page 15 of this newspaper.

A generous grant has made travel scholarships avail-able for diocesan participants from outside Juneau: please contact Peggy Mattson at diocesedevelopment@hotmail.com to inquire.

www.dioceseofjuneau.org/ se-alaska-catholic-conference

SEACC PARISH CONTACTS:• Prince of Wales – Fr. Ed Penisten

• Haines/Skagway – Fr. Perry Kenaston • Petersburg – Rita Byrer

• Wrangell – Peggy Mitchell • Ketchikan – Shelly Tradel

• Cathedral – Sr. Marie Lucek • St. Paul’s – Sandy Nolan

• Sitka – Anne Morris • Missions – Dcn. Charles Rohrbacher • Yakutat – Deacon Mike Monagle

• Kake/Hoonah - Dcn. Steve Olmstead

Diocese of Juneau pilgrims at World Youth Day in Krakow Poland. (Destiny Sargeant photos)

Continued on page 10

The Southeast Alaska Catholic September 2016 • 7

The mercy-filled life:Mother Teresa embodied what Pope Francis teaches

BY CINDY WOODEN, CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICEVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- If there is one

person who immersed herself in the “periph-eries” Pope Francis is drawn to, it was Blessed Teresa—now Saint Teresa—of Kolkata.

If there was one who showed courage and creativity in bringing God’s mercy to the world, like Pope Francis urges, it was the diminutive founder of the Missionaries of Charity.

For many people, the Catholic Church’s Year of Mercy reached its culmination when Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa Sept. 4, recognizing the holiness of charity, mercy and courage found in a package just 5-feet tall.

Ken Hackett, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, worked closely with Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in his previous positions at the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Relief Services. He was at her funeral in 1997, her beatification in 2003, and at the Mass where she was declared a saint.

“Where Mother pushed the Missionaries of Charity was to the edge, to the most difficult places,” said the ambassador, who said he visited her houses “all the time, everywhere.”

“They were always way out there, both geographically and with the people who abso-lutely fell through the cracks,” he said. Mother Teresa opened homes in Ethiopia during the communist military dictatorship, in the most destitute neighborhoods of Haiti’s capital, in Rwanda after the genocide and in Yemen, where four Missionaries of Charity were murdered in March.

“When there was war, when there was fighting, there they were,” Hackett said. “They stayed.”

Mother Teresa demonstrated that living a life committed to mercy took “selflessness and courage,” he said.

Her courage also was demonstrated in her ability to “speak truth to power,” he said. Mother Teresa visited the United States regularly, speaking to Catholic groups, opening homes and meeting with presidents, including Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton. “She was straight out against abortion,” the ambassador said. “From conception to death -- she was the whole thing and didn’t pull any punches.”

Like Pope Francis, he said, Mother Teresa drew energy from personal, one-on-one contact with people and consciously chose to live as simply as the poor she befriended and tended.

In life and after her death, Mother Teresa faced criticism for not using her fame and

contacts to advocate more directly for social and political change to improve the lives of the poor she served.

“You can find all the things she wasn’t,” the ambassador said, “but what she was was much more important than what she wasn’t. She was a model and now she (is) a saint.”

Valeria Martano, Asia coordinator for the Community of Sant’Egidio, said, “We are talking about a woman who broke out of the existing framework of what was expected of a Catholic woman in the 1940s. And, like Pope Francis, she chose to make her life a denunciation” of injustice. “Her witness was testimony that things can change. She did not speak of justice so much as do justice.”

“Mother Teresa chose to understand the world through the eyes of the least of the least, what Pope Francis would call the periphery,” said Martano, who also leads Sant’Egidio programs in the poorest neighborhoods on the southern edge of Rome.

But it is not just about “going out,” Martano said. For both Pope Francis and Mother Teresa, she said, everything starts with prayer.

The founder of the Missionaries of Charity insisted that she and her sisters were “contem-platives in the midst of the world,” she said. “It was not just about doing.” Mother Teresa’s prayer took her to the periphery and the periph-eries were key to her prayer.

“What Mother Teresa lived, Pope Francis teaches constantly: compassion in the face of pain and never accepting indifference in the face of suffering,” said Archbishop Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, Italy.

For the archbishop, Mother Teresa mod-eled “a church close to the poor, a church that is mother to the poor and that lives the joy of serving the poor.”

Revelations after her death that she suffered a “dark night of the soul,” decades of feeling abandoned by God, are for Archbishop Zuppi a further sign of her deep immersion in the lives of the poor and forgotten.

“Her spiritual director would say that thirst is knowing there is water and longing for it,” he said. “She was a woman who made the thirst of Christ on the cross her own. She lived that thirst.”

