Archive for the ‘Press’ Category
Youth Show Support for Sanctity of Life During Rally
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
“The Catholic Miscellany”
By Christina Lee Knauss
COLUMBIA – Most high school students probably wanted to stay home in their warm beds as a blast of Artic air moved though South Carolina on January 17.
Not so, however, for an estimated 600 Catholic youth from the Diocese of Charleston who converged in Columbia for the first Catholic Youth Rally for Life. The event, sponsored by the diocesan offices of youth ministry and family life, was meant to give Catholic young people a chance to stand up publicly for the sanctity of human life, and was held in conjunction with the annual Stand Up for Life Rally and March at the State House.
Youth groups from around the state arrived by car and bus and packed into the parish life center at St. Peter Church in Columbia for a 9 a.m. rally that was moved inside because of the harsh weather.
The rally featured music by contemporary band Wannabe Stephen, group prayer; and guest speakers.
Father Jeffrey Kirby, parochial vicar at St. Mary Help of Christians Church in Aiken, started his speech with a story about an unusual looking woman he and his classmates used to see around campus when he was in college. He said they would make fun of the woman’s looks among themselves until one day they saw her with a young child who obviously adored her. “It was then I realized the importance of that woman we had mercilessly made fun of,” he said. “That helped me understand that every human person has dignity and needs to be respected.”
Father Kirby told the young people that every letter in the word “Right” stands for something to remember as they work to promote pro-life values. “R stands for ‘respect life always. It tells us to ‘intercede for life.’ G is for ’Guard.’ H is for ‘help life.’ And “T” is the thanks we give for those who struggle to make every life count,” he said.
Father Kirby led the young people in loud pro-life chants, and reminded them that they are the future of the movement within the church. “Pope John Paul II said that you are the gatekeepers of the new millennium. You are going to spread our faith out and propagate it,” he said. “You are guarding our faith and by being here today you are guarding life.” After the rally, young people packed St. Peter Church so full that many had to stand and kneel in the back and entranceway.
Msgr. Martin T. Laughlin, administrator of the diocese of Charleston, celebrated Mass dedicated to the pro-life message.
Msgr. Laughlin’s homily focused on the special purpose that God has for every individual, and the need for people to open their hearts and minds to hear God’s message.
“Only one thing can satisfy this unique individual that we are, and that is the imminent love of God,” he said. “You’re more of a person the day you can freely say ‘I love God. I’m not perfect but I want to love him. I see the power and wisdom of God on the cross.” Msgr. Laughlin encouraged the young people to spend time in prayer and meditation, to read Scripture and take time to discern God’s plan for their lives. After Mass, youth groups and their adult leaders marched from St. Peter on Assembly Street up to Main Street and the steps of the State House. Many carried signs and banners, and the crowd called out pro-life chants as they moved slowly through the streets, escorted by City of Columbia police officers.
At the State House, the youth joined other marchers coming from the Russell House at the University of South Carolina, and filed onto the State House steps. There were so many present that they took up whole sections of the wide staircase.
Steven Wright, 15, a member of St. Theresa the Little Flower Church in Summerville, said the rally galvanized his commitment to work for an end to abortion. “It really brought my spirit up and showed me why we’re here,” he said. “We need to step from behind the curtain and stand up for life. Ryan Ferguson, a member of the youth group from Our Risen Savior in Spartanburg, held a large yellow banner with the rally’s slogan, “Lifeguard on Duty,” while standing near the top of the steps during the rally. He looked around and pointed out the dozens of other Catholic youth who stood near him.
“I think it’s really great that there are this many young people who care about this issue,” he said.
“I’ve learned today that you should take all the chances you get to tell people about the pro-life cause and affect how they feel,” said Sarah Catone, 14, also a member of Our Risen Savior. “By doing that, we can help people make the right choices … and choose life.”
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Summer Camp in Aiken Teaches Youths to Live Catholic Social Justice
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
“The Catholic Miscellany”
By Amy Wise Taylor
AIKEN – Leaders at St. Mary Help of Christians Church want their youth to know about social justice and how to live it.
One of the ways they teach the concept is through a new camp they started over the summer. Joan LaBone, church youth director, said it was four intense days that ran from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m.
She said she and Father Jeffrey Kirby, parochial vicar, worked on the camp together and were barely dragging along by the end of the last day. And yet they plan to expand the program next year; to dig deeper into the issues.
“I’m very justice centered,” LaBone said. “You don’t do service because it’s a good thing to do on weekends or because it helps the community. You do it because it’s what you are called to do when you walk with Christ.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lists seven key themes of justice, and those were the focus of the camp.
On the first day, youths visited a hospital and a horse farm, where they heard talks about the dignity of work and the rights of workers.
