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PAGE 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN, JANUARY 11, 1961 the Archdiocese of Atlanta GEORGIA BULLETIN SERVING OEORGIAS 71 NORTHERN COUNTIES Official Organ of the Archdiocese of Atlanta Published Every Week at the Decatur DeKalb News PUBLISHER - Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan MANAGING EDITOR Gerard E. Sherry CONSULTING EDITOR Rev. K. Donald Kiernan Member of the Catholic Press Association and Subscriber to N.C.W.C. News Service Telephone 237-7296 2699 Peachtree N. E. P.O. Box 11667 Northside Station Atlanta 5, Ga. Second Class Re-entry Permit Pending at Decatur, Georgia U.S.A. $5.00 Canada $5.50 Foreign $6.50 (Part 2) In our first editorial we stres sed the role of the Catholic news paper in community as well as in strictly religious affairs. To many, this presents problems. By its very entry into the commu nity, the Catholic newspaper takes a stand and might thereby enter the arena of controversy. This is a perfectly valid role, as long as controversy is a side issue, and not the main role. The Catholic newspaper should not stir up things simply to be con troversial; but, if going about its legitimate role, controversy is created, then so be it! All the peace and tranquility that we yearn for will not be achieved by standing aside like a Pilate, a timid soul, afraid to stand up and be counted on the important issues of the day. IN ATTEMPTING to be a Vital Arm of Catholic opinion, the Dio cesan newspaper will tackle many issues: racial integration, anti communism, the Role of the laity, Federal Aid to Education, Parent - Teacher cooperation, public morality and the like. The Catholic Church is universal. Therefore, its news and com ment will be all-embracing. There will be some who will at tempt to pin upon us labels such as Liberal or Conservative. But we want no part of this seman tic tangle. We will , no doubt, be Liberal in some things, and Conservative *n others. In all things, we will attempt to be what we are, Catholic - - that is, members of a world wide family of brothers, united in Christ, a family which is centered on God, and yet concerned for men; a family which is in this world, and is interested in this world, but which seeks a better world in the hereafter. The trunk of our family tree is two thousand years old, but its roots go backthrough the Jewish experience to the most remote ages of men; and its boughs reach out to the most re mote future. Our job is to so portray this family that all others will see it for what it is. TAKE THE question on anti communism. Most of us have not yet matured sufficiently to under stand the tremendous spiritual as well as material evil of Marxist doctrine. Many of us are anti communist only to save outmoded political theories; only to save our material comforts -- a little suburban split level, the televi sions, the refrigerators and the family car. Many of us seem to think that these are the only im portant goals in life. We seem to ignore the growing inroads of modern secularism on our spiri tual formation. We tend to view spiritual and moral problems only in the light of how much we gain, how much material com fort we can amass. Our anti communism and our pro-Catho- licism is becoming more and more a question of material values Our times are wracked with the problem of race. We are faced with a choice of being heroically faithful to our country's most an cient and honorable ideals, or be ing locked in a trap made by money and supported by neurosis. At this time of such a frightful choice, America must get help from her Catholic people. When the injured man of color looks at us he must find a helping hand, not another book for a kick. When the warped man who hates turns to us, we must not let him find fire for his predudice, but instead the cool balm of reason and the reassuring strength of maturity. By very definition, a Catholic is an integrationist. With prudence and charity, we must make this clear to all who will listen. OUR POLICIES have no politi cal connotations whatsoever. Editorially, we are neither Re publican nor Democrat, Liberal or Conservative. We shall at tempt only to be Catholic. We do not write to please or to displease. Alas, we know we will do both as time goes on. We are consoled by the fact that no two people are alike. We must con stantly remind ourselves that we are not dealing with a mass, but with human persons. Per sons, and only persons, have our interest. When we meet someone, we should not see blue eyes, red hair, or green pants, and on this basis of color, make a judgment about him; but rather when we meet him, the person, we should make a judgment as he is, not as all red-heads are, or all blue-eyed persons are. This is the very point of the whole problem; how can we assure to every man whatever his race, color, or creed, the right to be treated as a person, and not as a lump in a mass. THIS, THEN, is a sample of what we will attempt to do edi torially through The Georgia Bul letin. If at times we hurt our readers, there is no intent. If at times we please, we shall be glad, but only in so far as we have been of service. This is a basic point. The Georgia Bulle tin is meant to be of service to its readers. It is their news paper in the Metropolitan See of Atlanta. Finally, we shall welcome ex pressions from our subscribers be they good or bad. All that we ask is that such letters be con cise and written in t a charitable manner. We, for our part, will endeavor to be worthy of your support. What We Are About »» THESE KIDS MUST BE STOPPED" LITURGICAL WEEK Feast of The Holy Family BY FR. ROBERT W. HOVDA (priest of the Pittsburgh Oratory) FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, JAN. 13. FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY. The Incarnation means that God entered into, shared, embraced the human condition, except for sin. And