CATHOLIC Southeast Alaska - Diocese of Juneau · ZENIT.ORG December 20, 2015 - Pope Francis says...

DECEMBER 2015 • VOL. 5 NO. 12SERVING CHRIST AND CONNECTING CATHOLICS IN THE DIOCESE OF JUNEAU WWW.DIOCESEOFJUNEAU.ORGCATHOLIC

Southeast Alaska

(At left) This 17th-century painting titled “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione depicts the birth of Christ. The feast of the Nativity of Christ is celebrated Dec. 25. (CNS/Bridgeman Art Library)

For unto us a child is born...(Isaiah 9:6)

Jesus Christ: the Incarnation of God’s Mercy

BY BISHOP EDWARD J. BURNSWe know that God so loved the world that he sent his only

son. We are familiar with John 3:16 whereby the Evangelist tells us of God’s divine plan. It is yet another glimpse of God taking the initiative in showing his love and mercy by sending his only Son into the world for our salvation. In fact, the history of salvation starts with God taking the initiative when he entered the Garden of Eden in search of sinful Adam and Eve. (Genesis 3:8ff) This initiative of our God is a demonstration of his love for us and the desire to show us his mercy.

There is much joy in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is God’s gift of salvation for us. At the beginning of Luke’s Gospel we find the angel Gabriel proclaiming to Mary, “Rejoice!” (Luke 1:28) This past Sunday we saw that Mary’s visit to Elizabeth causes John the Baptist to leap in his mother’s womb for joy. (Luke 1:41)

Continued on page 3

1/10/69 - 12/6/2015

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.And let perpetual light

shine upon him.

Obituary Pg. 2 • Reflections-photos Pg. 8

Father Thomas J. Weise

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 2 • December 2015

CelebrationsDecember 27:

Feast of St. John the Evangelist Patronal Feast of St. John’s-by-the-Sea

parish, Klawock

December 28: Feast of the Holy Family, Patronal feast of Holy Family

Mission,Gustavus

December 31: Fr. Patrick Casey, OMI

35th anniversary of priestly ordination (1980)

January 2: Memorial of St. Gregory

Nazianzen, Patronal feast of St. Gregory

Nazianzen Parish, Sitka

January 3: Memorial of the Most Holy

Name of Jesus, Patronal feast of Holy Name Parish

ChurchCalendar

December 25 Christmas Day

January 1 Feast of Mary, Mother of God

-World Day of Prayer for Peace-

JANUARY is Poverty Awareness Month

January 4 Epiphany of the Lord

January 4-10 National Migration Week

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USPS 877-080Publisher: Most Reverend Edward J. Burns 415 Sixth St. #300, Juneau, AK 99801Editor: Mary Stone [email protected](907) 586-2227, Ext. 32 Staff: A Host of Loyal Volunteers According to diocesan policy, all Catholics of the Diocese of Juneau are to receive The Southeast Alaska Catholic; please contact your parish office to sign up or to notify them of an address change. Others may request to receive The Southeast Alaska Catholic by sending a donation of $30. Periodical postage paid at Juneau, Alaska.

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In This IssueProfile of Fr. Pat Casey, OMI Page 4 Cathedral parishioner Dan Branch shares the vocation story of pastor, Fr. Casey

The good fruit born of a love for Christ and others Page 5 Deacon Charles Rohrbacher finds hope in the life of Fr. Thomas and the image of the Jesse Tree

Juneau youth receive Philanthropist award Page 7 Three young Cathedral parishioners in Juneau live out their faith in tree-selling business

Mother Teresa about to be named a Saint Page 10 Papal approval of a miracle attributed to Blessed Teresa, paves the way for her Canonization

Intentional Doors for the Year of Mercy Page 16 Doors open in the Diocese as both sacred sign and intentional gesture

The Reverend Thomas Lee (Joseph) Weise, Jr., 46, a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Juneau, Alaska, died December 6, 2015, following a cardiac arrest suffered while visiting family members in San Luis Obispo, California.

Fr. Weise was born January 10, 1969 in South Laguna Beach, California. After graduating from Dana Hills High School, he was appointed to the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Con-necticut, graduating in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Science.

While in the Coast Guard, he served as an officer on a buoy tender based in Ketchikan, Alaska, on shore duty at the Port of Long Beach, CA (obtained BA from CSULB), and rose to the rank of Lieutenant. At the end of his active duty service, in 1996 Fr. Weise entered Mt. Angel Seminary in Oregon to study for the priesthood and eventually become a Navy chaplain. How-ever, in 1998 after discerning a call to serve as a parish priest, Fr. Weise became a seminarian for the Diocese of Juneau, Alaska.

After a pastoral year at Saint Gregory Na-zianzen Parish in Sitka, Alaska, he was ordained a deacon in April 2001. After graduating from Mt. Angel Seminary with a Master of Divinity degree as well as a Master of Theology, Fr. Weise was ordained a priest on May 31st, 2002 by Bishop Michael Warfel at Saint Paul the Apostle Parish in Juneau, Alaska.

Fr. Weise served as an associate pastor at St. Paul’s in Juneau from 2002 to 2004. During

this same period he also served as a chaplain in the United States Navy Reserve.

During 2004-2005 he served at Saint Rose of Lima Parish in Wrangell and Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Petersburg as par-ish administrator. In 2005, he was made rector of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau. In 2010 he returned to Petersburg and Wrangell, as pas-tor of the two parishes in those

communities. Fr. Weise’s ministry at St. Rose’s and St.

Catherine’s is noteworthy for the many friends he made in each town, along with the major building renovations and improvements he initiated and which were accomplished with the help and encouragement of parishioners. As pastor he traveled by small plane every Sunday (weather permitting) between Petersburg and Wrangell to celebrate Mass.

In addition to his regular pastoral work in Juneau, Wrangell and Petersburg, Fr. Weise participated in the World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations in Rome (2000), Toronto (2002), Cologne (2005), Sydney (2008), Madrid (2011) and had planned to attend WYD 2016 in Kra-kow, Poland. He was an avid outdoorsman who hiked and kayaked throughout Southeast Alaska. Fr. Weise was an active member of the Juneau chapter of Veterans for Peace, the Alaska chapter of the environmental group Interfaith Power and Light and a founding board member of the Canvas Art Studio for artists with devel-

Continued on page 7

Fr. Thomas Lee Weise, Jr.January 10, 1969 – December 6, 2015

The Southeast Alaska Catholic December 2015 • 3

BY BISHOPEDWARD J. BURNS

The Incarnation of God’s Mercy Continued from page 1

And in Mary’s response to all of this she says, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” (Luke 1:47) In the same way, God’s gift of love and mercy rooted in Jesus Christ is cause for our rejoicing.

This past December 8 the Universal Church entered into a Jubilee Year of Mercy which our Holy Father, Pope Francis, convened for all the faithful. It is vital for us, especially during this Christmas season, to see Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God’s mercy.

In his homily for the opening of the Jubilee door of mercy at the Vatican, Pope Francis said: “The Virgin Mary was called to rejoice above all because of what the Lord accomplished in her. God’s grace enfolded her and made her worthy of becoming the Mother of Christ. When Gabriel entered her home, even the most profound and impenetrable of mysteries became for her a cause for joy, a cause for faith, a cause for abandonment to the message revealed to her. The fullness of grace can transform the human heart and enable it to do something so great as to change the course of human history.”

But to try to speak of God’s mercy in just one article is gravely insufficient. So too, it is impossible to gain the scope of God’s mercy in just one solemn day or celebration. That is why the Church celebrates and proclaims God’s mercy through the various liturgies and seasons of the year.

In the Diocese of Juneau and South-east Alaska, we have designated two doors of mercy. On Sunday, December 13, I had the opportunity to bless and open the Jubilee door of mercy at the Shrine of Saint Therese. It is the door that is located in the bell tower and those who cross its threshold enter into a small room and encounter a beautiful icon of Christ painted by Deacon Charles Rohrbacher, beautifully framed and mounted by Jim Stey, along with an area well prepared with reading materials and information reflective of God’s mercy. I am grateful for Deacon Jeff and Lisa Volker for oversee-ing this project.

On Wednesday, December 16, I had the opportunity to bless and open the Jubi-

lee door of mercy at Saint Rose of Lima Parish in Wrangell, Alaska. That door was prepared by our beloved Father Thomas Weise. The blessing of the door had originally been scheduled to take place on December 8, but with Fr. Thomas’ passing, the dedication of the door took place during his memorial Mass. It was never imagined that as

he prepared that door for many to enter into God’s mercy leaving their old selves behind that we would be praying during the dedication to commend our beloved brother into the arms of God’s mercy. Fr. Thomas’ closing words in his last will and testament reads, “May God have mercy on my soul.”

