Who Do You Say That I Am?

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I felt it rising in successive waves, even before the crowd leapt to its feet and the cries of “Il Papa!” began. Love. I had sensed it before, of course, with family, during Mass, in Adoration. But it had never washed through me carrying such purity, such humility, such simple joy.

The passenger, in a white automobile that weaved its way through St. Peter’s Plaza on that cold but clear late-April day in 2005, beamed his smile and waved like a provincial child enjoying his first ride at an amusement park he never expected to visit.

Those of us in attendance rode his surges of love like experienced surfers. But I asked myself, “Who is this man?” He presented quite a contrast to the impression I had gleaned from some of the Benedictine monks at the Iowa basilica where I served as an informal oblate.

I had heard about a stern taskmaster, a strict enforcer of magisterial teaching, an incisive theologian, a very different portrait from the palpable sweetness I felt emanating from the person who descended from his car and ascended to the dais.

In recent weeks, my son had described him as “a good choice to bat cleanup for the pope whose act no one wants to follow.”

We were there that day solely by the workings of Divine Providence. Our travel plans had solidified almost two years before, when my son and his fiancée expressed a desire to see Europe, once he passed Part I of his medical-school boards. When I offered to take them if they would make it a pilgrimage, my husband decided to come along. None of us knew then that our beloved, majestic world missionary pope, now Saint John Paul II, would return to his heavenly home before we undertook our journey.

As we packed our bags for the trip, we had been following daily proceedings in the Sistine Chapel for more than two weeks, and were still uncertain whether there would be a new pope in the Chair of Saint Peter when we reached Rome.

Only the day before this audience, when we arrived at Da Vinci airport, we had learned from our Roman guide that her brother who worked at the Vatican would be able to get us tickets for Pope Benedict XVI’s first outdoor public audience in Saint Peter’s Square.

I have a vivid recollection of every word that Pope John Paul II spoke at my first papal audience in 1995. He was dynamic then, in full vigor. He stood at the microphone for hours. He presented his homily himself, four times, speaking fluently in four different languages.

I recall not a word of the brilliant theologian Pope Benedict XVI’s first papal address to a crowd of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square in 2005. I just remember the overwhelming force of his love.

In September 2022, I had the opportunity to develop a few more insights about who Pope Benedict XVI—a reticent man, a highly influential intellectual, the humble confidant of his charismatic predecessor—really was.

 

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Birthplace of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, in Marktl am Inn, Germany

 

Just after dawn on a frigid German morning with a blustery wind, my group of Oberammergau pilgrims walked through the few narrow streets of Marktl am Inn into its central platz, to view Joseph Ratzinger’s birthplace. We toured the small, charming Saint Oswald’s church where he was baptized on the same day he was born: Holy Saturday, April 16, 1927.

 

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Sign outside St. Oswald Church, Marktl am Inn, Germany: Baptismal Church of Pope Benedict XVI

 

This is where it all began, the overflowing well, the place where his cup of love was first filled.

I hoped I might find some answers to how a sensitive child and brilliant adult lived through so many decades of ministering to the same human frailties; and through so much social change. How did he preserve his deep faith in God’s love, and his radiant transmission of that love, throughout his entire lifetime?

How did he accept the murder of his cousin with Down’s syndrome, by the Third Reich? How did a sensitive teenager who was already deeply aware of his vocation live through repeated encounters with Nazi evil—beginning with his first, but not last, conscription into their military forces at the tender age of 14?

On the left wall of Saint Oswald’s church, as one enters the tiny entryway, is hung a glass case clad in steel. It displays new parish “arrivals” for the current month, baby pictures of the infants most recently baptized into the parish. On the right wall hangs a sturdy matching case that features funeral program photos of recent “departures.”

Joseph Ratzinger’s own last words complete the circle: “Jesus, I love you.”

May perpetual light shine upon His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, and may his lifelong lessons about the healing power of love continue to enlighten our troubled world.

 

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Scale model of St. Oswald Church, inside the church, Marktl am Inn, Germany: Baptismal Church of Pope Benedict XVI

 

Copyright 2023 Margaret Zacharias
Photos copyright 2022 Margaret Zacharias, all rights reserved.

Who Are the “Scribes and Pharisees?”

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Who Are the “Scribes and Pharisees?”

By the grace of God, I was able to travel to Germany and attend the 2022 Oberammergau Passion Play. I learned why most people blessed with this opportunity can afterwards only murmur, “It was a privilege.”

The experience was truly beyond words. Try, for example, to describe what you feel at the moment of Eucharistic consecration?

