Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Georgia Bulletin, April 7,1977
Strike
As we go to press, the situation of
blue collar workers in Atlanta is
shocking. They went on strike for more
money, their position hardened as
negotiations broke down. Unbelievably
they were all fired. It is hard to accept it
all happened.
This is a day and age of sophisticated
management/labor relationships.
Suspicion and caution always exists as
both sides seek a best bargain. No matter
how heated the debate, settlement is
always possible if principals are
professional and reasonable. Or if they
are wise enough to involve community
leaders.
Power hungry national union bosses
are out of step and out of line, if all they
want is control. And city management
which responds to reasonable labor
“This day thou shalt be with Me in
Paradise.” These consoling words were
whispered by Our Lord to the Repentant thief
nailed on the cross next to Him. Just imagine,
in the span of a few minutes, one can change
from this earthly scene to the celestial home of
one’s Creator.
There has been an emphasis recently in
exploring near death situations. There was a
series on Channel 2 a couple of weeks ago
which showed several people, including Andy
Johnston, one of their staff, who had
wonderful experiences of feeling out of their
bodies and having tasted the peace and joy of
what they felt was Paradise - for a few minutes
at least. All the people in the series said they
were no longer afraid of death.
Dr. Raymond Moody, the author of the
popular book, “Life After Life,” was
interviewed for a few minutes at the end of the
series. His book covers innumerable personal
accounts of people who have gone through
dramatic similar experiences. All seem to feel
God was telling them it was not time to come
to Him; they had a little more homework to do.
All felt the importance of loving and serving
others in this life.
It is an awesome thing to think about.
Death. We know its coming. But how? When?
Where? Our Good Friday /Easter Sunday
weekend is a good time to give a few thoughts
/ \
Resound
v—_— >
de Paul Youth
ATLANTA - Congratulations to the Youth
Conference of St. Vincent de Paul. “Service” is
a visible witness of a committed Christian and a
sign that a supportive Christian Faith
Community exists and that the Gospel Message
has been heard and responded to.
Credit belongs to Mrs. Dolores Waters for
establishing an environment at Holy Cross
which allowed this to happen - to Mr. Joe
Flanagan, for his willingness to open the St.
Vincent de Paul ministry to youth - to Miss
Maureen Manion and the other young adults for
their peer ministry and to the youthful
members themselves whose spiritual and social
dedication is a witness and inspiration to the
Church of Atlanta.
demands by taking livelihoods is
unworthy. Both bring shame to our
community.
The one who suffers is the worker.
More than any other party involved he
will feel the ultimate bitterness. He
needs the job, his family needs the
paycheck, his table needs the food.
While the so-called powers wrestle for
position, the worker remains the poor
pawn.
Atlanta’s only Daily should stop
fanning the flame that embitters and
community leaders should take their
place at the bargaining table, weed out
the troublemakers and get on with true
and fair negotiations.
- NCB
to that final leap into the arms of eternity. The
more our hearts are filled with love of Jesus and
centered on Him instead of vain ideals, the
greater our chances of avoiding a purifying
detainment from His sweet embrace, when we
die.
One of my friends, Marcy Heim, has been
giving some deep thoughts about the afterlife.
She came up with this poem which was read
recently at our Writers Club. The response was
very complimentary and I would like to share it
with all of you. While some poetry is so
abstract, you can’t find it, Marcy’s is right
there:
THIS THEN IS HEAVEN
Being dead would be ever so great,
But getting that way makes me hesitate.
There’s no way there except for dying,
And this seems so drastic, there’s no denying.
But once the plunge is made and you’re really
there,
I’ll just bet the feeling is great beyond
compare.
And after seeing the wonders of what you will
face,
I’m sure you’d rather be there than anyplace.
Your first thought will probably be, “I must be
dead!”
And then, in amazement, you’ll think, “What
have I said?”
But after the rality of it all sinks in,
The marvels of your journey will then begin.
Friends and relatives will lead the way,
As you start your journey that very first day.
Just being with them will be ever so nice.
Something like this is worth any price!
But they’ll take you on, all the way to your
God,
Where you’ll know in an instant as quick as a
nod,
The deepness of His caring; the warmth of His
love.
This then is heaven ... all of heaven above.
You’ll notice the cares of this world are gone;
You’ll feel the peace of a doe cuddling her
fawn.
And to top it all off, you’ll know it will last,
This perfection you feel, is never to pass.
Yes, being dead is worth dying for.
It’s worth that, and a whole lot more.