Words were followed by action as the group labored in the fields, raking the pasture in preparation for planting grass. The youths then went to a nursing home and accompanied Father James LeBlanc, pastor of St. Mary, as he spent time with the residents and prayed with them.
Father Kirby said a key principle of Catholicism is to pray and follow, but stressed that Catholics must be active witnesses to live the faith.
The youths spent a lot of time in prayer and class-like discussions, but they also unloaded groceries at the St. Vincent de Paul center, cleaned the church, and worked in the homes and yards of parishioners.
“They felt the social implications of their discipleship,” Father Kirby said.
And they did not shy away from any of their responsibilities.
When the group went to Area Churches Together Serving for a tour and to learn how the ecumenical organization helps people of need in the community, the director of the program and the youths joined hands outside the building and prayed.
“These kids never even thought about where they were,” LaBone said. “I wish I could be that strong in my faith that I didn’t care that the whole world was riding by as I prayed.”
The youth director also applauded the dedication of a number of campers who had to balance the start of sports and band with attending camp.
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In Praise of the Working Life
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
“National Catholic Register”
By Joseph Pronechen
Ah, Labor Day. A day to sit back, relax and soak up the unofficial end of summer. Push thoughts of the new school year aside? Maybe. Contemplate what our work means? Definitely.
“Work is meant to provide a dignified livelihood for ourselves and loved ones on the material level, but our work goes beyond that primary purpose,” says Father Jeffrey Kirby of St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken, S.C. “By doing good work we honor our Creator, and we help edify and build up our society and the world around us. Our work is meant to give order and remedy to our lives and to encourage solidarity with God and with others.”
That purpose should propel us to honor God by doing an honest day’s work.
“Because we are made in God’s image we’re called to extend the work of God in the world,” continues the priest, who has clearly done his spiritual homework on work. “Pope John Paul II really stressed this collaboration and cooperation in his encyclical Laborem Exercens [Human Work]. We aren’t meant to live for work, but to work in order to fully live.”
Honest work, then, shouldn’t be seen as simply a secular burden or a spiritual punishment for original sin – even though work certainly has an element of fulfilling basic needs and redeeming the consequences of original sin. “Through our work, we participate in the good of others,” Says Father Kirby, “and we consecrate the world to God one cubicle at a time.”
Tom Spencer tries to do that both at home and as principal at St. Joachim Elementary School in Madera, Calif. Although he left secular education because he wanted to incorporate his faith into his work, he doesn’t think a person needs to be in a religious institution to appreciate the spiritual side of working.
“Work is difficult, and yet there’s value, purpose and meaning associated with it,” he says. “Even working around the house on common tasks can be fulfilling.”
The experts agree: Work is transformed when the worker sees his or her tasks as opportunities to align human effort with the building up of God’s Kingdom.
“We’re called to holiness through the ordinary, and that happens to be our work,” says Catholic business consultant, author and motivational speaker Dave Durand.
Durand, the Register’s “Working Life” columnist, adds that you know you’ve given an honest day’s work when “you can put your head on the pillow and say, ‘I gave everything I could as a good steward of the abilities God gave me.’”
Michele Spencer, Tom’s wife and mother of 11, knows the secret of finding supernatural satisfaction from work. The homemaker and home-schooling mom explains, “It’s something I love to do, so the yoke is easy. What we do, taking care of our children is building up the Kingdom of God, our society, the Church,” she says. “We forget our work’s true meaning because it seems so mundane. Making dinner and cleaning the house seems not that important, and yet, it’s the most important labor we can do. That’s why I enjoy most of what I do.”
Pope John Paul addressed exactly this point I his encyclical, writing, “Toil is…familiar to women, who, sometimes without proper recognition on the part of society and even of their own families, bear the daily burden and responsibility for their homes and the upbringing of their children.”
In those moments when she does not want to do a particular task around the house, Michele immediately remembers the Catechism’s teaching on how work sanctifies us, setting us apart for Christ. “Work honors the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive” (No. 2427).
For Tom, this includes the times he cuts the lawn, repairs the family car and helps Michele do the dishes. “Even when hot and grimy,” he says, “it’s fulfilling.”
Father Kirby points out, “I come from a family of mechanics. It was literally spirituality of the monkey wrench.” But today, he sees the contemporary world’s struggle with artificiality because it’s several steps removed from the sources of goods and services. People want their car fixed but can be turned off by the grease in the garage, and likewise with the dirt on the farmer or perspiration on the carpenter.
“Because we’re so far removed from that as a society, we tend to look at that type of work as less noble,” adds the priest. “Actually it’s that work, when done well, that builds solidarity in society and with God.”
