Catholic News 2

Ex 17:8-13, II Tm 3:14--4:2, Lk 18:1-8

Once there was a little boy who wanted more than anything to play in the school band. The boy went home one day and asked his parents if they would buy him an instrument and let him play in the band. They said, "We will think about it. After all, a musical instrument costs a lot of money and we are not sure you will stick with it." A few days went by and the boy's parents hadn't said anything, so the boy decided to ask again. The boy's parents didn't say yes and they didn't say no. They said, "We are still thinking about it." On his way home the next day, the boy decided to stop by the local music store to check out the musical instruments. When he walked in the store, the first thing that caught his eye was a beautiful shiny trumpet. It wasn't new, but it was in good condition. It was just what he wanted. That night at supper the boy said to his parents, "I went by the music store today after school and they really have a nice trumpet, it is exactly what I want and it costs only $100!” The boy's father turned to his wife and said, "We had better go and take a look at that trumpet or we are not going to hear the end of this." The next day the boy went to the music store with his parents and they bought him that trumpet. The boy joined the band and he stuck with it. He played in the band all through high school and when he graduated from high school, he went on to university and studied music. After graduating from university, he became a music teacher. I wonder how differently his life might have turned out if he had asked his parents for that musical instrument one time and never mentioned it again. Perhaps God, too, wants us to show that we are really serious about what we ask of Him. He may not always answer in the way we want, but we have to trust that God loves us and knows what is best for us. John Pichappilly in The Table of the Word; quoted by Fr. Botelho).

Introduction: Today’s readings are mainly about prayer -- perseverance in prayer, constancy in prayer and trust in God as we pray. They are also about the Trustworthiness and Justice of God, a Justice that reaches out to the poor and the weak, enabling them to fight against injustice.  In the first reading, Moses, after sending Joshua to fight against Amalek, is presented as making tireless intercession with constancy for the victory of Israel’s army. Both Moses and the widow in today’s Gospel story teach us how we should pray. In the second reading, St. Paul instructs Timothy to persevere in his ministry, to proclaim the word of God with persistence in all circumstances and to use it to “correct, reprove and appeal with patience.” By introducing the parable of the unjust judge and the persistent widow in today’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes the “necessity of praying always and not losing heart.” Constancy in prayer is Faith in action. Jesus presents the widow in today’s Gospel as a model of the trust and tenacity with which his disciples are to pray. The widow was asking for something which God would certainly want for her - justice.

First reading: Exodus 18: 8-13: Clearly, Moses and Aaron understood the “necessity of praying always and not losing heart,” when Joshua was fighting the battle against the Amalekites. At that time, Israel’s resources were inadequate, and their morale was at a low ebb. The Amalekites were a group of people who stood between Israel and the land God had promised her. They had waged war on Israel, and Israel had no choice but to fight back.  Staff in hand, Moses stood on top of the mountain overlooking the battleground. He was praying fervently for Israel with raised, outstretched arms. As he grew weary, his two aides, Aaron and Hur, seated him on a rock and propped up his arms. “As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.”  When we join the army with Jesus, who prayed for us with outstretched arms on the cross, we will surely win the battle with our own Amalekites:  the temptations and evil tendencies in our lives.

Second reading: II Timothy 3:14-4:2: Paul recommends to Timothy—and to all of us -- perseverance in prayer, in the practice of the Faith and in preaching the word of God.  At the time Paul was writing, pressure groups were trying to force Timothy to water down his doctrines of Faith. Therefore, Paul advised Timothy to "preach the word, stay with the task, whether convenient or inconvenient, correcting, reproving, appealing, constantly teaching and never losing patience."  “Whether the time is favorable or unfavorable,” Paul continued, “proclaim the message” and “carry out your ministry fully.” Our own ministry is to worship the Lord, share the Gospel with others and bear witness to Christ by growing in discipleship and serving our neighbors lovingly, as Jesus did. Paul then reminded Timothy that the Holy Scriptures were meant to help him in these duties:  "All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work" (II Tim 3: 16-17).

