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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, January 6,1977
Georgia ERA Vote
The Equal Rights Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution will come before the
Georgia Legislature shortly, perhaps as
early as next week.
Supporters of the Amendment say
that it is needed to insure equal
rights.for all in our nation. Opponents
say they are fearful of parts of the
amendment and of future court
interpretation.
Opinion of Catholics is divided on the
issue. Delegates to the Bicentennial “Call
To Action” Conference held in Detroit,
last October, adopted a resolution calling
for passage of the Equal Rights
Amendment. The National Council of
Catholic Women are in opposition to the
Amendment and have declared this
opposition at their last two conventions.
The issue is an extremely important
one. We call the forthcoming vote on
ERA to our readers attention so they
may participate in the decision making
process.
This they can do by contacting their
State legislators and letting them know
their feelings.
Why Rejoice?
Rev. Joseph Dean
If you take the time, you could list more
than fifty million reasons why you can rejoice
right now, at this season especially, and at any
time of the year.
Here are a few of my reasons: No living
creature can laugh except man. Trees may bleed
when they are wounded, and beasts in the field
will cry in pain and hunger, but I have the gift
of laughter and it is mine to use whenever I
choose. I smile and my digestion improves. I
chuckle and burdens are lightened. I laugh and
my life is lengthened, for this is the secret of a
long life and now it is mine. So I can laugh at
the world and all its foibles. And I will laugh at
myself, for I am the most comical when I take
myself too seriously.
Will not my worry for this day seem foolish
ten years from now? I can even laugh at men,
and deeds, that offend me enough to bring
forth tears and anguish. I can remember four
words transmitted from wise men through the
centuries. Whenever good humor threatens to
leave me, I can remember the four words, “This
too shall pass!”
Yes, I will laugh at the world. I can p‘aint this
day, not with the blues, but with laughter. I
will frame this night in song. I will not labor o
be happy, but I will remain too busy to be sad.
I will enjoy today’s happiness today. It is not
grain to be stored in a box, not wine to be kept
in a jar. It must be reaped and used on the same
day and this I will do.
With my laughter all things will be reduced
to their proper size. I will laugh at my failures
and they will vanish into the clouds of new
dreams. I will laugh at my successes and they
will shrink to their true value. I will laugh at
evil and it will die untasted, failing at poisoning
me. I will laugh at goodness and it will thrive
and abound. Each day will be triumphant when
my smiles bring forth smiles from others, even
those who may not like me so much, and for
good reason at times.
Yes, I will laugh at the world. Never will I
allow myself to become so important, so wise,
so dignified, so powerful that I forget how to
laugh at myself. In this matter I will always
remain as a child, for only as a child do I have
the ability to look up to others. So long as I can
look up to another I will never grow too long
for my cot. I will laugh at the world and as long
as I can laugh, never will I be poor. This then is
one of God’s greatest gifts and I will waste it no
more. With laughter and happiness I can enjoy
the fruits of my labor. I can laugh and rejoice
that my best friend is the living God, my
Savior, that He loves me and seeks me and
grants me the grace to accept and love Him in
return.
Last Year’s Losses
Rev. James Wilmes
One of life’s bitterest pills is to swallow our
losses and make adjustments to the new
situation. Such an experience strikes at the very
roots of life, whether the deprivation is of
material goods, or the intangibles of youth,
health, love.
To make the best of such situations is one of
the real tests of character. How can one pass it?
One helpful thought is that we are not the
first to go through such a shattering experience.
Others have suffered similar or greater losses
and managed to rise above them. Another
thought is that life offers compensations for
loss if we will have it so. Turned back upon our
own resourcefulness, we discover values we
never noticed before: “make music out of life’s
remainders!”
One' thing life demands is constant
adjustment to every new situation, no matter
how welcome. There’s no use in crying baby;
the world is too much preoccupied with its own
concerns to listen. Moreover, self-pity is a
cowardly escape from reality and madness lies
at the end of that road.