He points out that St. Joseph was a carpenter while St. Paul supported his preaching ministry with a tent-making business.
Of course, not all work is honest and not every exertion honors God. It’s easy in the modern world to participate in efforts grounded in, or oriented toward, sin.
Durand cites as examples marketing that tempts people to indulge in their baser or most materialistic impulses and sales pitches that conceal the full truth about what’s being sold.
Work glorifies God when it helps us grow in virtue, he explains. Simply honoring the Ten Commandments in the workplace, moment by moment, can transform a “bad day at the office” into a saving and sanctifying experience.
“I know people who’ve been urged to fudge the truth and be comfortable about it, but they chose to stand up for what is right,” says Durand, “even when it meant being passed over for a promotion or risking termination.”
The Catechism teaches that “Work united to Christ can be redemptive” (No. 2460). John Paul told us how: by “uniting work with prayer.” Some people use the traditional morning offering. Tom Spencer turns to Pope St. Pius X’s prayer to St. Joseph, and he continues a practice he learned in grade school – writing “JMJ” at the top of a paper, as a reminder of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, throughout the day.
“Christ waits for us in our work,” reminds Father Kirby. “He walks with us and labors with us.”
Staff writer Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Connecticut.
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He Finally Had to Say Yes or No
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
“The National Catholic Register”
August 24, 2008
Page C2
By Joseph Pronechen
For some, thoughts of a vocation come early. “Probably the first time I thought of being a priest was in fourth grade,” Father Jeffrey Kirby, 33, parochial vicar of St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken, S.C., distinctly remembers. “My mom was picking me and my sister up from fourth grade, and I was wondering what girl in the grade would be my girlfriend. Then I thought: ‘Well, I’ll just become a priest and I can love them all.’ Now I look back and see
God was fashioning my heart for celibacy and faithful priesthood.”
More fashioning came during other childhood events in the Kirby household of dad Alan, mother Fran, and Father Kirby’s older brother and younger sister.
“When I was a kid, my dad built us a clubhouse, and I turned it into a church. I preached and kids would come – probably more for my mom’s cupcakes than my preaching,” says Father Kirby. “Obviously, I had things like a
desire to share on my heart.”
Because he desired to be a good Christian and wanted his faith to be part of his education, he went to the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Studying history, he planned to go to law school and work in human rights. During his last year of graduate school at Franciscan, everything was going right in his life, and his future looked bright.
“But I felt things were going wrong,” he explains. “Spiritually, I felt so heavy and melancholy, and I couldn’t understand it.”
He visited a priest for counsel. “There’s one question, and until you answer this question and say Yes or No, your life will always be ambiguous,” he was told.
“I was lukewarm at the time and thought I had my plan – when he really put it there right in front of me,” Father Kirby says. He then realized in prayer that God was calling for that Yes or No.
“Vocations are very simple,” Father Kirby explains. “The Master turns and says to his disciple, ‘Follow me.’ And it’s just a matter of saying a generous Yes. He asks for a generous Yes – not, ‘I’ll think about it.’ The rest is history.”
After priestly formation and studies in Rome, he was ordained in July 2007 for the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., by Bishop Robert Baker, now ordinary of Birmingham, Ala. Father Kirby was one of six new priests, the largest group ordained for that diocese since the 1950’s.
On his first anniversary, people asked Father Kirby several times if the priesthood was everything he thought and expected. He had the same answer for everyone. “No, not at all. It is so much more than I could have ever expected – and I had high expectations. It’s so much more than what I could have imagined in the celebration of the sacraments, pastoral ministry, preaching the Gospel. The priesthood is a beautiful gift Christ has given the Church. For some reason, God has decided to share the gift and give that vocation to me.”
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First Year: Newly Ordained Adjust to Life as Priests
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
“The Catholic Miscellany”
By Christina Lee Knauss
The day-to-day lives of Catholic priests are often unpredictable, with new challenges and assignments that arise without warning. Parishioners need guidance or counseling, a Scripture study class needs a teacher, a baby needs baptizing.
This was true of the first year of service for four of the priests ordained for the Diocese of Charleston on July 27, 2007. In interviews with The Miscellany, they described working with youth groups and senior citizens, studying abroad, writing articles for parish bulletins and leading classes.
One common thread carried through as they reflected on their first year. All said they feel gratitude and humility at the opportunity to celebrate Mass, to spread the Gospel and to serve Catholic communities around the diocese.
Father Bryan Babick, 30, said the first months of his priesthood meant hitting the books. In residence this summer at St. John the Beloved in Summerville, he recently returned from studying at the Pontifical University of St. Anselm in Rome, where he earned a licentiate in sacred liturgy.