Exegesis: The context: When Luke wrote this Gospel, the Parousia or Second Coming of Jesus had been delayed beyond what the early Church had expected.  In addition, the Church was experiencing persecution.  The persecuted early Christians were finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their Faith. Hence, today’s Gospel lesson addresses the issues of Faith in difficult times. It reassures the disciples that God is listening to their persistent prayers and will grant them justice and vindicate their Faith in the end. The Gospel today seems to be a classic example of the link between perseverance and blessing. Luke sets the story in the context of a challenge Jesus makes to his disciples to pray always and not lose heart, that is, to persevere in prayer and receive God’s blessings.

The historical background:  This parable is based on the corrupt Roman legal practices prevalent in Palestine at the time of Jesus.  We know that the judge in the parable was not a Jewish judge, because ordinary Jewish disputes were judged before the Jewish elders. In Dt 1:16-17, Moses charged the judges to render fair and honest decisions regardless of the wealth or social standing of the petitioner.   Hence, we conclude that the judge in the parable was one of the paid magistrates appointed either by Herod or by the Romans. Since such judges were avaricious, corrupt and without fear of God or the public, people called them “Dayyaneh Gezeloth”, robber judges. Although the Hebrew Scriptures demand protection for widows, orphans, and aliens (Dt 10:18-19, 24:17-21, Ex 22:22-24), the widows were not included in Hebrew laws on inheritance, and they became common symbols of the exploited and the oppressed. Prophets like Isaiah (1:23; 10:2), and Malachi (3:5), criticized the harsh treatment widows received, and throughout the Bible, widows are viewed as being under the special protection of God (Jer 49:11; Ps 68:5; Jas 1:27). The widow in Jesus’ parable was the symbol of all who were poor, defenseless, and without hope of ever obtaining justice. Her opponent was probably rich, crooked and influential.

Persistence of the widow: But the widow in Jesus’ parable had one powerful weapon—a dogged persistence which gave the judge no peace.  Her persistence was a very public event, and the entire community witnessed the widow’s repeated encounters with the judge. By publicly badgering the judge every day, the woman was trying to shame this shameless person. Finally, the unjust judge was forced to yield.  Hence, this parable is not only about the efficacy of persistent prayer, but also about the character of God, His Trustworthiness and Justice, a type of Justice that reaches out to the poor and the weak, enabling them to fight against injustice. God’s Justice goes far beyond human limits and can bring fullness of life to the poorest and the most vulnerable people in our world. Jesus ends the parable with a question:  Will his followers continue to have confidence in God’s Justice until He comes again in Final Judgment?

God is not being likened to, but contrasted with, an unjust judge. God is not compared to the unjust and insensitive judge, needing to be bribed or forced by our persistent prayers to give us what we need. Jesus is contrasting God to him.  Jesus is asking us to persevere in prayer that opens our hearts and minds to God’s always available grace. Prayer does not seek to move God’s heart for what we want.  Prayer is the opening up of our own heart and spirit to what God wants for us.  God hears the cry of the people and God answers that cry speedily, although that does not seem to fit with our actual experience of unanswered prayers, even in our dire needs. How, then, does He answer? It is by His active presence in our lives. The truth is that God is intimately present in all the turmoil and terror of life, vindicating those who cry out in Faith. God is, in fact, with us, even before the cry for help leaves our mouth. God is present, experiencing our pain and distress, and Jesus is the guarantee. In his ministry, Jesus shared this immediacy of God’s love for the deaf, blind, diseased, mentally-ill, poor, weak, despised, alone and the crippled, as well as the dead and those who mourned them.  His response to the cries of people was speedy. But Jesus himself seemed to be God-forsaken on the cross. God was in Jesus, bearing our sins and carrying our sorrows. The same God is with us, savouring the joy of our laughter and feeling the agony of pain and grief, as our Immanuel: God-with-us.

Faith is the condition of God’s vindication of us: Luke seems to be the first author of the Christian Scriptures who concludes that he and everyone in his community will die a natural death before Jesus returns in the Parousia or “second coming.” (Lk 18:1-8). That’s why, throughout his Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, he emphasizes persistence in Faith. In other words, God will take care of His obligations, and our job is to take care of our obligations. God will vindicate us, His persecuted community, provided we stay watchful and persevere in Faith and prayer. We have to trust God to bring about that which He has promised. In praying, we show our confidence that our God hears, and cares, and acts. When we pray for something as essential as “daily bread,” we are making a rather amazing statement of Faith in the Goodness of a loving and providing God. Jesus calls us, with the example of the widow and the unjust judge, to have Faith, to trust that God in his Goodness will bring about the Justice we all seek, the blessing we all require. But we should continue in prayer for these things until they happen, as an expression of our trusting Faith and dependence on God. Thus, the purpose of all our prayers is the augmentation of our trusting Faith in a loving and caring God who is our Father.

