MOVE OVER HUBER'S ORCHARD?

 

A FEW MORE MEMORIES FROM MY EARLY DAYS

GROWING UP A WALTON

Perhaps you remember the TV series The Waltons? The Waltons was an American television series about a family in rural Virginia during the Great Depression and World War II. It was based on the1961 book Spencer's Mountain and the 1963 film of the same name. The series aired from 1972–1981.

The TV series described very closely how I grew up as a child in Rhodelia, Kentucky. Just like the TV series, my grandfather and father operated a sawmill long before it evolved into the building material business that my youngest brother owns today. I used to play at the sawmill exactly like the one pictured below. Going barefoot, I still have a scar on the bottom of my right foot where I stepped on a sharp tin can getting out of a logging truck one day. (Think about that for a minute! Then think about a few copperhead snakes that loved to live under piles of lumber!) 

Just like the Waltons, we lived right next door to the General Store operated by Harold and Verna Vessels who lived above the store. Just like the Waltons, my grandparents were a daily fixture in my life since they lived directly across the road from us and we had full reign of both houses. Just like the Waltons, inside the General Store was the Rhodelia Post Office. In fact, I was born in the house to the right of the store and I used to play with other kids while waiting for the school bus in our yard right behind the gas pumps.  Inside the store was a pot-bellied stove that people would gather around while they waited for the mailman to come. Back then, the mailman brought the school clothes that we had ordered from our yearly Sears and Roebuck Catalogue.  Oddly enough, the mailman even brought live chicks from a hatchery over in Indiana to the farmers in need of multiple chicks to raise for our amazingly fresh cage-free eggs and fried chicken.  

I guess you might say that I am "John Boy" from that TV series. I was the first in my family to graduate from college and like "John Boy" Walton I turned out to be a writer! The Waltons was set during the Great Depression of the early 1930s, however I have always joked that we hadn't heard that the Depression was over in Rhodelia till the 1960s! 

As a teenage seminarian going to high school here in Louisville in 1958, there was a period when I was teased for being a "hick," a "hillbilly" and a "redneck" by my urban classmates. This left me for a period of time "ashamed" of my rural roots. As I got older, I outgrew that youthful "shame!"  Today, I am proud to be from Rhodelia! In fact, I want  to be buried back down there, certainly not up here with the "city slickers" of Louisville! My tombstone sums it up. At the very bottom, it says "Home At Last!" 

NOVEMBER IS OUR SPECIAL TIME TO PRAY FOR THE DEAD

Praying for the Dead?

By Fr Ron Rolheiser, 2 November 2020

Why pray for the dead? Does this make any sense? What possible difference can our prayers make to a person once he or she has died?

These are valid questions. A number of objections can be raised against the practice of praying for the dead: Do we need to call God to mercy? Does God need to be reminded that the person who died was in fact a decent, warm-hearted, person? God already knows this, is already as merciful as mercy allows, and needs no nudging from us to be understanding and forgiving. Cynically, the objection might be put this way: If the person is already in heaven he doesn’t need our prayers and if he is in hell, our prayers won’t help anyway! So why pray for the dead?

We pray for the dead for the same reason we pray for anything, we feel the need and that is reason enough. Moreover, the objections raised against praying for the dead are just as easily raised against all prayer of petition. God already knows every one of our desires, every one of our sins, and all of our goodwill. So why remind God of these? Because prayer builds us up, changes us, not God.

This is the first, though not foremost, reason why we pray for the dead. Prayer is meant to change and console us. We pray for the dead to comfort ourselves, to stir and celebrate our own faith, and assuage our own guilt about our less than perfect relationship to the one who has died. In praying for the dead we do two things: We highlight our faith in the power of God and we hold up the life of the person who has died so as to let God take care of things, let God wash things clean. That is one of the purposes of a funeral liturgy, to clearly put the dead person and our relationship to him or her into God’s hands.

But this is not the most important reason why we have funeral liturgies and why we pray for the dead. We pray for the dead because we believe (and this a doctrine, the communion of saints) that we are still in vital communion with them. There is, death notwithstanding, still a vital flow of life between them and us. Love, presence, and communication reach even through death. We and they can still feel each other, know each other, love each other, console each other, and influence each other. Our lives are still joined. Hence we pray for the dead in order to remain in contact with them. Just as we can hold someone’s hand as they are dying, and this can be an immense consolation to them and to us, so too, figuratively but really, we can hold that person’s hand through and beyond death.