“So, take the matter as you find it,” as
Charlotte Bronte once advised, “and ask no
questions. You expected bread and were given a
stone. Break your teeth upon it, never doubting
the stone will digest.” Or as Francis De Sales
encourages those who have faith: “The same
everlasting Father who cares for you today, will
care for you tomorrow and everyday, -- either
He will shield you from suffering, or He will
give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at
peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts
and imaginations.”
There is your strategy for the year ahead!
RESOLUTIONS: Refuse to dwell on “what
might have been.” Immediately think about
new goals and wise decisions by giving a
nerve-racked body an abundance of sleep; then
finding a wise counsellor who also listens well.
Inner-views from such interviews give new
hope.
SCRIPTURE: Jesus said, “How hard it is for
those with riches to enter God’s Kingdom!” His
listeners asked, “Who then can be saved?” He
replied, “Things that are impossible for men are
possible for God.” Lk. 18,24
PRAYER: Lord, I believe in the sun when it
is not shining; I believe in love when I don’t feel
it; and I believe in You even when you are
silent.
The Southern Cross
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OUR PARISH
“I knew Harriet wouldn’t be able to cope with the
Twenty-Third Psalm.”
Called
By
Name
Georgia Carolina Ministry
Rev. Robert Mattingly
Vocation Director
Diocese of Savannah
Samuel — A Call To Listen
There is an old proverb: “Tell me what you
read, and I’ll tell you what you are.” In
spiritual life, wisdom says: “One’s emphases on
listening can determine his vocation.”
In the Old Testament, Samuel is pictured as a
sensitive man who apparently had learned from
his early years to be aware of God’s presence.
Just as Jesus grew in wisdom before God and
man, Samuel is described as “growing in stature
and in favour both with Yahweh and with
men,” (1 Samuel 2:25). Samuel is pictured as
ministering to God in a period of time when it
was rare for God to speak to men; visions were
uncommon. At the encouragement of a
spiritual man, Samuel disposed himself to
hearing God speak. Thus he said, “Your servant
is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:9) By being disposed
to God’s voice, Samuel could hear God speak.
He created the sacred atmosphere needed for
himself to hear God. Therefore, Samuel lived a
life of proclaiming God’s word as scripture
says: “Samuel grew up and Yahweh was with
him and let no word of his fall to the ground.”
(1 Samuel 4:19)
“Married By” Whom?
Joseph Breig
Maybe my last words on my deathbed will
be, “I tell you, and tell you, and tell you, that a
man and a woman marry each other, and are
not married by any priest or other clergyman --
and not even by a bishop or a cardinal or a
pope.”
The only possible sense in which we could
say that a bride and bridegroom “are married
by” someone is in the sense that they are
married by God their Creator and Redeemer.
But even that sort of statement falls short of
expressing the reality about marriage.
This particular outburst of mine is triggered
by a question and answer which I have just seen
in a “Question Box” column in a Catholic
newspaper.
The question was, “Can Catholics be married
by a Protestant minister?”
The answer was that as a result of the Second
Vatican Council, “the Roman Catholic Church
is more aware of the deep faith of its Protestant
brethren, and the same is true in the
understanding of Roman Catholics by
Protestants.”
Cannot we somehow penetrate into the
minds of everyone the point that a marriage is
made by the couple, and by no one else; that
the priest or minister or other authority is
merely a witness for the Church and/or the
state (the human community, which has an
immense stake in stable marriages, families and
homes)?
This being so, then emphatically it is the
responsibility of the husband and wife not only
to make the marriage - to confer the state and
the sacrament of marriage upon each other -
but also to make it successful.
It is their doing. It is not the doing of any
priest or bishop or pope. It is the doing of the
man and the woman under God - and the
marriage is ratified by God if the man and
woman truly confer it upon each other without
any dishonesty or lying in their, commitment.
A marriage is the doing of a man and a
woman, and of no one else - and it is their
grave responsibility to see to it that they enter
into it with honesty, and that they work at
making a success of it.
Have we got that straight, now?
Today we too like Samuel must be listeners.
How can we respond to God’s voice unless we
dispose ourselves to hear his voice.