Life messages: 1) We need to combine formal prayers with action prayer: It is ideal that we start our prayers by reading from the Bible, especially the Psalms and the Gospels. Formal, memorized and liturgical prayers are also essential for the Christian prayer life. Personal prayer is of great importance in our life of prayer. Talking to God in our own words -- praising Him, thanking Him and presenting our needs before Him -- transforms our whole life into prayer. We should perfect our prayers by bringing ourselves into God’s presence during our work several times during the day and by offering all that we are, that we have and that we do to God. This will help us to bring all our successes and failures, joys and sorrows, highs and lows to God in prayer. Along with formal and memorized prayers, this type of prayer life enables us to pray always and pray with constancy and trusting perseverance.

2) We should not expect to get whatever we pray for. This parable does not suggest that God writes a blank check, guaranteeing whatever we want whenever we want it in the form we ask for.  But we conveniently forget the fact that, often, a loving father has to refuse the request of a child, because he knows that what the child asks would hurt rather than help him (e.g., a knife). God is like that. He knows what to give, when to give and how to give it. Only God sees time whole, and, therefore, only God knows what is good for us in the long run. That is why Jesus said that we must never be discouraged in prayer. Instead we have to leave the answer to God’s decision saying, as he did in Gethsemane, “Thy will be done.”

3) To make our prayers effective, we do not have to nag God. Long, meaningless prayers -- although a natural expression of our misery -- should not be used as bargaining chips with God. The parable teaches that our prayers do not change God's will. Instead, they bring our minds into line with His purposes.  Persistent prayer -- continuing communion with God -- reshapes our hearts to God's original design. Such prayer does not change God; instead, it changes us. Sincere and persistent prayer makes us ready to accept His will. In Priests for the Third Millennium, Monsignor Timothy Dolan observes that prayer must become like eating and breathing. We have to eat daily, not stock up on food on Monday, and then take off the rest of the week. Do we take ten deep breaths and say, “Good, that’s over for a while, I won’t have to breathe for a couple of hours?”

Zabysco was a Polish physician, who became a world champion wrestler. During World War I he was captured by Russian solders and sentenced to death. Thinking to have fun with him, the Russians offered to free him if he could defeat their wrestling champion. Zabysco said, "I prayed that God would give me strength and judgment. Then I dug in and wrestled and won." [Alexander Lake, Your Prayers are Always Answered (Gilbert Press, 1956).] Sometimes that is the answer to our prayers as well – to pray, to dig in and then to wrestle. And when we do wrestle in Faith, we grow.

(Source: Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil) 

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More than 40 thousand people from all over the world tuned in to watch Anglican church services in the last year as part of an initiative to open up worship via social media.

Multiple types of liturgies, from traditional carols to a service in a tent at Glastonbury Festival, were watched on mobile phones, laptops and tablets as part of a ChurchLive scheme.

A total of 53 churches representing diverse styles streamed services via Twitter app Periscope in a move to provide a first taste of worship, prayer and preaching for people unfamiliar with the Church of England.

The Rev Arun Arora, Director of Communications for the Archbishops' Council of the Church of England said: "It has been a joy to offer the best of the breadth of services offered by the Church to tens of thousands of people over the past year. We have been delighted by the way churches have embraced the opportunities offered by social media to proclaim the Gospel afresh and to reach new audiences."

More traditional worship broadcasts included a carol service at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, London, while at St George's, Leeds, a group were baptised in the middle of a more contemporary style of liturgy featuring drums and an electric guitar.

Churches taking part came from across England, as well as St Andrew's, Moscow, in the Diocese in Europe. Viewers tuned in from all over the world, including the USA, Puerto Rico, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia.

Alice Beverton Palmer from Twitter UK said: "It's been fantastic to see people from across the world watching the ChurchLive broadcasts on Periscope. The success shows how platforms like Twitter and Periscope can really bring communities together both locally and globally.”