Perhaps the words and prayer forms we use seem to indicate something else, since they are addressed to God and not directly to the person for whom we are praying. Thus, for example, in praying for the dead we use words like: “Lord, have mercy on her soul!” “Lord, we place her in your hands!” “She loved you in life, radiated your gentleness, Lord, give her peace!” The words are addressed to God because it is in and through God that our communication with our loved one who is deceased now takes place: God’s bosom is the venue for our communication, God’s power is what is holding both of us in life, and God’s mercy is what is washing things clean between us. We can of course also talk directly to the person who has died, that too is valid enough within the doctrine of the communion of saints, but given the critical place of God’s love, power, and mercy in this situation, our prayer is generally addressed to God so as to highlight that it is within the heart of God that we have contact with our loved ones who are deceased. Hence, our prayers for the dead generally take this particular form.

And classically, within Roman Catholic theology at least, we have believed that our prayers help release this person from purgatory. What’s to be said about this?

Purgatory, properly understood, is not a punishment for any imperfection nor indeed a place distinct from heaven. The pains of purgatory are the pains of adjusting to a new life (which includes the pain of letting go of this one) and the pains of being embraced by perfect love when we ourselves are far from perfect. By praying for the dead, we support them in their pain of adjustment, adjustment to a new life and to living in full light. Purgation eventually leads to ecstasy, but the birth that produces that ecstasy requires first a series of painful deaths. Thus, just as we tried to hold their hands as they died, so now, in praying for loved ones who have died, we continue to hold their hands, and they ours, beyond the chasm of death itself.

Used with permission of the author, Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser. Currently, Father Rolheiser is serving as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio Texas. He can be contacted through his website, www.ronrolheiser.com. Now on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHIN' IN

verse one

We are all trav'ling in the footsteps
Of those that've gone before
We'll all be reunited
On that new and sunlit shore.

When the saints go marching in
When the saints go marching in
Lord, how I want be in that number
When the saints go marching in

 

HAPPY ALL SAINTS DAY! MAY WE ALL BE IN THAT NUMBER...

 .....WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHIN' IN! 

 

We are all trav'ling in the footsteps
Of those that've gone before
We'll all be reunited
On that new and sunlit shore.

When the saints go marching in
When the saints go marching in
Lord, how I want be in that number
When the saints go marching in

And when the sun refuses to shine
When the sun refuses to shine
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

Oh when the saints go marching in
Oh when the saints go marching in
Lord, how I want to be in that number
Oh when the saints go marching in

And when the trumpet sounds its call
When the trumpet sounds its call
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the trumpet sounds its call

When the saints marching in
When the saints go marching in
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

And some say that this world of trouble
Is the only one we'll ever see
But I'm waiting for that morning
When the new world is revealed

Oh when the moon turns red with blood
Oh when the moon turns red with blood
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the moon turns red with blood

When the saints (oh when the saints) go marching in (go marching in)
When the saints go marching in (go marching in)
Lord, how I want (Lord, how I want) to be in that number (be in that number) 

When the saints go marching in.

HOW ABOUT A LITTLE MORE SICK HUMOR?

 After doing so many weddings over the years, I actually thought this was hilarious! 

TRY ANOTHER WAY! JUST DON'T GIVE UP!

        

Zacchaeus could not see because of the crowd for he was short in stature.

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus who

was about to pass that way.

Luke 19:1-10

It's been a very long time, over fifty-two years in fact, since I graduated from the seminary. There is so much I can't remember, but there is one thing that remains vivid in my mind. It was toward the very end.  I forgot who it was, but one of our teachers asked us to present some "pastoral situations" for class discussion - maybe a wedding, funeral or counseling situation. He asked us to write up the "ideal" way we might handle the situation once we were ordained.

After we had all written up our "ideal" approaches to the situations we described, he collected the papers and stood there in the front of class and ripped them up into small pieces and threw them in the garbage.  After that we said to us, "You will hardly ever get to do the "ideal," so let's talk about some alternative approaches."  Man, has that insight ever come in handy over the last 52 years!

Right after ordination I was sent to southern Kentucky as the first Catholic priest to live in Wayne County. I found myself as the pastor of a church with only 7 parishioners (three adults and four children) with $70.00 in the bank. I was not trained to be a missionary. I knew nothing about the "Bible Belt" as they called that area of the country. I didn't know how to start a church or how to raise money.  It would have been nice if the bishop would have paid my salary and given me some money for more education, but he said there was no money available. I could have just sat down and waited out my time down there, but I didn't! I remembered my seminary teacher's advice, "If you cannot do the ideal, find an alternative approach."