And when it’s all over, I’m sure you will say,
“Thank you dear Lord ... it was a wonderful
day.”
I spent some time last weekend reading two
conflicting writings about what happened to
the body of Jesus between the time He was
buried and the time the empty tomb was
discovered. It was an interesting contrast: a
Christian scripture scholar breaking his neck to
prove beyond a doubt that the resurrection had
to have occurred, and the other, a Jewish
scripture scholar, breaking his own neck to
deny it.
The first writing was “The Case of the
Empty Tomb,” an article by Josh McDowell
(who is a traveling evangelist and theological
seminary honor graduate). McDowell has
spoken to several million students around the
globe about Christianity during the past nine
years. In his article, he examines (as I once
heard him do in person) all the various
non-resurrection theories which could account
for the empty tomb, and explains away each of
them in a logical manner.
there is the “wrong tomb theory,” in which
the women simply went to the wrong tomb on
that first Easter morning. Clearly here, the
argument goes, the Jewish authorities could
have simply squelched the resurrection rumors
by leading the people to the correct tomb and
producing the body of Jesus. There is the
“swoon theory,” in which Jesus fainted from
physical exhaustion and loss of blood, then
recovered. This is refuted on the grounds that
such a weakened being could never have
presented the impression that he had conquered
death and risen, (let alone inspired 11 men to
lead a life of enthused preaching, danger, and
even torture for his cause).
Another theory is that of the “stolen body.”
But it couldn’t have been swiped by the
disciples. They were afraid, depressed, and in
hiding, and it seems incredulous that they could
suddenly acquire the bravery required to do
such an act. And for what purpose anyway?
Finally, it would have been contrary to the
nature of the men, who were ethical,
hardworking, upstanding, and steadfast -- not
the type to change into con men and spend the
rest of their days perpetrating a hoax. The
authorities couldn’t have taken the body either,
else they would have coughed it up to put
down the disciples who were claiming
resurrection.
So the McDowell article was convincing, as if
one were reading Sherlock Holmes or watching
Colombo. But so was the other thing I was
reading, which was “The Passover Plot.” This
book was written 12 years ago by Dr. Hugh
Schonfield, who has devoted over 40 years of
his life’s work toward discovering who Jesus
Christ really was.
His controversial book, which has been made
into a movie, pictures Jesus as no more than a
man (albeit a very special one), who came to
believe and accept that he was the Messiah. In
the “plot,” Jesus affirms his calling, and as
master of his destiny he plans and schemes and
bends events involving him to conform to
prophesies and their fulfillments.The author’s
interpretation of the whereabouts of the body
is that Jesus planned to have someone (not his
disciples) remove his body from the tomb and
take him somewhere while he recovered. This
plot was stymied when the lance pierced his
side on the cross, and he died after removal
from the tomb. Then the “resurrected Jesus”
was one of his helpers, which in Schonfield’s
view explains why no one recognized him.
So each of the writers proves his point,
though they are conflicting points! We have a
joke in engineering that goes, “If you know the
answer, you can obtain it.” (Because the final
answers are in the backs of the books in the
courses I teach, the students will often
compound error upon error until they stumble
on a number close to the one they’re seeking.)
What is the point of all this? It is simply that
after reading these very logical, convincing, but
opposing accounts of the whereabouts of
Christ’s body, I’ve realized that we can never
prove the resurrection beyond the shadow of a
doubt. Even though every thread of
Christianity hangs on its having happened,
Jesus’ resurrection requires faith. If it could be
proven as solidly as 2+2=4, it would be too
easy, and everybody would be a Christian. God
has left us room to say “Yes,” or “No,” or even
to “waffle” if we want to.
Jesus of Nazareth doesn’t respond well to
those who say, “Show me and then I’ll
believe.” What he says instead is, “Believe, and
then I’ll show you.” What Easter is is
resurrection, and what resurrection is is faith.
In 1968, Paul Spitzer, a 19-year-old college
student, started a research project that
ultimately saved the ospreys of Long Island
Sound from extinction. His goal was to find out
how DDT was causing the decline of these large
fish hawks.
“We didn’t know precisely what was
happening then,” he remembers, “whether the
poisons were affecting the parent birds or their
eggs.” So he worked out a way of determining
whether DDT was affecting the parent birds,
making them destroy or abandon their eggs, or
whether the eggs were poisoned by the
chemical and unable to produce viable chicks.
