Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, November 22,1973
— in— '
**fss
The Southern Cross
Business Office 22S Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Raymond W. Lessard, D.O., President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Eo*tor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Send Change of Address to P.O. Box 10027, Savannah, Ga. 31402
Published weekly except the second and last weeks
in June, July and August and the last week in December.
At 601 E. Sixth St., Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Subscription Price $2.76 per year by Assement Parishes Diocese of Savannah Others $5 Per Year
Thanks he to God
“I would love to be ordained but
what would become of George?”
Given the Watergate disclosures, the
lingering and people-dividing wounds of
the Vietnam War, the widening fuel crisis
and growing apprehensions over a
possible economic recession, many
Americans find it difficult to celebrate
our national Thanksgiving holiday this
year with the gusto of bygone times.
Indeed, in some quarters it has
become fashionable for smug and
selfrighteous writers and lecturers to
declare America the most God-forsaken
nation in the world and her claim to the
status of a God-fearing country a hollow
mockery.
The first thing we thank God for this
year is that there are not too many
people that cynical and myopic.
We believe that this country is very
God-blessed and that her people, by and
large, are among the most truly religious
in the world -- people who are aware that
the bounties of nature they enjoy are
from God, and people who are willing to
share those bounties with peoples who
have not been so richly blessed.
That . willingness manifests itself
unfailingly when real and pressing needs
are made known to the American
people. No nation in history has poured
out so much of its treasure to secure the
lives, rights and possessions of people
thousands of miles from its own shores.
Admittedly, we could do more to cure
the root causes of poverty and privation
around the world, but root causes do not
present nearly so high a profile as resil
and present needs. And we are convinced
that when the reasons behind the
miseries of so many millions in the world
are made as evident as the calamaties
which attend them, such as hunger,
disease, natural catastrophies, war and
civil strife, the spirit of generosity which
has always characterized the people of
the United States will assert itself to find
the answers to long range needs.
To make these long range needs
evident enough to galvanize the spirit of
those who can answer them may be a big
order, but unless it is done, the needs
will never be met. We can do with a lot
less scolding and a lot more cold, hard
facts, and a much more intelligent use of
tl\e communications hardware at hand to
present those facts and to make them
believable.
In the meantime, on this Thanksgiving
Day, we intend to thank the Lord
fervently for everything good in our life
- Faith, freedom, family, relatives,
friends, health, food, shelter, work and
play, and the always inspiring beauties of
nature. And we’ll ask Him, also
fervently, to help us find the way to
extend all these blessings to all His
people, everywhere.
What’s There To Be
Thankful For This Year?
Mary Carson
The newspapers are full of depressing stories.
Do you ever wonder if there is anything good
left in the world? There’s dissent in the Church.
There’s corruption in the government. Our
environment is deteriorating. Education has
become undisciplined. Family life is falling
apart.
But as discouraging as this seems, there is
another side to it that is worth considering.
There IS dissent in the Church. But if the
Church is an instrument to lead us to God, then
questioning how it works, what more it can
accomplish, if we’re doing things the best way,
can only be a sign of strength. For people to
question, they must care. And as long as the
intent is not to destroy, but to improve, it is a
sign of vitality in the Church.
Let’s thank God that there is life in our
Church.
Our government IS experiencing scandal.
This really isn’t something new; it’s been going
on through history. The solution in the past
was either bloody civil revolution or an
acceptance that corruption was just a part of
politics.
Let’s thank God that we’ve reached a point
that we can demand change in our government
without bloodshed.
Certainly our environment HAS problems.
There’s social injustice, poverty, and crime;
energy shortages, pollution, labor
problems . . .and endlessly rising prices.
But there are also millions of people working
to solve these problems, millions concerned not
just for the moment’s immediate gain, but for
long-term solutions to benefit future
generations as well as our own.
Let’s thank God that so many are helping
their brothers as well as themselves.
There most assuredly ARE some students
and teachers who are frustrating the process of
education. But there are many more students
getting, and using, a better education than has
ever before been available.
Let’s thank God that our schools teach such
“radical” ideas as improving our environment,
cleansing abuse of power from our government,
and expecting our Church to concern itself
realistically with the daily problems of the
people.
There ARE frequently stories about
problems in the home. But what of all the other
families who are trying strenuously to live good
lives?
There are parents conscientiously working to
fulfill all the responsibilities of their marriages,
and children reciprocating by absorbing the
very best of the training they receive at home
and incorporating it into their schooling, aiming
at making the next generation one step better.
Let’s thank God that we have so many good
homes.
