August-September 2000
In This Issue:
All Christians are called to be Missionary! An Introduction by Rosanne Fisher
Global Mission Education Resources
Dave Johnson: from Campus Comfort to the Poor of El Salvador
BorderLinks: Crossing Cultures
by Elizabeth Ohmann, OSF
Venezuela: News from Fr. Rich Walz
Venezuela: News from the MMAF Spanier Family
Homa Bay, Kenya - Our Sister Diocese
What You Can Do
About Mission Connections
EXTRA! A Greeting from the editor of this electronic edition of Mission Connections
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All Christians are called
to be Missionary
An Introduction by Rosanne Fischer
The United States Bishops, in their Pastoral Letter Called to Global Solidarity, state that “The international commitment of the church in the United States is not all it can and should be. Our parishes often act as islands of local religious activity rather than as parts of the mystical body of Christ. At the parish level, where the church lives, we need to integrate more fully the international dimensions of Catholic discipleship within a truly universal Church.” This newsletter will hopefully serve as a tool for you to respond to that call from our Church leaders to more fully integrate the international dimensions of our faith into our parishes and communities.
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This resource on mission is meant for teachers, directors of religious education, pastors and priests, pastoral associates, campus ministers and youth ministers, principals, mission circles, parish groups and committees, diocesan offices, and all people of faith of the Diocese of St. Cloud.
In these pages, we will attempt to keep you in touch with the many missioners both young and old from our diocese who are serving all over the world. We will present resource and curriculum materials; let you know of mission trip opportunities and speakers you could invite to your parish and school; share information and thoughts from our brothers and sisters in many places across the globe and within the United States where we walk in mission. We will share wonderful stories about what local people in our diocese are doing within their parishes, schools and communities to further the mission of Jesus and promote Christian values and just relationships. |
"Person must meet person,
nation meet nation,
as brothers and sisters,
as Children of God.
In this mutual
understanding and
friendship,
in this sacred communion,
we must also begin to
work together to build
the common future of
the human race."
Pope Paul VI
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Please join us on this journey by reading with us, praying with us, communicating with us your own stories or those of people you know. Utilize the information presented here to enhance mission efforts within your community of faith. In his Mission Sunday message for the year 2000, Pope John Paul II states, "Vast is the field and much remains to be done: therefore the cooperation of everyone is necessary ...all, from children to adults, from Bishops to priests, from Religious to the laity, are called to be missionaries in their own local community, opening themselves as well to the needs of the universal Church.”
In this age of electronic connections crisscrossing the globe, let us work together to nurture the courage and commitment required to bridge inequities and bond minds, hearts and souls in order to bring harmony and balance to our world. Then we will experience the fulfillment of our Eucharistic prayer, “in mercy and love unite all of your children wherever they may be.”
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Global Mission Education Resources
Recommended by the St. Cloud Mission Office
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Featured Resource from:
Maryknoll World Productions
1-800-227-8523
Children of the Earth Video Series includes 7 videos with study guides, each focussing on a different area of the world. (Each video lasts 28 minutes - 14 minutes for each country). Closed Captioned for the hearing inpaired.
1) Africa Close-Up - Egypt and Tanzania
2) Asia Close-Up - Japan and Cambodia
3) Caribbean Close-Up - Haiti and Domincan Republic
4) Central America Close-Up - Guatemala and El Salvador
5) Cuba Close-Up - Havana and Pinar del Rio
6) Mexico Close-Up - Acteal, Chiapas and Ciudad Juarez
7) South America Close-Up - Peru and Brazil
Each video follows the daily life of a 13 - 15 year old youth and is narrated by youth. When viewed by a small group of children made up of a 6, 8, and 9 year old, all were engrossed in the videos. The 9 year old’s comments were, “I thought these videos were going to be boring - some adult talking at us. They were neat because they were kids talking to us and sharing their lives!”
This Maryknoll Video Resource is available
at the Catholic Ed. Ministries Media Center (320) 252-1021.
For Class Bulk Order form,
contact Rosanne at (320) 251-1100, or call Maryknoll at 1-888-627-9566.
Check Out MARYKNOLL MAGAZINE online
Maryknoll invites educators to download lesson plans on global issues at their website’s special Educator’s Corner at:
Maryknoll Educator's Corner
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QUESTION:
Why would a talented young man leave his job at St. John’s to live and work with the poor in El Salvador???