- - -Follow Wooden on Twitter: @Cindy_

Wooden

(Above) Pope John Paul II holds hands with Blessed Teresa of Kolkata after visiting Mother Teresa’s home for the destitute and dying in 1986 in India. Mother Teresa was canonized by Pope Francis Sept. 4 at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Luciano Mellace, Reuters) (Below) Missionaries of Charity nuns present a relic of St. Teresa of Kolkata as Pope Francis celebrates the canonization Mass of Mother Teresa in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sept. 4. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 10 • September 2016

There are a few mountains out my front window that greet me ev-ery day when I look out; that is, if it isn’t raining. Then, there are just clouds greeting me. Sigh. But the mountains that I know are there stand sentinel over the valley, towering over the glacier that slowly carves its ancient path at their feet; at one time advancing but now retreating rap-idly, thanks to climate change. My husband and I climbed one of them a few years ago. I am glad we did it, even though I whined and complained just a little; I loved the view from the top and it feels very good to look out the window and say I’ve been there. I have never really had a desire or inclination to do the others though. I have always dismissed that idea quite easily because it seems too daunting a task to consider for someone like me, a middle age Mom with minimal outdoor skills.

But recently a friend, not quite as middle-aged, expressed a desire to hike one of them and then on another occasion, another friend said she would like to do that as well, so I started to wonder if maybe I could do it as well. My wonder quickly became ‘why not’ when my friend texted me and said, “how about Friday?” Why not Friday?! So there we were, 6:00am on a Friday morning at the base, strapping on our packs filled with water, snacks and toilet paper of course; and, other neces-sities for a long day of hiking in Southeast Alaska. The views from the trail along the way were phenomenal as we got higher and higher above the glacier. We still couldn’t see the top of the mountain though because it was covered in clouds, but we kept hoping the clouds would burn off by the time we got to the top. They didn’t. The trail was hard to find as we scrambled over rocks, pressed on through the brush and scaled steep and slippery inclines. But, thankfully some thoughtful hikers before us had marked the way with trail marking ribbon and cairns. “…Which was a guide on the unknown way.” (Wisdom 18:3) A cairn is a pile of stones, humanly constructed and left as a beacon to mark the path. We were extremely thankful for them. There was even a piece of tape tied to a stick lying on top of a rock. We called it a gift as we scrambled over another pile of boulders that the glacier had left behind long, long ago; another kind of gift to my aching quads!

My friend and I talked much over that 10’ish hour hike, about life and love and our aches and pains! One thing we talked about was our gratitude for those who had gone before us who were thoughtful enough to mark the trail, because they truly were guides on our sometimes unknown way. We reflected that we wished there were symbolic pieces of tape in our lives that would assure us that we were on the right path. When I

thought about this again later, I decided that there are cairns and tape in my life. Sometimes in a song or scripture, but more often than not, in and through my relationships and encounters with other people who help me to know that I am at least on a good path. My friends, husband and family are my greatest trail guides! They are the ones who have the courage to help me see when my feet may be slipping down a slope that may be tough to get off of or losing my way altogether. I have a lovely friend who is capable in her endearing, no-nonsense way, of telling me that she thinks I could look at something a little differently in my life. She always asks me first, though, if I want to hear it or not!

When my hiking friend and I were near the top of the mountain and in the clouds, we stopped to celebrate our accomplishment, contemplat-ing if this was really the top or not. Two young men stopped by on their climb and told us we were almost there and then they trekked off across the snow and scrambled up another pile of rocks and disappeared into the clouds. I was content to sit right where I was in my revelry, but my friend really wanted to get to the top. She inspired me in her gentle and unassuming way to get up and finish the course! We did it! We were there! Albeit in the clouds, but it was the top that we see every day from our valley vantage points.

In his book, “The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything,” James Martin, SJ talks about Mother Teresa and her call by God to serve the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Martin explains that at first Mother Teresa was hesitant because she was comfortable in her then current role as a teacher and it scared her to think about traveling so far and doing something that would take great courage on her part. She didn’t know if she was up for the task, but in the end she obeyed God and... well, we know the rest of the story. Martin states that we don’t have to obey God; we can refuse, and the earth won’t open up and swallow us. Well, maybe not; but the price we pay is that we might lose the blessings that God would have bestowed on us had we done the task we felt urged to do. I think about this and climbing Mt. McGinnis with my friend. I could have refused because I was too scared or too busy or too whatever, but I didn’t. And because of that I was richly blessed to spend a day immersed in God’s splendor, a day focused on love and friendship, a day of accomplishment and exhilaration! For me, there was no greater glory in that day than to climb that mountain with my friend.

Blessings on your faith-guided journey.

“There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path” (Unknown)

“Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 NAB)

Waymarks

By KATIE BENNING

the Hood

Womanhood, Motherhood, Sainthood

Respect Life

“Just makes me think of walk-ing — walking and being hungry,” Cameron Benning of Juneau said, reflecting on the meaning of the word “pilgrim.”

Anchorage’s Anna Berry described not so much a vacation but more of a classical pilgrimage experience, which has traditionally meant embracing a level of suffer-ing and prayer.

“I wouldn’t say it was fun because a lot of people came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Oh did you have a good time?’ and I didn’t,” Berry said. “It was really stressful for a lot of the time and it took a really long time to get from place to place so it took a lot of patience … I think it was more the pilgrimage experience and learning to offer it up [to God].”

Juneau traveler Lexi Mount-castle agreed.

“Every morning was the same ordeal, we would get up early, have this weird breakfast, walk forever until we got to the spot,” she said.