But there are a few insights that I think I can articulate. I’ll pass over the incredible chill of an outdoor theater high in the Alps. I won’t waste words to confirm that every villager in Oberammergau, from babes in arms to tottering elders, has indeed been focused on this reenactment of the Passion of Christ, as their personal act of worship, for the past 388 years.

It was like stepping into a time travel machine. In the audience, we felt almost a part of the action, 2,000 years ago on the surging streets of Jerusalem.

But who were “the scribes and the pharisees?”

When we hear this phrase read from scripture at mass, it’s all too easy to think, “Jesus, good. Scribes and pharisees, bad.”

At the 2022 performance, these gentlemen were portrayed as dignified representatives of an ancient religious tradition, caught in an impossible trap by politics of the Roman Empire.

Yes, a few simply dismissed Jesus’ words. But many tried to listen and understand. They stood in groups gathered all across the stage, discussing the new ideas with one another, getting angry, shrugging, stomping away, and returning to debate some more. I couldn’t help but feel that’s really the way it must have been.

Jesus was a 33-year-old man, trying to articulate a new revelation in human language. The scribes and pharisees, who were attempting to take it in, did not share one understanding, nor were they of one mind about what they should do.

The brilliant actor who portrayed Jesus also found the fine edge. I was fully aware of him as our Divine Savior, and that he knew exactly what the consequences of his words and actions would be. But he was also a young man debating theology with his elders in exactly the tempestuous manner that impassioned young human adults tend to use. As our faith teaches us, he was God and human, at the same time in one person.

We live in an era when we are called to raise our consciousness about the different ways we assign people into categories, and then speak as though a category label describes every individual.

This was my third trip to the country of Germany. I’ve admired their religious monuments in cities, villages, and fields; prayed with the people at mass; felt awe and wonder at their abiding faith. That faith has sustained generation after generation of German Catholics through all that they have endured.

We speak too easily in North America about “Germans” as synonymous with “Nazis.”

What if fate had placed you in 20th century Germany, to live the most important stages of your life through two world wars, and under the sway of the Third Reich? How would you have faced the moral challenges? What destiny would you have chosen within a fate you could not escape?

We’ve forgotten that Adolph Hitler hated Catholics as much as he hated the Jewish people; forgotten the martyrs who died terrible deaths to defend their vision of Germany.

Contemporary literary fiction is replete with tales of Nazi-resistance movements in France, England, Denmark, Italy, and Holland.

But the full depth and breadth of Nazi-resistance movements within Germany itself – encompassing laborers, mothers, altar boys, laundresses, aristocrats, Protestant clergy, Catholic priests, members of religious orders, and even rebel German Air Force officers — have been brought forward only in the 21st century.

On this first Saturday of November, I offer a short list of good books about the German resistance to the Third Reich.

  • Von Moltke, Helmuth and Freya, translated by Shelley Frisch, Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence, September 1944-January 1945, New York: New York Review of Books, 2019; Editors’ Introduction copyright 2019 by Helmuth Caspar von Moltke, Dorothea von Moltke, and Johannes von Moltke.
  • Utrecht, Daniel of the Oratory, The Lion of Munster: The Bishop Who Roared Against Hitler, Charlotte, N.C.: Tan Books, 2016.
  • Riebling, Mark, Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler, New York: Basic Books, 2015.
  • Zeller, Guillaume, translated by Michael J. Miller, The Priest Barracks: Dachau, 1938-1945,San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015
  • Rychlak, Ronald J., Hitler, the War, and the Pope, Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 2010.
  • Rabbi David G. Dalin, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Press, 2005.
  • Lapomarda, Vincent A., The Jesuits and the Third Reich, Second Edition, Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales, United Kingdom: The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd, 2005.
  • Anonymous, The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich: Facts and Documents, Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2003.
  • Coady, Mary Frances, With Bound Hands, A Jesuit in Nazi Germany: The Life and Prison Letters of Alfred Delp, Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003.
  • Goldmann, O.F.M., Gereon Karl, The Shadow of His Wings, translated by Benedict Leutenegger, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.
  • Koerbling, Anton, Father Rupert Mayer: Modern Priest and Witness for Christ, Munich, Germany: Schnell & Steiner, 1950.

Copyright 2022 by Margaret Zacharias

The Passion of Christ

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The Passion of Christ

These days the media seems to besiege us with headlines about the next terrible plague. Whether it’s the latest Covid variant or a new, horrible pox, it’s challenging not to become anxious. We shudder, and continue to pray that we and our families will be spared.

Imagine living in the seventeenth century Alps. Already ravaged by the Thirty Years’ War, Bavarian villagers learn that the Black Plague has come to town, in the person of a foreign peddler. They know that this frightening new disease has killed entire populations throughout the region. What will they do?