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ANSWER:
Dave Johnson with twin girls and brothers
in the hamlet of Rosario Perico, El Salvador
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Dave Johnson grew up well rooted in traditional post-Vatican II Catholicism, with a strong dose of commitment to serve one’s neighbor and help the stranger. He and his twin brother Chris were the first of 4 children born to two graduates of St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. His family enjoyed close ties with the Norbertine priests throughout his childhood and he attended Notre Dame High School, administered by the Norbertines. Dave attended St. John’s University in Collegeville, graduating in 1997 with a degree in Peace Studies. For the past two years, Dave has worked in Campus Ministry at St. John’s.
Dave’s faith was strengthened through such things as urban and rural plunges, his college studies, a 10-month bike trip throughout Latin America, and a year as a volunteer teacher in Belize. But it was his travel to El Salvador, and his relationship with the people there, that ultimately helped him make sense of his faith. While participating in a spring break trip to El Salvador to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Dave saw a poster of a man’s face in which half of the face depicted Christ and the other half, Archbishop Romero. This poster symbolized what he had been feeling in his heart - that the poor of El Salvador are the suffering body of Christ in our midst today. As part of that same mystical body of Christ, he felt a call to honor the cross and walk with those suffering people.
Dave will be working with the SHARE Foundation (Salvadoran Humanitarian Aid, Research and Education). As part of his work, he will be coordinating our local sister-city with Tenancingo, El Salvador, Partners Across Borders (PAB). PAB was established in 1992 to link with the people of El Salvador in a journey of solidarity. They do this by a commitment of physical presence (a group from the St. Cloud area travels to Tenancingo at least once, sometimes twice a year), material assistance (in projects organized and administered by Salvadorans), and advocacy.
Go Down
Archbishop Dom Helder Camara
Go down
into the plans of God
Go down
deep as you may.
Fear not
for your fragility
under that weight of water.
Fear not
for life or limb
sharks attack savagely.
Fear not the power
of treacherous currents under the sea
Simply, do not be afraid.
Let go. You will be led
like a child whose mother
holds him to her bosom
and against all comers is his shelter.
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Regarding his new position with SHARE, Dave writes:
“Why do I wish to work for SHARE? A real long bike ride, a year working in Belize, and $80,000 worth of college have taught me three things:
1) I love the people of Latin America
2) Too many Latin Americans suffer from violence and poverty as a result of social injustices
3) I desire to work for justice.
SHARE’s vision is clear - local organizing, working to empower and equip civil society, is at the crux of development. Yet, globalization threatens to put the fate of Latin America’s poor in the hands, hearts and billfolds of the developed world’s middle and upper classes. SHARE’s sistering program educates North Americans about El Salvador. Sistering demonstrates that in order to bring about change, North Americans must know the realities of the developing world, understand their relationship to the causes of these realities, and be willing to work for justice.” |
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WHAT YOU CAN DO
A group just returned from El Salvador – they are eager to speak in your school or parish!!!
Join a PAB delegation or help fund a project
For more information,
call Rosanne at (320) 251-1100
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Crossing Cultures
By Elizabeth Ohmann, OSF
Crossing cultures has had the meaning of crossing a political border and being with people who either are of another race, another language, having different customs, beliefs or are just different from our way. Crossing cultures used to mean working in a foreign country. Now one does not need to cross borders made by people to divide countries. Within our own country there are many people who have settled from other countries. The borders have become much more subtle, invisible right within our own cities, towns and rural areas.
Twelve years ago it became evident, following the Sanctuary Movement, that education was one way to become acquainted with borders and cultures. Thus BorderLinks developed. It is a non-profit, ecumenical, experiential educational organization located on the Tucson, AZ/Nogales, Mexico border, which gives an opportunity of crossing a political border and experiencing another culture.
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The 2000 miles of land border between the United States and Mexico is the one land border of such length where a “third world” country and a “first world” country meet. In the one step of crossing it becomes immediately apparent that there is a difference.
I became acquainted with BorderLinks four years ago. Being an educator, and the years I lived in Peru with the Aymara people gave me the experience to easily move into another culture and to help others become acquainted and comfortable with another culture. As we take groups of folks from the United States across the border and introduce them to border issues, a new world opens and we see personal transformations take place. Many who have experienced this opportunity have gone back to their own communities in their home towns and crossed cultures in their own back yards.