The initiative concluded on Sunday at The Point Church in Sussex, the same place where it had begun a year earlier with a sermon on the Middle Eastern refugee crisis by the Vicar of Baghdad, Canon Andrew White.

Richard Marsden

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(Vatican Radio) In Haiti, survivors of Hurricane Matthew are mourning the victims as fears of an increase in cholera cases grow. This category four storm tore through Haiti with 230 kph winds and one meter of rain, leaving widespread devastation and severe flooding.

Hurricane Matthew is believed to have killed as many as 900 people in the Caribbean country. At least 18 people died in the United States as the hurricane made its way north.

Pope Francis on Sunday asked for prayers for the victims and said he is “confident in the sense of solidarity of the international community, of Catholic institutions and people of good will” in bringing relief.

One humanitarian organization in Haiti is Malteser International, the worldwide humanitarian relief agency of the Sovereign Order of Malta. The organization has mobilized their staff on the ground to aid the people in the affected areas.

Malteser International has been working in Haiti since the crippling earthquake in 2010. It is committed both in the initial emergency relief response and in long-term development work. They work to strengthen civil society actors, make sustainable improvements to water, sanitation, and hygiene structures; as well as to raise disaster preparedness, and improve the standard of nutrition amongst the population.

Timo Nikolaus, Program Administrator for Latin America and Caribbean of Malteser International, spoke with Vatican Radio’s Hayley Susino about how the emergency now is sanitation. 

Listen: 

Even before Hurricane Matthew struck, the conditions in Haiti were critical. Nikolaus explained conditions in Malteser International’s project area of Belle Anse: 

“It is a rural area in the south east of the country where there are mostly self sufficient small farmers dependent on good weather conditions for their agriculture. For the last two years the country was struck by a severe drought, which led to critical state of food security.” 

The people in areas such as Belle Anse, Jeremie, and Les Cayes were already vulnerable due to poor conditions. The hurricane left them with no sense of food security.

Because of severe flooding, the hygienic situation is also critical. Nikolaus said that, “there may be a new break out of diarrheal diseases, like cholera which is now a big threat to the people there.”

Malteser International has another project area in the capital city of Port au Prince. They have been in the slum of Cité Soleil for the past five years, where more than half a million people have been affected by the hurricane. 

Nikolaus explained why the area is so vulnerable; “It is due to the high population density and the geographical position, which is just next to the sea. They were affected by the heavy rains and flooding which came with Matthew. This led to destruction of infrastructure. There are sewage channels which were flooded, so all of the garbage and human feces are all over the area. There is a high risk there of infection and diarrheal diseases like cholera.”

After the devastating earthquake in 2010, Malteser International began the cleanup and reconstruction of Haiti. They have worked closely with Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR): “We work together with local civil protection and local schools to set up systems of early warnings and to help the communities be better prepared in case of an emergency.”

Nikolaus says that the focus now is quick intervention; “If we are not active now cholera can spread and cause many people to become ill. People are especially vulnerable and are lacking food.” Those affected by the hurricane are dependent on various relief organizations, so it is important to go there and distribute hygiene kits, food, and water. 

“Right now we are sending emergency coordinators to Haiti, who will be in charge of introducing measures of distribution,” said Nikolaus. He explained there was damage to infrastructures built by Malteser International, but there will be plans to rehabilitate the damages. 

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Vatican City, Oct 11, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- There once was a Pope called “The Green Pope.”

He earned the title from both the religious and the secular alike, because he wrote frequently about the environment and asked all Catholics to be better stewards of God’s creation.  

Under this pope’s pontificate, the Vatican became the world’s first sovereign state to become carbon-neutral, meaning that all of the small country’s greenhouse gas emissions are offset by renewable energies and carbon credits, thanks to extra trees and solar panels. He also made use of a more energy efficient, partially electric popemobile.

No, “The Green Pope” is not Pope Francis.

It’s his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, which may come as a surprise to those who believe Benedict’s legacy was his staunch conservatism.  

During the World Day of Peace celebration in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI chose the theme “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation.”

“We are all responsible for the protection and care of the environment,” he said.

Drawing on the wisdom from his own predecessors, including Pope John Paul II, Pope Leo XIII and Pope Paul VI, Benedict in his message implored his flock to view climate change and care for creation as an extension of the Church’s care for humanity. He also addressed the phenomenon of “environmental refugees” several years before Francis noted the environment’s contribution to the current refugee crisis.

“Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions? Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of “environmental refugees”, people who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to forsake it – and often their possessions as well – in order to face the dangers and uncertainties of forced displacement? Can we remain impassive in the face of actual and potential conflicts involving access to natural resources?” Benedict asked in his message.

“All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development,” he added.

This was not the only time Pope Benedict addressed the environment and climate change. In Sydney in 2008, he told the young people of World Youth Day in his opening remarks that care for creation and care for humanity are interconnected.

“The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection on the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable,” he said.

He even managed to work the topic into his 2007 apostolic exhortation “Sacramentum Caritatis”, on the topic of Eucharist as the source and summit of the life and mission of the Church.

In the letter, in a section entitled “The sanctification of the world and the protection of creation”, Pope Benedict XVI noted that even the liturgy reminds the faithful of the importance of God’s creation when “the priest raises to God a prayer of blessing and petition over the bread and wine, ‘fruit of the earth,’ ‘fruit of the vine’ and ‘work of human hands,’” he wrote.

“With these words, the rite not only includes in our offering to God all human efforts and activity, but also leads us to see the world as God's creation, which brings forth everything we need for our sustenance. The world is not something indifferent, raw material to be utilized simply as we see fit. Rather, it is part of God's good plan, in which all of us are called to be sons and daughters in the one Son of God, Jesus Christ,” he added.  

His writings on the topic were so prolific and profound that he is quoted numerous times in Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si”.

Like Benedict and his other papal predecessors, Pope Francis noted that an ecology of the environment was directly related to a proper human ecology.

“There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology. When the human person is considered as simply one being among others, the product of chance or physical determinism, then ‘our overall sense of responsibility wanes,’” Pope Francis wrote in “Laudato Si”, quoting Benedict XVI.

Care for creation, or for “our common home”, as Francis often calls it, will most likely continue to be one of the primary concerns of his pontificate. Besides his encyclical, Pope Francis frequently speaks about climate change and the environment in various audiences, including when he became the first pope to address the United States Congress last fall.

But the important intellectual and practical groundwork laid by his predecessors, and particularly by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, cannot be overlooked.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday greeted members of the General Assembly of the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers.

Pope Francis spoke of the charism of St. Vincent Pallotti, who founded the order in Rome in 1835, saying he was “blessed to recognize that Jesus is the Apostle of the Father - rich in mercy and full of mercy - [Christ] is the one who fulfills his mission by revealing to everyone the tender love and the infinite mercy of the Father.”

“Contemplating the life of Jesus and looking at our life as pilgrims in this world with its many challenges, we feel the necessity of a profound conversion and the urgency of reviving faith in Him,” – Pope Francis said – “This is the only way we can serve our neighbor in charity! Every day we are called to renew our trust in Christ and from his life draw inspiration to fulfill our mission because ‘Jesus is the first and greatest evangelizer. In every activity of evangelization, the primacy always belongs to God, who has called us to cooperate with him and who leads us on by the power of his Spirit.’” [Evangelii gaudium, 12).

The Holy Father urged the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers to “continue with joy and hope on your path, engaging yourselves with all your heart and all your strength, so the charism of your Founder bears abundant fruit also in our time.”

“St. Vincent Pallotti liked to repeat that the call of the apostolate is not reserved to some, but is addressed to everyone, ‘regardless of their status, their condition, their profession, their fortune, all are able to take part,’” Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis then spoke of the Union of Catholic Apostolate (UAC), which fosters apostolic works in dioceses around the world. The UAC was also founded by St. Vincent Pallotti, and is under the pastoral care of the Pallottines.

The Pope said the apostolate “offers many spaces and opens new horizons to participate in the mission of the Church,” adding he was familiar with the UAC during his time in Argentina, and has fond memories of them.

Pope Francis called on them to work with “renewed vigour to reawaken faith and rekindle charity, especially among the most vulnerable segments of the population, the materially and spiritually poor.”

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday met with Torsten Albig, the Minister President of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

“It was a very moving and powerful conversation with a very impressive personality,” Albig told German media after the meeting.

According to a statement issued by the government of Schleswig-Holstein, concern was raised about the rise of racism and xenophobia in Europe. The statement also said the two men spoke about the Pope’s encyclical Laudato si’ and environment issues.

