Angelus News | March 26, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 6

ANGELUS
A FATHER
IN THE SHADOWS
Why the pope is telling us to ‘go to Joseph’ this year
March 26, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 6

March 26, 2021
Vol. 6 • No. 6
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ON THE COVER
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
St. Joseph plays with the child Jesus in Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s
“The Holy Family with a Bird” (circa 1650). On Page 10, art historian
Elizabeth Lev explains how Jesus’ foster father made up for a slow
start in Christian art by taking up his popular role as our all-powerful
patron. On Page 14, Evan Holguin tells the little-known story of the
St. Joseph statue that watches over the LA cathedral’s timeout area.
And on Page 16, contributor Elise Ureneck opens up about how
sleep problems led her to a deeper friendship with St. Joseph.
THIS PAGE
CNS/LUIS ECHEVERRIA, REUTERS
People carry a casket during the
funeral procession for Rivaldo
Jimenez Ramirez, Santa Cristina
Garcia, and Iván Gudiel Pablo, in
Comitancillo, Guatemala, March 14.
The migrants were killed in January
in Tamaulipas, Mexico, while trying
to reach the U.S. to seek asylum.

CONTENTS
Pope Watch................................................ 2
Archbishop Gomez.................................. 3
World, Nation, and Local News....... 4-6
In Other Words......................................... 7
Father Rolheiser........................................ 8
Scott Hahn.............................................. 32
LA Catholic Events................................ 33
18
20
24
26
28
30
At 99, LA’s oldest deacon doesn’t want to slow down
Inés San Martín: The real triumph of Pope Francis’ Iraq visit
Mike Aquilina on the psalms as an answer to our trust issues
Why Dr. Grazie Christie is reading Flannery O’Connor this Lent
Max Jacob, an enigmatic artist haunted by God
Heather King: The Skirball tries making Noah’s Ark kid-friendly
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH
The blessing question
The Catholic Church cannot
bless same-sex unions in
any form, the Vatican’s
Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith (CDF) said in response to a
question, or “dubium,” that came from
priests and lay faithful “who require
clarification and guidance concerning
a controversial issue.”
The response to the question, “Does
the Church have the power to give the
blessing to unions of persons of the
same sex?” was “Negative.”
“It is not licit to impart a blessing
on relationships, or partnerships,
even stable, that involve sexual
activity outside of marriage,” the
doctrinal office said in an explanatory
note accompanying the March
15 statement, both of which were
approved by Pope Francis.
The statement, signed by Cardinal
Luis Ladaria, congregation prefect,
stressed that the negative judgment
is on the blessing of unions, not of
individuals themselves.
“The Christian community and its
pastors are called to welcome with
respect and sensitivity persons with
homosexual inclinations and will
know how to find the most appropriate
ways, consistent with Church
teaching, to proclaim to them the
gospel in its fullness,” the explanatory
note said.
The clarification “does not preclude
the blessings given to individual
persons with homosexual inclinations,
who manifest the will to live in
fidelity to the revealed plans of God as
proposed by Church teaching.”
The statement comes as Catholic
bishops in Germany undertake
a “synodal process” in which the
blessing of same-sex unions has been
proposed. While neither the statement
nor the explanatory note made any
mention of the country’s so-called
“Synodal Way,” the Catholic news
site The Pillar cited one anonymous
source at the CDF as affirming that
“the answer was to Germany.”
The doctrinal congregation did
acknowledge that some unnamed
church communities had promoted
“plans and proposals for blessings of
unions of persons of the same sex.”
“Such projects are not infrequently
motivated by a sincere desire to
welcome and accompany homosexual
persons, to whom are proposed paths
of growth in faith,” it said.
In fact, the question of blessing samesex
unions arose from this “sincere
desire to welcome and accompany
homosexual persons” as indicated by
Pope Francis at the conclusion of the
two synodal assemblies on the family,
it said.
That invitation, it added, was for
communities “to evaluate, with
appropriate discernment, projects and
pastoral proposals directed to this end,”
and in some cases, those proposals
included blessings given to the unions
of persons of the same sex.
The president of the German
bishops’ conference responded to
the news by acknowledging the
recent “discussions” about “the way
in which this teaching and doctrinal
development in general can be
advanced with viable arguments.”
“There are no easy answers to
questions of this kind,” said Bishop
Georg Bätzing in a statement.
Reporting courtesy of Catholic News
Service bureau chief Cindy Wooden
and The Pillar.
Papal Prayer Intention for March: Let us pray that we
may experience the sacrament of reconciliation with
renewed depth, to taste the infinite mercy of God.
2 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
The cross remains
We have just passed the
one-year mark since the
lockdowns imposed by
authorities to slow the spread of the
coronavirus.
These have been long and difficult
months, filled with trauma and
sorrow, and still there is much
uncertainty about the future. It will
take years to fully understand the
damage caused by this pandemic and
our society’s response.
But as we enter into our second Holy
Week in the time of the coronavirus,
we are starting to see signs of hope.
With my brother bishops and priests
throughout the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles, I am looking forward to
welcoming many new Catholics
to the Church at Eastertime, and
I’m also looking forward to a busy
confirmation season.
Recently at the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels, I was glad to be
able to celebrate the annual Christian
Service Awards Masses, honoring
our high school students. I was also
privileged to celebrate a nationally
livestreamed Mass for the solemnity
of St. Joseph in this Year of St. Joseph.
In the same Mass, we also marked
the start of the special year that Pope
Francis has dedicated to the joy of
family love.
Throughout this Lent, I’ve been
trying to pray and reflect more on the
figure of St. Joseph, as his story is told
in the early pages of the Gospels of St.
Matthew and St. Luke. His quiet hope
and courage in the face of adversity,
his trust in God’s providence, his
simple dedication to doing God’s
will — these are virtues I think all of
us need to develop at this moment in
our lives.
Again I encourage you all to read
Pope Francis’ beautiful and practical
letter for this Year of St. Joseph. From
St. Joseph’s example, the Holy Father
writes, we learn that “our lives can
be miraculously reborn if we find the
courage to live them in accordance
with the Gospel.”
This is the mystery of God that we
enter into during Holy Week and
Easter. The way of the cross leads
to the Resurrection. Our God is the
God of the living, not of the dead.
The promise of Easter is that we can
be reborn, we can become a new
creation in Jesus Christ.
The Scriptures tell us that God keeps
kindness toward us for a thousand
generations if we love him and keep
his commandments. That means
that God never stops loving us, never
stops caring for us and guiding us.
We can live according to the Gospel,
build our life on the solid rock of this
foundation, because we know we can
trust in his saving love.
In the cross, we see the certainty of
God’s saving love. One of the saints
said: “While the world changes,
the cross stands firm.” This is the
lesson we have been learning in this
pandemic, in all our disappointments
and losses, in all the plans we have
been forced to change or abandon.
When everything is stripped away,
there is still the cross — there remains
Jesus Christ, who died and rose from
the dead, who gave his life for each
one of us and now invites us to give
our lives to him and for him.
And in this moment, this is the
message that our neighbors need
to hear. All of us in the Church,
each in our own way, must simply
proclaim Christ. Not as a set of ideas
or teachings. Not as a figure from the
distant past. But as the living God who
loves us so much that he has entered
into our history and become one of us
— to speak to us and suffer for us and
to become the way for our life.
The world that will emerge out of
this pandemic, we don’t know what
shape it will take, but we know that it
We can live according to the Gospel, build our
life on the solid rock of this foundation, because
we know we can trust in his saving love.
will need the witness of believers. It
will need each one of us, reborn and
renewed in the mystery of God’s love
for us in Jesus Christ.
In these months and years ahead, it
is absolutely essential that we make
Jesus Christ the center of our lives
— to live from him and for him, to
think about him, talk about him, and
to know that the meaning of our lives
is found in being united to him and
following his will for us.
Pray for me this week, and I will pray
for you.
And in these holiest of weeks, let us
ask the intercession of our Blessed
Mother Mary, and let us keep vigil
with her at the foot of the cross.
May she help us to open our hearts
to embrace the beautiful truth — that
Christ died and rose from the dead!
And he did that out of love for you
and for me.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD
Destined for bigger things — Technicians with France’s National Forestry Office measure and cube a trunk of an
oak tree in Jupilles, France, March 8, to be used in the reconstruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral. A total of 1,000
oaks will be hacked down by the end of March to rebuild the spire and roof of the cathedral, which was ravaged by
fire in April 2019. Oaks from every region of France are being used to rebuild the cherished national monument,
around half from state land and the rest from private donations. | JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP
■ Nigeria: Bishop’s
kidnappers arrested
Authorities in Nigeria say they’ve
arrested the kidnappers of Bishop
Moses Chikwe, who was captured
and later released over the New
Year’s holiday.
The suspects were arrested by
police forces in different operations
between the country’s Imo
and Anambra States, a source told
Nigerian news site Punch.
Bishop Chikwe is an auxiliary
bishop for the Archdiocese of
Owerri in Nigeria. He spent more
than 10 years in Southern California
as a student priest and served
in several LA-area parishes. He
and his driver were abducted after
a Mass Dec. 27, but were later
released without ransom on New
Year’s Day.
■ One-third of
Germans consider
leaving church
A recent survey out of Germany
reports that one of three Catholics
and one of four Protestants are
considering leaving church.
The study was commissioned by
Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost
and Protestant news agency
Idea. Its findings were released
on the heels of news that more
than 270,000 German Catholics
formally left the Church in 2019.
A related study conducted by the
Diocese of Osnabrück catalogued
the reasons Catholics consider
leaving. While older Catholics
are more likely to cite ongoing
sexual abuse scandals, younger
Catholics are more likely to
deregister as Catholic to avoid
paying the 8-9% state-enforced
tax, which is given to the Church,
mandatory for registered members.
German Catholics who officially
renounce their membership revoke
their rights to the sacraments
or a Catholic burial.
■ St. Peter’s cash crunch extends to Holy Land
Palestinian Catholics pray in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday last year. | CNS/DEBBIE HILL
The Holy See will be forced to dip
into its financial reserves this year to
fund operating expenses and the pope’s
charities.
Father Antonio Guerrero, head of the
Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy,
said in an interview with Vatican News
March 12 that it may have to use 40
million euros in reserves for the second
straight year.
The Vatican’s deficit this year of about
50 million euros is in large part due to
the closure of the Vatican Museums for
most of 2020 due to COVID-19. The
museums, as well as donations from
visitors to St. Peter’s
Basilica, are
a crucial source
of revenue for the
Holy See.
The Vatican
also issued a
special plea to
Catholics about
participating in
the annual Good
Friday collection
for Christians in
the Holy Land in
parishes around
the world.
In a March 11 letter, Cardinal
Leonardo Sandri, head of the Vatican’s
Congregation for the Oriental Churches,
said the consequences of the global
shutdown and the lack of Good Friday
collections last year are still being felt.
“We have been without pilgrims from
the end of February 2020,” his statement
read.
“This means grave economic difficulties
for the local Christian communities,
for the families of our Christian
faithful, and also for the Custody [of
the Holy Land] itself.”
4 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

