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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, June 3, 1976
He Will Be Missed
The announcement of his retirement
was handled the way he wanted it.
national and international news we carry
is selected.
Towards the end of last Friday’s
National Catholic News Service
transmission was a story slugged “John
Ryan Ends 30-Year Career with NC
News.”
Few, if any, of our readers have heard
of John Ryan, but he IS N.C. News to
this paper. John is the man you turn to
with your problems. If he doesn’t have
the answer, he’ll get it for you. When
John Ryan says, “I’ll get back in touch,”
he means it.
John’s retirement provides an
opportunity to call attention to N.C.
News. This paper subscribes to this Daily
Service and from its dispatches the
Over the years, N.C. has become more
and more professional, expanding its
coverage of the Catholic world in
pictures as well as words. It would be
difficult to publish without it.
John has seen the operation grow in
volume and quality since he joined it in
1946. He leaves his stamp on the
organization, for many of its present
staff were hired and trained by him.
A soft-spoken man, John never sought
the limelight. He handled his job with
quiet efficiency, and it was this
efficiency which made editors bring their
problems to him.
John Ryan will be missed. His shoes
will be difficult to fill.
What One Person Can Do
Rev. Richard Armstrong
ATHA MATHIEU, PARKS
AND RECREATION COMMISSIONER
Atha Mathieu is the youngest city
commissioner in the United States, and
probably the world. At age 12, this young lady
became the parks and recreation commissioner
of San Anselmo, California -- a town of 13,000.
The job is not a play job, either. Atha was
duly elected to the City Council after applying
by letter for the position. She campaigned on a
platform of “kidpower” and won her seat over
the candidacy of a mother with four grown
children. One councilman whose deciding vote
won the post for Atha said, “Why turn down a
teenager when it’s the teenagers who have new
ideas?”
As a commissioner, Atha will attend the
monthly meetings of the City Council, where
sbe will grapple with such problems as park
budgets, deciding the location of bicycle paths,
keeping open space from being filled, and the
scope of the city’s recreation program.
“I’ll stick with it,” she has promised, assuring
the Council that her mother or dad will drive
her to the monthly meetings. “Parks are for
children and we need representation.”
The only way any of us can ever bring our
convictions to bear on events around us is to
decide, like Atha Mathieu, to participate. Little
has ever been accomplished by those who are
content to stand on the sidelines. At age 12 or
72, the decision to be involved is the first, and
most important decision of all.
For a free copy of the Christopher News
Notes, “Leadership Begins With You,” send a
stamped, self-addressed envelope to The
Christophers, 12 E. 48th St., New York, N Y
10017.
BREATH OF GOD « This theme is
illustrated in these readings for the
weekend of June 6, 1976: First -- A
strong wind and tongues of flame
accompany the descent of the Holy
Spirit. (Acts 2:1-11); Second - In one
Spirit, we are all baptized into one
body (1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13);
Gospel - The breath of God, the Holy
Spirit, is with us (John 20:19-23). (NC
Sketch courtesy the J.S. Paluch Custom
Bulletin Service)
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercom St., Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Raymond W. Lessard, D.D., President
John E. Markwalter, Editor
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
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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 $3.60 per year by Assessment Parishes Diocese of Savannah Other $6 Per Year
OUR PARISH
am
. fee
‘Cheer up! Before your know it, September will be here!’
Out, Damned
Gotten!
Joseph Breig
There are a number of bones I would like to
pick with The New York Times. Two of them
are named James Reston and Anthony Lewis ~
most especially the latter. But right now I am
happy to say that on one thing at least, the
Times and I see eye to eye.
We stand shoulder to shoulder, as I have just
learned, against the use of the misbegotten term
“gotten.”
Not long ago in this column, I called
“gotten” a linguistic barbarism. I refrained
from expressing myself more forcefully because
after all, this is a religious publication meant for
family reading.