The Minister President gave Pope Francis a faithful replica of a note from Blessed Eduard Müller, one of the “Lübeck Martyrs” – three Catholic priests and a Protestant pastor who were executed in 1943 for standing up to the Nazi regime. Müller and the two other Catholic priests were beatified in 2011.

Albig is the second Minister President from Schleswig-Holstein to meet with a Pope in the Vatican. His predecessor Peter Harry Carstensen met with Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 and 2009.

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Rome, Italy, Oct 11, 2016 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As society becomes increasingly global, the question of how to spread the Gospel, particularly in the U.S., depends more and more on how effectively we engage with the varying cultures around us  – just as the many missionaries to America did before, say Catholic leaders.

“The whole point is, as the world globalizes, the Church becomes Christ himself, and the community of the Church become a center around which the world can find a certain kind of unity. And we need unity,” Dr. Jonathan Reyes told CNA.

“I think of evangelization as (Pope) Paul VI emphasized – it's the evangelization of culture. And so you have to have sensitivity to cultures, as well as a shared sense of a common identity regionally, and in this case, in the Americas,” he said.

Reyes, Executive Director of the USCCB Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, was a presenter at the symposium, “Witnesses of Mercy in the Americas,” held in Rome Sept. 24.

The event was put on jointly by the Archdiocese of Denver and the Pontifical Council for Latin America with the purpose of highlighting the lives of four missionaries to the Americas and increasing devotion to them as examples for how to spread the faith today.

According to Reyes, many of the challenges faced by America today, such as the movement of people, economic changes, and the rise of theological secularism, are “failures of solidarity.” As we globalize, we also become less unified, he said. The Church alone holds the key to perfect human solidarity.

“I think in the United States it’s particularly important, because we have our own challenge with globalization and our own borders,” Reyes said. “But we've got to find our way to solidarity, and a way to a continental vision of evangelization as well.”

St. John Paul II's vision for solidarity in America, which he wrote about in his Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in America, is that it be brought about through integral evangelization.

This vision of evangelization starts with caring for both the material and spiritual needs of individuals, leading to conversion, followed by the forming of community, or communion, and eventually resulting in a new culture.

Reyes calls the culture we aspire to a culture with “diversifying unity.”

By the term 'diversifying unity' he's trying to draw the line between two things, he said. “One is a certain kind of unity that’s uniformity, where everyone has to be the exact same, and the other is a kind of diversity that has nothing in common.”

“The Church brings those two things together,” he said. “We're unified, but we're not uniform, we're not the exact same thing. And that's precisely the kind of sort of ebullient, joyful unity that Christ brings to the whole human race.”

One example of unity found in Christ is from the missionary Fr. Eusebio Kino, known as the “priest on horseback.” He was an Italian Jesuit who lived from 1645-1711, who during the last 24 years of his life worked with indigenous people in parts of Mexico and Arizona, establishing over 24 missions.

Fr. Kino is an example, Reyes said, for how he treated the people he encountered, who were all from completely different cultures than himself.

“He didn't just come preaching, he came and he actually brought a flourishing of everything human: social, political, the economic, all these things grow,” Reyes pointed out. “The mission of Christ is a mission of the renewal of everything human, it’s setting the world right.”

“And so, Kino, and many of his comrades, and many of the other first missionaries of the continent, they’re models of bringing the whole of reality under the Lordship of Christ, into human flourishing.”

Though America is a very different place from what it was in Fr. Kino’s time, there are many good lessons we can learn from him and from other missionaries, Archbishop Samuel Aquila of the Archdiocese of Denver told CNA.

“I think what you really need to look at are the virtues that they had, such as perseverance, their deep faith, their willingness to come out of themselves, and to really serve whoever they were called to serve at that time,” he said.

“But at the heart of all of them is humility” and dependence on God.

“That is something that each one of them did, in their own time in history, was have that very deep knowledge and awareness of God’s love for them,” Archbishop Aquila said, “of being created in his image and likeness and that it was pure gift and then living that out.”

Another witness to mercy in the U.S. is Julia Greeley, a woman born into slavery in the mid-1800s.

While enslaved, she received brutal treatment, including the destruction of her right eye when the tip of a slave master’s whip hit her while he was beating Greeley’s mother.

