New Life, Fresh Focus

I’m getting married tomorrow. The State of Florida considers it my third marriage. The Catholic Church says it will be my first. The reason for the difference is not mathematics, but definitions.

Civil law considers marriage a contract between two people defined by law that, like most legal contracts, may be broken. Church law considers marriage not a contract but a sacrament, written not on paper by two people but on their hearts by God; a covenant impossible to break.

After two lengthy investigations, Church attorneys and judges determined my first marriages never existed. Yes, vows were exchanged and were blessed by priests. But both investigations included the findings that I was – in simple terms – not psychologically able to make a binding lifetime commitment. Therefore, since I was not capable, there was no ink in the pens that wrote the covenants on our hearts. The marriages were annulled.

One reason the Church is granting more annulments is because of advances in science. Medicine and psychology have discovered much about how our brains work, and why we do what we do. The Church has recognized these discoveries that explain the human limitations that undermine our decision-making. For example, the Church used to routinely deny Catholic funerals to people who committed suicide. Yet, the Church now understands that most people who kill themselves are not “of sound mind,” unable to make reasoned decisions. If a person is incapable of reason, there can be no sin.

Pope Francis is shifting the focus of the Church from an
overemphasis on legalism to reflect a God of understanding
and forgiveness.

There is a more important reason for the increase in annulments. By the mid-20th century, the Church had become bound in strict legalism, demanding blind obedience to a God of judgment. The reforms of Vatican II were reminders that our God is also a God of love and mercy, of understanding and forgiveness. Pope Francis has, through his writings and his preaching, emphasized the need for ever further transformation. In Evangelii Gaudium, he decried any expression of “a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism” in the Church. And in a homily last month, Francis emphasized spiritual charity in proclaiming, “The law is not an end in itself.”

Such change in focus is slow in the Church. Sadly, it is sometimes non-existent for some clergy. In the eyes of many faithful, the clergy don’t just speak for the Church, they are the Church. And when clergy substitute their own faulty interpretations of Church doctrine for Catholics seeking guidance and healing, lives can be ruined and the faithful can be lost. No, this is not an exaggeration. Here is just one example.

About a year ago, while checking in for a medical appointment, I told the receptionist my fiancée would be driving me home. She brightened and cheerily asked if we had set a date for the wedding. I responded that we were waiting for rulings on our annulment petitions. Her face immediately turned dark. She then recalled a heartless example of clerical legalism.

Her friend’s daughter had met with her parish priest to ask about an annulment. This woman had divorced her husband because he was physically and psychologically abusive. Although she had escaped a dangerous and destructive situation, her Catholic understanding of the permanence of marriage troubled her. The annulment process, designed to foster healing after the trauma of divorce, would appear to be appropriate for her. The parish priest did not see it that way.

The priest told the woman that divorce was a sin, that she was wrong to leave her husband, and that she must return to him to avoid going to hell. This blind, outrageous command shattered this woman’s spirit and exponentially multiplied her misplaced guilt. A devout Catholic all her life, she stopped going to Mass. The priest had strapped her in a straitjacket of “narcissistic and authoritarian elitism,” repudiating the purpose of the annulment process and ignoring the loving and merciful nature of God.

This woman’s story is an example of the attitudes the Church is attempting to erase. While Jesus said it was not His intent to abolish the law, a major focus of his ministry was to reveal to us the true loving and forgiving nature of the Father. God is not a Judge bound by mandatory sentences. He is our loving Abba – Daddy – who wraps us in His arms and never lets go. He will always love us and, no matter what we do, will always forgive us.

Helen Johnson and I pray for a long,
happy life together.

This is the shift in focus Pope Francis is engineering. It is a reminder that people who represent the Church are fallible humans, too, and are not always accurate in their representation. It is our responsibility to see past clergy who have not yet overcome their own outmoded understanding of the Church so we can enjoy the beautiful fellowship of the Kingdom that God intends for us.

My joy in the Kingdom will be exponentially multiplied tomorrow when Helen Johnson and I say “I do.” The ultimate purpose of marriage is to help each other get to heaven, which we all hope is our ultimate destination. But along the way, we plan to fully enjoy the Kingdom of God already established here on earth with each other, our family, friends, everyone who loves us, and everyone whom God brings into our lives.