It is interesting to note the circumstances of
Our Lord’s transfiguration. When Peter, James,
and John were with Jesus a cloud came
covering them in shadow. “And there came a
voice from the cloud,” “This is my Son, the
beloved. LISTEN to him.” To see the
transfigured Jesus in this life we too must be
caught up in “the cloud of the unknowing” and
simply listen to the Father reveal Him to us.
In the area of Vocation discernment, one
must be a listener. Today the youth of America
is distracted by so many influences which make
discernment very difficult. Too often the
cultural setting (music, magazines, movies and
television) has such an influence on the
individual that a period of quietude during
which both God’s presence can be experienced
and discernment flow is almost impossible. God
is there, but the individual is too distracted to
see or to hear Him.
Today we live in a time when vocations to
the priesthood and religious life are at a critical
stage. The call is being given, but so many
cannot hear their call.
What can we do to help? I believe personally
that we need to teach one another how to pray.
Prayer demands both periods of aloneness and
periods of simply listening. Samuel heard his
call when he was disposed to hearing God’s
voice. So too today we will only be able to hear
God’s call and respond to it to the degree that
we dispose ourselves to listening to God’s voice
in quietude. It is the eternal problem of love.
Love cannot tell its truths, cannot give its gifts,
to those who are incapable of hearing and
receiving. The world needs men and women
who refuse to let the activities of earth dull
them to the realities of heaven.
What One Person Can Do
Rev. Richard Armstrong
Which has nothing to do with the question
under discussion - not if we look at the
remainder of the answer, which informs us that
“if there are sufficient reasons on the part of
the Protestant party, the Roman Catholic can
apply to the bishop to receive a dispensation
from the obligation to be married by a priest.”
No, the Roman Catholic cannot do anything
of the kind. Nobody can receive a dispensation
“from the obligation to be married by a priest,”
because there is no such obligation. In fact, it is
impossible for a couple to be married by a
priest... or, as I have said, by any other
clergyman or any human person or authority
whatever or whoever.
Apparently it is impossible to get priests and
people to face this all-important reality. But I
am going to go on trying. If necessary I will go
to my grave shouting, or muttering, “I tell you
and tell you and tell you that nobody can
marry the bride but the bridegroom, and
nobody but the bride can marry the
bridegroom. They are married by each other.”
Cannot we somehow get into the heads of
everybody concerned the vital point that the
sacrament of marriage is conferred upon the
man by the woman, and by the woman upon
the man?
Can’t we get priests and people to start
facing, and emphasizing, the truth that marriage
is the only, ONLY sacrament which requires
two for its administration - which is
administered by the bride to the bridegroom,
and by the bridegroom to the bride?
BOB MULLINS, FIREMAN
It never was enough for Bob Mullins to spend
all his working hours fighting fires with Engine
298 in Jamaica, New York. The way Officer
Mullins sees it, that leaves a dozen or so hours a
day to help people who need him.
Mr. Mullins is probably one of the city’s
busiest, and most loved, off-duty firemen. At
least once weekly, he drives to Brooklyn’s
Angel Guardian Home to offer his services,
driving children to doctors or hospitals, meeting
them at bus stations. And once a week he is a
substitute teacher in junior and senior high
schools, teaching science and social sciences.
He and his wife, Veronica, wanted children
but couldn’t have any. So they adopted a boy
and a girl, Michael and Kathleen, when they
were four months old. But the Mullinses didn’t
stop there. There were always other children
needing their love. Fireman Mullins found a
family of 11 children in a tenement next to his
firehouse, ragged and hungry. He gave them and
their mother food from the firehouse kitchen,
and Veronica sent clothes.
Then there were the children of firemen
killed in the line of duty. He started a
scholarship fund for them.
When the Mullinses are asked what makes
them do the things they do for others, they say,
“We’re fortunate. A lot of others aren’t.”
It is easy to dismiss the problems of crowded
urban areas as “social ills,” just as it is easy to
curse the darkness. But it is the patient,
day-to-day efforts of people like Bob Mullins
that light candles of hope in the lives of those
around them.
For a free copy of the Christopher News
Notes, “Light One Candle,” send a stamped,
self-addressed envelope to The Christophers, 12
E. 48th St., New York, N. Y. 10017.