“St. Anselm is a Benedictine school that is a subsection of the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy founded by Pope John XXIII,” he said. “We studied the sacraments, the different liturgical rites and how they developed. It was a tremendously enriching experience.”
Father Babick said one of the most memorable aspects of studying in Rome was the chance to visit the city’s many holy sites and attend Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. He said some of this classmates actually concelebrated Mass with Pope Benedict XVI. Father Babick celebrated Mass at other historic churches in Rome.
In Summerville, he helps out however he can. He celebrates the liturgy, hears confessions and does other work around the parish.
Celebrating the Mass each day for me is the most life-changing and moving experience, and just connecting with people as a Catholic priest is very moving… I’ve been receiving support from everybody I’ve come into contact with, whether on an airplane or in Rome or here in Summerville,” he said. “People are so supportive and encouraging, and that’s been incredibly confirming for me as a new priest.”
Father Timothy Gahan, 63, learned to adapt to change during his first year, as he moved from a large parish in the state capital to one in a bustling tourist community.
His first assignment was at St. Joseph in Columbia, where he worked with Father Richard Harris, pastor and diocesan administrator for vocations. While at St. Joseph, Father Gahan did everything from teaching Scripture to working with the students at St. Joseph School.
In January he was assigned to St. Andrew Church in Myrtle Beach, where he served as administrator pro tem until Msgr. Joseph Roth was appointed administrator later in the year.
He said it was challenging to learn the ropes at parishes of similar size that serve very different congregations. Both parishes have many long-time residents and young families, but St. Andrews also caters to retirees, “snowbirds” who spend a few months a year on the Grand Strand, and thousands of Catholic tourists who visit Myrtle Beach each year.
“At St. Andrew, we get the beach traffic – from families to bike week, we get it all,” he said. “That’s the principal difference between the two parishes. They’re alike in most respects, especially in that they’re both wonderful faith communities.”
Challenges are not new to Father Gahan. He is a widower and father of two grown children, as well as a retired colonel from the U.S. Marine Corps.
At St. Andrew, he helped organize and celebrate Holy Week and the parish’s traditionally huge Easter Masses, which are held at the Palace Theatre and draw more than 2,000 people. He recruited a friend and fellow priest from New York to help him celebrate Masses that week.
The Easter Vigil was the biggest challenge, he said.
“There’s so much going on during that Mass, it’s not the sort of thing you do all the time, and I’d never done it before,” Father Gahan said. “But the faithful were here and they were very good to me and they helped me out, so it all went well.”
Father Gahan said he’s been lucky to work with pastors who encouraged him to learn about all aspects of parish ministry.
“Both Father Harris and Msgr. Roth are like-minded about new priests – they believe they should get involved and learn about virtually everything that goes on in a parish, from the school to the different organizations and clubs,” he said. “They’ve both been very helpful, encouraged me and answered my questions…It’s just been a marvelous, amazing year, more than I could ever describe.”
Two of the other new priests spent the past year spreading the Gospel across generational lines. Father Jeffrey Kirby, 33, learned to minister to both high school students and families during his work at St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken.
“The priesthood has been much more than I ever expected,” he said. “The first year in any vocation is spent kind of figuring things out, and I’ve received nothing but confirmation of my own vocation. I’ve learned lessons in pastoral ministry that I hope will only make me a better priest.”
He spent his first three months after ordination serving at St. Andrew Church in Clemson and its two missions: St. Paul the Apostle in Seneca and St. Francis in Walhalla.
He was scheduled to return to Rome for further study, but asked to remain in the diocese to learn more about working in a parish.
In October 2007, he was assigned to the Aiken church as a parochial vicar. There, he joined the parish’s active youth program, including its vibrant Life Teen community. He became so popular that young people from St. Mary’s showed up at a diocesan youth conference in March wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Kirby’s Krew” in his honor.
“That’s a grace of being a young priest – it’s a great chance to reach out and kind of connect with young people and show them how the faith is helpful and relevant,” Father Kirby said, “I’ve only been out of high school for 15 years, but I can’t even imagine the differences, the stress high schoolers are under today. There are good and bad opportunities for young people out there, and I want to show them how the Catholic faith can be helpful to them in their struggles for identity.”
Father Kirby was one of the keynote speakers at the conference.
Speaking at the youth conference caused some anxiety, but it was great to be able to talk [about] someone I love, God, with the young people who also want to love him,” he said.
At St. Mary’s, Father Kirby also works with the parish’s popular “intergenerational ministry” program, where adults, young children and teens all study the same aspect of Catholic faith in age-appropriate groups, and then go home to discuss the topics as a family.
