The answer is that each ministry addresses a different sort of need in our community.  The St. Vincent de Paul responds to the needs of the poor; it is a ministry of charity.  The poor come to our parish asking for help with food, rent, utility bills, and the like.

St. Vincent de Paul can respond only to so many needs.  It has a finite supply of funds.  Since the nineteenth century, our council has shown itself most generous and hard working in responding to the needs of our community.

We need more people to join our council and spread the love of Christ among the poor.  If you would like to be part of this ministry of love and service, please call the parish office.  You can find out when the next meeting will be.

The area of social justice is not necessarily giving direct aid to the poor.  Social justice is not a ministry of charity.  Social justice involves asking questions about the nature of our society.  Social justice includes our reflecting on the nature of what is happening in our world.  Social justice includes our asking questions about how we can change our particular society.

We all know that New Orleans is one of the poorest cities in our nation.  Tourists who visit the French Quarter and our beautiful Uptown neighborhoods may not see the poverty.  We who live here, however, know that a slight straying off our main thoroughfares leads into blight and poverty.  It is likely that many of us would not want visitors to our city to see its most downtrodden sections.

What can we do to improve the lot of our impoverished fellow citizens?  We can help them with money for rent, food, and utilities.  That is charity.  What can we do to raise them up to live lives beyond the basics?  Social justice leads us to reflect on these questions.

Because we are Christians, social justice asks us, “What is the role of the Church in our society?”  Social justice leads us to examine the role of the Church in the problems of our city.  We Catholics ought to be reflecting on how the Church can speak out prophetically to improve the lives of those who cannot speak for themselves.

It is not comfortable to be a prophet.  Prophets in every age have often come to a painful end.  John the Baptist is a perfect example.  Yet the prophet is necessary in a society to help others to stop and think about the world in which they live.

The aim of a parish social justice committee is not to produce prophets who will be struck down by their neighbors.  The aim is to offer a group of Catholics the opportunity to reflect on the world around them and see how they may work together to bring about a world of justice, love, and peace.  After all, our Lord sought to do just that in his mission.  If you are interested in social justice, please call the parish office and volunteer your heart and your mind.

We pray for the fulfillment of the Lord’s kingdom whenever we gather for the Eucharist.  Let us pray for one another since we are on pilgrimage together from the Lord to the Lord.

Relations between the churches are different from what they were decades ago.  As a young woman in the eighteen nineties, my grandmother heard the Baptist minister in Tuscaloosa say, “There goes Miss Hannon—lovely young lady, too bad she’s a Catholic.”  A Methodist minister of the same period said, “The only thing that a Baptist and a Methodist can agree on is a dirty name for the pope.”  When my grandmother’s first cousin asked a Methodist lady for permission to marry her daughter, the response was, “Kelly, I want you to know that we love you dearly; but we despise your religion.”

Today Christian denominations realize that there is more that unites them than divides them. The road to unity is yet a long one with many challenges.  Even among the churches where there is little difference in doctrine, there are many problems still to be resolved.

Let us take the Catholic Church and those churches that we call Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox.  We recognize all their sacraments—although it is uncertain whether these churches recognize our sacraments.  In fact, if a Catholic were to find himself or herself in a locality with only an Orthodox Church, Catholicism urges the Catholic to fulfill the Sunday worship obligation by attending the Orthodox liturgy.

What is the roadblock?  The role of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, in other words, the nature of the authority exercised by the pope.  The Orthodox churches are willing to accept the pope as the first among equals, yes, the most important of the hierarchical figures in Christianity.  They do not, however, accept his complete and direct jurisdiction over the various Orthodox churches.  Even the Patriarch of Constantinople lacks that kind of authority.  This dispute has lasted for more than a millennium.  The Christians of the East have long memories.  We still have a long way to go.

When we look at the two Protestant denominations closest to Catholicism, we see other difficulties.  Martin Luther had no real desire to break with the Church of Rome; rather he wished to reform the Church.  The result was a church with two sacraments: baptism and the Lord’s Supper (eucharist).  Some Lutheran denominations have bishops while others, like the Missouri Synod, do not.

Lutherans strongly believe in Christian education.  Martin Luther himself provided for a catechism to insure that young people would be clear about Protestant beliefs.  Catholics of the same time period, like the Dutch Jesuit St. Peter Canisius, likewise provided for the publication of various catechisms.  Luther wanted no ambiguity when it came to faith.

Henry VIII of England wanted a church that would satisfy his need for annulment and remarriage. He, therefore, wanted to break with Rome; but he had no desire to reform the Church.  He did not even favor, as did Luther, a married clergy.  His original desire had been to retain all seven sacraments.  Protestant tendencies from the European continent, however, gradually crept into the Church of England, leading to a weakness of the sacramental system.  The English church, nevertheless, did retain the institution of the episcopacy.

Both denominations retain a sense of “church” very close to that of Catholicism.  Both are willing to consider the role of the Bishop of Rome as the most important hierarchical function in Christianity.  That understanding is still not quite the same as ours.  Dialogue is helping to narrow the gap.

Please join our Christian sisters and brothers on Wednesday, January 18, at seven o’clock at St. Joseph’s Church on Tulane Avenue as we pray for that unity which our Lord desires for his Church.  Let us pray that as Christians we can address the problems that afflict our society, especially the problems that torture our city.

Let us pray for one another since we are on pilgrimage from the Lord to the Lord.

