Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, March 8,1973
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Subscription Price $2.76 per year by Assement Parishes Diocese of Savannah Others $5 Per Year
What About Lent?
To many people Lent doesn’t seem
the same anymore since the U.S.
Bishops, following the instructions of
the Holy See, discontinued the
obligatory practice of fast and
abstinence on all days except Ash
Wednesday and Good Friday.
The object of lifting the sanction of
law from acts of penance was to
transform them from mere legalistic acts
to works of love, undertaken voluntarily
and generously, not perforce and
reluctantly.
So it might be well to remind
ourselves of just what the Bishops had in
mind in their Pastoral Statement on
Penance and Abstinence of Nov. 18,
1966. Here, in part, is what they
advocated as part of the Christian
practice of mortification and self-denial:
We strongly recommend participation
in daily Mass and a self-imposed
observance of fasting. In the light of
grave human needs which weigh on the
Christian conscience in all seasons, we
urge particularly during Lent, generosity
to local, national and world programs of
sharing of all things needed to translate
our duty to penance into a means of
implementing the right of the poor to
their part in our abundance.
We also recommend spiritual studies,
beginning with the Scriptures as well as
the traditional Lenten devotions
(sermons, Stations of the Cross and the
Rosary) and all the self-denial summed
up in the Christian concept of
“mortification.”
Let us witness to our love and
imitation of Christ, by special solicitude
for the sick, the poor, the
underprivileged, the imprisoned, the
bed-ridden, the discouraged, the
stranger, the lonely, and persons of other
color, nationalities or background than
our own. A catalogue of not merely
suggested but required good works under
these headings is provided by Our
Blessed Lord Himself in His description
of the Last Judgment (cf. Matt.
25:34-40). This salutary word of the
Lord is necessary for all the year, but
should be heeded with double care
during Lent.
Changing circumstances, including
economic, dietary and social elements,
have made some of our people feel that
the renunciation of the eating of meat is
not always and for everyone the most
effective means of practicing penance.
Meat was once an exceptional form of
food; now it is commonplace.
Accordingly, since the spirit of
penance primarily suggests that we
discipline ourselves in that which we
enjoy most, to many in our day
abstinence from meat no longer implies
penance, while renunciation of other
things would be more penitential.
For these and related reasons, the
Catholic Bishops of the United States,
far from downgrading the traditional
penitential observance of Friday, and
motivated precisely by the desire to give
the spirit of penance greater vitality,
especially on Fridays, the day that Jesus
died, urge our Catholic people
henceforth to be guided by the following
norms:
1. Friday itself remains a special day
of penitential observance throughout the
year, a time when those who seek
perfection will be mindful of their
personal sins and the sins of mankind
which they are called upon to help
expiate in union with Christ Crucified;
2. Friday should be in each week
something of what Lent is in the entire
year. For this reason we urge all to
prepare for that Weekly Easter that
comes with each Suriday by freely
making of every Friday a day of
self-denial and mortification in prayerful
remembrance of the passion of Jesus
Christ;
3. Among the works of voluntary
self-denial and personal penance which
we especially commend to our people
for the future observance of Friday, even
though we hereby terminate the
traditional law of abstinence as binding
under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed
means of observing Friday, we give first
place to abstinence from flesh meat. We
do so in the hope that the Catholic
community will ordinarily continue to
abstain from meat by free choice as
formerly we did in obedience to Christ’s
law.
Spread Joy During Lent
Mary Carson
My children consider me “ancient” because I
remember fasting during Lent.
Do you remember delaying breakfast, so it
wouldn’t be too long ’til lunch ... or having
lunch at eleven, because you couldn’t wait any
longer? Or did you ever skip breakfast
altogether, to save that “meal” for a bed-time
snack?
After several weeks of cheese and peanut
butter, I used to wonder if there might be an
eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor’s baloney sandwich.”
Do you remember discussions on why it was
wrong to eat a scrambled egg .. . but okay to
make an egg-nog out of it. That always raised
the question: were you obeying the letter of
the law, or the spirit of the law?
How much of the “spirit” of Lent did we
really observe? Did we really fast in
rememberance of Christ’s fast? Did we
consciously observe the Lenten regulations in
preparation for the Resurrection? Or were we
just counting the days ’til it was over?
I’m afraid that I simply went through
all-consuming thoughts about
“non-consuming.”
Today, instead of fasting, we are told to
practice charity . . .each day . . .perform some
positive act of kindness that we wouldn’t
ordinarily do .. .in imitation of Christ’s love for
us.
Looking back over the last few years, I’m
afraid I’ve missed the boat.
Once in a while I remembered; once in a
while I really felt I was fulfilling my obligation.
But most of the time, I didn’t.
So this Lent, I’m going to try something
different.
I’m sure you know some people who are
always gloomy. No matter what happens, they
see the bleak side.
They seem unable to enjoy anything. If they
eat a good meal, they worry about indigestion.