In 1633, the citizens of the Catholic village of Oberammergau, Germany, made a communal promise to God. If he saw fit to spare their town, if no one in the village died of the plague over the next twelve months, they would perform a play about the passion of Christ every tenth year, in perpetuity.

The first Oberammergau Passion Play to fulfill that offering was staged in 1634. Their promise has been faithfully kept for almost 400 years. (For more information, visit www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/home.)

Both the script and the methods of performance have evolved over the centuries. But even today, the play is still performed in its historical style of tableau. It is presented in two parts, each two-and-a-half hours long, with a break for dinner in between.

Every actor must have been born in the village, and nearly every native citizen is included somewhere in the ensemble of players.

In 2019, I watched a video of the casting ceremony for the 2020, now 2022, performances.

With an altar server carrying the crucifix before him, the parish pastor processed out of his church into the village square. The entire platz was filled with townspeople. Gathered to hear him announce the names of the persons chosen to portray the most illustrious characters, they maintained absolute silence.

The priest stopped next to the village school teacher; a young woman attired in an impeccably-pressed shirtwaist dress.  She was poised at a large blackboard, already prepared with the names of the major characters, to write the names. An alternate was also chosen for each role, in order to sustain the lengthy performance season, five days a week from May to October.

As the teacher carefully inscribed each name in exquisite handwriting, no cheers or congratulations marred the solemnity of the occasion. Only a few murmurs of satisfaction, or mild disappointment, could be heard on the film.

I’m still hoping and praying to attend the 2022 Passion Play this September.

In 2018, when my travel companion and I first began to consider our mutual bucket list trip, we were both in perfect health. Then the originally scheduled 2020 event was postponed to 2022 because of the world-wide Covid-19 pandemic.

Recently, just as our long-awaited dreams seemed about to become reality, my travel companion sustained injuries in a bicycle accident. The same week in July, I sprained an ankle.

As I walked down the hall of my apartment building a couple of nights ago, I ran into a friend who is over ninety years old. She was working out a pain in her hip at the same time I was exercising my sprained ankle.

She said, “I’ll give you my Oberammergau jacket.”

I looked at her tiny frame, then at my own considerably more substantial one, and said, “Thank you so much. But I don’t think it will fit me.”

She told me that she had attended the Oberammergau Passion Play in her younger years. After we conversed with awe about the endurance of this Bavarian tradition, she shared a parting thought about her own pilgrimage.

“I always think of that time as a special privilege.”

Both of my friends regularly take advantage of the opportunities offered to us all as Catholics, to attend mass and to be active serving neighbors in urban villages that can operate like small towns.

As I reflected on her words, I heard a message from the Holy Spirit.

At every mass, in every liturgical season, we have motivation to gather as a living community, just as the townspeople do in alpine villages like Oberammergau. We have daily chances to meditate on the passion of Christ at every mass.

It’s because the people of Oberammergau do these things that they have been able to keep a four-century-old promise, generation after generation.

It really doesn’t matter if health challenges, personal finances, family responsibilities, or the world situation allow us to travel to Jerusalem or Oberammergau – or not.

Christ’s loving offering of his passion for our salvation is eternal.

He comes to us every day, on every altar, wherever and whenever the eucharist is celebrated.

How blessed we are, indeed, by that special privilege.

 

Copyright 2022 by Margaret Zacharias 

The Strange Paradox of COVID-19: Saving the lonely by making them lonelier

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I have learned that loneliness has no boundaries. It reaches out for everyone and captures many of the unsuspecting, including the seemingly happy, satisfied, and successful. Yes, loneliness is capable of dragging the lonely into a world of hidden misery and often depression. It can attack anyone at any time, and it has become a social condition of almost epidemic proportions.

I have been widowed twice and know full well how loneliness can occupy a unique place in the widowed equation. Loneliness also reaches out and captures those who may have lost a child, a parent, a sibling, or even a dear friend. I carry the loneliness package from all of those.

Suddenly, loneliness has been gifted with a new victim to feast on: It can now extend its ravenous appetite into the pandemic known as COVID-19, AKA the coronavirus.  Loneliness is about to ravage the senior citizen in ways never imagined. One way will be to take away their chairs and sofas.

I have been bringing Holy Communion to the homebound on Sundays for over twenty years. It may be the most uplifting thing I do, and I know I have been spiritually rewarded many times over. One Sunday in early March, I confronted a new wrinkle in my visits. Virginia (age 98) resides in an independent living apartment. It is a reasonably long walk from the parking lot to the building entrance. Once there, you use a keypad to gain access. I scroll to Virginia’s name and get her on the speaker. She buzzes me in.