The adversity helped Mount-castle to grow in faith alongside Benning and her fellow Alaskans.

“I think I have less of a problem doubting my faith now because there are so many other people that I can reach out to and I know they have the same outlook on things,” she said. “In a pilgrimage you really have to go out of your comfort zone and I think that’s what made it a pilgrimage for me.”

Pope Francis announced Pan-ama as the next host country for World Youth Day 2019.

WYD 2016: Continued from page 6

The Southeast Alaska Catholic September 2016 • 11

EFFIE CALDAROLA

For the Journey

What does God want me to do?

BY EFFIE CALDAROLA, CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICEShould I or shouldn’t I? What does God want me to do? How many

times have you wished you had a direct line to God?Lately, we’ve learned so much about the life of St. Teresa of Kolkata.

The founder of the Missionaries of Charity was destined to be both a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a canonized saint.

But she didn’t know that when she boarded a train from Kolkata to Darjeeling many years ago. As a Sister of Loreto, she taught in a girls’

school. But on the train, she experienced her famous “call within a call,” an interior vision and movement so profound that it changed her entire life.

She felt Christ asking her to work exclusively with the poorest of the poor. She was sure of that call. A whole world would watch the result.

Now, most of us are not destined to be saints of the caliber of Mother Teresa. But all of us want to do God’s will. We pray for that all the time.

But how often do we feel certainty? So often, I muddle along feeling like a giant question mark.

But sometimes, I think we do experience certainty, without the voices or the visions, of course. Occasionally, we have a strong interior sense of rightness.

I made a list the other day of things in my life that seemed so abso-lutely right that I “had” to do them. It surprised me that I could think of several.

It’s a good exercise and I encourage you to do it. It may surprise you how many times you heard and answered a call. And it’s good to ask yourself, What sense of desire or openness prompted that strong consent?

When I was a young teacher, I sent for a pamphlet called “Invest Yourself.” This was long before the internet with its ready access to information. My pamphlet was promoted by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, and in it was listed, in very fine print, just about every volunteer opportunity in the U.S.

Halfway through the book, I arrived at something called the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. It hit me. Bingo. I felt compelled to apply and really never looked back, even when JVC asked me to go to a remote village in Alaska to teach.

It was a life-changing decision, but one that involved so little “should I or shouldn’t I.”

Much later, I wanted to take a writing course from a woman who was the first female bureau chief of The Associated Press. I just knew it was for me. But after I applied, word came back -- sorry, class is full.

I am not usually a pushy person, but I wrote a letter to the instructor telling her all of the reasons she needed to make an exception and let me into her class. I got in -- to that one and several more.

There were a few other “have to” moments on my list, some per-sonal and some professional, like deciding to pursue a master’s degree in pastoral ministry. What I realize is that these moments in my life drew on an openness, a need for something new and challenging. I was ready and willing to take a risk. I was ready for a call.

When having trouble wondering what God wants next, I’m going to think about my list and ask what qualities or conditions or needs prompted my eagerness. Then I’ll ask God to help me be open to the next “have to” call. Surprise me, Lord, with another decision that feels right.

BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES, CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICEVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- God did not send his

son into the world to cast off the wicked but to offer them a path to conversion through mercy and love, Pope Francis said.

Those who object to Jesus’ mercy toward sinners often create an “image of God that impedes them from enjoying his real presence,” the pope said Sept. 7 at his weekly general audience.

“Some carve out a ‘do-it-yourself’ faith that reduces God to the limited space of their own desires and their own convic-tions,” the pope said. “Others reduce God to a false idol; using his holy name to justify their own interests or even to incite hatred and violence.”

An estimated 25,000 people at-tended the audience in St. Peter’s Square; many visitors were in Rome for the Sept. 4 canonization of St. Teresa of Kolkata.

Before delivering his final blessing the pope called on young people to follow her example and be “artisans of mercy.” He asked those who are ill “to feel her compassionate closeness, especially in the hour of the cross.”

In his main talk, the pope reflected on the Gospel story in which John the Baptist, while imprisoned, sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is “the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

Jesus answered, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them; and blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

John the Baptist, who often preached the com-ing of the Messiah as a judge who would come to “reward the good and punish the bad,” now suffers doubt in the darkness of his cell because he does “not understand this style,” the pope said.

However, he said, Jesus’ response is a clear mes-sage to his followers and to the church.

“God did not send his son into the world to pun-ish sinners nor to annihilate the wicked. They are instead called to conversion so that, by seeing the signs of divine goodness, they may find their way back,” Pope Francis said.

Jesus’ gesture of showing mercy to sinners is an act that often provokes doubt and even scandal to those who believe in a God that comes to rain down justice on the wicked, he said.

Nevertheless, “if the obstacle to believing is above all his acts of mercy, this means that you have a false image of the Messiah. Blessed are those who, in front

of Jesus’ gestures and words, give praise to God who is in heaven,” the pope said.

Jesus’ warning to those who are scandalized by God’s mercy serve as a warning for men and women today who create a false image of God, often perceiv-ing him as a “psychological refuge” that offers them reassurance during difficult moments or reducing Jesus to just one of many teachers of ethics throughout history, he explained.