Much can be accomplished by seeing what’s
wrong with our world. For if we don’t know
the problems, how can we find solutions?
But once we’ve seen a problem, we have
three choices. We can ignore it. We can
complain about it. Or we can use it as an
opportunity to better our world.
Let’s thank God that there are problems.
They afford us the opportunity to improve
ourselves, help others, and eventually reach
Heaven.
Let’s try to live our lives in such a way that
some day when we must give an accounting of
what we did with the little piece of this world
that was entrusted to us, we can say we made it
just a bit better .. .we helped solve some of the
problems.
Listen My Children . . .
Reverend John Reedy C.S.C.
“Gather ’round, my children, and I’ll tell you
what the future holds in store for our
people . . .”
Across the country, there’s a sudden glow of
relevance shining above those of us over 40, the
people whose experience had been written off,
in recent years, as obsolete.
It now happens that the fierce young
braves must turn to the elders of the tribe to
ask, “But, grandfather, what means this word,
‘ration’? How can it be that there are shortages
in the land?”
And we, the ancient ones, brush the cobwebs
from our memories (which secretly we
ourselves don’t completely trust) and try to
explain about the days when, in addition to
money, you also needed stamps for things like
meat and shoes and tires and gasoline . . .the
days when the national purpose was propped
up by millions of little people bringing back
cans of smelly grease to grocery stores, when
we knew that all those victory ships and
bombers were built from the tin cans we
opened on both ends, stomped flat and
returned to the war effort.
All of this must be totally bewildering to
the children of the affluent society.
- those children who were so glutted with
“the things” supplied as expressions of their
parents’ love that the young finally sickened of
them and revolted against the whole set of
values symbolized by credit cards, private
swimming pools and the fashions of the
country club.
I’m sure there were dozens of sociologists
who turned immediately from our leader’s
thrilling announcement that the thermostat in
the oval office would be turned down (not a
“We shall fight them on the beaches...”
speech, but how many Churchills can you have
in a century?) The scholars eyes must have
sparkled as they fondled their computers and
started figuring out ways of analyzing the
impact of privation on a generation which had
never before experienced it.
It is a fascinating situation. Will the young
people who so casually rejected the material
symbols of their suburban homes - knowing, of
course, that those homes, unemployment
checks and food stamps remained as cushions
against ultimate insecurity - suddenly turn into
wheelers and dealers, finding ways to hustle
gasoline for their live-in vans and easy-rider
motorcycles .. .or will their indifference to
material possessions prove to be a better
conditioning for privation than were all those
stiff-upper-lip virtues of the Horatio Alger
heroes?
And what of ourselves - those of us who
proclaim the wisdom won from our experience
of trying times -- shall we find a residue of
moral toughness and flexibility under the
flabbiness of middle-age inertia and high
expectations?
Or shall we find that the kids were right all
along - that our preaching was only a
hypocritical nostalgia which has no real
significance in our present values? Shall we find
that, despite our own youthful experience,
restrictions and red tape cause us to whine and
squirm and cheat far more than do the children
who rejected the significance of our
experience?
In all this, I’m assuming that the energy
crunch is only the first, most obvious sign that
the bankroll of this profligate society is finally
running dry. All of those angry Arabs who run
the world’s filling stations are only the symbol,
not the real cause of the change we are
encountering.
Personally, I tend to be optimistic about the
long-range effect of this change. In spite of
many ugly exceptions, it seems to me that our
experience of shared hardship tends to bring
out the best in our people, perhaps in all
people.
Such hardships lead us to reconsider our
values, to judge which things are most
important when we can’t have everything ... to
become more aware of our
neighbor’s needs and strengths, a little less
preoccupied with ourselves . . .to develop a few
fundamental ethical norms of social
respectability, norms which outweigh the
absolute right of everyone to do his own thing.
There’s just one thing that bothers me,
though. I wish I could get rid of that itchy
temptation crawling around the back of my
mind, “Which service station manager, of those
I know, will be willing to help me out when I’m
in a real squeeze?”
Prophesies In Our Time
Rev. Joseph Dean
These two prophecies are from the
international conference of the Catholic
renewal at Notre Dame this past June. They are
printed for your prayerful consideration,
consideration of the spirit of the Lord Jesus:
Listen to me, EACH ONE OF YOU: Look
not so much to what I will do, but look at me.
Each one of you, set your heart on me. I want
your heart, I want you. Look not to the right
nor to the left, but keep your eyes fixed on me.