In addition to celebrating Masses, Father Kirby makes hospital visits, celebrates Mass at area nursing homes, and teaches seventh-grade religion at St. Mary Help of Christians School.
“The priesthood is a lot of work, which I love,” he said. “Every once in a while a friend or someone will say ‘you look tired,’ and I consider it a blessing to be tired from doing something you love.”
Father Andrew Trapp, 27, said working with young people at St. Gregory the Great in Bluffton has been one of the most fulfilling parts of his vocation. He has served there as parochial vicar since shortly after his ordination. He works with Msgr. Martin T. Laughlin, administrator for the Diocese of Charleston, who is also pastor at the church.
The steadily growing parish currently lists membership of more than 2,400 households.
Father Trapp helps teach religion classes at St. Gregory the Great School, which has about 181 students in pre-K through sixth grades. He also visits classes and celebrates Mass for the students.
“One of the things holding me back from becoming a priest was the thought of giving up being a husband and a dad, so it’s very fulfilling to be able to work with kids now that I’m a priest,” he said. “That’s been the most fun aspect of this year.”
One of his main projects is collaborating with the church’s youth ministers to build an active youth group.
“We have several hundred high school age youth here at the parish, and we’re trying to get them organized and involved,” Father Trapp said. “I’ve really enjoyed working with the youth.”
Father Trapp said he finds the greatest spiritual fulfillment in the sacramental life of the parish.
“It’s been such a joy to celebrate Mass every day, and to celebrate the other sacraments, especially hearing confessions and ministering to the sick,” he said. “That has been a very humbling and joyful experience.”
Some of the young people he comes in contact with have decided the new priest has a celebrity look-alike.
“Both the high school kids and the little kids often tell me I remind them of Peter Parker in Spiderman,” he said. “I’ve told them without hesitation that if I had a choice of being a priest or being Spiderman, I would choose being a priest. It’s been amazing.”
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Peace Corps Volunteer Fired Up to Change Lives
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
“The Catholic Miscellany”
By Christina Lee Knauss
LA COMMUNIDAD, El Salvador – Rhett Williams believes the people of the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., can learn a lot about faith from their fellow Catholics in Latin America.
Williams, 23, a Mount Pleasant, S.C., resident, is spending two years with the Peace Corps in El Salvador. While working in the town of La Comunidad, he has learned about the needs of the people and the rich faith that is interwoven into much of their daily life.
The young man is a graduate of Bishop England High School in Charleston S.C., and Furman University in Greenville, S.C., who majored in history and Spanish. While at Furman, he attended RCIA classes at Prince of Peace Church in Taylors, S.C., and was welcomed into the Catholic Church in 2004.
He discussed his experiences in El Salvador and perspectives on faith through a recent e-mail interview with the Catholic Miscellany.
La Comunidad is a town of about 750 people located in the municipality of San Pedro Nonualco in La Paz, the south central part of the country. The municipality’s total population is about 11,000.
While in La Comunidad, Williams is performing a wide variety of tasks with members of the community, such as working with students at a community school.
He said the town is almost 100 percent Catholic, and people turn out in droves to celebrate feast days with processions, fireworks and other activities. The local church is extremely organized, with activities and classes for every age, high Mass attendance and frequent prayer meetings, he said. In his view, people who are illiterate in El Salvador often know more about the Bible than many Americans.
Williams described Catholicism as a very “physical thing” when it comes to local celebrations. When high school students acted out the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, people from all over town attended. In a nearby village, residents created huge representations of each station with painted sand.
“The faith here is more alive than most places in the United States, with the church doors and windows all open at all times of the day, with people coming in and out to pray constantly,” Williams wrote.
“All of this gives me encouragement that the Catholic faith can thrive in whatever condition, and thrive in the way it is meant,” he stated. “It should encourage those in the United States to strive for constancy in the faith, and create friendships with those other parishes around the world that we can learn so much from and help so much at the same time.”
Williams described the Mass in El Salvador as very similar to American worship, despite the language difference.
“The biggest similarity…is unity in doctrine and liturgy, our belief and its expression,” Williams wrote. “The liturgy is kept sacred and with its basic structure … a non-Spanish speaker could easily sit in on a Mass…they could tell by the movements of the people what topic is being addressed at the moment.”
Williams said the liturgy includes music on traditional instruments, and that people receive the Eucharist on the tongue and never in the hand.
The volunteer has spoken with some parishes in the Diocese of Charleston and in Louisiana about forming partnerships with parishes in El Salvador. He thinks it would be a wonderful way to share both spiritual and financial resources.
“The idea is to mimic the sister city deal that many cities in the Untied States have,” he said. “For example, Greenville, S.C., is a sister city with Bergamo, Italy. They share ideas and projects, and send people in between the cities to learn about each other and plan things together. My goal is to create something very similar in the Catholic world.”