the human con dition involves family and social life, interdepen dence, mutual respect and reverence. The reality of the Mystical Body is divine con firmation of this fact of our experience. We are saved, we find redemption, in a community of sal vation, and our saved lives are lived in the family and in larger social units. THE MODERN Feast of the Holy Family was in vented to impress us Christians again with the necessity of making these social relations supra-human by join ing them to Christ and living - them in Christ. Perhaps an even better way of reaching this di vine truth is the more recent effort to restore to our public worship, especially the Mass, its social and communal cha racter. Those Catholics who are still unable to realize the necessity of active participation in the Mass (by cooperat ing in a common prayer and song) have forgotten that the Eucharist is the community’s worship and that it is worship of one another (recognition of worth, reverence, respect) at the same time as it is adoration of God. It is social worship, involving the participation of everyone, which fulfills the instruction of today’s First Reading: "...kindness, humility...patience... Bear with one another...forgive...have charity... peace...in one body...teach one another by psalms, hymns....” MONDAY, JAN. 14, ST. HILARY, BISHOP, DOC TOR. The Church celebrates her great teachers not because they possessed wisdom but because they shared it with their brothers, not because of their insights into the meaning of Jesus Christ but because they opened their hearts and minds to their fellow travelers (if we may allow ourselves the ex pression), their fellow pilgrims. So the familiar Gospel of salt and light (first part) and of orthodoxy (second) and the First Read ing's underscoring of the urgency of Jesus’ Mes sage—these are lessons in social responsibility. LITURGY AND LIFE "The mouth of the saint speaks wisdom” (Gradual). TUESDAY, JAN. 15, ST. PAUL, HERMIT. The Christ has come (Christmas) and has manifested himself as ”our leader” (Epiphany) that we might be elevated from doubt to certainty - , from isola tion and estrangement to community, from hope less wandering to purposeful direction. This identification of ourselves with Jesus, with the Mystery of His pilgrimage through time and the world, is the great work of the liturgy. It is beau tifully summed up in the First Reading: "...so that I man know him and the power of his resur rection and the fellowship of his sufferings: be come like to him in death, in the hope that some how I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” WEDNESDAY, JAN. 16, ST. MARCELLUS, POPE, MARTYR. Shepherd of shepherds, bishop of bishops, the pope who teaches with his blood has truly been a "pattern to the flock” (First Reading). His is indeed a graphic identification with the Master, and a far cry from the manner and trappings of the pompous, petty officialdom in terms of which so many of us still think of the Church’s ordained ministry. THURSDAY, JAN. 17, ST. ANTHONY, ABBOT. Monks may be freed (as are women Religious and priests in the West) from the responsibilities of normal family life. But their salvation is no more solitary than that of the rest of us, for their vows bring them into a different kind of family, no less social, no less demanding of self-denial, but illu strating another aspect of the Gospel message. “The Son of Man is coming” (Gospel) is a vivid expectation in the Church and must be vividly seen even in her earthly life. FRIDAY, JAN. 18, MASS AS ON SUNDAY. Lest that concern for our brothers and sisters, for our family and social nature, become an excuse for unfaithfulness to God, the Gospel teaches that we serve others best, as Jesus served us all, by absolute fidelity to the Father’s Will. Christian love is not a matter of following the other sheep, of being borne along by every breeze or fashion. SAT., JANUARY 19, ST. MARY ON SATURDAY. Mother and Bride (Gospel and Communion Hymn) are the Virgin's great titles of veneration. Her ministry is, as is the ministry of every Christian, one which points to and serves another. She seeks no spotlight, makes no claims. "Behind her the virgins shall be led to the king” (Entrance Hymn). All is for the King. Our devotion to her must not obscure this central truth. Reflections on The Epiphany BY REV. LEONARD F. X. MAYHEW "On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...” It was King Alfred, the story goes, who decreed twelve days of feasting from Christmas to the feast of the Epiphany. Worn out as our pa tience is with Yuletide tinsel and commercial caroling from Thanksgiving onward, it is small wonder that we feel no taste for twelve more days of Christmas. If Advent is every restored as a period of real longing, maybe then we will not be willing to re linquish our Christmas merriment on December 26. However, one of the costliest consequences of our present custom is that It has caused us to lose sight of the beauty of the feast of the Epiphany. EPIPHANY means a revelation, a manifestation, an enlightening. Specifically, here it stands for the gracious manifestation of himself that God offers to us, his creatures and his child ren. Nowhere has this been ac complished more profoundly and more mercifully than in the Incarnation, when God took on human flesh and human life. God Is love and light incom prehensible. When God became man, that divine light flooded over our world and that love be- came tangible and obvious. The manifestation of God to men is so extra ordinary a mystery, a work so full of mercy; it constitutes one of the elements so essential to the Incarnation, that In the first centuries the Church had no special feast in honor of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. The early Christians celebrated on January 6 the feast of the "Divine Manifestations - Epiphany.” It passed from the Eastern Churches to the West