Please make me your treasure. Set your heart
on me, make me your treasure. Make me the
desire of your heart, and you will be given the
desire of your heart.
Oh my beloved children, if you knew the
love that I am pouring forth in the deepest part
of your being, if you but understood the
gentleness of my love, the tenderness of the
Shepherd’s heart. Would you not open up to
me this night to receive the love that I freely
give to you? For in this very hour I am among
you to love you with a love that shall consume
you. This love is everlasting: It doesn’t take
account of the past, but of the present
moment. Here in your presence I dwell, to
receive you, to renew you in the deepest part of
your being.
Turn your hearts to me now, that I might
begin in you the bearing forth of fruit of such
sweetness and such magnitude and variety that
my Church shall proclaim, from high and from
low, the renewing work of the Holy Spirit
among you. For you, my people, have been
called forth this night into a great work of
renewal. Give me your heart, for there it shall
begin, and there it shall end, in the glory that
my Father has placed within you.
A Formula
For Peace
Joe Brieg
?SS8?SSS
A just and durable peace in the Middle East
is of enormous importance not only to the
Arab peoples and the Israelis, but to all the
world. Indeed, it is more than important; it is
essential.
As long as there is no such peace - as long as
war and the threat of war persist, and
armaments multiply - there is constant deadly
danger of a miscalculation which could plunge
America and the Soviet Union into direct
combat, with frightful consequences for the
whole family of mankind.
We should all be praying fervently, therefore,
for a true Mideast peace.
Digging up old grievances, on one side or the
other, is worse than useless; it merely aggravates
the situation. What we need is a realistic facing,
with good will, of present realities.
The first requisite for the good peace which
we desperately need is recognition, by the Arab
nations, of Israel’s right to exist.
Need it be said that this is the first requisite
for peace anywhere, at any time? There can
never be peace between two persons, or two
families, or two communities, or two countries,
if one is determined upon the destruction of
the other.
This is one of the realities which our
bleeding-heart “peace” demonstrators seem
incapable of grasping. They delude themselves
that an implacable foe can be deterred, by soft
pious words, from aggression. That is why they
do not understand the role of the soldier and
the policeman. And that is why they have no
real permanent influence; because they are
unrealists.
President Nixon and Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger are realists; and we must pray
that their realism will succeed in bringing peace
to the Middle East. They will take a giant step
in that direction if they can persuade the Arab
nations to drop their vendetta aginst Israel and
to sit down to negotiate a realistic peace.
Unless this is done, the Mideast will become,
more and more, a cancer at the vitals of the
world community.
The second essential for a true Middle East
peace is a permanent solution of the problem of
the Palestine refugees.
For a quarter of a century, aid has been
poured into the refugee situation by the United
Nations Refugee and Works Agency and by
such non-government bodies as the Catholic
Near East Welfare Association and the
Pontifical Mission for Palestine.
But those measures, necessary and laudable
though they are, have been stopgaps. What is
needed is a cooperative operation by the world
community to resettle the refugees and make
them self-supporting.
A third requisite for peace (let us say it
softly but honestly) is an end to Soviet
trouble-making in the Mideast. Such meddling
is explosively dangerous, because the
non-communist world cannot stand by and let
the Russians make a private lake out of the
Mediterranean, and a Soviet street comer out of
the crossroads of the world.
Open
Your Eyes
Rev. James Wilmes
An ancient proverb says, “In the country of
the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” This
saying has a personal meaning which is often
overlooked.
In a family which temporarily goes “blind”
towards the fine values in it, toward the virtues
of the good persons who are members, it takes
but one “sighted” member to restore harmony
and vision again. One person, that is, whose
generous perceptions and good humor can span
the gulf which may be widening between
parents and children, husband and wife.
In a neighborhood or community, the
“blind” may be at swords points as they
blunder unseeingly across each others toes. Hail
to the person with sight and insight, the
peace-maker, the restorer of perspecive and
dimensionality.
Again and again it happens, this little drama
in which even the one-eyed person saves the
situation and confers new sight on all those
involved. Nor is the magic power of insight,
tact, and good-humored reconciliation limited
to only the few. On the contrary, everyone has
this power, not in every area of human
blindness, but in his or her own personal one or
two. Open, then, your eyes: do you see clearly
in some blind situation close to your
experience? Dare to speak out and act, for in
that situation you are the one called to be king!
For example, some refuse to help a project
because they believe “if I can’t do it well, why
do it at all?” Chesterton replies, “If a job’s
worth doing well, it is worth doing poorly!”
That is, in important matters, something is
better than nothing, bread and water better
than starvation.