"Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but doesn’t get you anywhere."
Saturday, October 12, 2024
Thursday, October 10, 2024
"KEEPING THEIR MEMORIES ALIVE" UPDATE
I know I have said in this blog that I have sworn off any more "projects," but I have already failed to stick to my guns! The St. Theresa Parish Council has approved my idea of a "new project" in our "old cemetery." It consists of gathering many of the old broken headstones from the woods around the edges and scattered around the cemetery and piecing them together in the exact shape of the second log church that stood where the wooden cross now stands (see photo below) before they are lost or misplaced forever. This will preserve the pieces, remind the congregation of how small the second church was and make sure the memory of those is unmarked graves are kept alive - even partially.
This is similar to one of my last projects when I was pastor (1980-1983) of Holy Name of Mary Church in Calvary, Kentucky, (founded in 1797) before I was called to Louisville to be pastor of our Cathedral. They, too, had broken stones from the early and mid 1800s scattered around their old cemetery. Some had even been thrown into a nearby creek. The photo below shows what the preservation project looks like after 41 years.
Below is a sketch of what we hope to do in the "old cemetery" of St. Theresa in Rhodelia. Once the broken headstone pieces are gathered and cleaned, they will be laid out in a 20' X 30' pattern, the exact size of the second log cabin St. Theresa Church that stood where the wooden cross stands today. 
This project will not only help preserve the memory of those who are now buried in unknown graves, preserve important pieces of our history, show those living today the very spot where their predecessors used to worship, but also give us a "holy spot" to honor them by having outdoor Masses, Prayer Services and historic lectures.
The Parish Council of St. Theresa Church also approved my idea of having an outdoor Dedication Mass for all those in the old cemetery, especially those in unmarked graves, as well as the poor man who hanged himself in the old log cabin church on that very spot which caused them to move out of it early because they considered it "desecrated." We look at suicide today differently from how they did in the mid 1800s. I am pretty sure the poor man did not receive a decent Catholic funeral or even a "private Mass." No one even knows where he was buried, but certainly not in the "consecrated ground" of the old cemetery.
This historic monument will be next to another historic monument (the white sign on the left in the photo above) a sign over the grave of Matilda Hurd Chisley, the enslaved parishioner and grandmother of Father Augustus Tolton (son of Martha Jane Chisley Tolton, also an enslaved parishioner of St. Theresa Parish, who was sent away to Missouri at age 17) who became the first black priest ordained for the United States and who is in line for sainthood. Below are two photos of some of the group of 30 Catholic Bishops who visited her grave and laid a wreath back in June while they met in Louisville for their annual meeting. Auxiliary Bishop Perry of Chicago, in the black suit with the gold chain in the very center of the photo looking down, is in charge of promoting the the canonization of Matilda's grandson Father Augustus Tolton.
I have already raised most of the money for this particular project, but if you are moved to send a donation to help finish this project and help make additional improvements to this historic parish cemetery, where the Catholic faith was passed on to the family of the Venerable Father Augustus Tolton, which could likely become a religious attraction once he is canonized, you can send it to:
St. Theresa of Avila Church
Old Cemetery Restoration Project
4245 Rhodelia Road
Payneville, Kentucky 40157
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
A Friend, Sister Bernard, A Local Little Sister of the Poor
Sister Bernard was a sweet-heart of a person! She spent most of her life as a Little Sister of the Poor serving in St. Joseph Home for the Elderly right here in Louisville. As a "chief beggar" for the elderly poor for many years, she made contact with so many businesses here in our city. She knew so many of the owners and they would never turn her down!
As a volunteer priest at St. Joseph Home, celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation monthly and the Eucharist mostly on Mondays, I got to know her several years ago.