and, until recently, outranked in solem nity even the great feast of Christ’s nativity. The Epiphany is still one of the ten Holydays of Obli gation for the universal Church, although we in America do not observe it as such. THE LITURGY reaches the second high point of the Christmas cycle on the Epiphany. Christmas is an intimate feast, the family feast of all Chris tians. Epiphany, on the other hand, is the cosmic feast of the Catholic Church. Although we concen trate principally on the coming of the Magi to Beth lehem, the theme of the Epiphany liturgy Is less one particular historical event than the mystery CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 A VOCATION Religion And The Invalid BY GERARD E. SHERRY Religion in relation to the invalid is a neglect ed subject. Few of us. value or appreciate good health until we are sick. Money often alleviates the lot of those who suffer from ill health, but it cannot compensate for the loss of good health. I remember a conversation I had once with an English girl who expressed it all something like this. The talents of the sick may be used but they will not be enjoyed as the healthy can enjoy the exercise of them. The chronic invalid may be able to do his work even though it entails strain and responsibility, but the effort will be painful. Ill health forces the sufferer to forgo many things in which he delighted before he was ill and takes away some of the pleasures he would nor mally find in the pursuits which remain to him. ILL HEALTH, whether it be temporary or chronic, is a part of the suffering brought to the world by sin; it is a part of the burden under which mankind must labor. Ill health is a form of suffering that may come to Christian or to pagan, to saint and sinner alike. It is a cross which may come at any time and no one can be certain that he will escape it. Confronted with an incurable illness, the pagan may face it with stoicism or he may decide to end it all and deny suffering through suicide. These are the two extremes of pagan reaction to ill health, but the middle way is the one most often chosen. This consists of bearing ill health with resentment and complaint and so adding to the burden as well as making life harder for all who come in contact with the invalid. THE NON-CATHOLIC Christian, too, is puzzled at times by the mystery of suffering when he is called upon to endure ill health. He believes that all ill health is evil and therefore i t cannot be God’s will that he should suffer from it. Many of his teachers have told him that if he had suffi cient faith in the power of God he would be cured and so he adds guilty feelings about his lack of faith to the burden of his disease. Some modern psychological teaching suggests that all physical illness is caused by unconscious stress and desire and such teaching again adds guilt to the heavy burden of the invalid. Christian teaching on ill health is positive and satisfying, and the Catholic invalid thanks God who has not abandoned him to the negative philosophies of the non-Catholic world. The Christian invalid knows that sickness and ill health have no place in God’s original plan for the world. He knows that ill health is part of the price mankind must pay for sin. He knows, too, that God has allowed him to bear this part of the world’s cross be cause it is the way in which he can best serve, love and adore Him, make expiation for his sins and take part in Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of the world. The Christian invalid knows all this, but it is only gradually that he comes to see the wonder of his vocation and the resemblance, that it bears to the religious life. THE RELIGIOUS is a person called to serve God with his entire being. He is called to union with Jesus, union so complete that taking posses sion of his whole self, Christ transforms him into a likeness of Himself. The will of the Religious is no longer his own, for Christ has taken posses sion of it. His heart is no longer his own, for it belongs to God. It beats with the heart beats of God, and is no longer moved by the creatures. The mind of the Religious is no longer his own, for it is lifted up to heaven and its only study is to be united to God and to think as God would have it think. The body of the Religious is in no way his own, for it is part of the sacrifice he has made to God who will do with it what He will. He is under the control of his superior whose commands are the expression of God’s will for him. The Religious makes his sacrifice through the three-fold vow. The will is sacrificed by obe dience, the body follows the sacrifice of the will, and poverty and chastity by which he abandons earthly possessions and the love of creatures set him free to pour out his love to God until he be comes united with Him. Whether he be a conten- plative loving God through the worship made in prayer and austerity or a busy worker in the mission field, a hermit, or a teacher, he is a man set apart by God and bound through vows to His service. THE RELIGIOUS will love God’s children whom he serves by his prayer or by his work but he will love them in the love of God. His love for them will draw his brethren and himself to closer union with the love of God in whom alone he is united with them. r .T> We should note here that the sick take no vows. They do not become members of a Religious Or der. They must live in the world and work in the world until they are called to the community life of the hospital ward or the sick bed at home. Yet, in reality they have the life of Religion. The invalid is bound by obedience in a way that is seldom granted to the heal they layman. He must live wherever he can find conditions most suited to him and this may entail an environment which is at variance in every way with that which he would have chosen himself. The healthy may CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 REAPINGS AT RANDOM