BorderLinks is a bi-national organization with legal status in Mexico as well as in the United States. We are Mexican and U.S. staff, working together as one.
Recently we were given the opportunity to purchase a community center, Casa Misericordia (Mercy House). At the center, a hot lunch is served to about 350 children of the neighboring communities whose parents work in the factories which have grown up along the border. There are retreats for troubled youth, and catechists from the area hold religious instruction there for the younger children.
All of us who cross cultures in our every day lives have learned about the harsh realities of the new global economy from the migrants who moved to the border to work in the factories. No place on earth provides such a unique opportunity as this. It has transformed my life and worldview.
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BorderLinks Mission
BorderLinks builds relationships and understanding between North and Latin Americans, encourages a shared analysis of the implications of the global economy, and capacitates leaders on both sides of the border who work together to foster healthy communities locally and internationally.
Our Philosophy
It's simple . . .
At BorderLinks, we believe that the best education:
Grows out of our personal experience.
Combines academic analysis with the everyday experience of people's lives.
Demands that we act on what we have learned.
Acknowledges complexity and refuses to be satisfied by over-simplification.
Respects all people as teachers, including those who have little formal education.
Encourages all participants in the educational process to share deeply with one another.
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BorderLinks Website
What YOU Can Do
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News from Venezuela
From Fr. Rich Walz . . .
For the youth at San Bartolome parish in Maracay, Venezuela, the problems of life can sometimes seem overwhelming during this time of economic and political distress. They may find themselves turning to drugs and other evils. Their participation in parish youth groups provides support and guidance for a positive lifestyle, and the strength to overcome the challenges of life that might otherwise discourage them.
There are several youth groups in the parish. The largest is St. John Bosco, with 65 members. They like to stay busy with projects that they can participate in as a group. The St. Martin de Porres youth group, with 20 members, recently painted St. Ann's parish hall, located in their neighborhood. This weekend the young men from the groups are planning a mountain climbing experience. We view our pastoral work with the young people as an important part of the work of the parish.
I am preparing to return to St. Cloud within the next year to be assigned to parish work there. The St. Cloud Diocese has been working here for 35 years. I am confident that our relationship with these brothers and sisters in Christ will continue even if we do not have a priest working here. Bishop Kinney and Bishop Reinaldo are both interested in having a priest from the Maracay Diocese serve in the St. Cloud Diocese for 3 years. Several Venezuelan priests are excited about that possibility.
Bishop Reinaldo will be travelling to St. Cloud in October to meet with Bishop Kinney in order to discuss together the future of our relationship. We hope to continue to have exchanges between our peoples. This fall Fr. Alexis Torrealba and 2 parishioners from La Inmaculata Parish in Barbacoas (a rural community in the Maracay Diocese) will be travelling to St. Cloud to visit their sister parish, St. Ann's in Brandon. We hope that other parishes in the diocese will form relationships with parishes here. Thank you for your continuing support of mission in Venezuela.
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Spanier Family
prepares for move to Venezuela . . .
Tobias (Toby) and Diane (Mohs) Spanier and their daughters: Rebecca, age 8; Kayla, age 6; Anna, age 4; and Maria, age 2; are currently in Maryknoll, New York participating in the Maryknoll Mission Association of the Faithful (MMAF) "Orientation to Mission Program". When the orientation is complete they expect to leave for Venezuela as Maryknoll Missioners in January 2001.
Toby and Diane worked as Peace Corps volunteers in Honduras after finishing college. From Honduras they moved to Maryland where Toby earned a Master's degree in Education. More recently, the Spanier family lived in Redwood Falls, MN, where Toby worked as an educator with the University of MN Extension Service doing Leadership and Citizen Education. Diane, in addition to being a full time mother of four active girls, worked part time as a nursing assistant and served as interpreter for a Spanish-speaking immigrant family from Mexico in the Head Start program.
While in Honduras, Diane and Toby discovered that away from the distractions of our harried society, they were able to build a closer relationship with God and with each other. The call to return to Latin America to live and work among the poor has remained with them 9 years (and 4 children) later. They have felt God saying "yes", and removing obstacles in order to make it possible for them to live out the calling. As far as the effects of this move on their children, Toby stated, "we realize the decision we are making will effect their lives forever. That's part of being Catholic and Christian. It is our responsibility to educate the children and help form their faith. We bring them to church, send them to Catholic school, this is one step further. We want them to understand that our world is a global world. There are other folks with the same faith, but different lifestyles and cultures."