In the time I knew her, she would have a health crisis every now and then, but managed to keep springing back. Just when I thought the end was coming, I would meet her in her motorized cart coming to Mass or navigating the doors of the room where I heard confessions! I would ask her "Sister Bernard! You have sprung back! On a scale of 1-10, how good do you feel today?" "Oh, about a 7," she would say smiling through her pain! She always rated herself higher than she actually felt in order to project a positive attitude! I lost count of how many times she "recovered" from this health problem or that!
Little Sister of the Poor Bernard Hopkins Obituary
With profound sadness, we say goodbye to LSP Bernard Hopkins of Louisville, Kentucky, whose vibrant spirit touched the lives of many. LSP left this world on October 3, 2024 at the age of 96, leaving a void in the lives of so many people. You can send your sympathy in the guestbook provided and share it with the family.
In the quiet moments of reflection, let us honor LSP's memory by embracing the beauty of each fleeting moment, knowing that her spirit resides in the eternal tapestry of existence, forever woven into the fabric of our hearts.
Visitation was held on Sunday, October 6th 2024 from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM and on Monday, October 7th 2024 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM. A funeral Mass was held on Monday, October 7th 2024 at 12:00 PM at the Holy Family Catholic Church (3938 Poplar Level Rd, Louisville, KY 40213).
Expressions of Sympathy donations may be made to the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Sunday, October 6, 2024
MAKING THE MOST OF FAMILY LIFE IN A CONFUSED WORLD
It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him!”
Genesis 2
What God has joined together, no human being must separate!
Let the children come to me! Do not prevent them!
Mark 10
Christmas is a special time to reconnect and recommit as a
family. Three Saturdays before Christmas, all five of my brothers and sisters
got together for lunch instead of dinner last year. As we have aged, driving after dark has become problematic for some of us. Happily, we stopped the stressful
gift-giving years ago. We have been getting together like that for many years.
As a single person with no family of my own, it is one of my ways of connecting to a
sense of family. Like always, we have a great time laughing and talking and
telling the same old stories from growing up years. We do have one very
strict rule - absolutely no mention of politics! That would be like striking a match over a gas tank!
Several of my siblings pointed out how lucky we are just to
be able to get together. Some families we know cannot even gather together
because of divorces, hard feelings and old grudges. If they do get
together, the getting together atmosphere is tense, strained and
uncomfortable.
As a person who is still a
member of a family of five siblings,
I pay attention to families. I take notice. The thing that I see most is that
having a family brings both joy and pain. Those who attempt it have my deepest
admiration. Not having a family of my own, I realize that I miss out on both
its joys and its pains.
A couple of times, as I
have flipped though the channels, I have been compelled to stop and watch one
of those live birth experiences that you see once in a while. I am not ashamed
to admit that I usually get choked up and watery-eyed when I watch new parents
at the moment of birth of their children. While I am proud that it can move me
so much, I am very aware that what those new parents are experiencing is a
thousand times more intense. It is a joy that I will never experience.
Not all families are
"happy" families! A few years ago, about 10:00 at night I realized
that I had not eaten supper. The closest fast-food restaurant to my house was a
White Castle about five or six blocks away. What can I say? I was desperate! I
ordered three cheeseburgers and a diet coke and sat down to watch a fascinating
show that only happens late at night in a White Castle. No sooner than I
sat down than a distressed young mother with a toddler came in and asked the
women behind the counter to call the police. Her “boyfriend” had locked them
out of the car and was threatening them in the parking lot. She paced back and
forth, one minute trying to appease her whining child who needed to go to bed
and the other minute peeking out the window to see if her boyfriend was still
out there. Sadly, like many abused women are wont to do, she went back to him
before the police got there. A few minutes later, a wild-looking young woman,
probably bi-polar, came in and ordered some cheese fries and ate them standing
in the middle of the floor, spilling some of them and stepping on them, while
muttering to herself. Before she finished, an older woman, her distressed
mother, came in telling her that she had been combing the neighborhood looking
for her to take her home. Her mother apologized to all of us and finally coaxed
her daughter into the car and left. As I left that night, I realized once again
how many things some families have to deal with. Anyone who is trying to hold a
family together these days has my deepest admiration.
