Local News December 2006
2006 a stellar year for Seton Catholic
Arizona Republic - Phoenix Dec 26
Merry Christmas From the Diocese of Phoenix!
Bishop Olmsted processing into Ss Simon and Jude Cathedral
for the Live TV Christmas Mass Celebration
Belief in miracles is matter of faith
Arizona Republic - Phoenix Dec 25
Sedona Pastor Authors Book of Spirituality and Gardening: Book Signing on Wed and Thurs
Fr JC Ortiz, Pastor of St Vianney Church in Sedona, Author of The Sedona Gardens of Saint John Vianney
(Dec 19)- The Sedona Gardens of Saint John Vianney is a 192 page book of a spiritual nature set on a back drop of the gardens at St Vianney Church in Sedona. Fr JC Ortiz, pastor of St John Vianney in Sedona, authored the book of memoirs and garden photos as a way to bring together faith and his desire to create a place to converse with God. “In writing this book, I wanted the reader to be able to share my memories of my youth and my struggles with the difficulties of priesthood,” relates Father Ortiz. “I hope the reader will also share my joy in finding the gardens to be a place of refuge and a source of inspiration.” Fr Ortiz will be autographing copies of his book this Wednesday and Thursday at the following times and places:
Wed. afternoon Dec. 20, 3:00-5:00 AJ’s Fine Foods Ray Rd. and I-10 Chandler
Thursday afternoon Dec. 21, 12:00-3:00 AJ’s Fine Foods Lincoln and Scottsdale Rd
The Catholic Sun newspaper will have a review of the book in this weeks issue to be published on December 21.
THE SEDONA GARDENS OF SAINT JOHN VIANNEY is available in the Phoenix area at AJ’s Fine Foods, and in Scottsdale at The Paper Place and Casa del Encanto. Copies can also be ordered online at the Chapel of the Holy Cross website, www.chapeloftheholycross.com. The purchase price is $34.95. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charities including Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos.
Picturing Mary, Documentary on the Blessed Virgin to Air on KAET Channel 8
Michelangelo’s exquisite Pietá, captured on camera at the Vatican from behind the protective shield that has protected it since the early 1970’s.
(Dec 19)- Picturing Mary, a stunning high-definition one-hour documentary that explores how images of the Blessed Virgin Mary reflect the traditions and cultures of the people who create them, will debut in December on public television stations across the country. The program is airing in our diocese on KAET (Channel 8) on Sunday, December 24 at 9 pm. A Spanish version can be accessed using the SAP (secondary audio program) television control.
The artworks in the program were filmed in the original settings where they were intended to be viewed hundreds of years ago, in eight countries including Italy, Belgium, Mexico and Ethiopia. The program includes masterpieces and little-known works and is narrated by actress Jane Seymour.
This is a wonderful example of what the Catholic Communication Campaign funds and how our bishops support inspiring and faith-filled entertainment. “This program is a Christmas gift from the Catholic Communication Campaign to TV viewers,” says CCC Director of Production Ellen McCloskey. “In fact, many stations will present it on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Like The Face: Jesus in Art, Picturing Mary will become a perennial television favorite during the Advent and Christmas seasons.”
Almost all of the artworks featured in Picturing Mary were filmed in situ, that is, in the original settings where they were intended to be viewed hundreds of years ago. Settings include the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice, Italy, home of one of the greatest paintings of the Venetian Renaissance,Titian’s 22-foot-high “Assumption.”
Other settings include Bruges, Belgium, where Jan van Eyck used what was then a new medium – oil painting – to astonishing effect on full size pictures of Mary.
The documentary also highlights Rembrandt van Rijn’s work in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, where he created hundreds of etchings, prints and drawings to establish himself as the greatest illustrator of Scripture ever. Devoted to realism, Rembrandt depicts Mary in “Death of the Virgin” not as the lovely maiden traditionally pictured, but as a sick old woman.
The use of the latest widescreen high definition technology enables startlingly beautiful pictures from far away places, including Mexico City, site of the magnificent Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe; and Lake Tana, in Ethiopia, where Christians under siege took refuge in the 16th century.
Picturing Mary allows viewers up-close virtual visits to some of the world’s greatest masterpieces. At the Vatican, for example, the filmmakers capture Michelangelo’s exquisite Pieta from behind the glass shield that has protected it since the early 1970’s.
Picturing Mary is a joint effort of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Catholic Communication Campaign (CCC) and New York public television station Thirteen/WNET.