The gift of mercy is a gift freely given to those who seek it. Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God’s mercy, is present for those who seek him. This Christmas season, we are mindful of the shepherds and the wise men who sought Jesus Christ, in order to pay him homage. In a special way, may we embark on the task of seeking out God’s mercy in our lives especially throughout this Jubilee Year of Mercy. In closing, may we in turn, through the grace of God, show mercy to all those we meet.

Blessings to you and to your loved ones this Christmas season.

With prayers and best wishes for the New Year,

Bishop Edward J. Burns

ANNOUNCEMENT: Effective mid-January, 2016, Fr. Steve Gallagher will be assuming the role of Pastor of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Petersburg and St. Rose of Lima parish in Wrangell. Thank you for your continued prayers for these two parishes as they heal from the loss of their beloved pastor, and for Fr. Steve as he assumes this new ministerial role.

ZENIT.ORGDecember 20, 2015 - Pope Francis says

there are three places to behold the “wonder” of Christmas in our daily lives: in the faces of others, in history and in the Church.

The Holy Father said this on Dec. 20 during his address before praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Drawing from Elizabeth’s reaction of won-der and astonishment when Mary and the un-born Jesus came to greet her, the Pope said that “to celebrate Christmas well, we are called to spend time” in three “places of astonishment”:

“The first place is ‘the other,’ in whom we recognize a brother, because since the birth of Jesus, every face is marked with a similarity to the Son of God,” the Pope said. “Above all when it is the face of a poor person, because as a poor man, God entered the world and it was the poor, in the first place, that he allowed to approach him.”

Secondly, we can see with wonder the path of history, if we resist the temptation to read it “backwards,” the Pope said.

History is not “determined by the market economy, regulated by finance and business, dominated by the powers that be,” he sug-gested. “The God of Christmas is rather a God who ‘shuffles the deck’ […] as Mary sings in

the Magnificat, it is the Lord who casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.”

Finally, the wonder of Christmas is seen in the Church: “To look on her with the wonder of faith means not just considering the Church only as a religious institution – which the Church is – but to feel that she is a mother who, despite her warts and wrinkles – we have so many! – lets the contours of the bride beloved of and purified by Christ the Lord shine through.”

“The Mother Church,” Francis said, “who always has the doors open, and her arms open to welcome everyone. Even more, Mother Church goes out from her own doors to seek, with the smile of a Mother, all of those who are far away and bring them to the mercy of God. This is the wonder of Christmas.”

The Pope said that we need Mary’s heart to be able to “rejoice and be glad for the great gift of God and for His unpredictable surprise.”

“May she help us to perceive the wonder, these three wonders: the other, history and the Church,” he prayed. “So let it be with the birth of Jesus – the gift of gifts – the undeserved gift that brings us salvation, that it might also make us feel this wonder in meeting Jesus.”

History, the Church and the Poor show us wonder of Christmas

Children carry flowers in procession as Pope Francis concludes the celebration of Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24, 2014. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)


Profile of a parish priest — Father Patrick Casey, OMIBY DAN BRANCH

Father Patrick Casey’s unique faith jour-ney took him to Vietnam, where he rappelled out of helicopters to provide medical aid to wounded soldiers. After being ordained as a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate (OMI), he served Catholic communities in Northern Minnesota and inner-city parishes in the Mid-West. Now he is the rector for the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau.

Casey was born in Los Angeles, Califor-nia to immigrants from Dublin. His father left Ireland as a thirteen-year-old stowaway on an American-bound freighter. After being caught, he was put to work shoveling coal. Custom officials interned him on Ellis Island until Catholic nuns arranged a home for him with a family in New Jersey. Kind acts like this by Catholic clergy would inspire Casey to join the priesthood.

Casey’s parents met and married in New Jersey and then moved to Los Angeles where they eventually owned a group of flower and gift shops and ran a catering business. Casey and his siblings helped out in the family businesses.

During his childhood, Casey enjoyed the company of the priests and sisters that came to the family home for dinner. To repay the Daughters of Mary and Joseph who taught her children, Casey’s mother organized a drive to collect the box loads of S&H green stamps needed to buy them a new Chrysler station wagon. At the time supermarkets gave out the stamps as a reward for shop-ping in their stores. When his mother was very ill a priest showed her great kindness and care. So, when a recruiting priest visited his eighth grade classroom, Casey seriously considered joining the priesthood. But it would be many years before he took that step on his faith journey.

After graduating from St. Anthony’s High School in 1964, he enrolled as a fresh-man at UCLA with plans to be a doctor. A year later he received his draft notice.

Because he had studied science at UCLA, the Army offered Casey a place at the Officers Candidate School. He accepted and started his military service as a Lieutenant. He was assigned to the U.S. Army’s First Division in Vietnam where he worked as surgical scrub nurse in a mobile hospital unit in Anquan. The base was attacked and overrun with the help of teenage suicide bombers from China. After the battle, Casey was shocked to learn

that some of the bombers were prepubescent children. Later, he transferred to the 45th Medivac Unit at Tai Nin where he worked on a medical evacuation team.

His new unit operated mobile mass casualty hospitals that used helicopters as mobile ambulances to collect the wounded from battlefields. Over rough terrain, Lt. Casey’s team had to rappel out of the hov-ering helicopter. They only had minutes to stabilize the wounded and get them into the helicopter. The military trained him to maintain a professional detachment that allowed him to function when faced with horror and sadness. Later he paid the price for detachment with many nights of sleep disturbed by battlefield flashbacks. In time he healed thanks to his faith, which reminded him of God’s love for the wounded and the home God gave to those who died in spite of his efforts to save them.

When heading into a mass casualty situation, Casey invited Catholic priests to accompany the chopper. The kindness and concern they showed to the wounded and dying soldiers later inspired Casey to join the priesthood. He would try to emulate them when he became a priest.

After completing thirteen months of military service, Casey returned to California. No politicians or civic leaders welcomed him home. No one thanked him for his service as is done with today’s veterans. Anti-war protestors picketed the airport in Oakland where he landed. When he returned to UCLA to complete his undergraduate degree, Casey learned not to talk about Vietnam or his military service with fellow students or his professors, including the famous anti-war protestor, Angela Davis. He earned a bach-elor’s degree in Biology and Sociology in 1969 and went on to graduate from the school’s physician’s assistant program in 1972.

Casey served as a physician’s assistant in Los Angeles orthopedic clinics for three years after graduation. Later he worked in a cardiovascular unit in Omaha, Nebraska. There he started to consider whether he should marry his girlfriend and raise a family. He also explored the possibility of becoming a priest by talking with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Omaha. The good experi-ences he had with priests and sisters during his childhood made him comfortable with the idea of living in a religious community. Inspired by priests he met in Vietnam, one of whom had been an Oblate Missionary, he joined the Oblates with plans to work in one

of their overseas medical missions. He entered the Oblate seminary in Alton,

Illinois and studied theology for three years at the Boston Theological Union, which is part of Harvard Divinity School. There he enjoyed studying the writings of Father Karl Rahner, who taught that salvation was an ongoing process—a faith journey.

Father Casey was ordained a priest in 1980 at Precious Blood, his childhood par-ish in Los Angeles. He found the experience wonderful but humbling.

Because the parish needed a priest, the

Oblates sent Father Casey to his first posting in International Falls, Minnesota where he lived in community with two other priests. Some of his parishioners needed his counsel-ing to deal with stress after the town’s main employer started laying off large numbers of employees.

When the son of one of his parishioners ran off to Minneapolis, Father Casey accom-panied the boy’s father to the Twin Cities. They found the young man drug addicted and living on the streets. The runaway’s dad

Fr. Patrick Casey, OMI, blesses niches at the Shrine of St. Therese columbarium, Juneau, on Memorial Day, 2015.

Continued on page 11


ROHRBACHER

Along the Way

Deacon Charles Rohrbacher

I thanked God for the good fruit born of disciplined prayer, of generosity and sacrifice, of a burning love for Christ and for others that blazed with such intense passion and joy.

The good fruit born of a love for Christ

(Top, right) The Jesse Tree from the Scherenberg Psalter. (At right) A fruit-laden orange tree planted in the San Luis Obispo Mission courtyard by Fr. Thomas’s sister, Terry, and her husband, Deacon Jim Burrows.

For the past few years at the Christ-mas Eve Mass, it has been my part to proclaim the genealogy of Jesus, the beginning of the gospel of Matthew at the family Mass. In our tradition this reading rather than the account of the birth of Jesus, is assigned to the Vigil of Christmas. Starting with Abraham, the list of names, in three groups of fourteen generations, culminates with the name of Joseph, the husband of Mary and then begins with these words: “Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.”

My homily is always quite brief, as the children are eager to bring up the crèche figures and narrate the story of the birth of Jesus themselves. But I say a few words about the long wait for the coming of Jesus and the part that person and generation named in the genealogy played in preparing the way for the com-ing of the Messiah.