The children are looking forward to the move, and hope to keep in touch with students in Minnesota
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Homa Bay, Kenya
Our Sister Diocese
On August 4th, 2000 the St. Cloud Diocese celebrated the one-year anniversary of our relationship with the Diocese of Homa Bay, Kenya, East Africa. It was a beautiful summer day at the Rosie and Urban Spanier farm in Spring Hill, MN. About 250 faithful from the Diocese enjoyed roast pig and fresh sweet corn under a true-blue sky beside the Spanier corn-as-high-as-an-elephant’s-eye-field. The Spanier grandchildren led tours of Rosie’s beautiful flower gardens. Global Solidarity staff from Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Chris Arthen and Regina Rolph, arrived from Baltimore to attend the celebration. CRS is helping to facilitate the “Harvest for Hope” sistering project between the two dioceses. Throughout the day, slides of the diocesan delegation to Homa Bay in March 2000, were shown in the barn, and narrated by delegates from the trip. Bishop Kinney, accompanied by Chancery staff, attended the celebration and led a blessing ceremony for the large, ebony corpus of Christ -- a gift to the Diocese from our brothers and sisters in Homa Bay.
As part of the blessing ceremony, the following communication was read from Homa Bay Bishop Linus Okok:
“Greetings from the Diocese of Homa Bay, Kenya. I am writing to convey our heartfelt congratulatory message on the occasion of the celebration of the 1st anniversary of partnership between St. Cloud and Homa Bay…This is an occasion for both St. Cloud and Homa Bay to reflect on how far we have walked hand in hand sharing prayerfully our spiritual and material wealth, culture, art, music, liturgy, education and exchange of ideas and visit. On this occasion, Homa Bay would like to remember prayerfully, your wonderful and short visit from St. Cloud. It was a moment of prayer, dialogue, learning, and exchange in culture and traditions. Thank you for your visit as we look forward to more visits from St. Cloud. Homa Bay wishes St. Cloud many more years of meaningful, mature partnership as we walk and grow together.”
A film crew from CRS was present to record the proceedings. The Harvest for Hope partnership between St. Cloud and Homa Bay will be featured in a documentary that will be used to encourage other such partnerships.
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What You Can Do
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EL SALVADOR
A group just returned from El Salvador – they are eager to speak in your school or parish!!!
Join a PAB delegation or help fund a project
MEXICO BORDER
Organize a group from your parish, school or community to:
Participate in a mission trip to the border with BorderLinks
Contribute to the work of Border Links or Casa Misericordia
Reach out to people of other cultures in your community
OTHER GLOBAL MISSION OUTREACHES
Contact the St. Cloud Mission Office!
For more information,
call Rosanne at (320) 251-1100
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MISSION CONNECTIONS is published bimonthly by
St. Cloud Mission Office, Director, Fr. William A. Vos
St. Cloud Mission Office
11 South 8th Avenue
St. Cloud, MN 56301
(320) 251-1100
Email Mission Office: mission@cloudnet.com
The printed/mailed is distributed to the Catholic faithful in the Diocese of
St. Cloud and to others concerned with the mission of
Jesus Christ and global solidarity and justice.
There is no charge for Mission Connections, but donations for our educational work are tax deductible and are gratefully accepted. Please make checks payable to "Mission Education Fund." Donations for any of the mission or missioners mentioned here may be made in care of the Mission Office.
We welcome comments, suggestions and articles. Please direct communications to Rosanne Fischer, Mission Education Coordinator.
We also welcome links to this resource from parish and diocesan websites. If you are visiting this online edition from outside the diocese of St. Cloud and wish to share this material in your own mission education work, please send an email to Rosanne with a brief description of your plans. (We are VERY easy to get along with!)
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Electronic Supplement to the Printed Edition:
A Greeting . . .
to the St. Cloud Diocese
from Way Down South
by Dan F. Onley, Ormond Beach, Florida
How on earth does some guy from Kentucky now living down in Florida end up helping the diocese of Saint Cloud in Minnesota put their Mission newsletter on-line for free? And why?
Very fair questions! I hope my effort to answer them might illustrate how faith, hope, enthusiasm and a concern about Mission can get spread around in the first place.