NATION
■ A hero chaplain’s
homecoming
The remains of a Korean War Army
chaplain on the path to sainthood have
been recovered 70 years after his death.
Father Emil Joseph Kapaun of the
Diocese of Wichita died in a Chinese
prison camp in 1951. He was known to
risk his life on the battlefield ministering
to frontline troops, and for continuing
his priestly ministry following his
capture in November 1950.
His remains were among the unidentified
soldiers moved from North Korea
to the National Cemetery of the Pacific
in Hawaii during the 1950s and 1990s.
On March 4, the U.S. Defense POW/
MIA Accounting Agency said that it
had finally identified a set of remains
as Father Kapaun’s.
“It was a joyful and exciting surprise
for the Diocese of Wichita that
Father Kapaun’s mortal remains were
recovered after so many years, and we
continue to look forward to his process
of canonization in the future,” said
Wichita Bishop Carl A. Kemme.
The final resting place for Father
Kapaun, who was declared a Servant of
God by St. Pope John Paul II in 1993,
is now being planned by his family.
Father Kapaun in 1943. | U.S. ARMY
The Holy Land’s Healer — Comboni Sister Alicia Vacas Moro was named one of 14 women to receive the
U.S. Department of State’s annual International Woman of Courage Award. The prize is a recognition of the
Jerusalem-based missionary and registered nurse’s human rights work, which includes overseeing a medical clinic
in Egypt, leading job training for women in the West Bank on means of earning income, and coordinating her
community’s assistance to refugees and asylum-seekers. | CNS/ MARCIN MAZUR
■ Humanitarian high
marks for Venezuelan
refugee plan
Faith-based groups are applauding the
Biden administration’s decision to offer
legal protection for 320,000 Venezuelan
immigrants fleeing political conflict and
poverty in the country.
The March 8 announcement means
that the migrants will be eligible for the
Temporary Protection Status program
(TPS), which postpones deportations and
grants work permits for up to 18 months
to some immigrants from countries
ravaged by natural disasters, conflicts, or
exceptional situations.
“Venezuela is experiencing one of the
largest humanitarian crises in the world,”
Anna Gallagher, executive director of the
Catholic Legal Immigration Network,
said March 8. “We are grateful that TPS,
a vital humanitarian protection, will be
used to safeguard Venezuelans in the
United States.”
The Catholic Legal Immigration
Network, the Lutheran Immigration and
Refugee Service, and the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops also expressed
support for the decision.
■ Texas churches
to keep masking up
Though Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
announced March 2 the lifting of
all pandemic restrictions in the
state, most Catholic parishes in
the state will continue to require
facial coverings and social distancing
guidelines.
“The protocols we have established
were intended to collaborate
with state and local practices,
but were not undertaken under
the direction of these entities,”
explained El Paso Bishop Mark J.
Seitz, who instructed churches in
his diocese to continue masking
and limiting attendance to 25%
capacity.
Other Catholic bishops in the
state issued similar statements, but
one bishop, Bishop Joseph Strickland
of Tyler, responded to the
change by saying that mask use in
church can now be “an individual
choice,” while still encouraging
social distancing measures and the
following of CDC recommendations.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 5

LOCAL
■ Your God is too small, Vatican
astronomer tells LMU students
Studying the cosmos can be both an act of faith and of
reason, the Vatican’s official astronomer told more than
100 Loyola Marymount students, faculty, and alumni in a
virtual presentation.
“One doesn’t use a telescope to discover God,” said Brother
Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ, the director of the Vatican
Observatory, during the March 11 event. “But what one
does do is to use a telescope to get to know God’s personality
better.”
The Detroit native and Jesuit brother discussed topics
ranging from the Big Bang Theory, the newly formed U.S.
“Space Force,” and the recent landing of NASA’s Perseverance
rover on Mars.
“What does it mean to be a fellow creature in such a huge
creation?” Brother Consolmagno asked his audience while
showing a photo of a cluster of galaxies. “Every swatch of
light is billions of stars with tens of billions of planets and
hundreds of billions of such galaxies that we can see. To
Ready to go national — Students from the academic decathlon team at Christ
the King School near Hancock Park participate in a Zoom meeting with their
teachers. The team won first place overall this month in the decathlon’s regional
competition, and is now preparing for the national competition this spring.
Brother Guy J. Consolmagno during the March 11 Zoom presentation for LMU.
| TOM HOFFARTH
take that all in requires religion.”
Although he reports to Rome, Brother Consolmagno
spoke from his office in the U.S., located at the Vatican’s
observatory atop Mt. Graham in southwest Arizona.
■ Carmel Mission renovation
project gets a big gift
The effort to restore the California mission where St.
Junípero Serra is buried just got a major boost in the form of
a $1.8 million donation.
The grant from the Hind Foundation will go to the Carmel
Mission Foundation, which is funding renovations of Mission
San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, located in Carmel.
The restoration work includes structural reinforcements
to the building’s masonry, a remodel and expansion of the
mission’s museum, and a new bathroom.
The mission hopes to complete the renovations in time for
the 250th anniversary of its foundation this fall. The Carmel
Mission Basilica and Museums draw more than 300,000
visitors each year, a foundation spokesperson told Catholic
News Agency.
Y
Catholic school employees were invited to a vaccination
clinic at LMU March 8-10. | PATRICK T. FALLON/
AFP VIA GETTY IMAGE
■ LA Catholic schools gear up for red tier reopening
More Catholic schools are reopening for in-class instruction as COVID-19
rates continue to slide and Southern California moved into the state’s “red tier”
this month.
As of March 15, about 70% of schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had
reopened classrooms for students in grades TK-6 in some form, while the rest
are making plans to do so.
The move to the red tier allows schools to start preparations for grades 7-12 to
return to in-person instruction.
Most of the reopened schools are using a hybrid approach to accommodate
students, families, and teachers, many of whom are still awaiting vaccination.
“If people need more time, that’s OK,” said Paul Escala, LA Catholic schools
superintendent. “The goal is working back from the upcoming Easter break to
wait and see how the kids are doing in person.”
6 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