As a spiritual exercise (I always pray better with a pencil or a paint brush in my hand) I had hoped during this Ad-vent to hand-letter Matthew’s genealogy as part of an illuminated Tree of Jesse. Traditionally, in medieval stained glass windows and illuminated manuscripts, the father of David is shown reclining in sleep, with a great tree springing up from his loins or side. The various ancestors of Jesus are depicted on the trunk and the branches of the tree. Some versions are quite complex compositions with many figures, others just highlight a few of those mentioned in the genealogy. But always, at the very top of the tree, like a cluster of ripe fruit, is the image of Jesus (or of Mary and the infant Jesus).

This turned out to be a different kind of Advent, with the sudden and unex-pected illness and death of our beloved Fr. Thomas Weise, and I never had a chance to even begin this project. The coming of the Lord, which past generations longed for and which this season teaches us to look forward to with anticipation and hope in the future, was immediate and personal for my friend and brother in ministry on December 6th. Neither Thomas nor any one of us knew the day or the hour on which he would meet Christ.

Meditating on these events and on Fr. Thomas’s life, I keep coming back to the image of a tree. Four images come to mind for me: roots, branches, tree in winter and a tree bearing rich and abundant fruit.

The root word (no pun intended) of radical is radix, a Latin word meaning root. And for Fr. Thomas, he lived his life with a radical intensity. Those who knew him saw each day how he lived a life centered in Christ and the gospel. Aware as he was of his own weaknesses, frailty and vulnerability, he was nevertheless ‘all-in.’ As a missionary priest in Southeast Alaska, he was able to remain as he termed it, “Semper Gumby” (always flexible) in his various assignments because he was so deeply rooted in the love and mercy and compassion of Jesus.

Rooted as he was in Christ, Fr. Thomas branched out in so many differ-ent and creative directions. Embodying that wonderful aphorism of St. Irenaeus, that “the glory of God is the human person fully alive,” Fr. Thomas joyfully excelled in everything from ceramics and kayaking, pilgrimages and installing heat pumps, social media and contemplative prayer. All of these diverse interests and activities, as significant as they were in themselves, provided many rich opportu-nities for others to encounter Christ, in whose image, Thomas, as a disciple and as a priest, was configured.

It was winter in Juneau when I trav-eled down to San Luis Obispo, where Fr. Thomas had been visiting his family when he died and where his funeral was celebrated. Overcast and cold, it was a long way from summer, or even from fall. We gathered for the vigil and the funeral

Mass at the old Mission church. At the end of funeral we brought his body from the church through what had been at one time the cloister of the Franciscan friars who had established the mission so long ago. Although it was winter there too, there was an abundance of fruit trees, flowers and fragrant herbs in the cloister courtyard. After we said our final farewell to him, I lingered for a while in the garden and noticed a sturdy little orange tree, laden with ripe fruit. As I took a closer look, I thought about the Jesse Tree, and how it bore fruit in Christ himself. I thought about Fr. Thomas, and all of those who sheltered and found new life beneath the branches of his relatively brief life. I thanked God for the good fruit born in his life and ministry of disciplined prayer, of generosity and sacrifice, of a burning love for Christ and for others that blazed with such intense passion and joy.

And I pondered and prayed over the contrast between the grief that I feel in his death, as real and bleak as the winter we are in the midst of during this season, and how grateful I am that my life is rooted in the abundant new life of Christ, which has overcome sorrow and death forever.

May the life, example and prayers of Fr. Thomas, who passed from this world into the world to come, continue to bear good fruit in my life, in the life of our diocese and in the lives of all who knew him.

- Deacon Charles Rohrbacher is the Office of Ministries Director for the Diocese of Juneau. Phone: 907-586-2227 x 23. Email: [email protected]


Come, Lord, JesusBy Terry Herda Gucker

In blood moon and lunar eclipse

I am awed by you.

In night stirrings and

creative silence

I sense you.

In every prayer thought

I breathe you.

In darkness

I contemplate you.

In stillness

I hear you.

In meditation

I strive to know you.

In the depth of my soul

I revere you.

In both sorrow and joy

I taste you.

In vibrant nature

I rejoice in you.

In redolent seasons

I inhale you.

In controversy

I defend you.

In the face of all you send me

I behold you.

As your dwelling place

I welcome you.

In the heart of my heart

I embrace you.

And in the advent of my soul

I once again await you.

Come, Lord Jesus, come!

A HOMILY BY DEACON VINCE HANSEN3rd Sunday of Advent

Readings: Zephaniah 3; Psalm-Isaiah 12; Philippians 4; Luke 3:10-18

The first question that people ask when the ministers come into the church today is, “Why are they wearing pink?” Well, it is rose actually, and it signifies Gaudete Sunday. Like Lent, Advent is a penitential season, a time to prepare for the coming of the Lord, not just for Christmas, but for his second com-ing. During the penitential seasons the Priest and Deacon normally wear purple vestments. But on Gaudete Sunday, hav-ing passed the midpoint of Advent, the Church lightens the mood a little, and the ministers wear rose vestments. We light a rose colored candle. The change in color provides us with encourage-ment to continue our spiritual prepara-tion, especially prayer and fasting, for Christmas.

I hope you are having a faith-filled Advent and succeeding in your spiritual preparation. It has been an amazing Advent for me. Many big things have happened and continue to happen. I am “so, so” with the fasting, but I have prob-ably prayed more than in any previous Advent. Some of the big things are that I have lost three friends in this short time. I prayed for each of them. For one, I did something I almost never do, I prayed and prayed for a specific miracle of healing. I prayed multiple rosaries. I fell asleep praying. I prayed throughout the day. I prayed to the Saints specifically—the Saints who had proven miracles. But the specific miracle I prayed for, the earthly healing and recovery of Father Thomas Weise, did not happen. And it has been a crushing blow to all of us who knew and were close to him. And, those are many.

We all knew how much he meant to us and to the diocese. He was our youngest priest. He was health conscious and full of energy. He was a Coast Guard officer who later became a priest; he was helping to build up the kingdom of God wherever he went, and with whomever he met, young and old. Over 50,000 people have clicked on his online homilies. Someone asked me if I was close to him and I responded, “Yes, he was the Director of most of my Deaconal Formation, he was a spiritual advisor to my daughters, and he gave me hugs that would practically strangle me….and wouldn’t let go.” But after I said this, I laughed and realized that practically everyone he knew would say that they were close to him.

So, why would God let him die? I have a

hard time getting this question out of my head. It just doesn’t make sense. I keep thinking of great things Father Thomas said and did. All the things the Church teaches, he relayed with amazing clarity and candor, but especially with love. I remember him talking about Purgatory and Hell. He was sincerely worried about those he loved turning away from God and the Church… because he wanted to be with them in eternity. He humbly admitted that he too was a sinner, and that when he died, he knew

he was going to Purgatory, so to please pray intensely for him, so that the scrubbing down he needed to get into Heaven would be brief.

Father Thomas wasn’t afraid to tell it like it is; he told you with the Love of God in his heart, and you could see it in his eyes — Get straight with God. And the sudden loss of Father Thomas

should remind us that the Lord is truly near. We are only one heartbeat away from our reckoning with him.

We can deny that we are sinners. We can deny the truths that the Church teaches. We can deny the Works of Mercy, but there will be a price to pay. When the winnowing fan blows, we want to be the wheat gathered up, and not the chaff burned in unquenchable fire.

We are NOT to judge others, but we are to look at ourselves in the light of our example, Jesus Christ. Are we living out the Love he demonstrated to us? Are we becom-ing the version of ourselves that he intends and challenges us to be? Yes, there is also a price to pay for doing right. Jesus tells us we will be ridiculed and hated, but he also tells us through St. Paul in today’s second reading, that we are to “Rejoice in the Lord always...your kindness should be known to all... have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.”

Which brings me back to my own prayers. How can Father Thomas really be gone? Why didn’t God answer my prayer in the way I had asked? All I can say is that ‘only God knows’; and I trust that he does. When Lazarus died, Jesus cried. As a human, he knew what loss felt like. He would raise Lazarus from the dead, but the sting of death was so strong that when it happened, even he cried. We don’t know how much longer Lazarus lived, but he did eventually die. I’ve met people who are alive because of a miracle. Some of them have since died. Some people are miraculously healed,

and a few months later they die of something completely different.

But ultimately, for the Christian, it doesn’t matter because the sting of death is now gone. Zephaniah says it for us in the first reading: “Shout for Joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joy-fully…! Be glad and exult with all your heart… The Lord has removed the judgement against you… the King of Israel is in your midst, you have no further misfortune to fear... a mighty savior; he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love….” A mighty savior, Jesus Christ will come to us and save us. He will open the gates of heaven.