Nevertheless, these erroneous perceptions “stifle faith into a purely personal relationship with Jesus,

canceling out his missionary impulse that is capable of transforming the world and history.”

Christians, he said, believe in the “God of Jesus Christ” who wants us “to grow in the living experience of his mystery of love.”

“Let us commit ourselves to not put any obstacles to the Father’s merciful acts,” Pope Francis said. “Instead, let us ask for the gift of great faith to become signs and in-struments of mercy.”

Pope: God sent his son to show mercy to sinners, not punish them

Let us commit ourselves to not put any obstacles to the Father’s merciful acts,” Pope Francis said. “Instead, let us ask for the gift of great faith to become signs and instruments of mercy.

WORKS of MERCY

Corporal Feed the Hungry • Give Drink to the Thirsty • Clothe the Naked • Shelter the Homeless • Visit the Sick • Visit the Impris-oned • Bury the Dead

Spiritual Counsel the Doubtful • Instruct the Ignorant • Convert the Sinner • Comfort the Sorrowful • Forgive Offenses Willingly • Bear Wrongs Pa-tiently • Pray for the Living and the Dead

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 12 • September 2016

Keeping the Lord’s Day HolyI write to ask for guidelines on the Third Com-mandment -- keeping holy the Lord’s day. I do not consider some of the things that I do to be work -- cooking, for example, minor cleanups, mowing, trimming, weeding. Does the church look upon all

chores as work? I find it very hard not to do some of the things that need to be done around the house.

I am thankful that God did give us this commandment, for I certainly do look upon Sunday as a day of rest -- to spend with family when possible and to simply enjoy the day.

My husband (who is not a Catholic) is a business owner who can work from home. He is in a very challenging situation right now, without sufficient staff. On Sundays, he puts in a good six to eight hours of office work before he rests -- otherwise the remainder of the week’s schedule would be overwhelming. (Chestertown, New York)

I credit you for your sincere desire to set Sunday aside as a special day, which honors the fact that even the God of all creation rested on the Sabbath. You have captured the spirit of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that says, “Sunday is a time

for reflection, silence, cultivation of the mind and medita-tion which furthers the growth of the Christian interior life” (No. 2186).

Basic household maintenance is exempted from the prohibition against “servile work” on that day; doing the dishes, preparing a meal and what you describe as “minor cleanups” are certainly permitted. A modest amount of gardening or lawn cultivation can be recreational and surely not “servile.” What the Sabbath command means to avoid is unnecessary shopping or heavy housekeeping that could be deferred.

Employment needs or economic circumstances may prevent one from observing the Sabbath rest, and this the catechism envisions and exempts. Your husband’s current challenge, in my mind, fits in here.

I would hope, though, that his circumstance will only be temporary; while I don’t know his religious history or principles, wisely does the catechism note, “The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life and health” (No. 2185).

I might point out that, among American males, there can be a slavish addiction to Sunday televised sports, doing dam-age to the Sabbath goals of family time, reflection and rest.

And finally, nowhere does your question mention Sunday Mass, which must always be the central feature of a Catholic’s Sabbath observance. For 2,000 years, followers of Jesus have come together as a family of faith to celebrate the day of Christ’s resurrection and to be nourished by his body and blood.

Positives in the ChurchI am grateful for the work you do with your ques-tion-and-answer column. Your responses reflect both wisdom and patience. And this prompts me to ask the following: What are some of the things in today’s parish or church that you find exciting?

Or, to put it another way, what are some changes that you have been happy to see over your years in the ministry? (Virginia Beach, Virginia)

Normally I would not choose to answer an open-ended question like this one. Readers, I believe, are more interested in factual answers than in my musings. But since I have just celebrated my 50th anniversary of ordination, I welcome this

chance to share a few thoughts about those years. Space constraints limit me to two developments that I

view as great blessings in Catholic life. First is the broader involvement of laypeople in the work of the church.

When I was ordained a half-century ago, many par-ishes had two lay organizations: a rosary society, which consisted of several women who offered prayers for the parish and helped out with church decorations, and a Holy Name Society, men who would make a yearly retreat and sponsor an annual parish smoker.

In the parish from which I just retired, there are now more than 400 lay parishioners who help with the work of the church -- lay catechists; lectors and extraordinary ministers of holy Communion; those who visit and take Communion to shut-ins, patients in hospitals and residents of nursing homes; men and women who staff a parish food pantry and host homeless families overnight in a parish facility, etc.

The other is the 2013 election of Francis as pope. As the editor of Time magazine put it, “He has not changed the words, but he’s changed the music.” Whereas many may have associated the church in the past with rules and prohibitions, some of those same people now link the church first of all with help to the poor, mercy and forgiveness.

questions&answersBY FATHER KENNETH DOYLE, CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

Questions may be sent to Fr. Doyle at askfatherdoyle@gmail.com and 40 Hopewell St., Albany, N.Y. 12208.

