Reflections/Faith

At certain times in the history of the Church, popes have called upon the faithful to dedicate themselves to deepening their understanding of a particular aspect of the faith. In 1967, Pope Paul VI announced a Year of Faith commemorating the 19th centenary of the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul. The 1967 Year of Faith called upon the Church to recall the supreme act of witness by these two saints so that their martyrdom might inspire the present day Church to collectively and individually make a sincere profession of faith.

 

The upcoming Year of Faith declared by Pope Benedict XVI is a “summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the One Savior of the world” (Porta fidei, 6). In other words, the Year of Faith is an opportunity for Catholics to experience a conversion – to turn back to Jesus and enter into a deeper relationship with him. The pope has described this conversion as opening the “door of faith” (see Acts 14:27). The “door of faith” is opened at one’s baptism, but during this year Catholics are called to open it again, walk through it and rediscover and renew their relationship with Christ and his Church.
 

Participants at the Acculturation Workshop at Attleboro Shrine on Sept. 5, 2012; Sr. Katie with red jacket, center right.

Editor: In 2000, Sister Katie received the Mission Award from the U.S. Catholic Mission Association for her dedication and commitment to cross-cultural mission issues. She facilitated an Acculturation Workshop at the Attleboro Shrine on Sept. 5, 2012.

 

Here’s a little bit of my background: I taught in both the Catholic and public school systems in Puerto Rico for fourteen years while earning a master’s degree in cross-cultural education. After I left Puerto Rico, I lived in the South Bronx. I expected to be a classroom teacher for many years, but working in cross-cultural settings changed my mind.

 

But when I came back to United States, I really didn’t give much thought to how I’d changed after my years in Puerto Rico. I learned firsthand how important it is to spend time on the re-entry process and sort through the question: Who am I now as a result of my experiences? 

For most of us womb-to-tomb Catholics, the word “evangelization” brings to mind images of a Protestant preacher in a tent revival meeting, trying to rouse and excite his listeners. And yet evangelization is a basic truth of our Catholic faith with which many active Catholics aren’t very familiar.

 

From Blessed Pope John XXIII’s call for a council, he spoke of the Church’s need for an aggiornamento (a bringing up to date), a reawakening of faith and a call to make the Gospel more accessible to the modern world. 

 

The documents of Vatican II stand witness to the renewed call to the kerygma (“the initial evangelistic proclamation of the gospel, emphasizing the salvific message of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection”[1]). Vatican II calls the Church to become more “evangelical”. And, as the Council Fathers saw it, the responsibility to carry out this mandate “went beyond the call of the ‘professionals’ [such as clergy, religious and professional theologians] to include all members of the Church (Lumen Gentium, 16-17).”[2] 

From my earliest days, I was always fascinated with new technologies and gadgets. Ever since I used to tag along with my father to hi-tech stores in the late 50’s, I still wander occasionally into my favorite toy store – Best Buy – to look at what’s new and amazing. 

 

A few weeks ago as a wondered toward the large format televisions, a young man with a ponytail was already intently examining the products in that area. As I perused the largest models, he came over and nicely asked me what I was looking for. I told him and he then began to explain in a heavily Spanish accent about the technical advantages of one format and manufacturer over another. 

 

I was quite surprised by his obvious technical prowess and asked him where he learned about all this. He said he had worked for a number of years with a now-defunct electronic company in the area.

Editor: With the many recent advances in medical treatments and medicines, morality in medical care can become confusing. However, as the United States Bishops said in their document of June, 2011, To Live Each Day with Dignity, it is quite clear that: "We should ensure that the families of people with terminal illnesses will never feel they have been left alone in caring for their needs. The claim that the ‘quick fix’ of an overdose of drugs can substitute for these efforts is an affront to patients, caregivers, and the ideals of medicine."
 

 

Physician-assisted suicide is suicide…and suicide is always a tragedy. We are called to comfort the sick not to help them end their lives!

 

On Election Day in November, 2012, the people of Massachusetts will likely be asked to accept or reject the so-called "Death with Dignity" Act. If passed, it will allow an adult resident of Massachusetts, deemed to have the capacity to make health care decisions, and determined by two physicians to have a disease that will likely result in death within six months, to request and receive a prescription for a lethal drug that he or she may self-administer.

I love the change of seasons – each has its own special quality. Summer helps us think of vacations, weekends at the shore, the Cape or the mountains, taking time out for family and friends. For us New Englanders, Fall ushers forth a marvelous pageantry of color, splashed across our backyards, and surrounding hills. Winter brings bright snow – its sports and spontaneous childlike antics.

 

But Spring has a magic all its own. It’s traditionally seen as a time for love. Clinically speaking, as Helen Fisher, a neurologist and noted author from Rutgers University states: “…there's so much novelty in the spring. …There is so much more color, new smells, people take their clothes off and you can see more of them. And so there is a lot of new stimuli that trigger the brain and drive up dopamine, and make you more susceptible to love.”