As the sliding doors open, I stop short. No one is there. Every Sunday, there are four or five, maybe six, people in the lobby sitting around chatting and just visiting with each other. They know my name, and I always get a friendly welcome from them. We exchange a few pleasantries (I usually joke about something), and then I go on my way.

But this Sunday no one is there. I just stood there because it took me a few seconds to realize that no one was there because the furniture was gone. The lobby was empty. There was no sofa, or chairs, or coffee table. They had been removed, and there was no place to sit and talk. This was done courtesy of the management “protecting” the residents against COVID-19 or coronavirus. We must keep the elderly SAFE. No problem; just keep them in their rooms — ALONE.

The situation impacted me deeply. I have been visiting the sick and homebound for a long time, and they do not ask for much. However, in their low-profile, quiet world, they look forward to sitting together (if possible) and just talking about whatever it is they talk about. My visit is a big deal for them. I see each of my folks for about ten minutes each, sometimes a bit longer.

I may be the only visitor they see all week. Yet my visit buoys them up for my next visit which is a week away. The folks who gather in the lobby every week are non-Catholic and do not receive. But I do get to say a short prayer with them, and they like my doing it. So do I.

But now, on that Sunday morning in March of the year 2020, it seems things had changed in a way no one could have ever imagined. The powers that be want us to be alone. They want us to avoid each other, not touch each other, and become individual entities. But we are social beings, and like it or not, we need each other. We need to touch and hold and shake hands and hug, especially among family and friends.

Nursing homes all over the country have been placed on “lockdown.” Patients in these places will be relegated to their beds. Family and friends will not be allowed to visit them. Independent living apartments will have empty lobbies and courtyards. There will be no place for the tenants to sit and congregate.

Will our country and maybe the world soon have billions of separate individuals with no one to talk to or visit with? It is such a strange paradox: saving the lonely by making them lonelier than they already are.

We had all better pray like we never prayed before that this coronavirus is vanquished quickly. We cannot live this way for very long.

Copyright©Larry Peterson 2020

Roe v Wade: 46 years later, hurting baby turtles is illegal but, in America, killing baby people is a “guaranteed right”

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Sea turtles are protected by Florida’s Endangered and Threatened Species Act of 1977. They are also protected by federal law which prohibits disturbing sea turtles while they are “nesting” (AKA: unborn). The Marine Turtle Protection Act states that “no person may take, possess, disturb, mutilate, destroy, cause to be destroyed, sell, offer for sale, transfer, molest or harass any marine sea turtle or its nests or eggs at any times.”

Yes, we sure love our turtles, especially here in Florida where they nest around the entire peninsula. In fact, we love them so much we have penalties for “disturbing” them. A first offense could cost a person up to 60 days in jail and a $100-$500 fine. A second charge could put you in the slammer for six months with a punishment of $1000. After that, the penalties continue to increase with each additional offense. Federal penalties include jail time and fines up to $15,000 for each offense.

Naturally, we do need laws to protect our wildlife and our environment. But what about “Baby People?” Don’t they count? Why is it perfectly “legal” to kill Baby People who have not been born and you can go to jail for harming or disturbing a baby turtle that has not been born? Does that make sense?

The Loggerhead Sea Turtle is one of these protected turtles. Like Baby People, it can be found all over the world. However, its primary habitat is the Florida coast and the coastline as far north as Virginia. It is estimated that these turtles build 67,000 nests a year along the beaches. The female lays her eggs in the sand and buries them. After two months they hatch, crawl to the sea and begin their lives. Those that survive will live close to 60 years.

It is illegal to harm, harass, or kill any sea turtles, their eggs, or hatchlings. It is also illegal to import, sell, or transport turtles or their products. It is perfectly legal to kill Baby People who have not been born. Since Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, over 61,000,000 abortions have been performed in the United States. Sixty-one million baby people have been vanquished from existence, many of them burned alive via the saline abortion method. That extrapolates out to, on average since 1973, 1,326,086 Baby People a year killed in America.

In 2017 there were 3.86 million births in the United States. That means that approximately one out of every four pregnancies in our country results in a life extinguished. Sea turtles are given every chance to survive, with the government going so far as to put people in prison who might interfere with their survival. On the other hand, Baby People are welcomed into legalized and sweetly painted extermination camps and, unmercifully and without fanfare or emotion, eradicated.

Whatever are we doing? We civilized people have allowed a portion of our past to be destroyed. We are allowing our present to be vilified by what can only be called a great lie fabricated as the virtue of “helping” women. We have short-circuited the future of our children and grandchildren. We have taken away from them the possibility of another Rembrandt, another Mozart, another Jonas Salk, another Martin Luther King Jr. or even another Abraham Lincoln living among them.