If it rains they complain about the weather,
but when the sun shines, they worry about s
drought.
But we are supposed to live in the image of
Christ and I can’t believe that’s the kind of
person He was.
Christ must have been a happy man! Gloomy
people have few friends . . .and certainly He
couldn’t have attracted crowds unless He
radiated warmth, love . . .a joy in living.
I feel that part of the message of the
Resurrection is Christ’s sharing the joy of His
love. If I can share that joy with others, then
I’m spreading Christ’s love.
Our whole personality is affected by the
general trend of our thoughts.
If I strive to think optimistic, good, positive
thoughts most of the time, it’s got to crowd out
negativism. If I fill myself with a joy in living,
it’s got to spread to those around me.
I’m not talking about an unrealistic,
Polly anna attitude. Certainly there are
problems, difficulties, even tragedies that must
be faced. But they also must be treated with
practical judgment.
And it does little good in curing those
problems to brood about them, to dwell on
them till they become an obsession.
This Lent, I’m going to try to fill my life
with Christ’s joy. I will try each day to bring a
smile to the face of some gloomy person. By
Easter, maybe I will realize the happiness of the
Resurrection.
And what have I got to lose? Even if it
doesn’t provide a spiritual renewal, it should
make life more pleasant for those around me!
OUR PARISH
Collegiality has NOTHING
to do with football!”
Jewish Diplomacy
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
Copyright 1973, Inter/Syndicate
So Paint
The
Baseboards
Joseph A, Breig
All that my wife had in mind was replacing
some worn out carpeting.
I mean that’s all she had in mind in the
beginning. But the man who came to measure
the rooms said, “Lady, you’ll want to move the
furniture out before the carpet men come.”
So my wife said all right.
The measuring man went on measuring, and
after a while he paused and said, “Of course
you’ll have to take up the old carpeting.”
My wife said of course.
After another while, the measuring man
rubbed his chin and said, “You should take up
all the quarter-rounds, too, Lady. Carpeting
looks better if it is butted right up against the
baseboards.”
My wife said okay for the third time, but her
voice was growing weaker. She was feeling a bit
stifled.
Finally the measuring man finished his
measuring. At the door on the way out he
paused and said, “By the way, Lady, you might
as well repaint all the baseboards. You won’t
want to be messing around with paint, and
maybe get some on the new carpeting.”
This time my wife was barely able to say all
right. And when she did say it, she spoke with
forked tongue. “All right” wasn’t what she was
thinking. What she was thinking wouldn’t be
printable were it not that my wife is a very
lady-like thinker.
One of the saddest episodes of the Vatican
Council was the ecclesiastical ping pong that
was played with the Declaration on Jews. While
the document that finally emerged was
certainly acceptable, the backing and filing of
the Vatican administration detracted
considerably from the declaration’s impact.
To make matters worse, every time the Curia
tried to shelve the draft declaration, the world
press began to speculate that the reason was
pressure from Arab governments.
Characteristically, the Vatican ended up by
pleasing no one. The Arabs were offended by
the statement and so, too, were the Jews by the
Byzantine process of prying it loose from papal
bureaucrats.
Incredibly enough the same process is going
on all over again with a “follow up” document
that was prepared some time ago by the
Secretariat on Church Unity. The document is
locked in a Vatican vault somewhere and will
probably never be released -- officially, that is.
The text, of course, has been leaked, as is
everything in the modern world. Thus the Jews
are offended because the document has been
suppressed and so, too, the Arabs because it
was written in the first place. Another triumph
for the Curia’s “no win” tactics!
To make amends, perhaps, Ms. Meir was
invited to a Vatican visit (and then snubbed in a
Curial statement after it, though heaven knows,
her behavior subsequent to the visit was not
exactly a model of diplomatic skill either). But
the Curia got still deeper into its swamp by
offending the Arabs by inviting La Golda, then
offending the Jews by insulting her. Once more
the worst is made of a bad situation.
What is especially depressing about the whole
thing is that the overlords of the Curia pride
themselves on their diplomatic skills -- from the
Pope on down. And frequently, especially in
their dealings with the iron curtain countries,
they have displayed very great skills indeed. But
on the subject of the Jews, Curial diplomacy
seems to be out to lunch. Small wonder that
many Jews see anti-Semitic overtones to the
seemingly endless series of faux pas.
I don’t think that the Curia is anti-Semitic --
though I do think there is an anti-Semitic
residue in the Church, just as there is a strong
anti-Catholic residue among certain Jewish
liberal intellectuals in the United States. My
guess is that we are faced rather with an
incredible ignorance of Jews and a lack of
serious concern about Jewish reactions.
Whether one prefers stupidity to bigotry may
be a matter of personal taste. The advantage of
having a smart bigot in a key place is that he
knows when to change his position - or at least
the external manifestation of it. But the stupid
never learn.