How is my prayer being answered? I don’t know, but God will answer it. I like historical books and I am fascinated by extraordinary battles, where men overcome impossible odds to survive or to be victorious. Sometimes the best and most capable person is killed or dies first. The person who seems to be holding it all together and the key to their survival. You wonder how the others will survive, not to mention, succeed. But what happens in those extraordinary situations is that the others, sometimes several others, step forward and take up where that person left off, sometimes with even more fervor, until the battle is won…or until they too are spent.

Many saints died young, and not all as Martyrs, and look what they left for the Church. St. Francis Xavier’s feast day was last week, and he was the same age as Father Thomas, 46, when he died. Father Michael McGivney, who started the Knights of Columbus, was 38. St. Therese was 24. There are many, many others.

I don’t know if other men, so moved by Father Thomas’s life, will now come forward and become priests. I don’t know whose lives will be affected in a way that helps build the kingdom of God, but I am confident that if I truly make my best effort to become the person God intended me to be, I will someday know the answer. Because of Father Thomas, I know I will try harder. I also trust that Thomas lived the life God wanted him to live and that he will live the rest of it in peace and joy with him in eternity. And he will be an intercessor for us, once we help get him scrubbed up and out of Purgatory.

I’ll end with a phrase I just ran across from the Book of Daniel: “Those who are learned will be as radiant as the sky in all its beauty; those who instruct the people in goodness will shine like the stars for all eternity.” When I saw the beautiful stars this morning, I under-stood better.

DCN. VINCE HANSEN

Why would God let him die?


Fr. Thomas Weise: Continued from page 2

In Service to One, In Service to All.www.kofc.org

opmental disabilities. Fr. Thomas is survived by his mother, Irene Strateny, his father,

Thomas Weise Sr. (Lee Ann), his sister Terry Burrows (Deacon Jim Burrows), brothers Tim Weise (Lorna) and Trent Weise (Lisa), as well as nephews Noah Weise, Isaac Weise and Logan Arentz.

A Vigil and Funeral Mass were held on Dec. 14 and 15 in San Luis Obispo, California at the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. A video of the Funeral Mass is viewable online at: https://livestream.com/dioce-seofjuneau.

Temporary interment will take place at the Old Mission Catholic Cemetery columbarium in San Luis Obispo. At a later date, final inter-ment will take place at the columbarium at the Shrine of Saint Therese, Juneau, Alaska.

On Dec. 16th, at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Wrangell, Alaska, Bishop Edward J. Burns presided at a Memorial Mass for Fr. Weise.

On Dec. 17th, Bishop Burns presided at a Memorial Mass for Fr. Weise at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Petersburg, Alaska.

In Juneau, on Friday, Dec. 18th at Bishop Edward Burns presided at a Memorial Mass at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church. The Mass was livestreamed to the internet and is viewable at the following link: https://livestream.com/dioceseofjuneau.

The Diocese of Juneau has established the Fr. Thomas Weise Memorial Fund, which will be used to pay for any outstanding bills relating to Fr. Thomas’ medical care and end-of-life expenses. Remaining funds will be distributed to the poor, as per Fr. Thomas’s living request. Contributions can be mailed to the Diocese of Juneau, 415 Sixth Street, Suite 300, Juneau, Alaska, 99801-1074. Donations can also be made online electronically at http://www.dioceseofjuneau.org/ways-to-give. When donating, please indicate “Fr. Thomas Weise Memorial Fund.”

Cards and letters of condolence may be mailed to:Family of Fr. Thomas Weise

c/o Terry Burrows672 Howard St., San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

Beginning in 2010, Fr. Thomas Weise maintained a webpage for his daily and Sunday homily pod-casts, gathering listeners worldwide and preach-

ing beyond the confines of Southeast Alaska. Those recorded homilies may be accessed at:

www.sempergumbyinalaska.blogspot.com

The Juneau Community Foundation recently celebrated its Philanthropists of the Year for 2015, awarding its Youth Philanthropist Award to Molly, Toby and Elias Minick of 10th Street Trees, a Christ-mas tree business they took over from their parents. At the Juneau Community Foundation awards event, the three Minick siblings described how they decided to continue their parents’ tradition of giving part of the earnings from every Christmas tree sold to a local charity. In 2014 they donated more than $1,000 to the Housing First Project and expanded on the giving theme by providing several trees for free to meet a request of a young customer - that everyone should have a tree at Christmas.

This year the Minicks have decided to donate a portion of their proceeds, $5 per tree, plus all tips, to Haven House in Juneau. Haven House is a faith-based organization providing supported and structured liv-ing opportunities to foster healing and self-sufficiency

for women coming out of prison in Southeast Alaska.The Minicks are parishioners of the Cathedral

of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and are the children of parishioners Pat Minick and Kim Champney.

Cathedral parishioner siblings receive Youth Philanthropists award

(Top, right) Molly, Toby and Elias Minick of 10th Street Trees receive the Juneau Community Foundation Youth Award for 2015. (At right) Molly Minick inspects remaining trees for sale in 2014. (Below) The current 10th Street Trees was formally a Christmas tree-selling business operated for many years by the Thibodeau family and located on Glacier Ave.

The Southeast Alaska Catholic 8 • December 2015 The Southeast Alaska Catholic 8 • December 2015

Diocese mourns death of Fr. Thomas WeiseMy Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-Thomas Merton

Fr. Thomas, please pray for us.

Photos: Kayaking near the Shrine of St. Therese (Nancy Wiechec); celebrating the Eucharist at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Petersburg; snowshoeing near Juneau.

JANUARY 10, 1969 – DECEMBER 6, 2015

The Southeast Alaska Catholic December 2015 • 9October 2013 • 9The Southeast Alaska Catholic December 2015 • 9

Allison Jackson, former parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Petersburg, shared the following reflection at the Vigil for Fr. Thomas at Mission San Luis Obispo Church on Dec. 14th, 2015.

To the family and friends of Fr. Thomas, to the many priests, deacons and Bishop Burns, to the world and creatures that shared friendship with Thomas, I thank you for the privilege of sharing a short heartfelt message from St. Catherine’s in Petersburg, AK.

My family came to know Fr. Thomas—in sharing parish life, World Youth Days, joys, sorrows and adventures with this young, zealous man of faith, DEDICATED to Mary and Joseph, FULL of the Lord, COMMITTED to his priesthood, DRIVEN by the Holy Spirit, his BEAUTIFUL song, the cherished iconography, his kayaks, and... the continuous repair of CHURCHES, as if, HE ... WERE St. Francis of Alaska.

And the perpetual thought provoking, humbling and self-reflective questions, stirring the Christ within us all,

Indeed, Thomas touched us with his gentle giantness, the bear hugs… embracing us in thought, word and deed.

Thomas’ enduring love poured out the Christ within HIM... through the muskeg, through the salt water, and fire, through the rain forests, sunshine, snow, sweat and grime,

... across the ocean and lakes, over the glaciers and up the moun-tains, across continents, Europe, North and South America, Australia … and from under the churches.

Over the years, Thomas taught himself to BE love, spreading joy, sharing meals and spiritual nourishment, gifts and little treasures, the spirit within…. reflecting Christ, infusing others with joy….. the humanness of Fr. Thomas…simply and lovingly morphed into all he met.

He often spoke of the broken vase that was glued back together, our humanness… healed by Christ. As our hearts are broken and filled with sorrow, I realize that sorrow can only be healed by BEING love…and rendering service…

With Fr. Thomas sailing on to heaven, we must learn to BE love, and as Fr. Thomas has touched, we must touch, and we must love and render service to all as Fr. Thomas did.

It is not going to be easy… my social media props are already lacking. There are no more Fr. Thomas daily digitals of saints on Facebook, those beautiful iconic reflections…,

My twitter account is not tweeting Thomas’ Sunday afternoon gospel tweets AND Semper Gumby is silent… a treasured past.

Thank you Fr. Thomas for having gotten us this far! I am going to miss you every day; it feels like a piece of my soul has gone with you.

To the Weise family, thank you for sharing Fr. Thomas Weise with Southeast Alaska.

St Catherine and St. Rose, among other parishes… are very blessed.

BEING LOVE

SEE OBITUARY PG. 2 • ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS - PG. 5, 6

Photos: Kayaking near the Shrine of St. Therese (Nancy Wiechec); celebrating the Eucharist at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Petersburg; snowshoeing near Juneau.


BY JAMES MARTIN, SJ WASHINGTON POST – ACTS OF FAITH /OPINION

The Vatican announced Friday that Pope Francis will canonize Mother Teresa, perhaps the most famous Catholic sister in modern times. She will, perhaps in several months, become known as St. Teresa of Calcutta (or Kolkata). Though she died almost 20 years ago, her name is still synonymous for many with charity, and the habit of blue-and-white saris that the women’s branch of her order wears are still familiar to millions.

But what many don’t know about this soon-to-be saint is that she spent the final decades of her life feel-ing an almost complete absence of God.