It starts with a soft spot in my own heart for St. Cloud and also St. John's at Collegeville. I've just turned 56, but back when I was 10 years old in Owensboro, Kentucky, my mother started ordering simple leaflets from Collegeville so that our family could do Lenten and Advent devotions at home in English! I still can recite favorite psalm lines from those devotions to this day. And, well before Vatican II, the liturgy for Holy Week gained a friendlier form, and I was proud to notice that the pretty new books for our parish also came from Collegeville!
Shortly after I entered "minor seminary" in Louisville in 1958 as a homesick 13-year-old, the rugged founding bishop of our rural southern diocese died around the same time that Pope Pius XII also died. Our global church gained Pope John XXIII as a saintly breath of fresh air . . . and our little diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky, received a new bishop in the person of a gentle son of St. Cloud, Bishop Henry J. Soenneker, who previously had been spiritual director at Collegeville. This very nice Minnesotan came down so innocently to a mid-size Ohio River town with unrelenting summer humidity and even nastier local clergy. His first work as our new bishop was to participate in Vatican II. Bishop Soenneker came back from Vatican II sessions earnestly enthused about the Council's ideals and reforms, but the local priests with "the power" simply would not hear of such.
The local lore goes that the diocese of Owensboro was formed in 1937 with a band of priests which the Archdiocese of Louisville wanted to get rid of. There is definitely something to that, but I'm happy to report we had at least a few saintly priests, one of whom inspired me to go for the seminary.
After my eight years of high school and college seminary, Bishop Soenneker assigned me (and three others) to Theological College, operated by the Sulpician Priests in Washington, DC, at the Catholic University of America. The usual process in those days is that we each were assigned a priest-confessor-advisor, but always had the right to change to any other priest for this purpose. My pre-assigned confessor was Father Joseph B. Collins, S.S., yet another very decent man from St. Cloud, Minnesota! Fr. Collins also was a widely known and respected catechetics author and professor.
With Fr. Joe Collins' blessing, I eventually asked Fr. Eugene A. Walsh, S.S. to become my advisor, and I developed both a close personal friendship and longterm professional relationship with Fr. Walsh over the years until he died in 1989.
Bishop Soenneker developed a reputation for being "very conservative," but my personal assessment is that he had his hands forever full just trying to get along with some of those poorly-educated natives, the very powerful clique of "senior priests." I can remember Bishop Soenneker for all time as a most kindly, gentle and honest pastoral man, simply a good priest at heart, who always did his best in a culture very strange to him. THANKS, St. Cloud!
A few more decades beyond the seminary years, a career of doing pastoral publishing and raising a family, I suddenly found myself in my 50's and also discovered the internet, as so many of us have. This fresh communications opportunity put me back in daily touch with my all-time best friend and seminary classmate, a Louisville priest named Fr. Charlie Dittmeier, who has served in Hong Kong and now in Cambodia as a member of MMAF, the same Maryknoll mission program joined by your Toby and Diane Spanier, soon headed for Venezuela.
Fr. Charlie's zeal for mission work became contagious, and I began to want to do more and more in support of his work and those whom he really believed in. We talked a lot about how to get U.S. parishes more aware of their vital role in global Mission. Well, whaddyaknow -- Fr. Charlie started telling me more and more about this Fr. Bill Vos over in Africa who'd be coming home soon to St. Cloud to try to do something about this very issue. Ahah!
To sum up, I've had great email contact with Fr. Bill Vos for several years, even though I've never met him. Then, more email contact with Rosanne Fischer in your diocese's Mission Office. From their efforts and initiatives, I've learned so much mainly over the internet about the so-solid and so-real St. Cloud Diocese commitment to Global Mission. Yes, some other dioceses do very good Mission-focused ministry, but I personally see exceptional commitment from your diocese. Thank you for this inspiration!
Designing and hosting the electronic version of your new Mission Connections newsletter is one among various projects of a website called Parish Without Borders, which I have developed in support of U.S. Parish global outreaches in consultation with that friend Fr. Charlie Dittmeier, plus your very own Fr. Bill Vos, and Maryknoll priest Fr. Joseph Healey. You'll find a wealth of information and even bits of fun on this unique Mission Discovery website. Come see us! As you do so, keep my little story in mind: it surely is the INTERNET which pulled us all together to this point, so I hope we will use this unique communications resource ever more effectively in working on our shared vision of Global Solidarity among U.S. Catholic Parishes and communities of faith worldwide!
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Mission Office Welcome Page
St. Cloud Diocese
Parish Without Borders
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