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Faith Today • Page 3
—-
The spiritual
of American
F Joe Michael Feist
NC News Service
To American Indians, said
Father Collins Jordan, “all of
Mother Earth is considered sacred,
and whatever she produces. The
environment is sacred and there’s
a feeling that it’s better not to
disturb what God created. Rocks
and animals are sacred, so much
that Indians will even take the
name of an animal.’’
In a real sense, he added, the
spiritual heritage of Indians
reveals a sacramental vision.
Father Jordan is a descendant of
the famous Chief Red Cloud of
the Oglala Sioux and of Chief
Hollow Horn Bear of the Brule
Sioux. In June he became the first
" dive American to be ordained a
priest for the Diocese of Rapid Ci
ty, S.D.
A teacher and basketball coach
for more than 40 years, Father
Jordan, 68, ministers to the Spring
Creek and Two Strike com
munities on the Rosebud Indian
Reservation in south-central South
Dakota.
In an interview, the priest
Ascribed the spirituality of In-
utans as “almost pantheistic” —
the doctrine that all physical laws
and forces and manifestations are
God.
But in another sense, Father Jor
dan commented, the religious
beliefs of Indians are similar to
the Catholic belief in sacramentali
ty — the idea that God is present
and works on our behalf in and
rough visible, material realities.
You can’t discover all there is
to know about the church’s
sacramental vision by sitting on
the crest of a mountain some
where and allowing the goodness
'v.r God’s world to make its impact
on you. But you might find a
clue.
Does God speak back to people
through the world around them?
At the beginning of each
sacramental celebration, the world
around us includes the celebrant
d the people together, the bread
and the wine for the Eucharist or
the water for baptism, the society
beyond the church.
Where does God wait in this
world? How will our entry into
this world God created restore
and renew us?
(Gibson is editor of Faith
Today.)
heritage
Indians
“Yes, (Indians) would see that
— using sacrament as a sign of
divinity, seeing God in everything
around them,” agreed Jesuit
Father Ted Zuern. He is associate
director of the Bureau of Catholic
Indian Missions, which represents
the church in its apostolate to
American Indians.
The bureau is headquartered in
a red brick house, once owned by
philanthropist Katharine Drexel,
in downtown Washington, D.C.
Father Zuern, who has worked
for more than 30 years in social,
pastoral and educational concerns
in a number of Indian com
munities, noted that Indians never
lost the feeling of mystery and
awe associated with the universe.
Moreover, he added, they are
“a people capable of living with
that mystery. In our modern
world, there is something that
dislikes mystery. We’re always
seeking a technical answer to
everything.”
That mystery, he indicated,
translates to a reverence for all
creation. To Indians, he said,
everything is a gift that should be
used carefully.
“The way our modern world
looks at nature is as a treasure
trove that you can exploit so long
as you have the technology,”
Father Zuern said. “Indians are
closer to the seasons, the cycles of
life. With them it’s more a case of
adjusting to what the Creator has
provided.”
Father Zuern indicated that the
Caucasian culture could learn
much 4 from many aspects of In
dian culture. And he indicated
that missionaries need to know
how to build on many of these
religious values among the people.
In addition to the reverence for
all creation, he cited the impor
tance of the extended family to
Indians, the great sense of com
munity and the respect and love
for older generations.
The idea of family was, and is,
paramount, he said. In the Sioux
tribe, he said, children addressed
the brothers of their father as
father. All the sisters of the
mother were also called mother.
Therefore, he continued, you had
no first cousins, only brothers and
sisters.
Also important, he added, is the
Indians’ sense that prayer is pro
per at all times. “They had a
sense, no matter what they were
doing, of giving thanks. There was
a living with a sense of the
Creator at all times. And there
was a relationship there between
the Creator and themselves.”
(Feist is associate editor of
Faith Today.)
FOOD..
Society needs a “whole new
way of thinking and acting” that
would amount to a revolutionary
shift “in our present patterns
and habits of life,” said Father
Philip Murnion, director of the
New York-based National
Pastoral Life Center. He spoke to
a recent convention of the Na
tional Federation of Priests
Councils in San Antonio, Texas.
“There lie in the heart of the
church the capacities not only to
build the community of the
church, but also to help form the
human family,” Father Murnion
stated.
The “basic qualities of our
sacramental tradition offer a
belief and perspective, a way of
thinking and acting that are
desperately needed today,”
Father Murnion explained. Here
he pointed especially to the
value placed by the church on
the bonds among people — the
community.
It boils down to a question of
values, he indicated: How do
you evaluate the success of
things? Which matters more,
relationships among people or
the acquisition of belongings?
Father Murnion said he did not
claim that the Catholic Church
alone possesses qualities vital for
today’s society. But, he observ
ed, qualities vital for society are
instrinsic to the church.
He expressed concern about
some current values in society —
...for discussion
1. When Father Lawrence Mick
spoke with a young woman who
said she didn’t need the church
because she could find God by
taking a walk in the woods on
Sunday morning, how did he
respond?
2. Father Mick suggests that
Christianity is a “materialistic”
religion. What is the special way
he uses the term “materialistic”?
3. David Gibson thinks that
“God speaks back to people
through the world around
them.” And he suggests that God
addresses people through the
world that is around them when
the sacraments are celebrated:
the priest and the other people,
the bread and wine for the
Eucharist or the water for bap
tism, and the society beyond the
church. What does the writer
mean?
...for thought
for example, a trend toward
radical individualism or a
tendency to evaluate people and
things only in light of their
usefulness.
“What is missing” in our
society, he contended, “are the
ingredients of a moral communi
ty in terms of which we can
decide how to use our capacities
and resources for a common
good.”
Worshiping together draws
people into a community, Father
Murnion suggested, helping them
to learn that a bond connects
human beings — a bond to one
another and to God.
Participating in the sacraments
and especially the Eucharist helps
us see that “to be distinctively
Catholic is to be committed to
the intrinsic link between the in
dividual and the community,” he
added.
In the community, people
learn to live “within a structure
of faith and worship which
undergirds all action and gives
all life meaning,” Father Murnion
said.
Of course, he added, the
church community itself needs to
reflect “its sacramental condition
in the many ways that a parish
addresses the joys, problems,
challenges and crises of human
life, in the many efforts to bring
people together in fellowship
and action.”
SECOND HELPINGS
In a new encyclical, Pope
John Paul II highlights the role
of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the
ninth-century Greek brothers.
He believes strongly that they
are saints whose lives bear a
message for the modern world.
Men of Hellenic culture and
Byzantine training, they were
“the connecting links or
spiritual bridge between the
Eastern and Western tradi
tions,’’ the pope writes. The
saints’ work of evangelization
contains a model of what today
is called “inculturation, the in
carnation of the Gospel in
native cultures and also the in
troduction of these cultures in
to the life of the church.” Their
example stands us in good
stead even today, the pope
said. (The encyclical appeared
in the publication titled Origins,
NC Documentary Service,
1312 Mass. Ave. N.W.,
Washington, DC. 20005.
Single copy, $3, prepaid;
multiple-copy rates on request.)