American parishes could provide monetary help or mission workers for countries in need, Williams suggested. Latin American parishes could send people to sister churches in the United States to help them learn about their culture or work on faith development.
Williams’ friends and spiritual mentors are impressed by his ongoing faith journey.
Father Jeffrey Kirby, parochial vicar at St. Mary Church in Aiken, S.C., was Williams’ RCIA sponsor and taught him New Testament at Bishop England.
“Rhett’s is a great story of conversion and ministry,” Father Kirby told The Miscellany. “He was always very sincere, respectful and attentive as a student and enthusiastic about RCIA. Now, he’s excited about his Catholic faith and Christian discipleship. I think he’s really discovered the fullness of Christ, and it’s led him in his desire to give back.”
“He’s very mature for his age and definitely has his perspective on life straight,” said John Marigliano, director of adult and high school catechesis at Prince of Peace Church in Taylors.
Marigliano attended high school with Williams. He also worked with him at Prince of Peace during his RCIA classes.
“I know from him this experience of being in El Salvador has been very much a world-view changing event. He’s realizing how much we have here in this country, but how much we actually need when it comes to faith,” Marigliano said. “He’s learned that down there people often have nothing but their faith, and that’s become a huge theme for him. He definitely has that zeal and passion for the Catholic faith, for sharing it and trying to live it each day.”
Williams said his work with the Peace Corps is teaching him to be more adaptable and to accept the sometimes difficult lessons God brings to his daily life.
“Peace Corps has taught me to smile at all the awkward situations that life throws at you,” he said. “That’s all just the growing pains of our Christian journey. As Catholics, we should serve, we should stretch ourselves from what is becoming the norm of comfort, and lead by example in the Christian world.”
To learn more about Williams’ work, visit myworldinelsalvador.blogspot.com.
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Youths Discover How to Get ‘Lost in Christ’ at Annual Conference
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
“The Catholic Miscellany”
By Christina Lee Knauss
WHITE OAK – Sometimes getting lost can be a good thing. At least that’s what teens learned at the 18th annual Diocese of Charleston Youth Conference held March 7-9 at the White Oak Conference Center.
The conference theme was “Lost in Christ,” and activities throughout the weekend stressed the importance of putting the Lord at the center of daily life.
The young people took part in skits and team sports, read Scripture, prayed together, attended adoration and received the sacrament of reconciliation.
Local and national speakers offered tips on how to live Christian lives despite the pressures of a secular world.
More than 700 high school students and adult leaders from around the state attended.
Father Jeffrey Kirby, who was ordained to the priesthood in July 2007, was the keynote speaker for the opening session March 7. He is parochial vicar at St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken.
His speech used lines from the Nicene Creed to illustrate basic points of Christian and Catholic belief, and their importance in daily life. He repeated the phrases “You’ve been hoodwinked, you’ve been bamboozled, you’ve been had” to clarify the lies secular culture tells about God and what belief in God means.
“By being human persons, we are by nature religious beings,” Father Kirby said. “Our heart of hearts desires to know God. God is greater than anything that can ever be said about him. He approaches us lovingly, freely choosing to share his own knowledge of himself with us. God, through the ages, has shared himself with humanity through fullness in Jesus Christ. Each of us can know God because God himself wants to tell us.”
The priest received wild applause and support from his church’s youth, some of whom wore T-shirts that read “Kirby’s Crew.”
Tammy Evevard, a Colorado-based speaker, spoke on March 8 at a special session for young women. She asked them to give examples of their faith that they experienced.
She said today’s culture often makes women feel inadequate because they don’t measure up to the standards of appearance, conduct or popularity.
“You are princesses of the most high God,” Everard told the women. “That’s what God speaks to us. He doesn’t say ‘Arise those who are about six feet tall and 25 pounds!” That is the biggest brokenness of all, the brokenness of our culture and how it sees women. The world takes the idea of who we are and breaks it apart.”
Evevard said that through a relationship with Christ, women can find an inner strength and deal more effectively with daily pressures. She encouraged the youth to focus on becoming Catholic women whose lives are centered on their faith and the concepts of “power, self control and love.”
“We are not a mistake and we do not deserve to be treated like mistakes,” Evevard said. “We are not meant to take a step back and not show our intelligence so that others might not feel uncomfortable … If we live lives as women of power, self control and love, there is nothing we can’t do … you can spend your whole life stuffing yourself with things, but they won’t bring deep satisfaction. What your heart really longs for is love at the deepest place.”