Letter to the Editor

August 21, 2016

Dear Mrs. Stone,For the love of God and the salvation of souls, Madame

Editor, please discontinue the syndicated column authored by Fr. Ronald Rohlheiser, O.M.I. I am confident that you will do so if your standards for editorial content are at least consistent with your stated policy for letters to the editor, which proscribes publication of matter “that challenges [C]hurch teaching.”

Unfortunately, this author’s column in the August is-sue of the SEAC, entitled “Our fear of hell,” does just that. In it he contends, against the entire weight of Scripture and Sacred Tradition, that the eternal torments of hell (described in such terms by Our Lord Himself) “never” await those who are “basically happy” or “essentially warm of heart” and that our catechisms on this point are “essentially wrong.” To compound matters, he attempts to explain away Our Lord’s parables which confirm the utter finality of the afterlife by reducing their eternal import to matters of this world only.

This is heresy and of extreme danger to the faithful.The Catechism of the Catholic Church states authorita-

tively that “[t]o die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from Him forever by our own free choice. This state of de-finitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (1033). Furthermore, many saints have been granted visions of hell.

Perhaps most notable was that given to the shepherd children by Our Lady of Fatima in July 1917. According to Lucia, the oldest: “. . .we now were able to behold a sea of fire. Plunged in this flame were devils and souls that looked like transparent embers; others were black or bronze, and in human form; these were suspended in flames which seemed to come from the forms themselves there to remain, without weight or equilibrium, amid cries of pain and despair which horrified us so that we trembled with fear. The devils could be distinguished from the damned human souls by the terrifying forms of weird and unknown animals in which they were cast.”

Our Lady would go on to tell the children that more souls go to hell for sins of the flesh than for any other reason.

But she did not leave them without hope or remedy. To the contrary she followed this horrific vision with that of her Immaculate Heart, asking the children (and, by exten-sion, all of her children) to pray – especially the rosary, to make sacrifices for poor sinners, and to observe the five first Saturdays.

Mary Immaculate, Exterminatrix of Heresies, pray for us sinners.

Respectfully yours in Christ,Rev. Scott R. Settimo

The Southeast Alaska Catholic September 2016 • 13

Believing there’s a world without limits makes for unrealistic expectations and a lot of frustration.

If you have any questions about the Diocesan

Policy for working with children in ministry

please contact:Victim Assistance Coordinator

and Safe Environment Coordinator for the Diocese:

MS ROBERTA IZZARD 907-586-2227 ext. 25 EMAIL: robbiei@gci.net

Safe Environment Policies:www.dioceseofjuneau.org/victim-assistance-

coordinator

Protecting our Children

RON ROLHEISER, OMI

Utopia, with limitsWhen I was a child there was a

popular song whose chorus repeated this line: Everyone is searching for Utopia. And we all are. Every one of us longs for a world without limits, for a life where nothing goes wrong, for a place where there’s no tension or frustration. But it never happens. There’s no such place.

Anahid Nersessian recently wrote a book entitled, Utopia, Limit-ed: Romanticism and Adjustment, within which she criticizes various ideologies for, naively, giving the impression that we can have a world without limits. She particularly blames liberal ideology which, she submits, privileges limit-lessness by setting “itself, almost by default, against the governing and guiding of desire.” But, as she argues in the book, limitation is what’s life-giving. We will find happiness only when we accommodate ourselves to the world by minimizing the demands we place on it. For Nersessian, if Utopia is to be had, it will be had only by finding the realistic limits of our lives and adjusting ourselves to them. Over-expectation makes for disappointment.

She’s right. Believing there’s a world with-out limits makes for unrealistic expectations and a lot of frustration. By thinking we can find Utopia, we invariably set up the perfect as the enemy of the good; thus habitually denigrating our actual relationships, marriages, careers, and lives because they, unlike our fantasies, perpetually have limits and therefore always seem second-best.

Nersessian tends to blame liberal ideology for giving us this impression, but the unreal-istic dream and expectation of Utopia is most everywhere in our world. In effect, we no longer have, either in our churches or in our world, the symbolic tools to properly explain or handle frustration. How so?

When I was a child, my head didn’t just reverberate with the tune, Everyone is Look-ing for Utopia, it was also reverberated with a number of other tunes I’d learned in church

and in the culture at large. Our churches then were teaching us about something it called, “original sin” -- the belief that a primordial fall at the origins of human life has, until the end of time, flawed both human nature and nature itself in such a way that what we will meet and experience in this life will always be imperfect, limited, somewhat painful, and somewhat

frustrating. Sometimes this was understood in an

overly simplistic way and sometimes it left us wondering about the nature of God, but nonetheless it gave us a vision within which to understand life and handle frustration. At the end of the day, it taught us that, this side of eternity, there’s no such a thing as a clear-cut, pure joy. Everything has a shadow. Happiness lies in accepting these limits, not in stoic resignation, but in a practical, buoyant vision that, because it has already incorporated limit and has no false expectations, lets you properly receive, honor, and enjoy the good things in life. Since the perfect cannot be had in this life, you then give yourself permission to appreciate the imperfect.