Most of all, we have taken away the meaning of the beauty and wonder of human life. We have changed it from a wondrous mystery, given to us by God our Creator. Instead, we have turned it into a disposable commodity that can be discarded at will under the guise of “reproductive rights.” Does not “reproductive rights” mean having the freedom to reproduce — not to destroy? Un-reproducing leaves only one result; that result is death.

There is a world-wide abortion counter that ticks off the abortions around the world as they happen. Look for yourself. More than one life a second is being aborted. Genocide of the innocent, living in and out of the womb, is rampant on planet Earth. Whatever have we wrought?

As the great St. John Paul II said, “A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.”

©Larry Peterson 2019

The Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Joseph is tied to the Protection of the Unborn Children, Marriage and Family

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January 22 is the day the Catholic Church in America sets aside all else and joins in prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. Traditionally, in the pre-1955 Church calendar, this day was set aside to honor the Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Joseph. Today, the Mass for this feast is still celebrated by some religious orders using the Latin rite.

This is such a beautiful thing for the Church to do. By simultaneously joining together the Day of Prayer for the Unborn with Roe v. Wade and the Betrothal of Our Lady, it heralds the beauty of motherhood, and it trumpets the profound, spiritual importance of marriage and family.

“When Mary was engaged to Joseph, before their marriage, she was discovered to be pregnant—by the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.” (Matthew 1:18)

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name Him Emmanuel.” (Matthew 1:23)

In the Old Testament days, Jewish marriages happened in stages. First came the betrothal. At this ceremony, the couple gave their consent. They were now considered truly married. However, before they would actually move in together as a husband and wife, there was a period of time where they spent time away from each other. This could be up to a year, and it was during this separation that the “newlyweds” were to learn from older married couples how to be good Jewish spouses.

In his 1989 Apostolic Exhortation, Redemptoris Custos, Pope John Paul II used the following words to describe the marriage ceremony of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph: “According to Jewish custom, marriage took place in two stages: first, the legal, or true marriage was celebrated, and then, only after a certain period of time, the husband brought the wife into his house. Thus, before he lived with Mary, Joseph was already her husband.”

When God does things, He sure is meticulous. Mary and Joseph were, according to the law, married. There are those who say that Jesus was born out of wedlock. If the betrothal had not taken place, that might be accurate. But under the law, they were married. There are some would have you believe that Mary was no different than an unwed mother. This is false. The Blessed Mother was a married woman at the time of the Annunciation. She even asked the Angel Gabriel, “How can this be since I know not man?” She is told it will be by the Holy Spirit. The Angel also informs Joseph. Therefore, within the Holy Family, the sanctity of marriage and family is fully protected.

Since the Roe v. Wade and Doe v.Bolton decisions on January 22, 1973, more than 60,000,000 lives have been eradicated. The number is incomprehensible. Yet there are so many who justify this by using the rare examples of teenage rape or incest, Down Syndrome, deformities, lack of finances, and so on. We could also say the Blessed Virgin Mary’s pregnancy was abnormal or irregular. After all, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ total DNA comes from a woman. Biologically, Jesus is not the son of Joseph, the Nazarene carpenter. But this man define’s fatherhood, and his example screams out to all men: Love and protect the child and his/her mom, no matter what. Be loyal and true. Give them your name if you must.

Fittingly, on the 45th anniversary of the two most ignominious Supreme Court decisions ever handed down, as we pray for the protection of the unborn, we can look to the marriage of Joseph and Mary, a marriage established by God and made perfect by His Son.

It is hard to even imagine a better husband or father than a simple carpenter named Joseph. He is an example for all mankind.

We ask the Most Holy Family to pray for all the unborn and children everywhere.

Copyright 2018 Larry Peterson 

Were we supposed to learn a specific lesson from Irma and Harvey?*

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“Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears — of everything that concerns you.” — St. Alphonsus Liguori

Officially, the annual hurricane season begins June 1 and ends on November 30, and every year we Floridians receive our annual Hurricane Preparedness Newsletter

The fact is, most of us who live here are usually prepared and ready for these storms. We know the drill.

By the morning of September 10, Hurricane Irma’s journey was predicted to go from the Florida Keys up to the Florida Panhandle and points north. People the world over had been informed that Irma was the biggest, fiercest, mightiest hurricane in the history of the Atlantic Ocean.