Today’s readings are about
“family life:” the creation and union of man and woman, the tragedy of divorce
and welcoming children! Preaching about those topics today are not the easiest
things to preach about. In a world where family life is a painful
experience for so many, I have always shied away from those romanticized and
idealized sermons that I grew up with. They certainly did not describe my experience.
Because my family was not at all like the “Holy Family” our nuns and priest
talked about, I always left church feeling defective as a family. My religion
teachers of the past were so driven to hold up the “holy family” as a model for
all families that they may have read about in the bible. They were obviously
reading those stories about the “holy family” with rose colored glasses because
they ended up with a religious version of a 1950s TV family. Because their
reading of the stories was so idealized, by the 1960’s, people began to reject
that brand of piety, and even laugh at it, as totally unrealistic and
impossible.
A few years ago, I came to
realize that maybe the real “holy family” is more like today’s
families than we have traditionally become accustomed to think. The facts
show that the “holy family” was not that sugary little family that we use to
hear about growing up!
We only have a few stories
about Jesus’ childhood and the family from Nazareth, and none of them would be
what you would call "nice and sweet."
(1) The family started out
with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Mary and Joseph were engaged, but not
yet married when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph came within a
hair of divorcing Mary, but backed off because of a message from God in a
dream. (2) When it came time for Jesus to be born, Mary and Joseph were called
out of town for a census. Away from home, Mary and Joseph end up having to
deliver their baby in a barn, right there in a donkey stall. (3) No sooner that
their baby was born, a maniac king tried his best to kill all the Jewish
children he could get his hands on. To protect Jesus from that fate, Mary and
Joseph crossed the border, becoming refugees in a foreign country, until the
coast was clear to come back home. (4) When Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in
the temple for his circumcision, they were so poor that they had to make an
offering to the temple of two common pigeons, instead of the traditional, more
expensive, doves. (5) When Jesus was twelve years old, he got lost on a trip to
the big city, Jerusalem. His panic-stricken parents spent a few hellish days
till they finally found him. (6) On one occasion, hearing some of the things he
was preaching, his family came to do an intervention on him because they really
thought he had lost his mind. (7) A symbol of all sorrowing mothers, Mary
finally had to witness her son, stripped and beaten, being executed as a common
criminal.
No, this holy family was
no “goody-two shoes” family that I had idealized for me as a child. This family
had problems, big problems, but they managed to remain faithful to each other
and to God through it all. I think this family has a better chance of being a
model if we simply accept the fact that they were like us in so many
ways.
Today’s readings offer an
opportunity to say a few words about family life. The problems are easy to
list, the solutions are not so easy to come by. The most obvious fact facing us
is that families have changed. There is no use pretending they haven’t or
wishing they hadn’t. They have! Instead of pretending or wishing, we need to
develop new ways to help and support modern families, including single parent
families, blended families, adoptive families and the many other new varieties
of families that exist today.
Families and couples
cannot take anything for granted. The forces against family life are hard at
work. Families must be intentional about being a family if they have any hope at
all to work against the forces that are trying to pull them apart. To let
things slide in marriages or families is to invite disaster. Families need all
the support the community and church can give, not judgment and condemnation.
You certainly have my support! I don’t know how you do it!
The Scriptures give us an
impressive list of “family values,” values that can guide and strengthen even
our modern families in all of their marvelous varieties: honoring your father
and mother, taking care of them in their old age, offering heartfelt
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, obedience, patience, forgiveness,
peace, thankfulness and love, just to name a few of the “family values” listed
in Scripture. Family is not something that we can take for granted these days.
It is something that must be wanted and worked for. Whatever family you have
been given or whatever substitute family you have pieced together, may the Holy
Family bless you abundantly today! I am here to support you where I can!
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