This religious vision was re-enforced by a culture which also told us that there was no Utopia to be had here. It told us instead that, while you may dream high and you may expect to live better than your parents did, don’t expect that you can have it all. Life cannot deliver that to you. Like its religious counterpart in its ex-planation of original sin, this secular wisdom too had its over-simplistic and flawed expres-sions. But it helped imprint in us some tools with which to more realistically understand life. It told us, in its own flawed way, a truth that I have often quoted from Karl Rahner: In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we ultimately learn that, here in this life, there is no finished symphony. How succinct and how accurate!

It’s interesting to note how this religious view is paralleled in the atheistic view of Rahner’s contemporary, the Nobel-Prize winning writer, Albert Camus. Camus, who did not believe in God, famously proposed an image within which to understand human life and its frustrations: He compared this world to a medieval prison. Some medieval prisons were deliberately built to be too small for the prisoner, with a ceiling so low that the prisoner could never stand fully upright and the room itself too small for the prisoner to ever stretch out fully. The idea was that the frustration of not being able to stand up or stretch out fully would eventually break the prisoner’s spirit, like a trainer breaking a horse. For Camus, this is our experience of the world. We can never stand fully upright and/or stretch out fully. The world is too small for us. While this may seem severe, stoic, and atheistic; in the end, it teaches the same truth as Christianity, there’s no Utopia this side of eternity.

And we need, in healthy ways, to be inte-grating this truth into our lives so as to better equip ourselves to handle frustration and ap-preciate the lives that we are actually living.

- Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher, and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com. Now on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

THE SOUTHEAST ALASKA CATHOLIC considers submissions for publication that may include: Letters to the Editor, interviews, stories, event coverage, photos and artistic response that represent a local Catholic viewpoint. Please submit content or questions to juneaudiocese@gci.net, or phone 907-586-2227 ext. 32.

Guidelines for Letters to the Editor:Letters to the Editor should not disparage the character of any individual but refer to issues, articles, letters and opinion pieces that have been published in the Southeast Alaska Catholic. Letters may not endorse a specific political candidate or political party. The Southeast Alaska Catholic does not publish letters that challenge established church teaching. Letters may be edited for length, taste and clarity. To inquire about submitting a guest column, contact the editor at juneaudiocese@gci.net.Online at www.akseac.wordpress.com and Facebook • www.dioceseofjuneau.org

The Shrine of St. Therese

JUNEAU, ALASKA

Facility reservations online at www.shrineofsainttherese.org

Holy Door for the Jubilee of Mercy

“The world’s thy ship and not thy home.”

– St. Therese of Lisieux

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 14 • September 2016

CNS News Briefs • www.catholicnews.comMRS gets $1 million-plus grant from Mormons

for refugee resettlementWASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops’ Migra-

tion and Refugee Services is receiving a $1.25 million grant from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to aid in its refugee resettlement efforts once the newcomers arrive in the United States. The Mormons, as the denomination’s adherents are popularly known, have refugee processing capabilities overseas, said MRS executive director Bill Canny, but do not offer domes-tic resettlement services. Canny told Catholic News Service that this is the first time in memory that the Mormons have made such a gift to an agency within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, although Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas aid and development organization, has received grants from the Mormons dating to the Ethiopian famine more than 30 years ago. Grants of this nature, of this size, Canny added, don’t often happen, “not often enough.” Canny said the Mormons had conducted a successful fundraising drive to aid Syrian refugees. Afterward, “they then approached nine resettlement agencies, offering each of them a gift to help with resettling refugees currently. So they got in touch with us as one of the resettlement agencies. We began to discuss how to distribute the money and the in-kind goods, and we wrote a small project for them, and they agreed to it and gave us the go-ahead.”

St. Teresa of Kolkata will always be ‘Mother’ Teresa, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- With a large tapestry bear-ing the portrait of the woman known as the “Saint of the Gutters” suspended above him, Pope Francis proclaimed the sainthood of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, hailing her courage and love for the poor. Despite the formality of the occasion though, “her sanctity is so close to us, so tender and fruitful, that spontaneously we will continue to call her ‘Mother Teresa,’” Pope Francis said to applause at the canonization Mass Sept. 4. “Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded,” the pope said in his homily during the Mass in St. Peter’s Square. An estimated 120,000 people packed the square, many holding umbrellas or waving fans to keep cool under the sweltering heat of the Roman sun. However, upon hearing Pope Francis “declare and define Blessed Teresa of Kolkata to be a saint,” the crowds could not contain their joy, breaking out in cheers and thunderous applause before he finished speaking. The moment was especially sweet for more than 300 Alba-nians who live in Switzerland, but came to Rome for the canonization. “We are very proud,” said Violet Barisha, a member of the Albanian Catholic Mission in St. Gallen. Daughter of Divine Charity Sister Valdete, a Kosovar and

one of the Albanian group’s chaplains, said, “We are so happy and honored. We are a small people, but have had so many martyrs.”