Exporting Hope

Parish medical mission benefits Honduran villagers and St. Joseph’s volunteers 

 

There were a lot of tears as I spoke with people for this story – tears of sadness, tears of joy, tears of love. The St. Joseph’s medical missionaries loved to tell stories of the people they met. The 89-year old man seemed to be a favorite. More than anything else, they were amazed how so many people have nothing. Many spend all day simply securing food for the day. It’s a level of poverty we can’t fathom. The missionaries also believed they were simply extensions of the larger parish community. They said the trips are the result of material and monetary donations, and prayers – especially prayers – from the larger faith community. If you have a desire to serve in a St. Joseph's parish ministry, or have an idea for a St. Joseph's parish ministry, please email me at casella@alumni.unc.edu.
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When Pablo Cruz went to the office last Thursday, October 2, he didn’t feel quite right. He went in anyway. A couple of hours later, though, he felt bad enough to leave for his doctor’s office. Shortly after arriving, the doctor summoned an ambulance to take Cruz to the nearest hospital. He had suffered a near-fatal heart attack. A few weeks later, recalling the events of that day, Cruz was deeply grateful for such a quick response by medical experts.

“I was able to get medical help immediately,” Cruz said. “A team of doctors was able to treat me quickly, within an hour, and do a procedure to save my life.

Cruz felt especially fortunate because he has seen first-hand that not everyone has ready access to such quality medical care. Only eight months earlier, he had joined about two dozen others on a medical mission to backwoods villages in the Central American country of Honduras. It is a steamy, oppressive, poverty-stricken slice of the world where medical care – and just about everything else – is often secondary to finding enough food to make it through the day.

St. Joseph’s parishioner Sue Johnson plays with two

infants at a community center during February’s medical
mission in Honduras.

St. Joseph’s parishioners have been organizing medical missions to Honduras for the past ten years as part of the national “Friends of the Missions” organization. Denise Sink is the team leader for the next mission. She called conditions there heartbreaking.

“It’s hard to express,” Sink said. “I’ve seen things on these missions, such poverty where people have nothing. It’s so humbling.”

Sink will lead a team of about two dozen people – mostly St. Joseph’s parishioners – to Honduras next February. Volunteers will include doctors, nurses, a dentist, translators, a priest, and several other parishioners who feel called to service. If the next mission is like the last, the team could see as many as 2,500 villagers in a week. The doctors and dentist will provide basic medical and dental services. Some volunteers will dispense medicines, vitamins, and reading glasses. Others will translate for villagers who will stand for hours in the hot sun, waiting their turn to receive treatment. Still others will play ball and draw pictures with children. All volunteers will give smiles, hugs, and lots of love.

Challenging Days

The medical missions are a family affair for Cruz. He and his wife, Genny, made their first mission last February after hearing all about the experience from their daughter, Diana, who made her first trip to Honduras the previous year. Genny Cruz said days start early for the volunteers, but start even earlier for villagers who often walk for hours to get to one of the centers where the missionaries set up shop.

“When we get there at seven o’clock in the morning,” Genny Cruz said, “there are already huge lines of people waiting to give their health histories so doctors are ready for them.”

St. Joseph’s parishioners Mary McCormick, Kathleen
Supple, Dr. Mike Carlson and Mary Williams dispense
medicine in Honduras.

Dr. Vickie Prince is one of those physicians.

“I saw a man who was 89 years old,” Prince recalled. “He had worked eight hours in the field, then walked another three hours to get to us.”

The man also made an impression on Diana Cruz.

“He had rheumatoid arthritis and all these other ailments, heart disease,” Diana Cruz said. “And after seeing Dr. Prince, he had to walk back home another three hours.”  Diana Cruz said they contacted a local priest to could arrange transportation so he didn’t have to walk all the way back home.

Not all stories have happy endings. Caitlin Heffner, a nurse with Brooks Rehabilitation at Bartram Park, recalled an 18-year-old girl who had a fever of 104 degrees, low blood pressure and a high pulse. “She called a local doctor who told her to wait for her scheduled appointment,” Heffner remembered. The girl had a brain tumor that had metastasized to her lungs. All the doctors could do was ease her pain and fever.

           

Dr. Prince said she treated an emaciated infant who was infected with thrush – a common yeast infection of the mouth – and also had worms from contaminated drinking water. At four months old, he weighed just seven pounds.

“They couldn’t get enough calories in him,” Prince said. “He was vomiting incessantly. He was so weak he could hardly cry.”

Prince said she was able to treat the thrush with an anti-yeast compound. “The next day the baby was fine,” Prince said, “and we baptized him. “That meant the world to his family.”

Volunteer Diana Cruz (left) assists in a dental procedure
during last February’s Honduran medical mission.

Ultimately, the baby was simply too weak.

“If we were able to get the baby to the hospital,” Prince said, “he would have been good as gold in days. For us, when we’re severely ill, we can go right to a hospital, we’ll be treated and usually everything will be fine. That’s not the case there.”