Most Holy Trinity Catholic School Students Support Diocese of Phoenix Seminarians
Most Holy Trinity 6th grade teacher, Erin Kiesell, teaches her class about our seminarians
(Dec 14) — Catholics know that the word vocation represents so much more than a career or a job. The fifth- and sixth-grade students of Most Holy Trinity Catholic School are learning exactly why.
As a service project, under the leadership of sixth-grade teacher Erin Kiesell, the students are raising money for three seminarians from the Diocese of Phoenix. Through correspondence, the three men are letting the students know what they're going through as they pursue their vocation, or divine call to religious life.
Two of the three, John Parks and Robert Bolding, will visit with the MHT classes December 19th. The third seminarian, Will Schmid, will meet with students in the spring.
The classes are raising money to purchase specific items the men use every day to send off in giant care packages. One package, the result of $250 in fundraising, was sent to Parks in mid-November. The other two will get their care packages after the Christmas holiday.
“The students are now more aware of the cost that the Diocese puts forth for each of these men to go into the seminary and study to be our future priests,” said Kiesell.
"As a seminarian studying for the Diocese of Phoenix and now as a priest for almost twelve years serving in the diocese, God has continued to bless me with His love through the people who support our seminarians. They remind me again and again that Jesus truly meant what he said: 'Every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life'. God is never outdone in generosity...and the people of the Diocese of Phoenix never let me forget that truth" said Fr. Don Kline, Vocations Director.
Currently, there are 28 men from the Diocese studying for the priesthood. There are no Roman Catholic seminaries in Arizona, so the future priests pursue their holy calling far from home.
When they graduate with master’s degrees in divinity, the seminarians will be ordained by the Bishop of Phoenix to serve the rapidly growing Diocese, offer spiritual guidance and shape the faith of their parishioners.
Even through they're still in the seminary, the trio linked to Most Holy Trinity are making an impact.
“Our students are actually the ones being ‘supported,’ because these three men have generously given their time and effort to help us out with these objectives," said Kiesell, who is making an impact in her first year of teaching at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School.
Most Holy Trinity Catholic School, located just southwest of the intersection of Seventh Street and Dunlap Avenue at 535 E. Alice Ave., offers Kindergarten through Eighth-grade classes and a full-day preschool. For more information call 602-943-9058 or visit their website at www.mht.org.
Desert Dust Couldn’t Keep It Down
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Queen Creek, Ariz.
(BY LYNANNE LASOTA National Catholic Register December 10-16, 2006 Issue) Much as Juan Diego waited and waited to show Bishop Juan Zumárraga the sign he’d received from Mary in 1531, the people of Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission in Queen Creek, Ariz., waited 60 years for the bishop to make their spiritual home a parish. Read article in the National Catholic Register <here>
Downtown Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe a Success
A young lady dressed as Our Lady of Guadalupe at the
celebration
Dec 10- This was the first year that the Diocese of Phoenix sponsored a day long celebration in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Over two thousand people came to the streets surrounding the Diocesan Pastoral Center and St Marys’ Basilica in downtown Phoenix. It started with a parade down 7th street and then west on Monroe to the front of St Marys’ Basilica. At 1100 am Mass was Celebrated from a grand stand erected in the intersection of 3rd St and Monroe. It was standing room only as the 600 seats quickly filled up. The Homily was given by Father Robert Gonzalez, a priest from the Diocese of Tucson and an expert on the subject of Our Lady of Guadalupe. After the Celebration of Mass concluded, food was served and music was played. St Marys’ Basilica was offering hotdogs and drinks. There was also a food stand vending authentic Mexican food; red and green chile, tamales, rice and beans. There were several bands set up around the property palying everything from traditional Mexican music, to contemporary Christian and even some wonderful gospel songs could be heard. This was a wonderful celebration to honor the patroness of our Diocese, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the title of the days events was aptly named “Honor Your Mother.” The actual feast day is Tuesday December 12, but because it falls on a work day, the celebration was held today. If you missed todays’ events, mark your calendar for next year, as this is sure to be an annual event.
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE HOMILY, PHOENIX, DECEMBER 10, 2006
Even before Fray Marcos de Niza, who had been chosen to explore the country north of Sonora, and left his name in 1539 engraved on a rock in what is now South Mountain Park, the Mother of God, appeared in early the morning of December 9, 1531 in Anahuac, on the summit of Tepeyacac. She appeared in the center of the Western hemisphere in the fullness of time to an Indigenous whose culture and world had been destroyed by European conquistadores. She appeared there, when rivers like the Gila, the Salt, the Colorado, the San Pedro, the Santa Cruz, did not even have those names, and when they carried water and their banks were flanked by cottonwoods – when this state we love, and the vast territories of the Western hemisphere were pristine in their beauty. She appeared when there were yet no national boundaries, as we know them today.