Religions must take lead in protecting creation, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Religions can play an im-portant role in protecting the environment and defending human rights in their countries, their communities and their schools, Pope Francis said. “I believe we are still at a nursery-school level in this. That is, in incorporating responsibility not only as a subject, but as (a matter of) conscience as part of holistic education,” the pope said Sept. 8 during an audience with participants of a Latin American conference on the care for creation. The Sept. 7-8 conference, “America in Dialogue: Our Common Home,” was held in Rome and sponsored by Organiza-tion of American States and the Institute for Interreli-gious Dialogue of Buenos Aires, as well as the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In his address, the pope welcomed the participants and thanked them for taking on the challenges set forth in his encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’.”

Day of prayer aims to begin restoring peace to U.S. communities

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Prayers for peace at Catho-lic schools and parishes around the country Sept. 9 are meant to “build relationships and plant seeds in people’s minds and hearts” said Bishop Shelton J. Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana. He said the nationwide celebration of a Day of Prayer for Peace in Our Communities should “raise awareness” of violence and racism within com-munities and empower people to do the work needed to restore racial harmony. “We always begin with prayer, which prompts us to action,” said the bishop in a Sept. 8 telephone news conference. Bishop Fabre is a member of the new task force, chaired by Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory that supports the bishops in marking the day of prayer and in other efforts to promote peace and healing. Named the USCCB Task Force to Promote Peace in Our Communities, the group will finish its work with a report on its activities and recommendations for future efforts at the November General Assembly of U.S. bishops. At Catholic churches and schools in Louisville, Kentucky; Cincinnati; Chicago; Salt Lake City; Philadel-phia; Baltimore; Wilmington, Delaware; and elsewhere, Catholics will gather for prayers or Mass, and bells will ring at selected times Sept. 9. Some bishops have urged Catholics in their diocese to fast that day. Baltimore Arch-bishop William E. Lori planned to lead a prayer walk in Baltimore the evening of Sept. 9 with priests, ministry leaders and local Catholics that would stop where recent acts of violence have occurred.

Eternal rest grant unto them,O Lord.

And let perpetual lightshine upon them.

And may the souls of all the faithful departed, through the

mercy of God, rest in peace.Amen.

Shrine of St. ThereseColumbarium

(907) 586-2227 ext. 24 cell - (636) 628-7270

As part of the preparation for the Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference, volunteers have been working on fabric banners to represent the different aspects and parishes of the Diocese of Juneau. The banners will decorate St. Paul the Apostle Church during the conference on Sept. 30 - Oct. 2. The fabric applique above represents a halibut and the fishing industry of Southeast.

The Southeast Alaska Catholic September 2016 • 15

The Southeast Alaska Catholic CONFE RE NC E 2016 REGISTRATION FORM

Couples use separate forms, but return in one envelope. One name per form. Duplicate this form as necessary. Workshops are geared for ages 11 and above. Childcare is provided on site. Fill in appropriate sections below.

NAME

MAILING ADDRESS

CITY, STATE, ZIP Parish

PHONE

SESSION SELECTION

Session 1 Session 2

Session 3

Childcare will be provided from: 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. Friday, 8:45 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Saturday; 8:45 a.m. - 12:00 noon Sunday. Please pick up your children and super-vise them during meals and the concert.

Names & ages of children needing childcare: ___________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

REGISTRATION FEES (Includes meals and concert on Saturday night)

Adult - $50 if paid by Sept. 1 or $60 after Sept. 1Student/Senior - $30 if paid by Sept. 1 or $40 after Sept. 1Couple - $75 if paid by Sept. 1 or $85 after Sept. 1Family - $100

Childcare: $40 for one; $60 for two siblings; $80 for three siblings

Amound paid for registration: $ ______________Amount paid for childcare: $ ______________

TOTAL paid: $ ______________

Send registration form(s), payment, and housing/transp. forms (if needed) to: SEACC, Diocese of Juneau, 415 6th Street, Suite 300, Juneau, AK 99801

TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING REQUEST

Name: ___________________________________________________________

COMPLETE THIS SECTION ONLY IF YOU NEED TRANSPORTATION FROM AND/OR TO THE FERRY OR AIRPORT

ARRIVAL IN JUNEAU BY FERRY BY PLANE

DAY DATE ARRIVAL TIME DAY DATE AIRLINE ARRIVAL TIME

DEPARTURE FROM JUNEAU

BY FERRY BY PLANE

DAY DATE DEPARTURE TIME DAY DATE AIRLINE DEPARTURE TIME

COMPLETE THIS SECTION ONLY IF YOU NEED HOUSING. We will assume that you need housing for Friday and Saturday nights unless you indicate otherwise.

How many adults? ___________________

How many children? _________________

Your age range: q 20-30 q 31-40 q 41-50 q 51+Other special housing needs or requests:

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

HOUSING OPTIONS:

q homestay w/ family

q Shrine lodge/Jubilee cabin - $10/night

q Hotel, group rate (SEE Diocese website or call for further info. on hotels. At-tendee will need to make their own reservations.)

Completed Registration forms may be emailed to: dioceseofjuneau@gci.net and payment made on arrival in Juneau.