           

Lisa Comeaux is a security compliance officer for Verizon. But in Honduras, she does whatever is needed. She has managed and distributed medications from the mobile pharmacy, dispensed reading glasses, and even assisted a dentist in extracting teeth – getting gauze dressings and handling dental instruments during procedures. She said the villagers know little about oral hygiene, so it’s not uncommon for people to have several teeth pulled.

           

“One woman had 13 teeth pulled,” Comeaux recalled. “You’re thinking ‘Why would anyone want to lose that many teeth?’ But they are so horribly abscessed, they’re thankful just to get rid of the pain.”

Answering God’s Call

Volunteers come from various backgrounds. Some are medical professionals. Others are bi-lingual and serve as translators. Still others bring organizational skills while many simply have big hearts. All volunteers have one thing in common – they are all called to serve. Comeaux volunteered even though she has no medical training and cannot speak Spanish. She simply felt a calling.

           

“I realized God has a plan for me, so I decided that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve never regretted it.”

           

St. Joseph’s parishioner Dr. Timothy McCormick consults
with a family at the medical mission in Honduras. Many
villagers walk for miles for medical and dental care from
the volunteers.

Sink, the team leader for the upcoming mission, said the seeds for her calling go back to her childhood in Virginia, and were planted by her mother.

           

“My mom was a single parent,” she said. “It was hard for her, but I’ve always seen her show such compassion to those who are less fortunate. She set the example.”

           

Heffner received her calling during Mass one Sunday at St. Joseph’s. She recalled turning down a mission opportunity while in nursing school because she didn’t have a passport and, as a student, couldn’t afford it. Early in her career, she was a pediatric oncology nurse, but facing the heartbreaking demands of treating young cancer patients every day overwhelmed her.

           

“I felt I failed as a nurse,” Heffner said. “The one day at Mass, Fr. Bernie said in the homily that God gives second chances. There was a bulletin announcement saying that nurses were needed for a medical mission. I just knew right then that God was telling me to do it.”

Heffner uses half of her two-week vacation on the Honduras trip, calling it her “work-cation.” Dr. Prince has more flexible schedule but the same calling. She sees the missions as simply a part of her ministry as a Catholic.

“God has given me such marvelous gifts,” said Prince. “It’s a way for me to give back, to give to people who have next to nothing, at least to do what I can.”

           

Pablo Cruz, whose family roots are in Puerto Rico, echoes Prince’s gratitude but can also appreciate their gifts from an international perspective.

“I love the United States,” said Pablo Cruz, “but we take so much for granted. In a Third World country like Honduras, it’s very difficult to find a job to simply provide a daily meal. Going there are seeing their needs makes a tremendous impression.”

Diana Cruz, a recent college graduate, said the experience draws a sharp contrast between values in both countries.

“People here pay so much attention to how we look and present ourselves,” she said.

“Over there, I’m hot and sweaty, there’s no air conditioning, I probably stink and sure don’t look the best, but they don’t care what we look like. They’re just so grateful that we care.”

Heffner said that gratitude is a profound reality check.

“When I go there,” she said, “it brings me down to earth. I call it my reality check. Instead of materialism, it’s Christ’s love in action.”

Two-Way Blessings

When first-time medical missionaries arrive in a Third World country, they tend to think in terms of serving others who are less fortunate than themselves. Invariably, they return wondering who served whom.

           

“I’m doing them a service but they’re really doing me a service,” Comeaux mused. She was especially impressed by the Honduran’s willingness to share what little food they had with the mission team. That generosity made a deep impression on Pablo Cruz.

“So often, they have absolutely nothing, but they will offer you a meal,” he said with amazement. “They don’t have money, they live day to day, but they’ll share what little they have with you.”

“As much as I try to do for them,” Sink added, “they do so much more for me.  On every single mission – I’ve been on 10 – there are one or two people, a child or a teenager, I connect with. And because of those connections, I carry them with me every day in my daily prayers. To know I might have put a smile on their face and put a little joy in their heart gives me so much fulfillment.”

That sense of fulfillment is not limited to members of the traveling mission team. Any and all St. Joseph’s parishioners can become involved. As Heffner notes, “If it wasn’t for the team behind the team, there wouldn’t be a team.” Donations are critical to the success of the mission – supplies, money, and most especially prayers.

“As important as the traveling team is,” Heffner continues, “none of this would be possible if it wasn’t for the support from home, especially prayer support.”

Sink believes prayer allows everyone to claim a stake in the joy of the mission.

“We all seek peace and love and joy in our lives,” Sink notes. “But some people who have everything never experience these gifts. I pray that everyone will experience this joy.”

The next medical mission to Honduras is scheduled for February 1-8, 2015. Needed items are toothbrushes, toothpaste, snack-sized plastic bags, acetaminophen for adults and children, contributions to buy medication, and especially prayers. Items may be dropped off in the church gathering area.