On January 8, 1815, a ragtag army under the command of Tennessee militia general Andrew Jackson, recently appointed major general in the Regular Army, met and disastrously defeated a British army considered second-to-none in the world.  American casualties were negligible.  British losses included senior officers like Major-General Samuel Gibbs and the commander, Major-General Sir Edward Packenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, who employed some of the same troops to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo later in the year.

While the battle raged at Chalmette, the Ursuline nuns in the French Quarter, joined by many citizens, prayed before the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, which had arrived from France in 1810, the same statue that stands today above the altar at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor at Ursuline Academy.  Major General Jackson personally thanked the nuns for their prayers when he later participated in a Te Deum of thanksgiving at St. Louis Cathedral.

One of the nuns had placed an older statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor in the window of the convent in the French Quarter when the Great Fire had approached the building in 1788.  The wind then began to blow in another direction.  Today the nuns preserve this statue in a room next to the chapel.  In the past one of the religious told the students that if they prayed before the statue, our Lady would find them husbands because she was such a “sweetheart.”  To this day the statue is known as “Sweetheart.”

For well over two centuries, Our Lady of Prompt Succor has played a central role in the religious practice and culture of the city of New Orleans.  It is not so much a story of miracles as it is a story of faith.  The Catholics of the city have prayed with faith that the Lord would be with them to guide them; they have through the intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

During our Discipleship of Prayer, let us pray with faith that the Lord will guide us—our families, our parish, our school—as we seek to draw closer to him.  We know that our Lady will help us with her prayers as well.  Let us pray for one another, for we know that we are on pilgrimage together from the Lord to the Lord.

It was Ignatius’s own spiritual experience that led to his naming the Company or Society of Jesus.  Beginning with his own conversion experience at his family castle at Loyola, Ignatius grew in his own personal relationship with Jesus.  After he had made something of a recuperation from his war wound, he hobbled off to shrine of the Black Madonna at Montserrat.   There he spent a vigil in arms before of the image of our Lady, hang up his sword, and changed clothes with a beggar who thought himself very fortunate.

Ignatius, who referred to himself as the Pilgrim, thought that he would head to Barcelona, where he might take ship to visit the Holy Places in Palestine.  Instead, fearing that he might be recognized by some of his former colleagues in the port city, he made a temporary stop in the town of Manresa.  “Temporary” turned into ten months.  There he lived in a cave and served the needs of the poor in a hospice.  During those ten months, the Pilgrim said that God treated him “as a schoolmaster would a pupil.”  He grew in his personal love for Jesus Christ.

One incident stood out in his memory.  One day, as he sat by the River Cardoner gazing at the flowing water, he felt “the eyes of his mind opened.”  He later testified that God broadened his understanding such that everything which he had known before and everything which he later learned could not have equaled that experience.  That expansion of his mind, he said, included both natural as well as supernatural knowledge.  That day by the Cardoner surely marked Ignatius as one of the greatest mystics in the history of the Christian faith.

As the months went by, Ignatius became convinced that God was calling him to receive an education sot that he might help souls.  Following a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Ignatius sought out education in the great Spanish universities of Alcala and Salamanca.  Trouble with church officials who wondered at this man of noble birth living like vagrant. coupled with a conviction that he should go elsewhere for an education, Ignatius to travel to Paris, the site of the world’s greatest university.

There he not only received a brilliant education, but he also drew to himself men who shared his vision of life.  Pierre Favre, Diego Lainez, Francis Xavier, and others wanted to embrace the way of life that he suggested.  On August 15, 16534, at a Mass celebrated by Favre, the only priest of their number, Ignatius and his companions bound themselves by vows of poverty and chastity, along with a promise to go to the Holy Land.  His companions moved on to Italy while Ignatius returned to his native Basque country to improve his health.

When they came together in Venice, they were ordained priests—although from humility Ignatius waited more than a year to celebrate his first Mass.  Pious Deliberation led them to decide that, since they could find a ship for the Holy Lane, they would go to Rome and ask Pope Paul III how they could best serve the Church.  Ignatius knew that he had made Spanish enemies who were now influential in Rome.  He decided, however, that he would make the journey to see the pope.

As the companions neared the Eternal City, the companions noted that the windows of the houses were shut.  Ignatius offered the opinion that if windows were closed to them, perhaps persecution awaited them in Rome.  The group stopped at a shrine to pray in the Roman suburb of La Storta.  There the Lord touched Ignatius’s heart.  He had the realization that God the Father was placing him with God’s Son.  In the vision the Son spoke to the Father, “What do you wish this man to do?”  The response was, “I wish him to serve Us.”  From then on, Ignatius knew that God would be good to the companions in Rome.

Ignatius felt branded with the powerful conviction that the companions should take for their name the Company or Society of Jesus (Compañia de Jésus or Societas Jesu).  Nothing could deter Ignatius from believing that his Society should be distinguished by the name of Jesus, also distinguishing the relationship that the members should have with Christ.  So it came to be.  Pope Paul III approved Ignatius’s new order on September 27, 1540, giving it the Name of Jesus.

Although the new Roman Missal has an optional memorial on January 3, the “Most Holy Name of Jesus,” replacing a feast that was once celebrated on January 2, we Jesuits choose January 1 as our titular feast.  Today, on the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, the Octave Day of Christmas, the gospel tells us that the child  “was named Jesus, the name given him before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21).

Please pray that we Jesuits will be able to live up to our Name by serving the Lord and the Church with generous and loving hearts.  Let us pray for one another as we continue on our pilgrimage during this New Year, for we have come from the Lord and are returning to him.  A Happy and Blessed New Year from the priests and staff of Holy Name of Jesus!