The mess in official Catholic-Jewish
relationships is all the worse because it no
longer corresponds to the way things are
between Catholics and Jews at both the
scholarly and the grass roots level. Ms. Meir’s
boorishness after her interview with the Pope is
no more typical of Jewish attitudes toward
Catholics than is the obscurantism of faceless
Curial functionaries typical of Catholic
attitudes towards Jews.
Deeply religious members of both traditions
are discovering both in conversation and in
shared action how much they have in common
with each other. Their God is the same God - a
passionately loving, unpredictable, righteous,
and generous God. Their symbol systems are
similar if to an extent that they are not the
same. Their basic moral codes are virtually the
same. Their hopefulness and their belief in a
religious history pointing toward a denoument
mark them off from every other religion the
world has known. Indeed, a visitor from
another planet might even conclude that it was
the same religion and wonder how the
separation had occurred.
Recent first-century scholarship has led some
observers to raise the question of whether the
break between church and synagogue was
necessary or intended by the religious leaders
on either side. Obviously, this is still a very
open historical and religious question; to raise it
does not mean that an answer is clear in either
way. The important point is that it has been
raised.
The Declaration on the Jews of the Vatican
Council notes that only God knows how unity
will be finally achieved among humankind.
That is the best place to leave the question. But
unity will not be promoted by locking up
documents in a safe or by temper tantrums
after unfortunate personal confrontations
between leaders who have lost their sense of
history. We all might listen more closely to the
God of history who is also a God of love.
Questions
And Answers
Monsignor John F. McDonough
QUESTION: Where in the Bible does it say that it is necessary to be holy?
Come Saturday, we started moving things.
Moving things is trouble enough; finding places
to put them is maddening. Some things we may
never find again.
The next Saturday was spent crawling
around on hands and knees and bottoms, with
hammers, tack-pullers and screw drivers, taking
up the quarter-rounds, which had been put
down in the olden days when things were put in
place to stay.
By the time the last nail had been pulled, we
had invented some highly expressive
expressions not to be found in any dictionary.
At least, I had. My wife, as I said, is a lady.
The third Saturday, we got out the paint and
brushes, and spent another day on the worm
level, painting baseboards.
Before we had finished, my wife was
beginning to doubt the desireability of being a
lady. And when we sat back to look at our
hadndiwork, suddenly we realized that you
can’t just paint baseboards and let it go at that.
You’ve got to paint all the woodwork - and the
ceilings and walls too. Curse curse curse.
Oh well, now that the painting is all done
and the carpeting is in place, we sure are
glamorous. We are also still hunting things.
x;x*:w:*:*>x-:-:wX-XwXw
Vacation
Volunteers
Rev. Joseph Dean
Every summer, more and more young people
are hitting the volunteer trail. Missionary
groups, national service programs, local
communities, are all challenging college age
persons to give a piece of themselves, their time
and energy, to worth while projects. Young
men and women have been giving up high
paying vacation jobs to seek instead a
missionary experience.
These volunteer programs last from four to
ten weeks, with emphasis on practical outcomes
right now, rather than on distant goals. The
volunteers themselves are facilitators for social
change, accepting the children and the high
school students they work with, for what they
are, here, today, not for what they can become
ten years from now.
ANSWER: The call of Jesus is a call to salvation, but also and before all a call to
holiness. “Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect.” This universal call, which
dominates all the differences of place, time, of state of life, has been going out for twenty
centuries to every man who comes into this world. Salvation and holiness, which is its
perfect fruit, will be presented to men even “to the ends of the earth,” as we sing on the
feast of the Epiphany. “To the ends of the earth!” To follow Christ is to lend an ear to
his double unique and new commandment: “You will love your Lord with all your heart,
with all your soul and with all your strength. And the second is like the first: you will
love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the full law, the new Covenant to which the Lord
asks all to subscribe. This is the perfect norm for a holy life to which Jesus demands that
all submit.
Paul spells all this out in his Epistle to the Colossians, especially the third chapter:
“Therefore, if you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ
is seated at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are
on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your
life, shall appear, then you too will appear with Him in glory . . .Put on therefore, as
God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness,
patience. Bear with one another and forgive one another, if anyone has a grievance against
any other; even as the Lord has forgiven you, so also do you forgive. But above all these
things have charity, which is the bond of perfection. And may the peace of Christ reign in
your hearts; unto that peace, indeed, you were called in one body.”
Volunteers use a cooperative approach to
meet the needs of these young people,
developing an atmosphere congenial to the
life-style of today’s youth. They work with
local leaders who in turn know the mentality of
college persons and who appreciate the
obstacles they face and the pressures they
encounter in living fully as modern Christians.
In turn, the young volunteers are developing
their own cultural and religious experiences as a
help toward their personal value system, as a
broader background for their own choice of
career in the years ahead.
More information can be provided on
individual volunteer opportunities, what to
expect, where to write, by sending an inquiry
to this newspaper or to:
Rev. Joseph Dean, Box 464 - McRae,
Georgia 31055.