IN OTHER WORDS...
V
Letters to the Editor
Reactions to the new Angelus
The Angelus looks better. I especially like the Letters to the Editor.
I am glad to see that it is included in the printed version.
— Carl Mossberg, Rancho Palos Verdes
Thank you so much for the many improvements you have made to the appearance
of the publication. I especially welcome the “In Other Words” page.
The change in font throughout the rest of the magazine is a huge improvement,
too. It is much easier to read for my aging eyes. I had procrastinated a long time
about writing to you about the difficulty of reading the old font, so the change is
indeed an answer to prayer.
— Tina Garcia, Claremont
“To forgive one’s enemies:
This is the pure Gospel.”
~ Pope Francis on meeting a mother during his
March 5-8 visit to Iraq who forgave ISIS for killing
her son.
“We are here. We are
few, but we are here.”
~ Archbishop Youhanna Jihad Mtanos Battah,
Syriac archbishop of Damascus on the Christian
presence in Iraq.
“Children have no idea
that the very soil upon
which we walk was
drenched with the blood
of people who happened
to express faith in Christ.”
~ Damien Richardson, a converted heroin addict
who discovered a historical account of the unsung
Catholic martyrs in Irish history.
Y
Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor
and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters
may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.
“I wonder, what
have we become?”
~ Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester after New
Mexico’s governor repealed long-standing abortion
restrictions and lawmakers advanced a bill legalizing
assisted suicide.
2021: A year with many first days of school
Principal Aaron De Loera talks to third-grade students
on the first day of in-person class at St. Bernard School in
Bellflower on March 3. | DAVID AMADOR RIVERA
View more photos from this gallery at
AngelusNews.com/photos-videos
Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d
like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com.
“Some parishioners have
disappeared from the radar
entirely. We have lost
all of them. At a certain
moment, people get used
to not going to church.”
~ A priest in the Netherlands to “Katholiek Nieuwsblad”
on fears of the Catholic Church’s permanent
decline in the country after COVID-19 shutdowns.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 7

IN EXILE
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual
writer; ronaldrolheiser.com.
An honest prayer
Recently I received a letter from
a woman whose life, in effect,
had imploded. Within the
course of a few months, her husband
divorced her, she lost her job, was
forced to move from the house she
had lived in for many years, was
locked down in her new place by
COVID-19 restrictions, and was diagnosed
with a cancer which might be
untreatable. It was all too much.
At a point, she broke down in anger
and resignation. She turned to Jesus
and with bitterness, said, “If you’re
there, and I doubt it, what do you
know about any of this? You were
never this alone!” I suspect that we
all have moments like this. What did
Jesus know of any of this?
Well, if we can believe the Gospels,
Jesus did know all of this, not because
he had a divine consciousness,
but because like the woman in the
story he knew right from the beginning
what it meant to be the one
standing alone, outside the normal
human circle.
This is evident right from his birth.
The Gospels tell us that Mary was
forced to give birth to Jesus in a
stable because there was no room
for them at the inn. That heartless
innkeeper! The poor man has had to
endure centuries of censure. However,
that thought misses the point
of the story and misconstrues its
meaning.
The moral of this story is not that
some heartless cruelty took place or
that the world was too preoccupied
with itself to take notice of Jesus’
birth, though this latter implication
is true. Rather, the real point is that
Jesus, the Christ, was born an outsider,
as one of the poor, as someone
who, right from the beginning, was
not given a place in the mainstream.
As the author Gil Bailie puts it, Jesus
was “unanimity-minus-one.” How
could it be otherwise?
Given who Jesus was, given that his
central message was good news for
the poor, and given that he entered
into human life precisely to experience
all it contains, including its
pains and humiliations, he could
hardly have been born in a palace,
enjoyed every kind of support, and
been the center of love and attention.
To be in real solidarity with the
poor, as Thomas Merton once put it,
he had to be born “outside the city”;
and whether that was the case historically
or not, it is a rich, far-reaching
metaphor. Right from the beginning,
Jesus knew both the pain and the
shame of one who is excluded, who
has no place in the mainstream.
When we look closely at the Gospels,
we see that there was no human
pain, emotional or physical, from
which Jesus was spared. It is safe to
say, I submit, that no one, irrespective
of his or her pain, can say to
Jesus, “You didn’t have to undergo
what I had to undergo!” He underwent
it all.
During his ministry, he faced constant
rejection, ridicule, and threat,
sometimes having to hide away like
a criminal on the run. He was also
a celibate, one who slept alone, one
deprived of normal human intimacy,
one with no family of his own.
Then in his passion and death, he
experienced the extremes of both
emotional and physical pain. Emotionally,
he literally “sweated blood,”
and physically, in his crucifixion, he
endured the most extreme and humiliating
pain possible for a human
being to undergo.
As we know, crucifixion was designed
by the Romans with more
than only capital punishment in
mind. It was designed as well to
inflict the maximum amount of pain
and humiliation possible for a person
to endure. That was one of the reasons
they sometimes gave morphine
to the one being crucified, not to
ease his pain, but to keep him from
passing out and escaping the pain.
Crucifixion was also designed to
utterly humiliate the one being put
to death. Hence, they stripped the
person naked, and the loosening of
his bowels would be his final shame.
Truly there was not a pain or humiliation
he did not endure.
An old, classic definition of prayer
tells us this: “Prayer is lifting mind
and heart to God.” Well, there will
be low points in our lives when our
circumstances will force us to lift our
minds and hearts to God in a way
that seems antithetical to prayer.
Sometimes we will be brought to a
breaking point where in brokenness,
anger, shame, and in the despairing
thought that nobody, including God,
cares and that we are all alone in
this, consciously or otherwise, we will
confront Jesus with the words, “And
what do you know about that!”
And Jesus will hear those words as a
prayer, as a sincere sigh of the heart,
rather than as some kind of irreverence.
8 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 9

A statue of St.
Joseph and the
Christ Child at
Sacred Heart
Church in Island
Park, New York.
| CNS/GREGORY
A. SHEMITZ
The many faces of
ST. JOSEPH
Long underrepresented in church art,
Christianity’s strong, silent saint has
come out of the shadows in the times
he’s been needed the most
BY ELIZABETH LEV
In modern churches, the statues of
the steady, silent St. Joseph rarely
get a second glance for their artistic
merit. The faithful may gaze upon
his pleasant, placid face, and bury his
feet in drifts of penciled petitions, but
they probably don’t swoon in aesthetic
bliss.
These resin figurines, however,
are just the latest (and arguably the
laziest) incarnation of a saint who has
undergone exceptionally dramatic
transformations over the centuries.
Geniuses such as Giotto di Bondone,
Raphael Sanzio, and Bartolomé
Esteban Murillo applied their fertile
imaginations to creating the many
personas of St. Joseph: dreamer, suitor,
protector, worker, just to name a
few. In honor of Pope Francis’ dedication
of 2021 as the Year of St. Joseph,
the following is a tour of a few of St.
Joseph’s many-colored looks.
10 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

St. Joseph got a late start in Christian
iconography, perhaps a case of
art imitating life. Early Christians emphasized
the virgin birth and Christ’s
divine fatherhood, so St. Joseph —
ever the gentleman — stood aside,
never appearing in catacomb frescoes
or sarcophagi reliefs of the Nativity or
the Epiphany.
Not until the fifth century and the
glorious age of church construction
did St. Joseph make his first appearance
in the triumphal arch mosaics of
St. Mary Major. This was no tentative
introduction, however: He appears
five times in the arch, more than any
other character, including Mary and
Jesus.
Despite this dramatic debut, Josephine
imagery did not come into
its full splendor until the dawn of
the Renaissance. A seismic spiritual
shift, led by St. Francis of Assisi, paid
increasing attention to Jesus’ human
experience, which resulted in more
scenes of Christ’s infancy and consequently
more of St. Joseph.
One artistic trailblazer, Giotto, crafted
a stately St. Joseph, pioneering the
“chiaroscuro” (“light-dark”) technique
to give him greater gravitas. In
the Lower Basilica of Assisi, Giotto
revolutionized the Nativity scene
in an image later chosen by Pope
Francis for his official 2016 Christmas
card.
Christ appears twice in this fresco:
once in the center surrounded by angels
while gazing at his mother, with
beams of heavenly light leading to his
head, bringing a flash of the divine
into the little wooden shed.
Beneath this scene, however, along
the lower edge of the work, Giotto
painted a second baby Jesus. Here,
midwives tend to his human needs
— washing and feeding — while St.
Joseph gazes at him in quiet contemplation.
A notable detail is that St. Joseph’s
blue and yellow robes, and his short
white hair and beard borrow from the
iconography used for St. Peter, the
first pope. This resemblance evoked
St. Joseph’s loving guardianship of
Christ as a model for the pope’s care
for the Church.
St. Joseph first appeared in Christian art
four centuries after his death, but kept
a low profile until the Renaissance.
The Renaissance valued versatile,
dynamic men, the alpha males of art
history, and St. Joseph was quick to
get with the times. The sacrament of
marriage was on the rocks, as bigamy,
cohabitation, and prostitution were
on the rise due to lax mores, so St.
Joseph — formerly the contemplative
dreamer — stepped forward to claim
his bride.
“The Marriage of the Virgin,” executed
by Raphael for the Church of
St. Francis in Città di Castello, united
sacramental doctrine with the narrative
charm that was the trademark of
the 21-year-old painter.
The altarpiece, inspired by an earlier
work by his master, Pietro Perugino,
displays the exchange of rings
front and center. The viewer stands
in a privileged position (nowadays
reserved for wedding photographers)
directly in front
“Nativity,” by Giotto
di Bondone, circa
1311-1320. | WIKIART/
PUBLIC DOMAIN
of the bride,
groom, and high
priest. Raphael
even arranges
the figures in a
semicircle, inviting
viewers to
take their place
as witnesses to this sacred event.
Mary and Joseph (younger than in
Giotto’s version) extend their hands
toward each other, underscoring the
necessity of consent in marriage,
while the priest brings their two
hands together conferring sacramental
grace. The slight tilt of his head
adds emphasis to the words of the
marriage vows: “What therefore God
hath joined together, let not man put
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 11