Subsequently, a friend who keeps an eagle
eye on things literary handed me a facsimile of
a page in the New York Times Manual of Style,
1976 edition. With a red pencil, he had circled
the following sentence: “There seems to be no
good reason for using ‘gotten’.” v
The Times Manual is much too modest in its
commentary. Not only is there no good reason
for using “gotten,” there are excellent reasons
for avoiding the germ like the swine flu.
Caring Christians
Rev. Joseph Champlin
As I said, there is nothing that the word
“gotten” can do that cannot be done better,
and grammatically, by the good old English
term “got.” Why, then, do I nowadays find the
barbarism “gotten” in every newspaper,
magazine and book I peruse?
The only answer that occurs to me is that we
are afflicted with mobs of illiterates in writing
and editing positions in our publications.
Would you feel missed at the parish next
weekend if for some reason you did not come
to Sunday Mass? Do you think the priest might
notice your absence or the congregation be
aware you were not there?
reasons may have been theological. However,
my guess is that she needed and was seeking a
spiritual community of people who cared, who
would support her, who might “miss” her if she
was absent on a given Sunday.
Either our journalists are illiterate, or they
are mentally slovenly, or both. Even the sports
writers, who by and large are better writers
than most journalists, constantly quote athletes
-- baseball and football players - as saying
“gotten.” I am confident that in fact these men
use the simple, forthright and correct term
“got.”
Father Robert Hovda has been writing and
speaking on liturgical topics for many years.
But on Sundays he joins a unique worshiping
unit in suburban Washington for their weekly
Eucharist. He could respond “yes” to both
those questions.
In a recent lecture/article on “The Sunday
Eucharist and the Parish Community,” he
comments:
“So we need human congregational units,
where there is care and support, and where
encouragement can be felt... I am talking
about the kind of community in which one
feels that one is missed if one is absent from the
Sunday assembly. How many of us can say that
about any parish we know? I belong to a small
non-territorial community, so I can say it. I
know I am missed when I am not there. That’s
a very important human thing.”
Ed and Mildred Battisti with their three
daughters feel they, too, would be missed.
Newcomers to our city and parish, I stopped
one Sunday night to census the house and visit
with them in their own home setting.
Their observations about Holy Family
paralleled Father Hovda’s remarks about this
weekend community.
“We noticed a difference the first time we
went there for Sunday Mass. The people
seemed friendly and made us welcome. We
would feel missed if we did not make it.”
Three couples en route home from a
Saturday of skiing in the mountains stopped for
our 5:15 p.m. Eucharist and caught the caring
atmosphere. Two women (both over 60 and
one near 80) in the pew before them turned to
these strangers at the sign of peace and said,
“Have a safe trip home.”
A woman in her 30s, recently crushed by her
husband’s sudden heart attack death,
unfortunately never discovered that warm,
supportive atmosphere at her parish church.
I had officiated at the wedding a dozen or so
years ago. Recently, I ran into her for the first
time since their marriage. Her husband had
been dead only a few months. She informed me
then, somewhat apologetically, but firmly, “I
have left the Catholic Church. It was simply not
giving me the day to day support for living I
need.”
Her new spiritual home is a small
non-denominational congregation; her former
church was a mammoth 3,000-family parish.
I am not certain of the motives why she
abandoned the latter for the former. The
No Paper
Next Week
In keeping with the
summerschedule of The Southern
Cross, during June the paper will
not be published the weeks of June
10 and 24.
During July the paper will not be
published the weeks of July 8 and
July 29 and in August on August
12 and 26. We will return to our
weekly schedule in September.
The smaller church could offer this type of
personalized, loving attention; the larger
Catholic parish would find it surely difficult
and nearly impossible to offer that kind of
service, even though staffed by several hard
working priests and Sisters.
We usually think of the obligation to worship
each Sunday in terms of our relation^jiip to
God. Perhaps we should view it also 'in
connection with others.
Our presence at Mass can give encouragement
to those who pray with us. When people look
around and see a crowd of persons sharing,
apparently, the same faith, the same Lord, the
same Eucharist, they must experience a certain
reinforcement of their own beliefs.