God sent her to the navel of America (México) to evangelize according to His way and not man’s, to lead a people into the fullness of truth, and to open eyes and the hearts of those who were their political masters and teach them that mestizo children born of the violent union between two distinct peoples, were precious to her, not to be rejected. Her beautiful, mestizo face on the tilma of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin was, and still is, a call from God to be inclusive and welcoming, to respect the dignity of all human beings, especially the weakest, the defenseless, the marginalized and the poor. She came when the old Julian Calendar was still in effect, as the winter solstice was about to take place. God sent her at a specific place and time, as when He intervened in Palestine when, in the fullness of time, he raised up the prophet, John the Baptist, to prepare the way for the imminent coming of His Son, as we have just heard in Luke’s Gospel (Lk.3:1-6). For God Almighty, All-Knowing, All-Good, and All-Merciful, knew that for a culture that studied the movements of the heavens, and which valued the meaning of time and place, significant were the darkest days of the year before actual day when the length of the day would begin to be longer than the night. Yes, it was between December 9 and 12, 1531 that the Queen of Heaven came to Tepeyacac, where before the conquest, the goddess Tonantzin had been worshipped.
Little did Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin know that, as he made his way to Mass that Saturday morning some 475 years ago, very early in the morning when it was still dark (the time of fecundity and new beginnings according to his culture), that he would encounter a Noble Lady from Heaven at Tepeyacac. Her presence was accompanied by the singing of precious and rare birds. As he entered into the mystical experience, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin intuited immediately that he was in presence of the Holy. The rocky crags, mesquites and the nopales of the little hill, Tepeyacac, were even transformed by the glory of the Virgin’s splendor. The tlalticpac [the world of man] had become like Ilhuicatl [heaven, the land of the eternal fiesta]. For the God-bearer, Theotokos, she who is the Ark of the New Covenant, was there!
As the story of Guadalupe begins, song is disunited, or separated from flower to signify that the truth is in gestation, that it is being unfolded. Then she spoke to him, calling him by name is his mother tongue, Juantzin, Juan Diegotzin. She identifies herself, saying that she is the Mother of the True God. Masterfully evangelizing, she then uses ancient titles for God in Náhuatl that were not contrary to the Christian faith that had been brought to the new world from the old by the friars. Filled with the wisdom of God, the Virgin knew Juan Diego’s culture perfectly; she knew what would touch the cords of his heart and that of his people to lead them into deeper union with Christ. She was inculturating the Gospel when she spoke his language, in-itself a statement about the worth of one’s mother tongue. By so doing, it was as if she was telling him and the Indigenous peoples who were to hear the Good News, that the new Christian faith was the fulfillment of what was noble and true in their culture. God in His Providence had already planted the seeds of His truth in their culture that were about to be watered by the message of salvation that comes through and in Christ Jesus, as brought by the Noble Lady from Heaven.
She told Juan Diego that he was her messenger, her ambassador to bring an important message to Bishop Zumárraga (the “governing priest”) about the building of a temple where she would show and exalt her Son in her compassionate love. The temple she speaks about then, and even now, was not so much a physical structure, as a spiritual and moral unity. She asked for a noteocaltzin (a hermitage, a little house, a place where the marginalized and those seeking justice can find acceptance and protection); she asked that the Church become a nechalti (a place of familial encounter, a place of warmth and friendship); and lastly that the Church become noteocali (a place where the Sacred is encountered). These words, deliberately chosen by her, are interlocked and form an all-encompassing vision for renewal of humanity where people live together as one, and not in alienation, suspicious of one another. Anahuac [central Mexico] needed these words of the Noble Lady from Heaven then; our country, and indeed the world, at this moment of time needs them now to re-discover its mooring, its way to God, who is the Truth! In these three words the Mother of God was giving her pastoral vision for the Church of America, the entire hemisphere, as the Marian Pope, John Paul II emphasized during his pontificate. The Virgin was giving a clue into what true evangelization was all about. In this temple she would give her Son in all her personal love, in her compassionate gaze, in her help, and in her salvation. True evangelization happens when human beings, from the instant of their conception until the natural end of their lives are loved and treated with dignity, when they are helped in their pursuit of justice, and when they are defended against anything that threatens to diminish human dignity. This was her message then. It is her message now.