asunder” (Mark 10:9).
Witnesses gather on either side of
the couple, the young men breaking
rods over their knees in accordance
with an apocryphal story where
Mary’s many suitors were each given
barren branches, but Joseph’s miraculously
blossomed, a sign of divine
selection.
Three delicate lilies can be seen
blooming from Joseph’s rod. Behind
them the pavement converges in perfect
perspective toward an open door
in the temple, where one looks out
on an endless horizon. Here Raphael
highlights the perpetual nature of the
sacrament, as does the round temple,
symbol of unity, indissolubility, and
eternity.
Post-Reformation Europe looked to
St. Joseph as a model of balancing the
active and contemplative life, with
St. Teresa of Ávila spearheading this
renewed devotion by dedicating 12
of her 17 new monasteries to him.
Father Jerónimo Gracián, Teresa’s
spiritual director, wrote a new hagiography
for the saint in 1597, propos-
ing that St. Joseph was like Jesus in
“countenance, speech, and physical
constitution.”
In this era, a young, vigorous St.
Joseph emerged from the brushes of
Francisco de Zurbaran, Doménikos
Theotokópoulos, most widely known
as El Greco, and especially Murillo,
who dedicated almost as many easels
to Jesus’ father as he did to the Immaculate
Conception of his mother.
His “St. Joseph and the Christ Child,”
painted for the high altar of the Capuchin
Church of Seville, is one of
the more striking versions.
In the 6-foot-6 canvas, St. Joseph
towers over the viewer, while Jesus
stands at the center, robed in a mauve
tunic, the color choice meant to
evoke his human nature. Perched on
a battered stone slab, reminiscent of a
pagan altar with a broken column of
an ancient temple protruding beside
him, Jesus rests his luminous head
against St. Joseph’s shoulder.
The strong,
handsome
“The Marriage of the Virgin,”
by Raphael Sanzio, 1504.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
St. Joseph,
resembling the
adult Christ,
cradles the boy
protectively as
he looks into
the distance to
ward off potential threats. This virile
iconography soon crossed the Atlantic
to introduce St. Joseph as the patron
of Mexico.
St. Joseph’s patronages grew exponentially:
He watched over the
moribund, the Chinese missions, and
the universal Church, and painters
reveled in the new artistic challenges
that each title brought, leading to the
last great spate of Josephine iconography:
Patron of Workers.
Pope Leo XIII, alarmed at the
global spread of socialism, held up St.
Joseph, who “passed his life in labor,
and won by the toil of the artisan the
needful support of his family,” and
pleaded with Catholics to “trust not
to the promises of seditious men, but
rather to the example and patronage
of the Blessed Joseph.” (“Quamquam
Pluries,” 4-5).
As Pope Leo was penning those
words, artists were already at work re-
12 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

imaging St. Joseph as a worker. James
Tissot’s lovely watercolors captured
the artisan in his shop, and François
Lafond depicted young Jesus learning
his father’s trade, while Modesto
Faustini was frescoing a chapel in
St. Joseph’s honor in the renowned
sanctuary of the Holy House of
Loreto. Faustini’s
“Holy Family”
from 1890
dazzles with this
neo-Gothic gilding,
but beyond
the glitter lies
the real gold.
A simple space
with a high, vaulted ceiling and
“St. Joseph and the Christ
Child,” by Bartolomé
Esteban Murillo, 1665-
1666. | PUBLIC DOMAIN
terracotta floors shows signs of age in
the scratched plaster, iron tie bars and
vegetation sprouting in cracks. The
one opulent touch is the throne of
the virgin, backed by a green tapestry,
carved, and inlaid with the finest marquetry
of the woodworker’s art.
She leans forward, book in hand,
speaking to the Christ Child, who
stands on a woven rug praying with
his mother. St. Joseph’s worktable
occupies the bulk of the space, with
tools, planks, and spartan furnishings
festooned with shavings from the
carpenter’s lathe.
St. Joseph is hard at work, barefoot
on the brick floor, his whole body engaged
in planing wood, yet his face,
absorbed as he watches his wife and
son, reveals peaceful adoration. He
gives himself over to toil, so his little
family can glorify God, and in doing
so confers dignity upon human labor
and sacrifice.
Now, in this age of pandemic, where
unemployment and lockdowns have
shattered so many families, closed
churches have tested the faith of the
faithful, and gender ideology undermines
the meaning of male and
female, Pope Francis has told us to
“Go to Joseph.”
It’s a timely message and an invitation
to explore the many facets of
Scripture’s most precious diamond in
the rough: St. Joseph.
Elizabeth Lev is an American-born
art historian who lives and works in
Rome.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 13

Part of the
FAMILY
The cathedral’s tribute to adoptive
fatherhood is marking both its
10th anniversary and a special
year dedicated to St. Joseph
BY EVAN HOLGUIN
By virtue of its own name, the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels is perhaps LA’s most conspicuous
testament to the motherhood
of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But tucked
to the side of the cathedral is a more
discrete tribute to divine parenthood,
a statue honoring Mary’s partner and
help-mate, St. Joseph.
Commissioned as a retirement gift to
Archbishop Emeritus Cardinal Roger
Mahony, the bronze statue of the saint
created by local sculptor Christopher
Slatoff has been a fixture at the cathedral
since 2011.
The statue depicts the patron of
fathers at his workbench placing down
his hammer and picking up the Christ
Child. In doing so, it strays from most
traditional depictions of St. Joseph the
Worker. It shows St. Joseph not in the
act of working, but in the moment of
setting aside his labor to attend to his
young son.
Ten years later,
Christopher Slatoff’s
sculpture “Adoption” in
the north ambulatory
of the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels. |
VICTOR ALEMÁN
the significance of
the statue, named
“Adoption,” is still
fresh for Slatoff.
“There’s the
baby Jesus being
presented right
there, and there’s
Joseph putting his
hammer down
and picking up the body of Christ,”
Slatoff said. “There’s almost this St.
Michael-like weighing of souls in this
— which is better? Of course, you’re
going to pick up the body of Christ.”
More than just a decision between
stopping work to be with family, Slatoff
said “Adoption” is an attempt to show
the beauty of the bond between adopted
father and adopted son. It’s a bond
Slatoff can relate to: Four of his five
children are adopted.
His oldest, Michael, was nine at the
time of his adoption. His older age
meant that adoption was more than
just a legal proceeding, Slatoff explained,
but rather a choice between
the two: “I will be your son, you will be
my father. He had to be OK with that.”
From that moment on, Slatoff’s
relationship with St. Joseph changed,
too: No longer was he just the adoptive
14 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

father of Jesus, but an exemplar for his
own fatherhood.
“There’s no other saint that you could
point to that more substantially dealt
with the idea of somebody raising a
child who is not genetically theirs,”
Slatoff said.
“Undoubtedly, Joseph reacted to it
better than I. But that’s why we have
saints, isn’t it? Isn’t it so we can say,
‘This is my experience. I’ve got somebody
who did it better that I can relate
to.’ ”
In his bronze work he crafted
representations of communion, from
the hand wrapping around the Christ
Child, to the intricately sculpted knot
of St. Joseph’s apron and the binding
around his hammer.
Even St. Joseph’s workbench speaks
to the viewer about the family bond, a
symbol of how Christ, through his life,
death and resurrection, has extended
the bonds of his family to include all
humanity.
“Anybody who sits on that bench is
part of the Holy Family,” Slatoff said.
“You want a family picture with God?
You sit on the bench!”
Sitting and taking a “family picture
with God” is no mere hypothetical.
According to Msgr. Kevin Kostelnik,
the cathedral’s founding pastor, the
piece was intended to have an interactive
dimension.
“That was the concept that we carried
through from Father Richard Vosko,”
explained Msgr. Kostelnik, referencing
a priest from the Diocese of Albany
who once served as art consultant for
the cathedral. “It was his idea that
the art should not just be something
that should be placed eight feet up on
the wall and lifted up high so people
can gaze at it, but that it needed to be
interactive.”
Msgr. Kostelnik likes to note that
even the statue’s location within the
expansive cathedral serves a practical
function for parents: The northern ambulatory
where the statue is placed is
often where parents leave their strollers
or bring fussy children to calm down
during Mass.
“The ambulatory became the timeout
space,” said Msgr. Kostelnik, who
Christopher Slatoff in his
studio sculpting “Adoption” in
2011. | COURTESY CHRISTO-
PHER SLATOFF
today is pastor of,
incidentally, St.
Joseph Church
in Long Beach.
“And in that
timeout space,
children became
very familiar with
that statue. They
loved to climb
up on the bench,
they loved to hug
the child Jesus.”
In other words,
a timeout space
turned into a
devotional space.
Slatoff admitted
that the opportunity
to make a
religious sculpture like “Adoption” has
spoiled so-called “regular” art for him.
“If my work was in a museum, a really
great art-centric person would probably
see it three times a year,” Slattoff said.
“But if it’s in a church, if it’s in a public
square? I’m talking about people who
see that sculpture again and again and
again and again.”
“And if the work is good,” he added,
“the sculpture continues to meet them
at that level that they are at that time.”
Experience would argue that the work
of “Adoption” is good. From the first
moment the statue was named, it bore
fruit in the lives of adopted children
and parents alike. Slatoff recalled that
when he first told his oldest son the
statue’s name, the boy was brought to
tears.
For others, like one student who
Slatoff taught in his role as artist-in-residence
at Fuller Theological Seminary,
the statue works more quietly.
The student wanted to talk about her
adoption with her parents, who were
hesitant to broach the topic. So instead
of trying to initiate a difficult conversation,
she invited her parents to see a
certain statue at the cathedral.
“It was an opportunity to not have
to use the words,” Slatoff explained.
“That’s the great thing about the
artwork; it just pushes and prods you
without having to go through the
very crude methods of using words to
speak.”
Like a parent who laments how fast
their young children have grown up,
the fact that “Adoption” is already 10
years old seems shocking to Slatoff. But
he sees the fact that the anniversary
coincides with the newly proclaimed
“Year of St. Joseph” as an invitation to
revisit his relationship with the popular
patron.
“The idea that Joseph is the patron
saint of a good death, as I’m hitting my
late 60s, was like ‘Oh, oh my!’ ” Slatoff
said. “And I’m thinking about how my
children are going to have to deal with
a senile, old, hardheaded sculptor.”
Evan Holguin is a graduate of the
University of Notre Dame. Originally
from Santa Clarita, he now lives in
New Haven, Connecticut.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 15