I’d like to say millions of Floridians simply boarded up their houses and waited with élan, but truthfully, most everyone was afraid this time. I know I was. There is not one thing you can do about these storms except get into a secure facility or evacuate; otherwise you do NOT stand a chance. All the models suggested our area would take a direct hit from a Category 4 storm with sustained winds from 130 -156 mph, and that the flooding would be catastrophic.

Amid all the dire predictions, however, there is one thing print and broadcast media fail to mention, that Catholic media does: the powerful and important weapon of prayer that so many of us bring to these storms. For the millions of Americans who have faith, no matter their religious preference, prayer was a key weapon against Irma.

Here’s what happened in my parish, located in Pinellas Park, adjacent to the City of St. Petersburg. Bishop Gregory L. Parkes canceled all Masses for September 10, which was a Sunday. The only Mass available before the storm was projected to move in was the 4 p.m. Vigil Mass on Saturday. With the winds already starting up, the church was packed.

The Mass was quite beautiful. There was a sense of anxiety that filled the church prior to Mass, but once the liturgy began, you could feel it begin to evaporate. Father Anthony’s homily confronted the impending danger we all were facing and calmed us by inviting us to embrace the fact that Christ was, and always is, with us.

At the Mass’s end, he blessed boxes filled with tea candles, and each household took one. There was a sense of comfort and solidarity in the know that while sitting before the lit candle in your own home and praying, you were connected to all those other folks who also had the blessed tea candles in their homes. During the early morning hours of Monday, 9/11, Hurricane Irma became a Category 1 Hurricane and began moving away from Pinellas County. Aside from power outages, the damage was minimal.

I cannot explain nor do I understand why our area was spared. Much damage and destruction and death have occurred in other places — some communities have been upended — yet I know people were praying everywhere, not just in our parish. The Florida Keys, Miami, Jacksonville, Houston and many other places will be weeks and months putting themselves to rights, and in the Caribbean, entire islands must rebuild. It is a mystery and a humbling one. To paraphrase St. Paul, “Who can know the mind of God; who can tell him what to do?” (Romans 11:34).

All we can do is pray for strength, and then reach out to give aid where needed.

Maybe God lets us see and feel his presence in ways we sometimes do not understand. Maybe these storms are permitted to teach us something about how his handiwork requires our hands. Perhaps the brutality of some storms are meant as a relief from the vitriol, contempt, nastiness, and hatred that has consumed our society recently, and are meant to remind us who we are.

Read more: “Now you are his arms”: Our forgotten role in a ‘godforsaken’ world

We’re only halfway through the hurricane season. Is it possible that these storms, Irma and Harvey (and perhaps others down the line), are being permitted to make refugees of some of us, in order to instruct us about the reality of suffering and loss that refugees encounter, everywhere?

Could it be possible? “Who has known the mind of God …”

Perhaps we are meant to remember the lessons of Job, who said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Is it possible we actually needed these storms? Is it possible that one day people will believe that these storms were actually God’s gift to us? Has the Holy Spirit been helping us to see beyond all the divisive daily ranting — to see each other again as simply people, loved sinners all, who need to help one another?

I guess that is for each of us to decide for ourselves. I have decided.

Copyright 2017 Larry Peterson

*An edited version of this  article also appeared in Aleteia on Septemeber 19, 2017

Rejecting “Common Sense” has caused the Rejection of the Golden Rule

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It seems that the fear of litigation has triggered the ongoing evaporation of common sense.  What triggered my need to defend common sense are three separate incidents that I experienced over the past month. As you will see, each of these incidents, though simple and uneventful,  not only rejected the use of common sense, but the collateral damage from these rejections was the trashing of the Golden Rule.

Incident 1:

My wife was in the hospital during the middle of March. She had been taken off life-support and was in a room breathing on her own but unconscious. I was there with her and her head was bent over onto her shoulder. I thought I might try to lift her head and make her more comfortable. However, I was unable to do it by myself as she had a large CPAP mask strapped on.

Just then a young lady came into the room, gave me a big smile and asked, “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

I was thrilled at her timing and I explained how I just needed a bit of help repositioning my wife to make her more comfortable. The young lady shrugs and sheepishly says, “Oh, sir, I’m sorry. I’m a volunteer and we are not allowed to touch the patients.”

I quickly found out that the volunteers could not feed anyone, touch anyone and can basically do nothing more than be a “gopher” for the nurses or get me a cup of coffee. As far as helping the woman in the bed, NOT allowed.

Incident 2:

I am an EMHC and I bring Holy Communion to about a half dozen seniors in an assisted living facility on Sundays. One of my communicants had five or six newspapers in front of his door. I picked them up and headed to the main desk where a security guard was stationed. I dumped the papers on the countertop and said, “Hey Tony, what’s going on down in 103? There is no answer and all his newspapers are outside his door.”