Similarly, when parishioners smile at
strangers, welcome them and reach out to these
persons in their needs, the recipients should feel
they have become part of a loving, caring
community and would be missed if not present.
These points hold true for the priest as well.
During the past winter months a heavy rash of
illnesses caused many of our people to miss
Mass, occasionally for weeks at a time. We are
not always aware of the cause for such absences
and thus I found it rather disheartening to note
an unusual number of empty seats for the
liturgies.
Conversely, “a full house,” an attentive
group of believers, and a community of
Christians truly concerned about others lifts up
the celebrant’s spirits and strengthens his own
faith.
My friend handed to me, along with the fax
from the Times Manual, another from Fowler’s
“Modern Usage of the English Language.”
Fowler, perhaps in a kind of helpless despair,
does not attempt to explain the use of the
sloppy “gotten.” Fowler merely reports that
“Gotten still holds its ground in American
English. In British English it is . . . archaic and
affected.”
Give the British an A-plus in understanding
the genius of the English language, at least on
this point.
I realize that many readers probably are
shrugging and saying to themselves, “What’s
Breig fussing about? What’s the difference
whether writers write ‘gotten’ or ‘got’?”
Such readers do not understand the passion
for good English which should be one of the
attributes of every journalist who cares about
his profession. As an oldtime journalist
remarked to me more than once: “Joe, one
thing they can never deny about our generation
of newspapermen - we respected the word.”
But now we have arrived at a period in
American history in which our schools are
turning out people who say such things as
“gotten,” and “he said to Jim and I,” and “I
feel so badly about (whatever).” And these
people look at me blankly when I respond,
“You feel badly about something? Do you ever
feel goodly about something?”
Of Course You Worry!
Rev. James Wilmes
Someone has wisely written that it is natural
for a man to worry. “Worry belongs to life
because it belongs to love.” Only children feel
no responsibility and therefore, no concern.
The well-publicized cures for this
bothersome state of mind are less than candid.
Our anxieties can be controlled, cut down to
size, but never completely conquered. Nor
should they be. Suppose nobody worried! Here
are parents of a child seriously ill. What are
they supposed to feel if not anxiety as to the
outcome? They may trust that all is to be well,
but still fear for the child. For where love is,
anxiety is unavoidable.
Worry also belongs to life because it belongs
to the law of self-preservation. Here it takes the
form of those deep precautionary fears that
warn of danger. The fearless are dead and they
died early in life. So also with frustrations. To
be free of these would be to entertain no desire
beyond that which can be immediately
gratified. No normal person would call that
happiness.
To feel baffled and beaten at times is as
natural as to feel worried. What is unnatural is
to permit either of these emotions to get us
down and hold us there. Both our fears and our
frustrations play constructive roles when rightly
understood, for thereby are our wits sharpened
and all our resources summoned to take arms
against our troubles, to end them.
As for the things you cannot fight, accept
them for the time being, live with them, but do
not be crushed by them. It is not the
experience of today that drives men mad. It is
the remorse for something that happened
Yesterday and the dread of what Tomorrow
may disclose. These are God’s Days. Leave
them with Him, and with childlike Faith in His
Wisdom and Goodness, let us place our trust
and confidence in His hands, knowing He does
all things well!
RESOLUTION: Refuse to allow anxieties to
keep us from all activity and to paralyze us as
the sight of a rattlesnake can do. Instead, work
so that the pressure of busyness only allows
anxiety to rest peacefully in the back of our
minds, harmless, though bothersome maybe, as
a fly or gnat on a hot day, a conscious reminder
to pray constantly for the right solution.
SCRIPTURE: Jesus groaned in the spirit of
the grave of Lazarus and troubled himself and
wept. He prayed, “Father, I know you hear me
always and thank you for hearing me.” Jo. 11,
33-41.
PRAYER: Jesus, for tomorrow and its needs
I do not pray. Just keep, guide and love me all
through this day. Amen.