The “Sleeping St. Joseph” statue
on the author’s nightstand.
| ELISE ITALIANO URENECK
Asleep with
ST. JOSEPH
How an anxious disposition
and sleep problems brought
me to discover Jesus’ foster
father as a trusty intercessor
BY ELISE ITALIANO URENECK
It was the fall of 1993, some 28
years ago. I can still hear my mother
and father report back to me
from the parent-teacher conference
they attended at my new elementary
school.
“She’s excelling academically and
has made a number of new friends,”
my new teacher told them. “But she’s
been nicknamed ‘Worry Wart’ by
some of the kids in the class. Elise
seems to worry about everything.”
The nearly three decades since that
conference have involved a tiresome
effort to overcome (or at times ignore)
a mind plagued by anxiety.
By this point in adulthood, I’ve accepted
that I am disposed to worry and
“what-if.” Surmountable obstacles,
moments of change — any number
of scenarios, really — can send me
into a panic or a cycle of compulsive
rumination and doubt.
A cocktail of genetics and life’s
circumstances are at the root of my
16 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

situation; good counsel and a supportive
network have made it possible to
manage.
Humor helps. When I’m having a
particularly difficult spout of worrying,
I turn to “The Worst Case Scenario
Survival Handbook” (Chronicle
Books, 1999), a humorous gift from
my father that I keep on my nightstand.
This gem provides step-bystep
instructions for how to survive
extreme, adverse conditions, such as
“How to Escape from a Bear” and
“How to Land a Plane.” It’s a surefire
way to get some perspective.
As a woman of faith, I struggle with
how to reconcile the tension between
my sincere belief in the word of God
and my habit of worrying.
I don’t find Gospel passages in which
Jesus counsels his disciples not to let
their hearts be troubled to be comforting.
Nor do I respond well to the
oft-quoted advice, “Pray, hope, and
don’t worry,” attributed to St. Padre
Pio.
That kind of counsel makes me
worry about worrying. It would be
humorous, if it weren’t so hard.
I find more comfort in Jesus’ admonition
of his disciples for sleeping
while he was in agony. “You get it,” I
murmur in prayer when reading the
accounts of that night in the Garden
of Gethsemane.
Lately, my anxiety has manifested
itself in insomnia, that cruel condition
in which one either cannot fall or stay
asleep. After my mother received a
devastating medical diagnosis a few
years ago, I found myself in a vicious
pattern of lying awake for hours,
unable to calm my mind or slow the
beating of my heart. It’s hard to discipline
my imagination as it wanders
through the course of her disease and
our family life without her physically
present in it.
Objectively, I know that worrying
will not ease her burden, nor will
it help me to be a more supportive
daughter. Nonetheless, I’ve watched
countless hours tick by in the darkness
and stillness of the night.
Sometimes praying the rosary
provides comfort. Other times I read
a novel to find respite in a fictional
world. But more often than not,
there’s just a feeling of anguish and
restlessness. Sleep is pretty important
to the functioning of the mind and
body; going without it for long periods
Pope Francis shows the
sleeping posture of the
statue of St. Joseph he keeps
on his desk while giving
a talk during a meeting
with families in Manila,
Philippines, in 2015.
| CNS/PAUL HARING
of time is definitely
not recommended.
About two years
after my insomnia
began, I stumbled
upon a statue of St.
Joseph in the foyer
outside my spiritual
director’s office. St.
Joseph was lying
down on his right
side, fast asleep. I
was struck by the
image. He looked so
serene.
He had what I
desperately wanted: REM sleep. More
importantly, he had a look of rest that
had reached down into his bones and
soul.
The image stayed with me. The
Gospels recount that the Holy Family
found themselves in some pretty
terrifying situations at their outset: an
arduous journey before Mary was to
give birth; a delivery in a stable; and a
flight into Egypt to escape a malevolent
tyrant all colored their first years
together.
Yet St. Joseph was able to sleep.
And it was during that sleep that God
communicated to him how he was to
protect and care for his family. Sleep
was where St. Joseph’s fear became no
match for his faith.
I did some investigating and learned
that Pope Francis has this image of St.
Joseph on his desk. It was one of the
items he brought from Argentina to
Rome when he was elected pope.
Speaking to families during his 2015
visit to Manila, Pope Francis said of
St. Joseph: “Even when he is asleep,
he is taking care of the church! Yes!
We know that he can do that. So
when I have a problem, a difficulty, I
write a little note and I put it underneath
St. Joseph, so that he can dream
about it! In other words I tell him:
Pray for this problem!”
I bought a statue of “Sleeping St.
Joseph” to put on my nightstand. In
a belief bordering on sacrilege, I half
expected it to function like a talisman
that would cure me of my insomnia.
Instead, it’s served as a great comfort
to me when I find myself awake.
As the minutes on the clock tick
forward, I look over to St. Joseph with
gratitude that one of us is sleeping.
I glance at the notes I’ve placed
beneath his heart and remember that
like any good father, he’s bringing my
worries before Jesus.
Life is filled with countless things
about which we have legitimate reason
to fret. Maybe in this Year of St.
Joseph, we can follow his example of
handing our problems over to God to
hold until the sun rises.
After all, the Son does rise, making
even the most worrisome things new.
Elise Italiano Ureneck is a communications
consultant writing from Boston.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 17

A deacon in demand
At 99, St. Bernadette
Church’s Emile Adams
Jr. is still finding new
ways to serve
BY STEVE LOWERY
Emile Adams and
his wife, Anona,
at his diaconate
ordination in 1979.
Though he has a century’s
worth of memories to choose
from, one that will always get
a chuckle out of 99-year-old Emile
Adams Jr. starts with him receiving
a rather frantic phone call from his
daughter, Lillian.
“The power had gone out in my
house,” she said. “I had six children,
three boys in the bath, a baby down
in the crib, two girls running around
and [husband] Frank was at work. I
couldn’t figure out the fuse box, so
I called my dad and he was over in
minutes.
“The moment he walks in the house,
he puts his arms over his head and
says, ‘Let there be light!’ And the
lights went on! We all just stared
at him for a moment and then my
daughter Robyn said to her sister Renee,
‘See Renee, I told you Papa was
God.’ ” (We assume Renee nodded
knowingly.)
While one can forgive
a granddaughter’s
pride, the truth
is that people seem
to recognize something
different about
Adams. Just ask
parishioners at St.
Bernadette Church in Baldwin Hills,
where Adams has attended since 1972
and began his ministry as a deacon in
1979.
“Emile is one of those people you
meet that simply embodies goodness,”
said Deacon Jim Carper, the parish
life director at St. Bernadette.
The call to the diaconate came when
Adams was already in his 50s.
18 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