When she was in her mid-30s, she experienced a rare spiritual grace: actually hearing the voice of God. This prompted her to devote her entire life to the “poorest of the poor.” But just a few years later, that closeness to God evaporated almost entirely.

For the following decades, until her death at age 87, she worked with the poor, founded a religious order and traveled around the world preaching God’s love, without any interior experience of God’s pres-ence. It is this fidelity to her original call, this willingness to carry out her ministry without any inner spiritual support, that I believe makes her the greatest saint of modern times.

The announcement of the canon-ization follows the Vatican’s report Thursday that a healing in 2008 of a Brazilian man from a viral brain infection has been declared by medical officials to be “inexplicable in the light of present-day medical knowledge.” About to enter into surgery, the man, comatose, suddenly woke up and said, “What am I doing here?” At the time of his recovery, his wife had been praying in a church, asking for Mother Teresa’s prayers. Afterward, he was found to be asymptomatic.

Born Anjezë (Agnes) Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Albania in 1910, the woman who would become known as Moth-er Teresa entered the Sisters of Loretto, and was sent to teach in India in 1929. After two decades of teaching, while on a train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for a rest, she had a series of mystical experiences in which she heard the voice of Jesus. Most saints experience a closeness with God, and a few have experienced “vi-sions,” but what are called “locutions” are very rare. In Mother Teresa’s case, she reported that the voice of Jesus asked her to leave behind her teaching and plunge into ministry with the very poor. Afterward, for a time, she felt a deep closeness with him.

In 1948 she left the Sisters of Loretto and began

her work in the slums, eventually founding the Mis-sionaries of Charity.

Then something even rarer occurred: her interior life dried up completely. A few years after her experience on the train, God began to feel distant, then absent. She wrote to her spiritual director, “In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.”

That painful feeling of absence, what spiritual writers call a “dark night,” lasted until her death and was not discovered by the general public until her collected letters, titled “Come, Be My Light,” were published in 2007.

The publication shocked many. Some falsely con-cluded that she no longer believed in God. But there is a difference between not feeling God’s presence and not believing in God. (If I don’t hear from a friend for years, I may start to doubt his or her love. I need not

doubt his or her existence.) And while an extended dark night is rare, shorter periods of dryness are very common in the spiritual life, even in the lives of saints.

In time, Mother Teresa began to understand these feelings of God’s absence as a way of identifying with Jesus’s feelings of abandonment on the cross and also as a way of entering more deeply into union with the poor, who also often felt abandoned.

For decades, then, Mother Tere-sa remained faithful to her original

call. Unlike almost any other saint, she carried out her ministry without the benefit of a warm and sustaining prayer life. This makes her already remarkable ministry among the poor even more extraordinary. She did it, as it were, on an empty tank of gas, running on the fumes of her earlier mystical experiences.

It was an extraordinary act of fidelity, unparalleled as far as I know in the lives of the saints. For this rea-son alone I consider her the greatest saint of our time.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

- The Rev. James Martin is a Jesuit priest, editor-at-large of the Catholic news site America, and author of “My Life with the Saints” and a new novel, “The Abbey,” about a woman’s spiritual doubts.

Mother Teresa, about to be named a saint, felt terrible pain ‘of God not wanting me’

In time, Mother Teresa began to understand these feeling of God’s absence as a way of identifying with Jesus’s feelings of abandonment on the cross and also as a way of entering more deeply into union with the poor, who also often feel abandoned.

Pope Francis has approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, paving the way for her canonization in 2016. Mother Teresa is pictured holding a rosary while speaking in this undated photo. She is pictured with an ailing man in an undated photo. (CNS) photo courtesy Catholic Press Photo.


CNS News Briefs • www.catholicnews.comReligious leaders decry notion of limiting Muslim immigration to U.S.WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In response to suggestions made by some Republican presidential candidates in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris and San Ber-nardino, California, that the United States refuse entry to Muslim refugees or that U.S. mosques be surveillance targets, several religious leaders have rejected the idea. “We underplay the fact that the pregnant Mary and her husband, Joseph, were turned away from the inn. We forget the slaughter of the Holy Innocents -- and that the infant Jesus was spared their fate only through the hurried flight into Egypt where the Holy Family lived for years as what today we would call ‘political refugees,’” said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami in a Dec. 13 op-ed article in the Miami Herald. “Today there are more than 60 million refugees and internally displaced persons living in our world -- the greatest number since the end of World War II. Close to one-third of these people are from Syria and Iraq. And most are surviving in desperate circumstances. And, truth be told, many fail to survive at all,” Archbishop Wenski added. “Yet, in spite of this profound human suffering, many here in our country would shut our doors in the faces of those looking for a safe haven. We cannot give in to our fear and retreat into the mindset of a ‘fortress America,’” he said.

Diocesan investigators conclude bacteria caused host to appear to bleedSALT LAKE CITY (CNS) -- An investigation by the Diocese of Salt Lake City into a report that a consecrated host at a Catholic church allegedly was bleeding has concluded the host did not bleed and the change in its appearance was caused by red bread mold. “The consecrated host has been disposed of in a reverent manner, as is required,” the diocese said in a Dec. 16 statement. An ad hoc committee appointed to investigate the matter “unanimously concludes that the observed change in the host was not miraculous but resulted from the growth of red bread mold,” the diocese said. The committee “determined the need to establish proper protocols for clergy dealing with such situations in the future,” it said, and urged Catholics to take “this opportunity to renew their faith and devotion in the great miracle” of Christ’s real presence, “which takes place at every Eucharist.” The statement explained the timeline from when parishioners at St. Francis Xavier Church in Kearns first reported the alleged bleeding host to the naming of an ad hoc committee to review the matter to the completion of the investigation. At the Kearns church, on the weekend of Nov. 14-15, it was alleged that a host consecrated a week earlier, at the 1:30 p.m. Mass Nov. 8, appeared to be bleeding. The host was publicly displayed at parish Masses, the diocese said.

Patriarch urges more spiritual ChristmasJERUSALEM (CNS) -- Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal urged moderate celebrations of Christmas this year because of the current political situation, but he also called for an end to the arms trade. In his Dec. 16 Christmas message, he urged a more spiritual holiday celebration and also encouraged all parishes to turn off the Christmas tree lights for five minutes in solidarity with all the victims of violence and terrorism. In Bethlehem, West Bank, the Christmas Mass will be offered for the victims and their families, he said, “that they take to heart the participation in the joy and peace of Christmas.” At the local level, he urged Palestinian and Israeli leaders to have the courage to work toward a just peace, rather than war and violence. “Enough of stalling, reluctance and false pretenses,” he admonished. “Respect international resolutions. Listen to the voice of your people who aspire for peace, act in their best interest. Each of the two peoples of the Holy Land, Israelis and Palestinians, have the right to dignity, to an independent state and sustainable security. What suffering it is, to once again see our beloved Holy Land caught in the vicious cycle of bloody violence. What pain to see anew, hatred prevail over reason and dialogue. The anguish of the people of this land is ours, which we cannot ignore or disregard. Enough! We are tired of this conflict as we see the Holy Land sullied with blood,” he added.

Number of refugees, displaced people at highest since World War IIWEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CNS) -- The explosive global refugee crisis seems destined to dominate domestic and foreign politics for years to come at a time when Pope Francis has been calling for a compassionate world response. Early in 2015, Pope Francis again called attention to the plight of mostly Libyan refugees who perish en route to Europe during the Mediterranean Sea crossing to the southern Italian coastal island of Lampedusa. The pope has concluded the year by confirming his intention to visit the Mexico-U.S. border during an anticipated papal visit to Mexico set for February, an action that will likely been seen as provocative by some U.S. lawmakers. Waves of refugees have been fleeing war-torn Syria for new opportunities in the West. By year’s end a new surge of Central Americans -- mainly unaccompanied minors -- crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and entering the United States has added to tensions over accepting newcomers into this country. And deadly terrorist-related shootings this fall in Paris and in San Bernardino, CA, have now further strained refugee response initiatives as top politicians such as U.S. President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel are facing heavy criticism and even open resistance to the resettlement of North African and Middle Eastern refugees. Pope Francis’ U.S. visit in September and his newly inaugurated Year of Mercy for the church worldwide are seen as further teaching moments from the pontiff on the need for mercy and compassion for migrants and refugees.

Fr. Pat Casey, OMI: Continued from page 4

embraced him like the father in the gospel parable had embraced the prodigal son.

After leaving International Falls, Father Casey worked at the Oblate seminary in St. Louis. Two years later he became the pastor at Holy Guardian Angels, an inner-city church with forty ac-tive parishioners. The people were nice but the church building was a concrete bunker in the heart of the Peabody Projects, an African-American community plagued with drug-related violence. Once, while Father Casey was saying Mass, a man confronted him during the consecration and demanded money.