He swapped “clean eggs from Chesapeake
Bay” with the contaminated eggs on Long
Island Sound. It worked. Clean eggs hatched in
nests along the Sound. “Dirty” eggs - with thin,
weak shells - were crushed by the body weight
of their adoptive “parents” in the Chesapeake.
Called
By
Name
Georgia Carolina Ministry
By Sister Constance Fahey, SSM
Diocese of Charleston, S.C.
< ■ - >
The Easter Story
Mary wept. She saw that the grave they had
placed Him in was empty. She turned and saw a
man. She asked him, “Where have you put Him,
sir?” “Mary!” Jesus said. She looked and saw
Jesus. The disciples were meeting behind locked
doors in fear. Suddenly Jesus was standing
there among them! He greeted them. He
showed them His hands and side. They looked
and they saw Jesus. Eight days later they were
together again and Thomas was with them this
time. Jesus appeared again and said to Thomas,
“Put your hand into my side. Don’t be
unbelieving! Believe!” Thorhas looked and saw
Jesus! The disciples went out fishing. A man
stood on the shore. He asked them, “Have you
caught any fish?” They replied, “No.” Then he
told them to toss the nets over the right side of
the boat. They caught so many fish they
couldn’t draw the net in because it was ready to
break under the load. And then John said, “It is
the Lord!” They saw that He was Jesus.
The Easter story - is it a story or is it real?
Mary, Thomas, John, the disciples saw Jesus
after His resurrection. Did they see a man? Did
they see only Jesus? Did they see the man they
had loved, followed, and believed in as simply a
man? Or did they come to know in the deeper
part of themselves that this man Jesus was also
God.
Easter and faith are one. The basis of our
belief is the mystery of Easter. Our Christianity
is founded on the premise that Jesus rose from
the dead. Some would say that the resurrection
is just a story. Some deny that Jesus is God.
But by the very fact that Jesus rose from the
dead we know He is God. How He did it we
can’t really know. Mary, Thomas, John, the
apostles and other disciples really didn’t know
just hoy/.Jesus did it. They knew that this man
was Jesus. They also knew that this man was
God. It wasn’t something they could rationally
explain. They simply knew. Faith is that ability
to know things without seeing the evidence for
their existence.
The Easter mystery has many messages for a
Christian. It is not simply a story. It is a living
reality in our daily life. It was a reality in the
lives of Mary, Thomas, and John. We are called
to experience the reality of Easter in our daily
lives just as the apostles did. We are called to
encounter Jesus in one another. We are called
to believe that Jesus is God. When Jesus spoke
to Mary she ran out of the garden and sought
the apostles. She was thrilled by the experience
of meeting Jesus. She could hardly believe, yet
she knew that this man was Jesus, God and
man. We encounter Jesus in Baptism, the
Eucharist, in the other sacraments, in His word,
in each other. Like Mary it should stir us to
action.
And Thomas the doubter, he had seen Jesus
every day. He lived with Jesus and worked with
Him. But it was just too much to believe that
He had come back from the dead. He had seen
what they had done to Jesus. It wasn’t possible
that this man could be God. Yet when Jesus
came to him and asked him to touch His
wounded hands and side, Thomas knew that
this man was truly the Son of God. He believed.
Any doubt that this man had was shattered by
the encounter with Jesus. We encounter Jesus
every day of the year. How can we doubt? And
like Simon Peter how can we deny that we
really love Him after what He did for love of
us? Do we have any choice but to come and
follow Him?
The experiment meant something else. It
enabled Paul Spitzer to bring enough osprey
eggs and fledglings to New York and
Connecticut shore areas to restock the bird
population there - without threatening ospreys
in the Chesapeake Bay region.
Today, the decline in ospreys along the New
York and Connecticut shores has been reversed.
Meanwhile DDT has been banned. And Paul
Spitzer has decided to devote himself full-time
to saving endangered species. Why?
“In a world in which cause and effect are
often unclear,” he says, “this seems like
something I can do, where I can see the effect.”
One person can make a difference. Paul
Spitzer proves it.
For a free copy of the Christopher News
Notes, “God’s Good Earth - and Ours,” send a
stamped, self-addressed envelope to The
Christophers, 12 E. 48th St., New York, N. Y.
10017.
WALTER E. KAHNLE, D.MIN.
YOUTH MINISTRY CONSULTANT
ARCHDIOCESE OF ATLANTA
The
eioryia
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
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r
This Then Is Heaven
Teresa Gernazian
V >
What One Person Can Do
Rev. Richard Armstrong
PAUL SPITZER, BIRD LOVER
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