“There was a deacon position open
and the pastor at St. Bernadette
recommended me for it,” Adams said.
“He told me I was the first person who
came to mind.”
That was more than 40 years ago.
He’s 99 now, and reputed to be the
oldest active deacon in the country
— not that the title is anything he
really cares about. What is important
to Adams is that he can be counted on
by his parish community.
It’s who he is — not as a deacon,
but as a man — and the reason the
“Let there be light!” story is not only
amusing, but instructive. First, for
the record, Adams said he was only
kidding when he commanded the
lights and was “as shocked as everyone
else when they came on,” attributing
matters to a bizarre coincidence.
What is not coincidental is that he
showed up to help, and did it quickly.
Adams believes it is through acts of
service that he best shows his, and
Christ’s, love. Reading that, you may
assume that Adams lives his life by the
passage in James that encourages us to
“be doers of the word, and not hearers
only.” But those who know Adams
well know there is another phrase that
guides him.
“His motto is, ‘If someone asks me
to do it, then it must need doing,’ ”
Carper said.
The “doing” can take the form of
serving Mass to making sandwiches
for the homeless five days a week,
from celebrating funerals and weddings,
to heading the parish’s bereavement
ministry.
Lillian likes to tell the story of how
her dad was asked to volunteer at the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Metropolitan
Tribunal for a few weeks. He
ended up volunteering there three
days a week for the next 28 years,
helping handle “lack of form” cases.
“I always want to be there to help
out,” Adams said.
Even when no one would expect
him to. Two weeks after Anona, his
wife of 58 years, died, he told Lillian
he would attend the funeral of a
deacon friend. When Lillian told him
that no one would expect him to go,
given his age and his recent loss, he
told her he had to go, to be there for
his friend’s wife.
“Even though he was hurting because
of just having lost his wife, he
wanted to be there because he knew
his friend’s wife would be hurting,”
Lillian said.
Emile and Anona started St. Bernadette’s
Christian Service and Bereavement
programs together. When she
died, Lillian stepped in to minister to
dying patients and their families. It
was important to Adams that “no one
dies alone,” but that has been made
impossible in many cases due to regulations
concerning the COVID-19
pandemic.
“It changed things, not being able
to have a [funeral] service and people
having to go directly to the cemetery,”
Emile said. “Yes, it’s been very hard
on people, they’ve told me they’d like
to have the service, to have closure.
It’s made it very difficult.”
So difficult that at one point, Lillian
had to tell her father that she would
need a break.
“I told him, ‘Daddy, this is too
much,’ ” Lillian said. “He said, ‘But
Lillian, people need us.’ ”
And they have continued to be there
for people. Until COVID-19 closed
the doors of his church a year ago,
Adams was still assisting at Mass every
Sunday. Since then, he’s been leading
rosary sessions and Stations of the
Cross (during
An LAFD firefighter
greets Adams at his
drive-by birthday parade
on Feb. 28. | DAVID
AMADOR RIVERA
Lent) for parishioners
via Zoom.
Adams intends
on continuing
to “be there”
for quite some
time. Ask him for
the secret to his
longevity and he says he really doesn’t
do anything special.
“I don’t live in the past,” he said. “I
learn from it. I keep going.”
Of course, we probably have a lot
more to learn from him. As Carper
put it, “There is an aura about that
man. A building could be falling
down and he would remain calm.”
And then he’d likely volunteer to
pick up the pieces.
“Yes, absolutely,” Carper laughed.
“Deacons are called ‘men of service.’
Emile embodies that.”
Steve Lowery is the arts and culture
editor for the Long Beach Post and
a parishioner at American Martyrs
Church in Manhattan Beach.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 19

The triumph of
a pilgrim of
peace
ISIS never conquered
Rome, but this month
a Roman pontiff
conquered Iraq
BY INÉS SAN MARTÍN
Back in 2014, the terrorist organization
known as the Islamic
State, or ISIS, threatened a violent
conquest of Rome from the Iraqi
city of Mosul. Seven years later, however,
the bishop of Rome has achieved
the reverse, visiting the war-devastated
city of Mosul and conquering it, not
through force but as a pilgrim of peace.
Standing amid the city’s ruins on a
Sunday afternoon, the pontiff reaffirmed
the conviction that “fraternity
is more durable than fratricide, hope is
more powerful than hate, peace more
powerful than war.”
Pope Francis’ March 5-8 trip to Iraq
was perhaps the most complicated
of his pontificate, threatened by fears
ranging from COVID-19 risks to the
possibility of suicide bombings by
dormant terrorist cells, to the ongoing
reality of regular attacks by pro-Iranian
militias on both civil and military
targets in the country.
Pope Francis releases a white dove during a
memorial prayer for the victims of the war at Hosh
al-Bieaa (church square) in Mosul on March 7.
| CNS/VATICAN MEDIA
On his way back to Rome, Pope Francis
told reporters during an in-flight
press conference that he had prayed
about the COVID-19-related risks
of the visit and had asked for advice
before ultimately making up his mind
to go.
20 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

“I made the decision freely, but
it came from inside,” Pope Francis
said. “And I said, ‘May he who makes
me decide this way, take care of the
people.’ ”
The trip, the first for Pope Francis
outside of Italy since November 2019,
included five cities: Baghdad, Najaf,
Mosul, Qaraqosh, and Erbil — and
seven speeches, including a homily at
a Mass attended by more than 10,000
people.
Throughout the visit, in both words
and gestures, the pope appealed for a
simple goal: peace. He made a point
of doing so in the presence of leaders
from various religious traditions during
a stop in Ur, the birthplace of Abraham,
considered a prophet by Jews,
Christians, and Muslims.
On Sunday, March 7, he visited
Qaraqosh, a village that before
the rise of ISIS in 2014 boasted
the largest Christian community in
Iraq with some 50,000 inhabitants.
While there, Pope Francis heard the
story of an Iraqi Christian woman
named Doha Sabah Abdallah.
Abdallah described to the pope how
her family had fled Qaraqosh after the
first attempts from ISIS to invade it.
Three days later, everyone returned,
because “being Christians, we are
ready for martyrdom.”
On the morning of Aug. 6, 2014,
days before ISIS conquered the city, a
mortar shell killed her small son and
his cousin, as well as a young neighbor
who was preparing for marriage.
“The martyrdom of these three angels
was a clear warning. Were it not for
that, the people of Qaraqosh would
have remained and would inevitably
have fallen into the hands of ISIS,” she
said. “The death of the three saved the
entire city.”
Abdallah’s witness of forgiveness clearly
left a mark on Pope Francis.
“Forgiveness — that’s a key word,”
he reflected during the in-flight press
conference. “Forgiveness is necessary
to remain in love, to remain Christian.
The road to a full recovery may still be
long, but I ask you, please, not to grow
discouraged. What is needed is the
ability to forgive, but also the courage
not to give up.”
“We trust in [God] and, together
with all people of goodwill, we say ‘no
to terrorism and the manipulation of
religion,’ ” he said, repeating a request
that became the mantra of the trip.
In Qaraqosh, the pontiff encountered
Iraq’s Christian community in a
church that, between 2014 and 2017,
served as a shooting range for ISIS.
Today, thanks to Catholic charities
such as Aid to the Church in Need and
the Knights of Columbus, close to half
of those who fled have been able to go
back, though their future in the land
of their ancestors continues to hang on
a thread. Without jobs and still under
the threat of rogue militias, a cloud of
danger looms.
Earlier that day, Pope Francis was
shocked by the man-caused devastation
of Mosul, once a thriving city.
“I had seen things, I had read a book,
but [seeing the destruction] touches
Children are seen during
the pope’s visit with
the community at the
Church of the Immaculate
Conception in Qaraqosh,
Iraq, on March 7.
| CNS/PAUL HARING
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 21

you,” he told reporters on Monday.
“When I stopped at the destroyed
church, I had no words. It’s unbelievable.
Not only that church, but others
too, and a mosque, that evidently was
not aligned with these people.
“Human cruelty, our cruelty, is impossible
to believe,” he remarked.
Then came what was arguably the
most politically charged comment
of his visit: “Something that came to
mind in the church is this: Who sells
these weapons to these destructors? Because
they don’t build these weapons at
home. Who sells these weapons? Who
is responsible? I would ask these who
sell the weapons to at least have the
sincerity to say, ‘We sell the weapons.’ ”
Saturday saw one of the many
“firsts” on this papal visit to Iraq,
when Pope Francis went to the
city of Najaf to visit Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, one of the most revered
leaders of Shia Islam.
Some 70% of the country favors
a separation of religion and state,
though the remaining Iraqi Muslims
veer toward an interpretation of Shia
Islam closer to that of theocratic Iran.
Pro-Iranian militias in many parts of
the country are trying to accomplish
what ISIS couldn’t: to rid Iraq of its
many minorities, including Christians
and Yazidis.
Al-Sistani plays a key role in Iraq’s
peace and stability, and though he’s
usually a quiet figure, he’s not afraid of
raising his voice to combat violence,
as he did with a 2014 “fatwa,” a ruling
on a point of Islamic law given by a
recognized authority, urging Iraqis of
all faiths to come together to combat
ISIS.
Though some might perceive it as a
symbolic gesture, for Pope Francis the
50-minute conversation with the Shia
leader represented a second step on a
path toward understanding after the
Declaration on Human Fraternity that
he co-signed with the Grand Imam of
al-Azhar, the most influential leader of
Sunni Islam, in 2019.
Top Vatican diplomat Archbishop
Pope Francis celebrates Mass for an overflow
crowd outdoors at St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic
Cathedral in Baghdad on March 6.
| CNS/PAUL HARING
Paul Gallagher believes that with his
trip, and the overall diplomatic efforts
of the Holy See, Pope Francis is trying
to stop the “hemorrhaging of Christians
in the Middle East: Iraq, Lebanon,
also Syria,” but conceded it’s “very
difficult.”
Christians cannot be forced to stay in
a land that holds their past but offers
them little future, Archbishop Gallagher
noted. Hence the urgency the
pontiff felt in making this pilgrimage:
Time is of the essence when it comes
to the survival of minorities in the
region.
This, Archbishop Gallagher said, “is
a significant challenge to the future
of Christianity, and it is a geopolitical
problem, because Christians have always
been there, they have always had
a role amidst the other communities,
the larger, more powerful communi-
22 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