“Oh yeah, Mr. A is in the hospital. They took him earlier this week.”

Tony refused to tell me what hospital. So I asked, “How come no one picks up all these newspapers?”

He shook his head and shrugged, “We are not allowed to touch anyone, including their stuff. In fact, if someone falls right in front of my desk I am not allowed to help them up or touch them. I have to call 911. If I touch them I will lose my job.”

In my standard inbred NYC manner I say, “C’mon, Tony. Gimme a break–whaddaya mean you can’t help them? That’s ridiculous.”

He reached under the countertop and pulled out a sheet of paper. It was the rules and regulations from the facility. “Here, you think I’m making this up?”

Everything he told me was on that sheet of paper.

Incident 3:

I have been getting three to four calls a day from a number in area code 954. I have no idea where that might be and I do not care. In addition, the caller(s) never spoke. They just disconnected. I never answer the phone unless the caller identifies themselves but the relentless pursuit from area code 954 eventually beat me into submission.  I caved and answered the phone. A pleasant, melodic voice floats into my ear saying, “Is this Mr. Peterson?”

My immediate response (I love to get a bit flippy) was, “Ya think. You have been calling me over and over and over never leaving a message and now you want to know who I am? Who are YOU?”

“Heather” introduced herself and told me she was calling to see if I wanted to renew my newspaper subscription. “Heather, are you telling me that different phone solicitors from your paper have been calling me three to four times a day and not one of you left a message? Do I have that right?”

“Uh, yes, I’m sorry Mr. Peterson. We are not allowed to leave a message.”

There is nothing I can add to that. These professional people will call folks up all day long and never leave a message. They are not allowed. Whew! That, to me, that is harassment. Yet, it is justified because it is a rule or policy of an invisible entity called a company.

Natural Law, present  in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties.” CCC1956


I don’t know about you but if I see someone fall I will (if possible) help them up. If I lose my job because of my actions–so be it. If I call someone and I hear a recorded response, I will leave a message.  The Golden Rule and common sense go hand in hand. This other stuff is madness.

Copyright 2017 Larry Peterson

The “Protector” Saint of the Mexican Border*

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By Larry Peterson

Since there is so much discussion about the Mexican border I thought I would share this column I wrote about two months ago. Meet St.Toribio Romo,The Protector of the Mexican Border.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometime during the early summer of 1973, Jesus Gaytan and two friends began making their way north to the United States. They were planning to ‘”sneak” across the border and find work as farmhands. They did not care where, they just wanted to work.

At the border their plans quickly unraveled. They were spotted by the Border Patrol and, frightened, ran back toward Mexico. Jesus became separated from his friends and began wandering around the desert. He had no idea where he was. After several days of walking and wandering and without any food or water left, Jesus was sure he would die.

As he stared across the bleak landscape peering through the undulating heat waves rising from the ground, he saw a pickup truck coming his way. Not knowing who was approaching, he became instantly afraid and yet also relieved. The truck pulled up and a young man with light skin and blue eyes stepped out. He smiled and gave Jesus food and water. Then he directed him to a nearby farm where they needed workers. He also gave Jesus a few dollars to keep in his pocket. Jesus thanked him profusely and asked him where he could return the money to him.

Speaking perfect Spanish the man said to him, “When you finally get a job and money, look for me in Santa Ana de Guadalupe, Jalisco. Ask for Toribio Romo.”

And so the story goes that years later Jesus Gaytan did make that trip to Santa Ana de Gaudalupe. When he arrived he asked how he could find Toribio Romo. He was directed to the small church nearby. Hanging on the outside of the chapel was a large picture. Jesus stared wide-eyed looking up at the picture. It was the man from the desert, Toribio Romo.

Jesus had arrived at Toribio’s shrine where his remains were kept. He was shocked to learn that the man who had helped him in the desert 20 years before had been beatified in 1992 by Pope John Paul II. He was doubly shocked that his rescuer had been murdered in 1928 during the Cristero War.  Jesus Gaytan realized he had been saved by a man sent from heaven.

Luciano Lopez tells of being on his way to Colorado to find work when he got lost in the encapsulating heat of the Arizona desert. Luciano tells of seeing a “shadowy” figure standing next to what appeared to be an ocean. Luciano told how the person waved him to him and how he began walking. He was led right to a rest-stop with food and water and he was saved. When he told his wife back in Mexico she said, “It was St. Toribio, the migrant-smuggling saint, leading you to safety. I have been praying to him for your well-being.”