Most people fear the process of dying, which involves radical dependency, a sense of powerlessness, and sometimes significant pain as well. Pain management is a serious, if not central obligation for health care professionals and for all who care for the dying. Although we may never choose directly to cause death by using high doses of pain medication, such medicines may be given to dying persons, even if the successively higher doses required for effective pain remediation may indirectly end up shortening their life. Good hospice or palliative care diligently seeks to provide effective, but not excessive, pain medication.

 

Some individuals, however, when faced with the prospect of pain and disease at the end of life, even while in possession of their faculties, will pursue active euthanasia rather than hospice or palliative care. During the summer of 2009, Sir Edward Downes, regarded as the pre-eminent British conductor of Verdi, and his wife, Joan, made the decision to travel to the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Zurich to end their lives. Joan had been diagnosed with terminal cancer; Sir Edward, age 85, had no terminal condition, but found himself dealing with failing eyesight and increasing deafness. At the Dignitas clinic they were able to lie down on a bed in an industrial park building and drink a lethal dose of barbiturates. Switzerland permits foreigners to come and kill themselves, placing few restrictions on the process. Doctors stand ready to provide a veterinary drug for patients, so that several minutes after drinking a glass of water laced with sodium pentobarbital, they become unconscious, with death following in less than an hour.

Abour one million people gathered for the Mass of Beatification

The beatification ceremony of Pope John Paul II was held over a year ago on May 1, 2011, and was presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.  A vigil in preparation for the celebration was held the night before in the Circus Maximus. The casket in which he was interred was exhumed and placed before Saint Peter's tomb on 29 April 2011. It was placed in front of the main altar for public veneration during the ceremony. 

 

After the ceremony, the casket was reinterred in the Chapel of St Sebastian. A vial containing the late Pope's blood, taken during the final days of his life, was displayed as a relic for veneration. The reliquary in which the vial was kept during the ceremony was carried by Sister Marie and Sister Tobiann (who nursed the Pope during his illness).

 

A total of 87 international delegations attended the ceremony, including 22 world leaders. Amid controversy, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe also attended the ceremony despite a European Union-wide travel ban imposed on him. He was able to travel freely into the Vatican via Rome due to a treaty that allows individuals wanting to travel to the Vatican to pass through Italy. His travel ban was waived by the EU.

President Abraham Lincoln taking the oath after giving his second inaugural speech

With the July 4th weekend fast approaching, I invite us to ponder the words of President Abraham Lincoln, writing after the Civil War in his Second Inaugural Address, describing his frustration at seeing divisions among rival camps of our fellow countrymen: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.”

 

In the now-famous incident in March of 1991, recently deceased Rodney King was the victim in an excessive force case committed by Los Angeles police officers. On May 1, 1992, the third day of the Los Angeles riots, he appeared in public before television news cameras to appeal for calm, asking: “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? …I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out...”

 

In our present day and age, we people of the earth are certainly no better than those who have come before us. As individuals, we sometimes struggle to live with our family members, our next door neighbors, our friends, our co-workers. As a nation we at times have trouble working with other nations, with Canada and Mexico, with European and Middle East Nations, with Russia, North Korea and many more. We are having trouble “just getting along.”

WASHINGTON — Standing in stark contrast to partisan budget proposals that seek first to address a bottom line instead of the nation's needs and priorities, some of America's top religious officials today unveiled for congressional consideration a "Faithful Budget" proposal.

 

The Priorities for a Faithful Budget is a set of comprehensive and compassionate budget principles that will protect the common good, value each individual and help lift the burden on the poor. The Faithful Budget can be read in its entirety. 

The Faithful Budget lays out ideas for restoring economic opportunity, ensuring adequate resources for the country's fiscal needs, fostering true security, reducing poverty and hardship, taking responsibility for future generations, caring for the environment, improving access to health care and recognizing the robust role of government in combating poverty.

 

"Drafted by Jews, Christians, Muslims and other faith leaders, the Faithful Budget embraces our role as a united nation to take care of the most vulnerable among us, while making balanced investments in our future," said the Rev. Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). "By following our sacred imperative to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves,’ we not only can pass a budget that makes sense, but pass a budget that begins to create a more just society and a healthier world."

 

Included in the Faithful Budget Preamble, which was endorsed by 37 religious denominations and organizations, is a call to Congress and the President to enact a budget that "enhances the well-being of all Americans and to make a good faith increase in funding for the impoverished and the vulnerable here and abroad in fiscal year 2013."

 

"For too long, our nation’s political leaders have fallen into a trap of starting with an arbitrary top-line budget number and then working within its parameters to fund the programs on which we all rely. Rather than follow Washington’s example, the Faithful Budget focuses on our national needs and priorities," said Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.