Other speakers during the weekend included Louisiana-based Charlie Cantreel, who uses humor to convey Gospel lessons; and Luke Vercollone, a Charleston-based former professional soccer player and devout Catholic.
Youth who attended said they felt encouraged by the faith of their peers and by the message speakers offered.
“I really enjoyed the weekend – it was very moving for me,” said Brittany Southard, a high school senior who attends Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville. “I really felt the whole thing made me come closer to God.”
Jerry White, director of youth and young adult ministry for the diocese, spoke during closing ceremonies and urged the young people to remember the lessons they learned during the weekend. He also encouraged them to find someone in their lives that can help them be spiritually accountable.
“You’re going to go home to the same situations you faced when you came here, and a voice is going to tell you what happened over this weekend wasn’t real,” White said, “I want to tell you that if you say “Lord, I want to live with you’ this weekend, he’s right there with you … Satan wants you to walk in the dark, but God wants you to walk in the light. You are the masterpieces of our risen Lord.”
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Drug Rehab Community To Add Third House
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
“The National Catholic Register”
March 9, 2008
By Joseph Pronechen
Register Correspondent
ST AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Since 1994, Comunita Cenacolo America (Community of the Cenacle) has been proving its fully faith-based program restores hope and turns addicts around. It accepts no government funding. It’s not a therapeutic program.
“It is a School of Life because we are trying to go back to the basics, living together in simplicity [there is no TV or radio], working hard, sacrificing, learning to do things you don’t like to do,” said Albino Aragno, the director of the community in America. “Prayer is the foundation of community.”
Mother Elvira Petrozzi, an Italian Sister of Charity, opened the first Comunita Cenacolo in Saluzzo, Italy, in 1983 to treat drug- and alcohol-addicted men. Since then, the project has grown to 60 houses with 1,500 residents in countries such as Ireland, France, Russia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Some are for women, while missions in South America care for homeless, abandoned and abused children. Each house has a chapel and the Blessed Sacrament with Eucharistic adoration daily.
In 1999, a formation house opened in Italy, and there are already four priests from the community, 15 brothers, nearly 10 seminarians and 30 sisters in formation. On Dec. 8, 2005, Comunita Cenacolo was granted status as a Public Association of the Faithful.
When he was rector of St. Augustine Cathedral-Basilica and before he became a bishop, Bishop Robert Baker of the Diocese of Birmingham, Ala., co-founded a community in St. Augustine, Fla.
That was nearly 15 years ago, and now there are three houses in St. Augustine: the original Our Lady of Hope, Mary Immaculate for men and St. Maria Goretti for women, which is to open this year.
Having a strong feeling the Blessed Mother wanted to get people off the streets, he met with a small group for a continuous novena to Our Lady of Good Hope.
He learned of Mother Elvira through a priest at the Vatican.
“The devotion to Mary was something I was looking for and I didn’t discover anyone else having that,” Bishop Baker said.
He had been asking, “Why aren’t we using our Catholic resources? We have the sacraments … At times we’re too reluctant to share our faith with other people when that is the most important element in conversion and rehabilitation. Mother Elvira has figured that out and follows that pattern as few other I’ve seen do.”
“She has a strong prayer base that would run circles around any monastery,” he said. “The focus of the prayer life is the Eucharist and a strong Marian devotion.”
Everyone prays the Rosary three times a day – morning and evening in the chapel, and afternoons with fellow workers. She insisted, “People have to eat three times a day for our body; why not pray three time a day to feed our soul.”
“She’s not shy about it,” said Bishop Baker.
Nor is she shy about ordering a disciplined life because people struggling with addictions have self-centered dispositions that need corrections.
“These men understand that they struggle to overcome their addiction,” said Father Jeffrey Kirby. “There are no easy answers, no attempt to baby them. The real Gospel teaches both death and resurrection.”
Father Kirby spent six weeks at the community’s Saluzzo motherhouse while studying for the priesthood in Rome for the Diocese of Charleston, and counts the community as a big part of his understanding of the Church’s mission, especially the New Evangelization.
“For me,” said Father Kirby, “in the second part of Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) when Pope Benedict is speaking about what authentic social action is, he’s talking about Comunita Cenacolo.”
Because the addicts have to relearn how to live, pray and sacrifice, Mother Elvira insists they take three years, unlike the three to six months for many other programs. This detachment from the world was challenging at first for 30-year-old Jeffrey, who has been with the community nearly three years, but most beneficial because it freed him “from all kinds of distractions from discovering Jesus,” he said.
Everyone works a full day, almost monastic in style, growing vegetables, building, repairing. Mother Elvira insists on total reliance on divine Providence. Addicts pay nothing. No state money is accepted.