Toribio Romo was born on April 16, 1900 in Santa Ana de Guadalupe, Jalisco, Mexico. He was, with permission from the bishop, ordained a priest at the young age of 22. His age did not matter to the authorities. The anti-religious Constitution of Mexico had been enacted in 1917. Toribio may have been only 22 but he was immediately placed under watch by the government. Then along came the fateful year of 1927. That was the year that the Catholic hating president of Mexico, Plutarco Ellas Cartes, ordered his soldiers to strictly enforce the anti-religious Constitution of 1917.

Besides saying Mass “under the radar” and making sick calls and hearing confessions, Father Toribio had also been teaching catechism to both children and adults. Now he was told to confine himself to his residence and to not say the Rosary in public or offer Mass. The young priest took up refuge in an old factory near a town called Agua Caliente. Here he defied the secular authority and celebrated Mass and tended to his ministry the best he could.

On February 22, 1928,  Father Toribio, began organizing his parish registry. He finished doing that on February 24. Father Toribio knew the danger he was in and he was afraid. He prayed daily for God’s grace and strength but would not let his fears stop him from doing his work. It was 4:00 am on February 25 when the young priest climbed into his bed to get some sleep.

An hour later government troops stormed the place and broke into the priest’s bedroom. One soldier shouted, “I have found the priest. Kill him!”

Father Toribio said, “Here I am, but you do not have to kill me.”

The soldiers did not care. One soldier fired and the wounded priest stood up and began to walk toward the soldiers. After a few steps they opened fire and Father Toribio Romo fell dead. The story of the young priest’s martyrdom spread quickly and his popularity soared. Many Mexicans who have headed north tell inspiring stories about how their lives were saved through the intervention of Father Toribio.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized Father Toribio and 24 other martyrs murdered for their faith during the Cristero War. Today, Santo Toribio Romo, is honored as the Patron Saint of Mexican migrants and “border crossers.” He is a saint who all Mexican and American Catholics should pray to for help with the border crisis confronting us today.

Saint Toribio Romo, pray for us.

*This article appeared in Aleteia in June of 2016

©Larry Peterson 2016 All Rights Reserved

Humility and Pope Francis

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Image source: Cassie Pease Designs..

This is from the Gospel of Luke; Chapter 9: vs 46-50

An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest.

Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child and placed it by his side and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. 

For the one who who is least among all of you is the one who is greatest.”

This gospel reading is all about the greatest of all the ‘deadly’ sins, Pride. It is also about the greatest of all ‘heavenly’ virtues, Humility. This is a “clash of the titans” of evil vs Good. And Pope Francis, without trying and by just being who God made him to be, wears the mantle of humility without fanfare, showmanship, pretentiousness or anything that might be self-serving in any manner. Yes, he wears that mantle and it is fastened to his shoulders with the clasp of Love. In so doing he continually  shows  the whole world what it means to think of yourself the least among all others.  (Was that a Fiat Hatchback or a Ford Taurus?)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio never asked to be a bishop or a cardinal. He never “lobbied” for these positions or  sought them out in any way. He did not have “super-PACs” at his beck and call when the vacancy for Pope opened. He simply loved being a priest, working with the poor and homeless, and doing his best to follow God’s call so he would make his life pleasing to Him. Make no mistake, God called him to the papacy. The secular world may mock that concept, but that is why they do not understand. That is why they cannot experience the joy so many millions of faithful are experiencing with his papacy. If they could only swallow their damn pride a bit and open their hearts to some  humility, they may find the elusive peace that evades them.

Pope Francis is filled with the Holy Spirit. That Spirit leads him to stop his motorcade and wade into a crowd of children and hug them and kiss their foreheads. It compels him to embrace the crippled, the disfigured, the mentally challenged, the homeless as well as the “uppity-ups.” He has no qualms about walking into a prison and embracing hard-core murderers, rapists, thieves, and drug dealers. Pope Francis sees the Face of Christ in EVERYONE.

Last September, during his stop in Washington, D.C.,  he visited with President Obama and then offered Mass in the National Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. When he finished he made a point of going to the offices of the Little Sisters of the Poor. He had to send a message to the entire world about the solidarity that exists within the Church when it comes to respect for life, ALL life. That message required no words—just action. The Pope gave that message by meeting with the Sisters who take care of the elderly poor free of charge, and have been doing so since St. Jeanne Jugan founded the order back in 1841.

Pope Francis left our country a more contented and inspired nation. He reached out to everyone and many  responded. He represents the Goodness and Love that Jesus Christ brought to us and, despite the horrors of jihad and the emptiness of secularism pervading our lives, his presence and example make our world a better place. He is HIS ambassador on earth and  he represents HIM well. We have all been blessed.

©Larry Peterson 2016

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