I asked three Louisville parishes and a Catholic car dealer if they would together pay my salary until I got settled. I then applied to McCormick Presbyterian Seminary in Chicago for a scholarship to study "parish revitalization."   Guess what? The three Louisville parishes and the car dealer agreed to pay my salary for three years and I got a full scholarship from the Presbyterian Church for a Doctor of Ministry degree in "parish revitalization" on two grounds - minority religion and poverty income!

When I came to Louisville in 1983,  I had been named pastor of our Cathedral. The church was almost empty - just 110 registered parishioners and a few visitors.  Very few people knew it, but it was on a list of churches up for possible closure. Some wanted to close it and make one of the nicer suburban churches our cathedral. It was also in very bad physical condition underneath the cosmetic renovation of the 1970s. I was told by the former pastor not to get my hopes up and that "nothing could be done because there weren't any Catholics living downtown" and "the last renovation had drained the archdiocesan coffers."

I could have just sat down and waited out my time, but I didn't! I remembered my seminary teacher's advice, "If you cannot do the ideal, find an alternative approach."  I realized that there were very few Catholics living downtown and that raising a lot of money from within the diocese would be out of the question so I went for an alternative approach.  For parishioners, I went after the hundreds and hundreds of "fallen away" Catholics, especially those who worked downtown. For money, I asked people of all religions to help us fix up the cathedral so that all religions could use it. Guess what? In fourteen years we grew from 110 members to 2100 members and we raised over $22,000,000 and 67% of that $22,000,000 came from non-Catholics! 

Right before I retired, I was volunteering in he foreign missions down in the Caribbean. It was so poor it almost seemed hopeless in the beginning. After twelve trips, a lot of prayer and determination, we were able to raise @US $1,000,000 to strengthen the diocese, improve the schools and health facilities down there. When COVID and an erupting volcano ended that, I turned my attention to establishing a Family Life Center in my home parish down in Meade County in my old grade school building that has been closed and empty for more than 25 years. What many thought was a "hopeless task," our new St. Theresa Family Life Center was dedicated on October 15 of this year.

Friends, I learned a long time ago that the biggest shortage in the Catholic Church is not money or priests. It's imagination! This is why I love that little sawed-off guy in today's gospel, named Zacchaeus! He wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus coming down the road, but he was too short to see above the crowd! He could have said, "Oh, well, maybe next time," but he didn't. He found an alternative. We are told that he "ran ahead" and "climbed a sycamore tree"  along side the road where Jesus would be passing by.  Because of his ingenuity and determination, Zacchaeus not only got to see Jesus,  but because Jesus was able to see Zacchaeus in the tree and because Jesus admired his determination, Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus' house for dinner!

Zacchaeus reminds me of those guys who wanted to get Jesus' attention in another gospel story. Their buddy needed healing. He was crippled. When the door of the house where Jesus was staying was blocked by huge crowds of people, they could have given up and carried him back home. Instead, they carried him up on the roof, tore a hole big enough to lower their buddy down, right in front of Jesus! Jesus commended those guys for their determination and healed the crippled man right then and there.    

My friends! We can learn a lot from this little man Zacchaeus today! So many of us sabotage great possibilities in our lives by giving up too soon, especially when the door seems blocked to us! Zacchaeus teaches us that when the door is blocked, we should try another door,  maybe an open window, and if that does not work, go through the roof or even dig under the foundation!  Find an alternative route, but never give up without a search!

My friends! Declaring a situation as "impossible" is very convenient. It let's us off the hook and relieves us of the hard work of looking for "alternatives."  Nobody expects us to do the "impossible,"  do they?  Nobody will blame us for doing nothing if we can convince them that "nothing can be done," would they? Instead, learn from Zacchaeus!  Use your imagination, look for alternatives and be resourceful, but do not let go of your dreams too easily!  If you give up too easily or too early, you just might be the one to kill your own dreams and block your own blessings! 

Here is another story that I like to tell. It's about watching TV one day and seeing a young man who had been in a motorcycle wreck and had one of his legs amputated, being interviewed. He had been a great athlete and was eaten up with bitterness about the loss of his leg. It was depressing so I turned the channel. On the other channel was a young man, about the same age, coming dawn the mountains on skis. It wasn't till he got to the end of his run that I noticed that he was a one-legged skier in the Handicapped Olympics!

One young man gave up and the other one got up! The second young man, with one leg, got up and looked for alternatives. Like Zacchaeus, who really wanted to see Jesus, and found a way to overcome his shortness, the second young man found an "alternative" rather than simply "giving up." 

As my hero, Philo T. Farnsworth inventor of television, put it, "Impossible things just take a little longer!"   Here is another one of my favorite quotes. This one is from children's author, Chris Bradford.  "Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength." 

Never give up! Don't quit! Just find an alternate route!