“We experience every day the providence of God,” he said, as various donations arrive at just the right times. “Addicts don’t trust personally in their own life. So, by depending on the providence of God, you see God is working for us. It’s a beautiful teaching for us. You see God provides.”
Mother Elvira’s approach “leads addicts to real, authentic and enduring recovery,” observed Father Kirby.
No formal studies have measured percentages of success, but neither have studies been done for any other faith-based program, according to senior research associate Mary Gautier at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
Aragno shies away from specific numbers.
“For us its considered a successful person who embraces and lives the faith and the Christian life outside,” he said. “You can go into any hospital to be detoxed. But to maintain that you have to embrace a new way of living.”
Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Connecticut.
Information: HopeReborn.org
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Unusually Early Easter
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
“The Aiken Standard”
Suzanne R. Stone
Staff Writer
If you haven’t gotten your Easter bonnet with the frills upon it yet, now’s the time. Easter Sunday falls uncommonly early this year.
This year’s Easter Sunday will be March 23, the first time it has fallen on that date since 1913 and the last time it will be on the 23rd until 2228. The earliest that Easter Sunday can fall is March 22 of any given year, and the latest it can occur is April 25. Coincidentally, this year’s Easter Week also coincides with the weekend of the Aiken Spring Steeplechase, with the March 21 Mad Hatters Ball falling on Good Friday and the Steeplechase taking place on March 22, the eve of Easter Sunday.
“Next year Holy Week is the same week as Masters week, and that happens much more commonly,” said Dr. Fred Andrea III of First Baptist Church of Aiken. “When Masters week and Easter coincide, it puts more demands on people’s attention and time. I wouldn’t anticipate a problem this Easter Sunday, since the Steeplechase will be over by then.”
The date of Easter Sunday is determined by a formula: the first Sunday after the first full moon to follow the Spring Equinox, also known as the Paschal Full Moon. Because the date of the Spring Equinox varies from year to year, so does the date of Easter Sunday. The formula was developed by the early Church as an answer to the “Easter Controversy,” according to Father Jeff Kirby of St. Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church.
“The ‘Easter Controversy’ was the debate over how to blend the Jewish observance of Passover and the Christian observance of the Resurrection. In Christian theology we call the Resurrection ‘The New Passover,’ so the early Church wanted to connect the two but also show that this was something new. It was resolved with this formula because the date of the Spring Equinox also determines the date of Passover, and it was a real source of peace when it was finally resolved,” he said.
Kirby noted that while the Eastern Orthodox Church also uses the Paschal Full Moon formula, it obtains its date from the Julian calendar rather than the more familiar Gregorian calendar. The Eastern Orthodox Church’s Lenten season begins on March 10, and Easter Sunday falls on April 27, a week after Passover. The Jewish feast of Passover begins at sunset on Saturday, March 19, and continues all day Sunday, March 20.
“The way the liturgical calendar works, the Christmas season doesn’t come to a complete stop until Feb. 2, the feast of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. We ended the Christmas season on Feb. 2 and had Ash Wednesday to begin Lent on Feb. 6,” Kirby said.
“This year is unique in that Christmas and Easter are as close together as anyone alive will be able to remember. In the Church’s teachings, Christ’s life is one mystery, so this is a unique opportunity to teach how closely related those two events in Christ’s life were – that he was born to that he might die for us,” he said. “You don’t get that opportunity very often.”
Andrea observed that Christian sects have many ways of observing the events of Easter week. Some observe Good Friday with a tenebrae service, a candlelit service in which readings on the life of Christ are punctuated by the extinguishing of candles, concluding in total darkness to symbolize the loss of Christ’s light from the world.
Other services are designed to emphasize the 14 stations of the cross; First Baptist will display a series of paintings by Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya depicting the stations of the cross, given to the church last year, during Holy Week. Some churches also do a Saturday night Easter Vigil, awaiting the arrival of Easter Sunday, and/or a sunrise service.
“Every Christian church observes Easter Sunday, but not all of them do all or most or, in some cases, any observes of Holy Week,” Andrea said.
“Because we follow the liturgical calendar, our members are on top of it, but I can imagine churches that don’t have a Lent season’s members might be caught off guard by the early Easter,” said Kirby.
Contact Suzanne Stone at sstone@aikenstandard.com.
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Bernardin Committee Member
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
“The Catholic Miscellany”
AIKEN – Father Jeffrey Kirby, parochial vicar at St. Mary Help of Christians Church, was named to the Bernardin Committee of the University of South Carolina. The committee organizes an annual lecture that promotes the vision and ideas of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. The committee, which includes Msgr. Leigh Lehocky, Fathers Peter Clarke, Sandy McDonald and Tim Lijewski, also is working on creating a chair of studies named after the cardinal.
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