Father Casey taught at the parish school. Some of the seventh and eight graders wore beepers on their ankle so their drug-dealer employers could summon them for a runner job.

When the St. Louis Diocese incurred a large tax debt the bishop ordered the closure of Guardian Angels. Father asked to keep the church open for one more year so his parishioners could find a new spiritual home. He obtained use of a large bus and used it to drive people to a different Catholic church every Sunday in Advent. After saying mass for the last time at Guardian Angles, his parish processed through their community carrying the church’s records, crucifix, and other items used in the liturgy. The parish boarded the bus and rode to the new church that most of them had decided to join.

From St. Louis, Father Casey moved to St. Paul and then Chicago where he served two other inner-city parishes. One, St. Malachy, was originally built to serve an Irish-American neigh-borhood. When the Irish parishioners moved out, the church stayed to serve the African-American Catholics who replaced them. For Father Casey, this was consistent with Catholic Church tradition in America. The Church doesn’t leave a community just because the community changes. As long it can, the Church stays to provide Catholics in inner-city neighborhoods a place of worship and a place to educate their kids.

After six years in Chicago, Father Casey was assigned by the Oblates to the Juneau Diocese. He first served the communities of Wrangell, Petersburg, and Kake. After the intensity of Chicago, it took him six months to adjust to the quiet life in Southeast Alaska. But he was ready for the change. In Chicago, he found it harder and harder to bury children who had been shot dead in the street. To make matters worse, gang members would sit in the back of the funeral parlor listening to their boom boxes while he conducted the funeral service. Once, right after Father Casey had conducted a funeral service for a young man, two gang members shot and killed the child’s father as he prayed.

After three years in Central Southeast Alaska, Father Casey’s faith journey brought him to the Cathedral Parish where he continues to serve as rector. As he has during his 35 years as a priest, Father Casey quietly does what needs doing for the parish, including maintenance of the church buildings, saying Mass, and carrying the sacraments to the sick and dying at the hospital.

FR. PAT CASEY, OMI


(Above) Simbang Gabi Celebration of 2015 at St. Gregory’s parish in Sitka. About 20 people from the Filipino Community celebrated a Mass @ 6:30 PM each night from December 16th to December 24th. A special “Rooster Mass,” which according to organizer, Maybelle Fuller, of the Simbang Gabi Celebration, is a tradition close to this joyful time of the Nativity. There will be a potluck at the Parish Hall following the Rooster Mass. (Photo by Gio Villanueva)

(Below) St. Gregory’s parish celebrated their 1st Sunday of Advent Mass in Sweetland Hall on the Sheldon Jackson Campus. Over 200 people gathered for the Mass and following potluck. In this photo by Angie DelMoral, Lydia Suminski lights the first Advent candle.

Celebrating Advent at St. Gregory’s

BY FR. ANDY SENSENIG, OMIAt St. Gregory’s parish celebration of the First

Sunday of Advent in Sweetland Hall, on the Sheldon Jackson Campus in Sitka, over 200 people gathered for the Mass and a potluck meal. The CCD classes sang, “We are disciples,” patterned after my homily on the ABC’s of Mercy.

The ABC’s of Mercy are:A - Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach

Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon the whole world.

B - Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to ex-tend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us.

C - Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will re-ceive. (Taken from The Divine Mercy Webpage: http://www.thedivinemercy.org/message/).

The children’s brave voices radiated throughout Sweetland Hall and the community responded in kind. The lesson learned here is simply that to embrace a merciful heart is just to let your heart shine, which is what we all do during Advent in so many ways.

We do it by simply smiling to each other. Allow-ing a person to get in line in front of us, because that person needed to get to a party or back home to get things ready. As the sun is quickly descending over the

horizon and with the struggles of the world around us becoming darker in tone, we just have to remember who we are and that we are followers of Jesus Christ and we are getting ready for Him to return.

It is a readiness that is not based on fear, anger or anxiety, but on love. The wonderful news is that we are not just followers of Jesus Christ, but we are His brothers and sisters and even more than that. As Jesus states in John 15:15:

“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you every-thing I have heard from my Father.” (N.A.Revised Edition)

Let us remember that friendship we have with Jesus. It is a time of joy and simply letting our hearts grow in love and when our hearts grow in love, our hearts become filled with mercy.


In the Jesus House I had my sons pull the five

tubs of Christmas decorations out of the attic a couple of weeks ago when we first set up our Advent wreath. Since that time they have stood in a pile in my bedroom untouched. I woke up one night with a start when the cat jumped to the top of the pile and stood sentinel like an Egyptian sphinx. Ok, Ok, it was time to open them up and let the memories out! But first I had to dust the house before I could put out any Christmas decorations and ugh, I abhor dusting!

One night, though, in a burst of energy and commitment to the task, my youngest son asked if he could find the Christmas tree stand for the tree that was still standing in the garage. Of course! Then he asked if he could put out the “Jesus house.” In the cloud of dust that threatened to consume me in my fer-vor of activity, I almost missed his simple request, but thankfully I paused just long enough to clear my head and register what he was asking me. Yes of course, please put out the manger.

“And all the animals too!” he said as he bounded off enthusiastically and started rifling through the tubs looking for the nativity set. Inwardly I groaned that I would have to put all that stuff back in those tubs in order to carve a path to my bed that night! But oblivious to that he joyfully pulled all the figures out of the box and welcomed back all of his plastic animals and stood them all in the manger; hiding Jesus in the straw because He wasn’t born yet; I recalled a memory of when he was three. In the midst of playing with his toys one Christmas, he had stuffed the “Jesus house” full of an assortment of animals, super heroes, aliens and the like. Everyone was welcome to Jesus’ birthday that year!

Days later, in the peace of my morn-ing time I reflected on “the Jesus house” physically as it stood humbly on the coffee table, but spiritually what that meant to me. I love the simple analogy. And also it brings tears to my eyes to realize that what matters most to my son this time of year, is yes first the tree and if Santa is real or not; but that we have our Jesus house ready.

You know, it’s a hard question to an-swer when people ask me if I am ready for Christmas. What should I really say, well,

I have only baked one batch of cookies so far (I scorched the other one!), I did make a batch of homemade Bailey’s though, yum! There are dust bunnies under my couch that frighten me and there is dog snot on the window of the back door so thick that it will take some aggressive elbow grease to remove, but am I ready? Yes, I believe I am, because we have our Jesus house up! There is peace in that.

In the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, there is a long line of a variety of charac-ters that preceded Jesus in His earthly family. It is evident to

me once again that God had a plan way, way back! I am always curious and yet comforted by the line-up as I stumble through the genealogy that God has placed here before He gave us Jesus. There are among them slaves, peasants and kings, Jews and non-Jews, men and women all of an assortment of social classes. We all have our part in preparing the Jesus house and bringing Him into the world! So with much love I say, yes I am ready for Christ-mas, because God had the plan long before me for the very most important reason for this season, preparing the Jesus house.

However humbly, boldly or magnificently we are able;

There is an abundance of room at the lowly stable;

To prepare a place for Christ to lie

With all God’s creatures in anticipation standing by.

With watchful eyes and open hearts,

We all long to play our parts;

In this astounding miracle that comes to birth!

Reminding us to never ever forget how much we are worth,

To the One who gave us this precious gift that dispels all anxiety and woe,

Today, at Christmas and again and again tomorrow.

Bringing us hope and much joy, dispelling our fear,

Hallelujah Christmas is almost here!

KATIE BENNING

the Hood

Womanhood, Motherhood, Sainthood

The Spiritual Master Pope Francis Wants You to Read

This year marks the 750th anniversary of the birth of the great Catholic poet Dante Alighieri. Michelangelo reverenced Dante, as did Longfellow, Dorothy Sayers, and T.S. Eliot. In fact, it was Eliot who commented, “Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third.” One of Bob Dylan’s finest songs, “Tangled Up in Blue,” contains a reference to Dante: “She opened up a book of poems, handed it to me/ It was written by an Italian poet from the 13th century/ And every one of those words rang true and glowed like burning coal/ Pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul.”

I first read Dante’s masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, in the summer of 1990, when I was studying German in Freiburg in Breisgau. The experience changed my life. Almost every book I’ve written contains some reference to the poet, and I’ve used him extensively in my preaching for twenty-five years. Just this past summer, while filming with my Word on Fire team in Ravenna, I had the opportunity to visit Dante’s tomb, which I found incomparably moving.

There is so much to admire in The Divine Comedy: its architec-tonic structure, its lyrical language, its unforgettable meta-phors, its cadences and rhythms (impossible to convey in transla-tions), its psychologi-cal perceptiveness, its deep humanity, etc. But I would like to focus on its extraordi-nary spiritual power. How wonderful that arguably the most sig-nificant poem in the Western tradition is all about sin and redemp-tion and is suffused through and through with a distinctively Catholic sensibility.