Freed through Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, she was brought from Missouri to Denver, CO by the wealthy family she worked for, eventually converting to Catholicism.

Throughout her life, though very poor herself, Greeley would always collect food and clothing for poor families around her, including many white families. Sensitive to their embarrassment, she would often deliver the items at night, using a red wagon.

A proper understanding of mercy, said Archbishop Aquila, is probably the greatest challenge to evangelization in the U.S.

There is either a permissiveness that says someone doesn’t have anything to repent of or change in his or her life, which condones sin and evil. “Or the other one is to be too harsh,” he said, “which is to say that you’re beyond mercy.”

“And so it causes confusion – it’s not the mercy of the Father, it’s not the mercy of Jesus.”

For Archbishop Aquila, the way to achieve unity as Christians in America is found in Christ. “That no matter where I go, I’m at home, because I know Christ is with me and I know that I’m serving Christ.”

No matter where we go, when we share the faith with someone, “whether they’re poor, whether they’re rich, whether they’re homeless, whether they’re sick, whether they’re suffering,” we should see the face of Christ in them, he said.

“And because of that, we see that we truly are brothers and sisters. And yes, our history is different, our cultures can be different, and very rich and beautiful, in many ways, in terms of the difference in the cultures, but also, there’s that unity there.”

“So,” Reyes said, “we’re bringing the idea that culture matters, cultural difference matters, cultural transformation matters, but evangelization, the centering on Christ, and the bringing together of peoples and regions with a common mission also matter.”

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Washington D.C., Oct 11, 2016 / 06:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As states around the country consider legalizing physician-assisted suicide, “death with dignity” looks markedly different for patients under the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

In her nearly 30 years with the order that cares for the “elderly poor,” Sister Constance Veit, L.S.P. says she has never seen or heard a patient asking for a lethal prescription.

“I think that’s because they are surrounded with a caring human and spiritual presence in our homes,” she told an audience at the Heritage Foundation.

Sister Constance was part of a 2015 panel in Washington, D.C., on caring respectfully for the elderly sick. The event was titled “Living Life to Its Fullest.”

End-of-life care was placed in the national spotlight the previous year, when 29 year-old Brittany Maynard publically announced her decision to take a lethal prescription rather than suffer terminal cancer.

In describing her situation, Maynard used terms that Sister Constance says she has never heard from the patients under her care, like “purposeless prolonged pain” and “prolonged involuntary suffering and shame.”

“I have never heard any of our residents use the word ‘shame’ in the context of their suffering and dying,” she said.

Maynard’s story caught the attention of many and brought about a national debate on physician-assisted suicide, which is already legal in some states. The Colorado state senate defeated an assisted suicide bill last year, but now voters this fall will be faced with a ballot measure seeking to legalize it. Washington, D.C. City Council will also consider an assisted suicide proposal in the coming days.

The Death With Dignity National Center is pushing for these laws around the country.

Critics say the laws would unfairly pressure the elderly and disabled to end their lives. They charge such laws would normalize suicide as a solution to problems and decrease respect for life in American culture.

Caring for the elderly in their final days, the Little Sisters of the Poor say that a patient and his or her loved ones can experience a tremendous amount of good in their last days together that would be lost if they decided to take their life prematurely.  

Patients of the Little Sisters are cared for and pain is relieved – all that can be done for the sick patient is attempted. The patient is accompanied around the clock.

“I would say that the room of a dying person almost becomes the spiritual center of our house at that point for those days,” Sister Constance said. “Our home is their home.”

The sisters make sure to provide a “peaceful, prayerful presence” for the dying patient “for as long as it takes until they make that passage from this life to the next.”

And it can be a rich time of healing for the family. Sister Constance recalled how the sisters kept an eight-day vigil for one dying woman. Although she was not conscious, members of her family reconciled with each other during that time, and some even came back to the faith who had fallen away.

“There’s so much to be shared, learned, and gained through these intense moments that you cheat people out of when a life is ended prematurely,” the sister reflected.

“The majority of the family members involved with the residents who pass away in our homes experience it as a moment of grace and a thing of beauty,” she added, “it’s rare that they feel it was anything other than a very powerful spiritual and human moment.”


A version of this article originally ran April 1, 2015.

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