Bishop Zumárraga, the governing priest, requested a sign from her to confirm the veracity of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin’s words, and to discern the authenticity of the words of the Noble Lady from Heaven. It was a reasonable request from the head of the Church in a new land from a neophyte Christian. The Virgin, daughter of the Church, she whom the Second Vatican Council called “the Most Perfectly Redeemed,” agreed, in her great humility and docility to the Holy Spirit, to the bishop’s conditions. How the Virgin teaches about respecting the authority of the Church! As the story unfolds, after assuring Juan Diego that his uncle, Juan Bernardino, had been healed, she directs him to climb to the top of the hill, where she first met him, and that there he would find flowers in the dead of winter – the completion of the truth. He finds the hill abloom with flowers and brings them to Mary who rearranges them with her hands in his tilma, symbolic of his person, directing him not to show the sign to anyone, but the bishop. As Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin makes his way to the bishop’s residence, he is profoundly happy and at peace. He carries the truth in the hollow of his tilma -- next to his heart. Filled with the truth, the humble Indian is a free man, as he comes into the presence of the bishop, who had interrogated him twice before.
Now he brings the sign for the prelate who two years earlier had written to the King of Spain, Charles V, saying that the entire New World was about the be lost if God Himself did not intervene. Little did he know that on the morning of December 12, the very anniversary of his being named bishop, that the Virgin Mary would not only give him the requested sign, but answer the prayers that he had been directing to heaven. As the flowers cascaded to the floor, after Juan Diego had relayed to the governing-priest what the Virgin he had said, what he had seen and marveled at, the image of the Mother of God, was imprinted on the front part of his cloak, or tilma – beautiful and clear, with a dynamic theological message to the Aztecs, despondent at the collapse of their old world-view, that no longer were sacrifices needed to keep the cosmos moving, but rather God Himself desired to feed humanity with the precious body and blood of His Son in the Eucharist. And the Virgin’s message to the conquering Spaniards was that the Indigenous and children born of the violent clash between the two cultures were precious to her and to her Son, Jesus. All present in the bishop’s household that December 12 morning marveled at the image on the tilma of Juan Diego. They regarded her beautiful mestizo face full of tenderness and wisdom, as a prophetic call to accept all people regardless of the hue of their skin. Significantly, all were standing – rooted in the truth that is Guadalupe and the challenge to live its message, of being centered in God and living together in this land as one.
We are being challenging today to embrace the radical message of Guadalupe, to truly become a spiritual building made up of living stones (1Pt 2:4-5), an edifice of Spirit, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God, where the marginalized and those weakest are not shunned but welcomed, and also the unborn, the elderly, the immigrant. The Virgin’s message is radically – not easy. It challenges us to love our neighbor, to forgive, to strengthen bonds between people, to defend the human being, and not to build walls that foster alienation and impoverish the human spirit. In this Advent season of preparation, she prophetically calls us to make room in our hearts for the King of Peace, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Jn.14:6). She prophetically challenges us to re-discover, to strengthen our roots in the Most True God, the Giver of Life, the Creator of Persons, the Owner of the Land (Nican mopohua, 26). Rooted in God, and strengthened by His Grace, we can say with the Psalmist, “The Lord has done great things for us, we are filled with joy” (Ps.126,1).
Fr. Robert González
Tucson, Arizona
Español:
Queridos hermanos, acabamos de escuchar en el evangelio de San Lucas (3:1-6), que en la plenitud de los tiempos la Palabra de Dios llegó a Juan Bautista, para usarlo como instrumento de preparar el camino para la venida de su Hijo. Se puede decir que Juan el Bautista fue llamado por Dios para anunciar el Adviento de su Hijo, como contestación a las plegarias y los anhelos de su pueblo para la redención y salvación. El preparó el camino para la venida del Rey del Universo, el Principe de la Paz para el pueblo judio, y por extensión para nosotros también. Hoy al festejar esta celebración diocesana en honor de la Virgen de Guadalupe cerca de esta basílica tan honrada por la visita del gran papa mariano, Juan Pablo II el año 1987, nos acordamos que Dios también mandó a la Virgen en la plenitud de los tiempos para el pueblo indígena del Anahuac, para evangelizar y darles Jesucristo. Se apareció en el Tepeyacac a un indígena, San Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoaztin, hablándole en su lengua materna, usando el simbolisismo de su cultura y manera de hablar de la grandeza de Dios. Llegó con el cantar de los pájaros, muy significativo para la cultura náhuatl. Esto indicaba la intermediación entre el cielo y la tierra. Es decir, la comunicación entre Dios y el hombre en el cerro de Tepeyacac.