1st choice 2nd choice

1st choice 2nd choice

1st choice 2nd choice

Official use

Email

SEACC SPEAKER TOPICS:DR. JONATHAN REYES — Keynote 1: A culture of mercy: a vision for the jubilee of mercy The greatest poverty in the modern world, according to Pope Francis, Pope Benedict and Mother Theresa, is isolation. Mercy is the means of healing this poverty and building a culture of encounter, a civilization of love. This talk will consider isolation and the way we can live the mercy of God in our daily lives in light of the teaching of these three great witnesses to Christ.

Keynote 2: Building a culture of mercy in our families The family is the heart of every culture. A family is a community, with its own way of doing things and being together. This talk will consider ways to deepen mercy and love through instilling habits and practices in our family life that strengthen our love for Christ and neighbor.

Keynote 3: The Mission of Mercy A life of mercy is a witness to the love of God to the whole world. Acts of mercy are a powerful testimony to the love of God that can cut through the distractions and the noise of daily life. They testify to the beauty, joy and hope that animate the Christian life. This talk will consider how mercy fits with the mission of every Chrsitian to “go forth and make disciples”.

FR. JOHN PAUL MARY ZELLER — Jesus Christ: the Face of Mercy

CRAIG COLSON — Effective and Engaging Music Ministry. This talk will be focused around making music ministry engaging for the entire parish where full, conscious and active participation is practiced and upheld as the standard. We will talk about how to recruit, train and best utilize music ministers and manage groups effectively as well as talk about resources for finding good quality liturgical music.

FR. PAT TRAVERS — Amoris Laetitia: Pope Francis Invites the Church to a Merciful Approach When Marriage Fails

DEACON STEVE OLMSTEAD — “The Mercy of the First Mover.” Exploring salvation history in light of God’s creative, covenantal, and merciful love. “We love because God first loved us.” I John 4:19

SISTERS OF LIFE: SR. MARIS STELLA SV and SR. CECEILIA ROSE, SV Swimming in the Ocean of God’s Mercy - Experiencing the healing power of God’s Love. God desires to heal, renew and restore us. In His Mercy Jesus not only forgives us, but also creates new life in and through us so that we radiate it to the world!

Be Merciful! How to be a mighty instrument of God’s Mercy - As we receive God’s Mercy and allow it to penetrate into our hearts, we live as his instruments in the world.

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 16 • September 2016

The SoutheastAlaska CatholicCONFE RE NCE

Infinite Mercy:Our Gift and Our Mission

Other Guest Presenters include Sisters of Life: Srs. Cecilia Rose, SV and Maris Stella, SV And Diocese of Juneau speakers: Father Patrick Travers, Dcn. Steve Olmstead & Youth Minister Heather Shaw

September 30 - October 2 Juneau, AK • St. Paul the Apostle Church More info at www.DIOCESEOFJUNEAU.ORG

Keynote Speaker:Dr. Jonathan Reyes

Exec. Director of Justice, Peace and

Human Development, USCCB

Musician & Speaker:Craig Colson

Arizona parish Music & Liturgy

Director, and contemporary liturgical music recording artist

Missionary of Mercy:Father John Paul Mary

Zeller, MFVA

Member of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, Alabama, and

commissioned by His Holiness Pope Francis as a Missionary of Mercy during the

Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy

MORE INFO: contact Peggy at diocesedevelopment@hotmail.com

SEACC ScheduleFRIDAY, September 30th1:30 pm Mass at the Shrine; Pre-Conference Holy Door Pilgrimage activities 5:30 pm Registration 6:00 pm Dinner7:30 pm Welcome – Bishop Edward J. Burns, KEYNOTE - Dr. Jonathan Reyes8:15 pm Eucharistic Adoration

8:30 pm Reconciliation Service with Fr. John Paul Mary Zeller

SATURDAY, October 1st - Feast of St. Therese8:00 am Morning prayer and Mass, Bishop Edward J. Burns presiding. Homily by Fr. John Paul Mary Zeller, music by Craig Colson.9:15 am Continental Breakfast10:00 KEYNOTE: Dr. Jonathan Reyes11:30 am PERIOD 1 BREAKOUT SESSIONS Youth: Fr. John Paul Mary Zeller Musicians: Craig Colson General: Deacon Steve Olmstead 12:30 Lunch1:30 pm PERIOD 2 BREAKOUT SESSIONS Youth: Sisters of Life General: Fr. Pat Travers, Amoris Laetitia Native Ministry: Kateri Tekakwitha Conference3:00 pm PERIOD 3 BREAKOUT SESSION Youth: Heather Shaw General: Sisters of Life General: Fr. Pat Travers - Amoris Laetitia (repeat)4:30 pm GENERAL SESSION: Fr. John Paul Mary Zeller5:30 pm Evening Prayer 5:45 pm Dinner

7:30 pm Concert: Craig Colson, with testimony by the Sisters of Life

SUNDAY, October 2nd8:30 a.m. Breakfast9:15 a.m. GENERAL SESSION: Dr. Jonathan Reyes10:30 a.m. Closing Mass with Bishop Edward J. Burns3 - 4:00 p.m Post Conference Holy Hour at the Shrine of St. Therese with Fr. Zeller

Register today!