ties,” the archbishop said.
While he was in Mosul, the former
capital of the ISIS-proclaimed Islamic
caliphate, Pope Francis said that the
“tragic diminution
of Jesus’
disciples here
and across the
Middle East does
incalculable
harm, not just to
the individuals
and communities
concerned, but
Pope Francis met
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
one of Shiite Islam’s
most authoritative
figures, on March 6.
| CNS/VATICAN MEDIA
also to the society they leave behind.”
The stage set up at the “Hosh al-
Bieaa” (“church square”) in Mosul for
a prayer service for war victims was a
stark contrast with the dilapidated ruins
of the city surrounding it. Though efforts
are being made to rebuild the city,
removing the tons of rubble has proven
to be a painstakingly slow process.
Pope Francis had the opportunity to
see the devastation from the sky during
his helicopter ride from the nearby city
of Erbil, capital of Kurdistan, where he
said an open-air Mass later in the day.
Mosul is the administrative capital of
Nineveh, and for the past 2,500 years it
has represented the pluralistic identity
of Iraq.
The rise of ISIS, and the war that followed,
caused vast damage to the city’s
skyline, destroying landmarks such as
the al-Hadba Minaret of the al-Nouri
Mosque and the clock tower of the
Church of Our Lady of the Hour, the
first of its kind in the Middle East.
During his visit, Pope Francis defined
the damaged structures as reminders of
the “perennial human desire for closeness”
to God. The clock, he added,
“for more than a century has reminded
passersby that life is short and time is
precious.”
Despite the many unforgettable
snapshots of the visit, there was one
arguably understated moment that
best captured the importance of the
trip: Pope Francis’ encounter with the
priests, religious, and bishops in the
Syro-Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady
of Salvation, where on Oct. 31, 2010,
48 Iraqis were martyred, murdered by
Islamic terrorists during Mass.
The deaths of those modern-day
martyrs, who number in the thousands
in the Middle East, “are a powerful
reminder that inciting war, hateful
attitudes, violence, or the shedding of
blood are incompatible with authentic
religious teachings.”
“This evening I want to thank you for
your efforts to be peacemakers, within
your communities and with believers
of other religious traditions, sowing
seeds of reconciliation and fraternal
coexistence that can lead to a rebirth
of hope for
Pope Francis participates
in a memorial
prayer for the victims of
the war at Hosh al-Bieaa
(church square) in
Mosul on March 7.
| CNS/PAUL HARING
everyone,” Pope
Francis said.
Peace, hope,
and forgiveness:
three themes
at the center
of Christianity,
taken for granted
by some
and dismissed
as considered utopian by others. But
here, during a historic visit to the land
of Abraham, they were at the center of
the pope’s message.
Inés San Martín is an Argentinian
journalist and Rome bureau chief for
Crux. She is a frequent contributor to
Angelus.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 23

Solving our
trust problem
Tough times make trusting anyone,
even God, seem too risky. But the
psalms help us see otherwise
BY MIKE AQUILINA
City people are notoriously suspicious. Urban populations
shift, people come and go. When every arrangement
is temporary, it’s difficult to form bonds
of friendship and trust.
And over the last few centuries we in the West have become
increasingly urbanized.
In societies that never settle, we lose the skills and habits
required for trust. We do not trust our neighbors, our
leaders, our institutions. We can extend our wariness even
to God, treating him as just another transient living next
door.
In the first year he was pope, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI
began a series of Wednesday Audience talks on the psalms,
the Hebrew poems and songs that constitute the largest
book of the Bible.
Pope Benedict was actually resuming a series St. Pope
John Paul II had left unfinished at the time of his death.
But Pope Benedict’s interpretations are distinctively his
own. As he read deeply in the Book of Psalms, he found
trust to be a dominant theme.
The psalms are an effective remedy, he said, to modern
world-weariness and cynicism. He described our situation
in bracing terms as a twofold crisis. There is “the external
crisis of loneliness, irony and contempt of believers” along
with “the interior crisis that consists of discouragement,
mediocrity and weariness.”
The psalms, and Psalm 125 in particular, tell us “that if
we have trust, we are stronger than these evils.”
But trust is not something we can simply choose. Trust
must be earned; the objects of our trust must prove themselves
to be trustworthy.
The psalms themselves bear witness to the moral failure
of earthly institutions. Psalm 146 famously counsels: “Put
not your trust in princes.” And the authorship of half the
psalms is attributed to King David, a ruler chosen by God
who nonetheless fell into the grave sins of adultery, murder,
and the prideful accounting of a census — incited by
Satan himself (1 Chronicles 21:1).
In doing evil in these ways,
David violated the trust of his
people. He weakened his office
and left the nation vulnerable
to its enemies. He was hardly a
credible spokesman for the value of trust.
He himself admitted as much. Psalm 51, addressed
Fresco of King David, by
Eduard Engerth, 1857.
| SHUTTERSTOCK
directly to God, is an abject apology for his wrongdoing.
And Psalm 118 (though not explicitly attributed to David)
makes an important distinction: “It is better to take refuge
in the LORD than to trust in princes.”
Only God, it seems, is worthy of trust. Everything else in
the universe is flux and change. The skies and seas are impressive,
but they are unreliable and unpredictable. Only
God is unchanging. Only God simply is.
Pope Benedict noted that, from the very first sentence,
Psalm 125 “proclaims the stability of ‘those who put their
trust in the Lord.’ ” The psalmist compares their strength
to the firmness of Mount Zion, which “cannot be shaken.”
Pope Benedict observed: “This is obviously due to the
24 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

presence of God,” who, according to Psalm 18, is “rock,
fortress, savior ... refuge, shield, mighty help, stronghold.”
God alone is trustworthy, it seems. Thus, the psalms exhort
their hearers to “Remember the wonderful works that
[the LORD] has done, his miracles” (105:5). They invoke
the call of Abraham, the liberation of Israel from slavery,
and the conquest of Canaan. These were manifestations
of divine power, enabling the faithful not merely to escape
death, but to emerge triumphant against all earthly odds.
Toward those who are faithful, God is kind and generous:
“O how abundant is your goodness, which you have laid
up for those who fear you, and wrought for those who take
refuge in you” (31:19). “Surely his salvation is at hand for
those who fear him” (85:9).
The proof of this is in the opening line of the psalm that
Jesus quotes upon the cross: “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). That psalm expresses the
most desperate condition of a human
being: “I am a worm, and no man;
scorned by men, and despised by the
people. All who see me mock at me”
(6–7).
And yet
that man of
sorrows — at
the limit of
human endurance
— rouses
a memory of
God’s victories
in the past. As
Pope Benedict
People pray during Ash
Wednesday Mass at the
cathedral in San Salvador,
El Salvador, Feb. 17. | CNS/
JOSE CABEZAS, REUTERS
noted, “This initial cry of supplication
… is followed in sorrowful contrast by
the memory of the past, ‘In you our
fathers trusted; they trusted, and you
did deliver them. To you they cried,
and were saved; in you they trusted and
were not disappointed.’ ”
Psalm 22, which began with a cry of
dereliction, ends with thanksgiving,
confidently offered in advance for
the Lord’s deliverance. For the psalmist and for Jesus, the
ending is never in doubt.
The psalms, as Jesus knew, do not ask anyone to trust
blindly. They propose a reasonable trust, an inner certainty
based on God’s consistent performance in the past.
God is trustworthy, say the psalms, even though every
earthly power is capable of corruption.
Nevertheless, the message of the psalms is not a counsel
to abandon the world and scorn every institution.
It is to David’s shame that he betrayed his office, which
was both sacred and secular. It is to David’s shame that
he earned the suspicion of his people. The consequences
of David’s sins were horrific: rebellion, division, apostasy,
destitution, depravity, weakness, invasion, and exile.
For generations, the people of Israel suffered because of
their king’s moments of infidelity. Because he was their
leader, he was responsible for their well-being. Because he
had sinned, he brought disaster not only upon himself and
his heirs, but also upon his subjects.
Because he occupied a sacred office, moreover, he
brought scorn upon God.
David’s sin made rebellion inevitable. But God did not
bless those who rebelled against the House of David. Their
guilt was as plain as his. Though many of the kings were
unfaithful, their office remained holy and guaranteed by
divine institution. Those who rejected David’s authority —
compromised as it was — placed themselves in opposition
not only to David, but to God.
Salvation could be found only in Israel, even when the
kings of Israel were derelict.
The God revealed in Israel — the God we know through
the Church — has established his presence in human
history, not because of our earthly heroes and leaders, but
in spite of them.
We show our trust in God by our steadfastness among his
people, acknowledging his anointed leaders, even when it
is very difficult to do so.
Pope Benedict noted that Psalm 119 moves through the
Hebrew alphabet, and its unifying theme is trust. Everywhere
there is acknowledgment of darkness, grief, and
lamentation; and yet also “the certainty of divine grace and
of the power of the word of God.”
The psalms teach us how to trust not only in good times,
but at any moment in history. God does not abandon his
people — his assembly, his Church — even when kings
and priests abandon God.
Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor to Angelus News
and author of many books, including “A Joyful Noise:
Praying the Psalms with the Early Church” (Emmaus Road
Publishing, $19.95).
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 25