Al oír el canto precioso de los pájaros, Juan Diego inmediatamente se dio cuenta que estaba en la presencia de lo Sagrado. Se estaba revelando la verdad, arraigada en Dios. Nada le turbaba el corazón. La Virgen le habló en náhuatl, identificándose como Madre del Verdadero Dios. Le informó que deseaba que se construyera un templo, en el cual iba a mostra a su Hijo en su mirada compasiva. Quería que fuera al sacerdote-gobernante, el obispo, y le dijera que era su deseo que se levantara en el plano un noteocaltzin (es decir una ermita en la cual los desamparados fueran aceptados con dignidad y amor); pedia la Virgen que se edificara nechatlti (donde uno experimentara el calor de la convivencia familiar); pedia la Virgen que se construyera un noteocali (donde uno pudiera encontrar y comulgar con lo Sagrado). Tres palabras in náhuatl distintas para describir el papel de la iglesia, como debe de ser a los ojos de la Virgen. El mensaje guadalupano es un llamado hacia la hermandad, la conversión, al amor y el perdón, un desafío de luchar por un mundo más humano, de luchar por la justicia y dignidad del hombre. Este era el mensaje encargado a Juan Diego, como laico, a la cabeza de la iglesia, el obispo.
Este mensaje es perenne, es decir no solamente, para Juan Diego y los indigenas del aquel entonces, sino para nosotros de construir una iglesia con la ayuda y gracia del Espíritu de Dios que de un testimonio auténtico del Evangelio: el de estar arraigado en Dios, la base de la felicidad y actualización del hombre, y el compromiso de establecer hermandad con cada estirpe de hombres. El rostro mestizo de la Virgen en la tilma de Juan Diego, nos recuerda de nuestra vocación como cristianos, de no excluir sino de incluir – de abrir nuestro corazón a cada persona, como imagen y semejanza de Dios, de luchar para defender al hombre de todo lo que lo deshumaniza, y que es en contra de la justicia. En esta eucaristía pidámosle a Dios la gracia de captar el mensaje profético de la Virgen María para nuestros tiempos y hacer de la iglesia un templo donde el desamparado sea acogido, donde se vive un verdadero sentir de familia, y donde lo Sagrado es obviamente presente y palpable. Estos tres sentidos del templo pueden servir para como una visión pastoral de la iglesia de Estados Unidos. ¡Qué seamos todos guadalupanos de corazón, instrumentos en manos de la Guadalupana para embellecer nuestra Madre, la iglesia! SEA ALABADO JESUCRISTO.
Rv.Roberto González
DIOCESE OF PHOENIX PLANS DAY-LONG CELEBRATION
TO HONOR OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
PHOENIX (December 4, 2006) Catholics from all over the Diocese of Phoenix will descend on the Diocesan Pastoral Center courtyard at 400 East Monroe St. on Sunday, December 10, for a day-long celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas and the Phoenix Diocese.
Entitled “Honor Your Mother,” the celebration will begin at 10 a.m. with a procession, leading to an 11 a.m. Mass with Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted as the main celebrant and Fr. Robert Gonzalez, an expert on Our Lady of Guadalupe from the Diocese of Tucson, as the homilist. Afterward, there will be a Eucharistic Procession followed by more than five hours of musical performances on eight stages. The event will conclude with a Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and an address from Bishop Olmsted. Food vendors will also be available throughout the day to help satisfy the appetites of the participants.
“We are conducting this celebration to unify the diocese in our Catholic faith under the mantle of the Virgin Mary, who is mother to us all,” said Mike Phelan, diocesan director of the Respect Life and Human Dignity Office. “As a sign of that unity, Bishop Olmsted will be celebrating Mass in English and Spanish.”
Organizers of the celebration are placing significant emphasis on the musical entertainment. Half of the eight stages at the event will feature entertainment and evangelization in English while the other half will be presented in Spanish. It is estimated that as many as 32 bands will be participating in the festival.
Family Spirit, a Christian band that provides liturgical music for Most Holy Trinity Parish in Phoenix is one of the many featured performers at the celebration. They will be joined by Matt Maher of Mesa, Gulliermo Valencia of Los Angeles, Who do you say I am? of Ohio, and Marcos Lopez of Chile.
“It is only appropriate that we have a day-long celebration to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is the protectress of all human life and dignity,” noted Phelan. “We are praying that this day will spark an experience of grace in all who attend, and that everyone will get to better know each other and appreciate one another as members of a unified Catholic family.”
This year marks the 475th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance to Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City. Since then Catholics in Mexico and throughout the Americas have come to commemorate the appearance of Our Lady on December 12. Because most Catholics will be working on Tuesday, December 12, the diocese scheduled the day-long celebration for Sunday, December 10.
For more information on the Our Lady of Guadalupe Celebration, contact Mike Phelan at 602-354-2355.
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