The epic poem opens in the year 1300, when its protagonist was thirty-five, mid-life by a Biblical reckoning: “The measure of our life is seventy years…” (Ps. 90:10). As psycholo-gists and spiritual teachers over the centuries have testified, mid-life is often a time of crisis and breakthrough. The justly celebrated

opening lines of the Comedy signal this truth: “Midway on the journey of our life, I woke to find myself alone in a dark wood, having wandered from the straight path.” Though he

was a massively accom-plished man, renowned in both the artistic and political arenas, Dante was, by his mid-thirties, spiritually lost. That he realized this—that he woke up to it, to use his metaphor—was a signal virtue and the impetus for his journey, much as

“hitting bottom” and “turning one’s life over to a higher power” are essential for those who undertake a Twelve-Step process.

He meets the ghost of the Roman poet Vir-gil, who functions as his psychopomp, mysta-gogue, and spiritual director. One of the most

important truths in the spiritual order is that one should never commence the journey alone: things get complicated fairly quickly, and a skilled guide is essential. Virgil tells the troubled Dante that there is a way for-ward but that it involves a journey through Hell. In our “I’m okay and you’re okay” culture, this is a very difficult message to take in, but every authentic spiritual master acknowledges its indispensability. We have to confront our sin and dysfunction with complete honesty; otherwise we will get stuck. The Twelve-Step program speaks of do-ing “a searching moral

inventory” as a non-negotiable prerequisite to dealing with an addiction. So Virgil leads Dante on a thorough-going tour of the underworld.

As the pilgrim takes in the sufferings of the damned, he is sometimes so overwhelmed that he faints dead away, but Virgil brings him back around, for the point is to see what sin does to the soul. In watching the pains endured by the denizens of Hell, Dante is seeing his own sin

Continued on page 14

BP. ROBERT BARRON

The Empyrean (highest heaven), from the illustrations to Dante’s ‘The Divine Comedy’ by artist Gustave Doré.


USING COMMON ERA INSTEAD OF A.D.?

To mark dates, why are people now using C.E. (the Common Era) and B.C.E. in place of A.D. and B.C., which have been in use for hundreds of years? I was told by a Catholic teacher in our area that this change is intended to foster better

relations with non-Christians. This is too “politically cor-rect” for me to accept without further explanation. Please help. (Somerville, New Jersey)

The teacher you spoke to is right. The reason some have adopted the use of C.E. rather than A.D. (“In the year of Our Lord” or “Anno Do-mini”) is to ease the minds of non-Christians

who might object to this implicit acknowledgement of Jesus as Lord.

Depending on one’s perspective, the new terminology has been viewed as an attack on Christianity or simply as an assertion of religious neutrality.

In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention called it the result of “secularization, anti-supernaturalism and political correctness” and encouraged its members to “retain the traditional method of dating and avoid the revisionism.”

On the other hand, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (who was himself a Protestant) has said: “The Christian calendar no longer belongs exclusively to Christians. People of all faiths have taken to using it simply as a matter of convenience. There is so much interaction between people of all faiths and cultures -- dif-ferent civilizations, if you like -- that some shared way of reckoning time is a necessity. And so the Christian Era has become the Common Era.”

In 2011, an op-ed piece in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano blasted the British Broadcasting Corporation for abandoning the traditional A.D. in favor of C.E. “To deny the historically revolutionary function of the coming of Christ on the earth, accepted even by those who do not recognize him as Son of God,” wrote the author, “is enormous nonsense.”

Some critics of the change point out that many com-monly accepted designations have a basis in religious be-liefs. (They note, for example, that “January” comes from Janus, who was the Roman god of gates and of doorways.)

To me, there is a certain silliness to the entire discus-sion. Even those who opt for the new designation as an ideological protest still adopt the traditional date of the birth of Christ as the basis for numbering the years. (If you really wanted a secular calendar, why not use the founding of Rome as the focal point of human history -- which is what the Roman Empire did for centuries.)

INDULGENCES DURING HOLY YEARI understand that during the upcoming papal-declared year, we can seek plenary indulgences for the dead. Naturally, as I age, I have more and more friends who have died. What a wonderful thing if I could include them in this. Is it possible

to gain multiple plenary indulgences for the deceased and, if so, how do I accomplish this? (Hull, Massachusetts)

Pope Francis has declared an extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy that begins on Dec. 8, 2015, and closes on Nov. 20, 2016. A holy year is also known as a jubilee year.

Among the privileges granted to the faithful during this Holy Year of Mercy is the opportunity to gain a plenary indulgence, which is the remission of all of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. This indulgence can also be applied to the deceased -- to whom, in the words of Pope Francis, “we are bound … by the witness of faith and charity that they have left us.”

In the past, indulgences during a holy year normally required a pilgrimage to Rome and a visit to one of the papal basilicas, but for the upcoming Holy Year of Mercy, the pope has determined that a visit to a diocesan cathedral or designated local church will suffice, together with the reception of the sacrament of penance and Communion, as well as a profession of faith and prayers for the inten-tion of the pope.

(Pope Francis has taken care to extend the privilege to those who are precluded from visiting one of the designated churches, e.g., those who are homebound or incarcerated.)

A unique element this time is that the pope has also granted the jubilee indulgence to those who perform the traditional spiritual and corporal works of mercy (sheltering the homeless, for example, or comforting the sorrowful.)

As to your question about “multiple” beneficiaries, the jubilee indulgence may be obtained only once a day. (A single sacramental confession suffices for several plenary indulgences, but receiving Communion and praying for the intentions of the pope are required for each indulgence.)

questions&answersBY FATHER KENNETH DOYLE, CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

Questions may be sent to Fr. Doyle at [email protected] and 40 Hopewell St., Albany, N.Y. 12208.

and appreciating, perhaps for the first time, precisely what it has done to him.

At the very bottom of Hell, Virgil and Dante confront Satan. Unlike any other depiction of the devil in the great tradition, Dante presents Satan, not as ensconced in flames, but as buried in ice. The more one muses on it, the more this seems an apt image of the coldness, immobility, and isolation that follow from rejecting God’s love. Moreover, Dante imag-ines the devil as possessing three faces—a twisted imitation of the Trinity. Deep down, every sinner, in making himself the center of the universe, is aping God. From all six eyes, Satan weeps, signaling that, in the final analysis, sin is sad. Unlike Milton’s Satan or even Al Pacino’s version of the prince of darkness in the film The Devil’s Advocate, Dante’s devil has nothing glamorous or romantic about him. He is just stuck, pathetic, and sad.

Having gone all the way down, Dante is now ready to rise. Moving through the center of the earth, he comes out the other side (interestingly, the 13th century poet somehow intuited the roundness of the earth) and commences a journey up Mt. Purgatory. On each level of that seven-storey mountain (the title, by the way, of Thomas Merton’s autobiography), one of the deadly sins—pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust—is punished, usually through some version of enan-tiodromia, or moving in the direction opposite of one’s sin. So the prideful, who elevated themselves in their earthly lives, are forced to carry huge boulders that press them to the ground; and the envious, who spent their lives looking resentfully at others, have their eyelids sown shut; and the slothful, who could muster no spiritual energy in this world, are made to run, etc. Dante thereby takes in the two essential steps in the process of conversion: seeing and acting.

Having then been purified, Dante is ready to fly. At the top of Mt. Purgatory, now accompanied by the blissful Beatrice, he commences a flight through the various levels of heaven. What he sees are, in essence, different modalities and dimensions of love, for heaven is nothing but love. One of the most memo-rable examples of this is that the Franciscan St. Bonaventure introduces St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order, and the Dominican St. Thomas Aquinas introduces St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscans. Rivalries and jealousies are absent in heaven; all that remains is courtesy. Finally, at the very end of his pilgrimage, the poet is permitted to look into the face of God, which he appreciates as “the love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”

The itinerary through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven is not a bit of medieval fantasy; instead, it is a vivid description of the process by which we find salvation. Hence, it is as relevant now (probably more so) than it was in the thirteenth century. Pope Francis has said that, especially in this Year of Mercy, we should read and reread this magnificent spiritual teacher. I think he’s right.

- Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic Faith. On September 8, 2015, he was ordained Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Divine Comedy: Continued from pg 13


If you have any questions about the Diocesan

Policy for working with children in ministry

please contact:Victim Assistance Coordinator

and Safe Environment Coordinator for the Diocese:CALL: MS ROBERTA IZZARD,

907-586-2227 ext. 25 EMAIL: [email protected]

Safe Environment Policies:www.dioceseofjuneau.org/victim-assistance-

coordinator

Protecting our Children

The Shrine of

St. ThereseJuneau, Alaska

Facility reservations online at www.shrineofsainttherese.org

RON ROLHEISER, OMI

The Meaning of Christmas – Connecting the Dots between the Crib and the Cross

The Gospel stories about the birth of Jesus are not a simple retelling of the events that took place then, at the stable in Bethlehem. In his commentaries on the birth of Jesus, the renowned scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, highlights that these narratives were written long after Jesus had already been crucified and had risen from the dead and that they are colored by what his death and resurrection mean. At one level, they are as much stories about Jesus’ pas-sion and death as they are about his birth. When the Gospel writers looked back at the birth of Jesus through the prism of the resurrection they saw in his birth already the pattern for both his active ministry and his death and resurrection: God comes into the world and some believe and accept him and others hate and reject him. For some, his person gives meaning, for others it causes confusion and anger. There is an adult message about Christ in Christmas and the meaning of Christmas that is to be understood as much by looking at the cross as by looking at the crib. Hardly the stuff of our Christmas lights, carols, cribs, and Santa.

And yet, these too have their place. Karl Rahner, not naïve to what Raymond Brown asserts, argues that, even so, Christmas is still about happiness and the simple joy of children captures the meaning of Christmas more accu-rately than any adult cynicism. At Christmas, Rahner contends, God gives us a special permis-sion to be happy: “Do not be afraid to be happy, for ever since I [God] wept, joy is the standard of living that is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who think they have no hope. … I no longer go away from the world, even if you do not see me now. … I am there. It is Christmas. Light the candles. They have more right to exist than all the darkness. It is Christmas. Christmas that lasts forever.” At Christmas, the crib trumps the cross, even as the cross does not fully disappear.

How do the cross and the crib fit together? Does Calvary cast a permanent shadow on Beth-

lehem? Should Christ-mas disturb us more than console us? Is our simple joy at Christmas somehow missing the real point?

No. Joy is the mean-ing of Christmas. Our carols have it right. At Christmas, God gives us a special permission to

be happy, though that must be carefully under-stood. There is no innate contradiction between joy and suffering, between being happy and undergoing all the pain that life hands us. Joy is not to be identified with pleasure and with the absence of suffering in our lives. Genuine joy is a constant that remains with us throughout all of our experiences in life, including our pain and suffering. Jesus promised us “a joy that no one can take away from you”. Clearly that means something that doesn’t disappear because we get sick, have a loved one die, are betrayed by a spouse, lose our job, are rejected by a friend, are subject to physical pain, or are enduring emotional distress. None of us will escape pain and suffering. Joy must be able to co-exist with these. Indeed it is meant to grow deeper through the experiences of pain and suffering. We are meant to be women and men of joy, even as we live in pain. That’s a coloring, taken from their understanding of Jesus’ death and resur-rection, which the Gospel writers insert into their narratives about his birth.

But, of course, that is not what children see when they get caught up in the excitement of Christmas and when they look at the Christ-child in the crib. Their joy is still innocent, healthily protected by their naiveté, still await-ing disillusion, but real nonetheless. The naïve joy of a child is real and the temptation to rewrite and recolor it in light of the disillusionment of later years is wrong. What was real was real. The fond memories we have of anticipating

and celebrating Christmas as children are not invalidated when Santa has been deconstructed. Christmas invites us still, as John Shea poetically puts it, “to plunge headlong into the pudding.” And despite all the disillusionment within our adult lives, Christmas still offers us, depressed adults, that wonderful invitation.

Even when we no longer believe in Santa, and all the cribs, lights, carols, cards, colorful wrapping-paper, and gifts of Christmas no lon-ger bring the same thrill, the same invitation still remains: Christmas invites us to be happy, and that demands of us an elemental asceticism, a fasting from adult cynicism, a discipline of joy that can hold the cross and the crib together so as to be able to live in a joy that no one, and no tragedy, can take from us. This will allow us, at Christmas, like children, to plunge headlong into the pudding.

Christmas gives, both children and adults, permission to be happy.

- Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher, and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com. Now on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

THE SOUTHEAST ALASKA CATHOLIC considers submissions for publication that may include: Letters to the Editor, interviews, stories, event coverage, photos and artistic response that represent a local Catholic viewpoint. Please submit content or questions to [email protected], or phone 907-586-2227 ext. 32.

Guidelines for Letters to the Editor:Letters to the Editor should not disparage the character of any individual but refer to issues, articles, letters and opinion pieces that have been published in the Southeast Alaska Catholic. Letters may not endorse a specific political candidate or political party. The Southeast Alaska Catholic does not publish letters that challenge established church teaching. Letters may be edited for length, taste and clarity. To inquire about submitting a guest column, contact the editor at [email protected] at www.akseac.wordpress.com and Facebook • www.dioceseofjuneau.org

“Do not be afraid to be happy, for ever since I [God] wept, joy is the standard of living that is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who think they have no hope. … I no longer go away from the world, even if you do not see me now. … I am there. It is Christmas. Light the candles. They have more right to exist than all the darkness.


BY PEGGY MATTSONIn her book, One Perfect Word, Debbie

Macomber shares her practice of focusing on one single word from January 1-December 31. Each chapter focuses on a different word and she shares a brief story of how that word impacted her life for that year.

I must be working on a series, because I have been stuck on the same word, “Inten-tional” for a while now. First it was inten-tional discipleship. Then it was intentional walking. Since participating in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd training last summer, I have been focusing on intentional gestures, like making the sign of the cross with catholic purpose—a true sign of my faith. I recently read Sacred Signs by Romano Guardini, a book I had purchased at the CGS training. Guardini provides a reflection on Doors that is pertinent to the Holy Doors that were recently opened at the Shrine of St. Therese and at St. Rose of Lima Church in Wrangell.

DOORS Everytime we enter a church, if we but

notice it, a question is put to us. Why does a church have doors? It seems a foolish ques-tion. Naturally, to go in by. Yes, but doors are not necessary--only a doorway. An opening with a board partition to close it off would be a cheap and practical convenience of letting people out and in. But the door serves more than a practical use; it is a reminder. When you step through the doorway of a church

you are leaving the outer-world behind and entering an inner world. The outside world is a fair place abounding in life and activity, but also a place with a mingling of the base and ugly. It is a sort of market place, crossed and recrossed by all and sundry. Perhaps “un-holy” is not quite the word for it, yet there is something profane about the world. Behind the church doors is an inner place, separated from the market place, a si-lent, consecrated and holy spot. It is very certain that the whole world is the work of God and his gift to us, that we may meet Him anywhere, that everything we receive is from God’s hand, and, when received religiously, is holy. Nevertheless we have always felt that certain precincts were in a special manner set apart and dedicated to God. Between the outer and the in-ner world are the doors . They are the barriers between the market place and the sanctu-ary, between what belongs to the world at large and what has become consecrated to God. And the door warns the one who opens it to go inside that he must now leave behind the thoughts, wishes and cares which here are out of place, his curiosity, his vanity, his worldly interests, his secular self. “Make yourself clean. The ground you tread is holy ground.” Do not

rush through the doors. Let us take time to open our hearts to their mean-ing and pause a moment beforehand so as to make our entering-in a fully intended and recollected act. The doors have yet something else to say. Notice how as you cross the threshold you uncon-sciously lift your head and your eyes, and

how as you survey the great interior space of the church there also takes place in you an inward expansion and enlargement. Its great width and height have an analogy to infinity and eternity. A church is a similitude of the heavenly dwelling place of God. Mountains indeed are higher, the wide blue sky outside stretches immeasur-ably further. But whereas outside space is unconfined and formless, the portion of space set aside for the church has been formed, fashioned, designed at every point with God in view. The long pil-

lared aisles, the width and solidity of the walls, the high arched and vaulted roof, bring home to us that this is God’s house and the seat of his hidden presence. It is the doors that admit us to this mysterious place. Lay aside, they say, all that cramps and narrows, all that sinks the mind. Open your heart, lift

up your eyes. Let your soul be free, for this is God’s temple. It is likewise the represen-tation of you, yourself. For you, your soul and your body, are the living temple of God. Open up that temple, make it spacious, give it height. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Heed the cry of the doors. Of small use to you is a house of wood and stone unless you yourself are God’s living dwelling. The high arched gates may be lifted up, and the portals parted wide, but unless the doors of your heart are open, how can the King of Glory enter in?

The complete contents of the book can be found at this link: http://www.ewtn.com/library/LITURGY/SACRSIGN.TXT

May we intentionally enter into this Jubilee Year of Mercy with open minds and hearts and be mercy-full like our God.

Intentional Doors

(Above left) Bishop Edward Burns opens the Holy Door for the Year of Mercy at the Shrine of St. Therese on Sunday, Dec. 13. (Above) Fr. Thomas Weise completed the installation of a Holy Door at St. Rose of Lima Church in Wrangell in recent months before his sudden illness and death on Dec. 6. Bishop Edward Burns officially opened St. Rose’s Holy Door on Tuesday, Dec. 15th in conjunction with a Memorial Mass for Fr. Thomas.

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