WITH GRACE
DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE
Discovering our inner ‘Misfit’
Flannery O’Connor in 1962. | CNS/AP/ATLANTA
JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, JOE MCTYRE
Every Lenten season for the past
few years I’ve made a point of
reading a book that I know I
ought to read but have been avoiding.
This year I’m reading the work of
Flannery O’Connor in “A Good Man
is Hard to Find and Other Stories.”
I first read one of her novels when I
was in college and found it too bleak.
But now, my more mature mind and
more experienced heart are finding the
20th-century Catholic author’s fiction
illuminating in ways I never imagined
possible.
Don’t get me wrong. Traveling with
her characters through their dark days
and wrenching internal conflicts is no
walk in the park. It is tough work, actually.
They are stories of violence, ignorance,
abuse, despair — all burnished
with a carnival freak-show overlay
which conveys a sense of horror.
Her tales are set in the Deep South
during the Jim Crow era, and all the
pathologies and dysfunctions of that
time and place are not just present
but magnified. Perhaps the grotesque
reputation that much of the American
South still suffers from to this day (even
when so many know it as a delightful
part of the country to live, work,
and raise a family) may be partially
O’Connor’s fault, who used the world
she knew to write stories dusted with
the macabre.
Part of the author’s aim, I think, was
to graphically plumb the depths of
the caverns of sin in the human soul
for the reader. In this there is nothing
special, as there are countless books
of psychological horror, crime, and
violence that do the same.
Rather, it is her purposes for doing
so that are special. She didn’t mean
to simply titillate and horrify as many
of her fellow novelists did and still
do. No, she measured out the depths
of human wretchedness so that we
could stand amazed, with her, at the
“appalling strangeness of the mercy
of God,” to borrow that perfect phrase
from Graham Greene, another great
Catholic author.
We are meant to experience that no
matter how deep the ancient fault
lines of original sin may lie, they can
overflow with the torrent of grace that
gushes from the Savior’s side. The
magnanimity of God flashes upon us,
her readers, as she forces us to come
to a stop and think: thousands upon
thousands of human years of vile acts,
casual cruelties, and stony indifference
to our brother’s suffering have not begun
to exhaust God’s tender clemency.
In her short story “A Good Man is
Hard to Find,” one of her characters,
the Misfit, a murderer on a random
killing spree, expresses the vast implications
of our redemption.
“If He did what He said, then it’s
nothing for you to do but throw away
everything and follow Him, and if He
didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do
but enjoy the few minutes you got
left the best way you can — by killing
somebody or burning down his house
or doing some other meanness to him.
No pleasure but meanness.”
This is the conclusion that all of
O’Connor’s works point toward. All of
us — man, woman, child — have but
one way out of our natural condition of
“no pleasure but meanness”: coming
face-to-face with our sinfulness, discovering
we cannot conquer it on our
own, and throwing away everything to
follow the One who can and for some
inexplicable reason does.
Send __
Name __
Address _
26 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021
City ____

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a
mother of five who practices
radiology in the Miami area.
For O’Connor’s characters, that first
step is the hardest one. Almost all of
them seem to stumble around in a tragic
blindness of spirit, entirely unaware
of the cruelty of their acts and the
pitilessness of their treatment of others.
When they do feel compunction and
aim higher, they are quickly defeated
by habits of thought, the smallness of
their minds, and the narrowness of
their vision. They remain trapped by
conceit and self-satisfaction.
This brings me to another purpose of
O’Connor’s — the one which I found
particularly fitting in this time of Lent:
to show us that we are just like them!
We do not begin to see the wounds
we inflict on others, or the edifices
and habits we build to daily soothe
our complacent consciences. Can
we really claim to be superior to her
characters, who were largely supine in
the face of the grave societal injustices
of the Jim Crow era?
We have our own modern day systemic
cruelty that we’ve become accustomed
to, but it does not seem to stop
us in our tracks. The sexual liberation
that our culture prizes above all goods
is built on the backs of abased women
and the deaths of untold numbers of
unborn children.
We live in a society that values personal
satisfaction and comfort, usually at
the expense of the poorest and most
vulnerable. Do we stand and protest
against today’s grave sin and refuse to
be a part of it?
So far, it has been a spectacular Lent
for me, thanks to O’Connor. I’m dragging
a very humble heart up the hill
to Calvary. Not humble enough, I’m
sure. But I can thank her for showing
me there’s enough “appalling mercy”
at the foot of the cross to make up the
difference.
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March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 27

A saint for sinners?
The messy life of French poet and Holocaust victim
Max Jacob is not your typical conversion story
BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL
There are some historical figures whose lives read like
novels because their lives cross paths with so much
history and the biographies of the famous.
It almost takes a “willing suspension of disbelief,” to borrow
a phrase from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to believe the
details of their lives.
One such character is Max Jacob, a French poet who is
the subject of a new biography by American writer and literary
scholar Rosanna Warren of the University of Chicago.
A New York Times review of Warren’s book describes
Jacob as “a marginal figure three times over — gay, ethnically
Jewish, and hailing from the provinces.” But there’s
plenty more in Jacob’s life that qualifies as extraordinary,
from his devout Catholicism to his death at the hands of
the Nazis while waiting to be sent to a concentration camp.
Born to an ethnically Jewish family that did not practice
the Jewish religion, he converted to Catholicism as a young
man in 1915.
“Portrait of Max Jacob,” 1934, by Carl
Van Vechten. | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
His onetime
roommate, Pablo
Picasso, was his
godfather at baptism
and gave him a copy of “The Imitation of Christ” as
a christening gift. In her book, Warren makes much of the
intersection of the disparate groups and cultural movements
in Jacob’s life and work. The Frenchman moved
in avant-garde artistic circles typical of the first half of the
20th century, mingling with Cubist painters and writers
like Guillaume Apollinaire, André Gide and Jean Cocteau.
But he also was closely connected to Catholic philosopher
(also a convert) Jacques Maritain.
His conversion was thanks to a mystical experience that
involved seeing Christ’s image appear, “the Divine Body
… on the wall of a shabby room,” and later on the screen
of a cinema. His friends did not know what to make of his
religion, and he covered much of the puzzling aspects of
28 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

his personal faith with comedic exaggeration.
For instance, he was disappointed in seeing the streets of
souvenir shops at Lourdes and joked that he also had seen
the Blessed Virgin Mary, who looked very good, “for her
age.” A French intellectual said of Jacob that he was a harlequin
who never could get all the grease paint off his face.
Warren makes the case that his stature as a cultural figure
is important. He was both a painter
and a poet, and was awarded the Legion
of Honor of France for his artistic
achievements. Nevertheless, he never
knew success or recognition outside of
a small circle, and spent periods of his
life as a lay associate at a monastery
outside of Paris from 1921 to 1928 and
then 1936 to 1944.
“La Visitation,” 1938,
by Max Jacob.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
One of his remarks, preserved in a book called “The Aesthetics
of Max Jacob,” talks about a saint who is expelled
from a monastery and asks God why that would be. He said
God replied, “So that you could found your own monastery.”
He never founded his own monastery, but Jacob
certainly had some spiritual charisms, albeit mixed with
contradictions. When people were skeptical of his religion
because of his lifestyle, Jacob liked to quip that he believed
in confession, which wipes away sins.
He wrote an essay called “The Defense of Tartufe,” in
which he consciously accepted the charge of being like
Moliere’s famous religious hypocrite. He was a “Tartufe,”
spelled differently than the French playwright’s character,
but a “sincere” one. He argued that belief does not make
one immune from temptation and weakness. One contradicts
one’s own principles and voila: a sincere hypocrite.
In his writings, mysticism jostles with the quotidian and
fantasy. Watching pedestrians walking down the Rue Ravignan,
he identifies the rag picker as Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He
says that he progressed in life, “praying in God and believing
in beauty.” Poverty, adverse conventional “opinion” and
what he called the “stupidity of others” had shaped him
and hardened him.
To this day, he continues to confuse the opinion makers.
The Washington Post review of Warren’s biography states
that Jacob “regarded the Host as a kind of aspirin for every
spiritual malaise” — which tells us something about the
poet but more about the man writing the review (who pairs
“aspirin” with “malaise”?).
Religious imagery is common in Jacob’s poems, especially
those he wrote near the end of his life. In one poem he
says he is absorbed in God, “the beautiful, the One who
conceived this world, the Lord, the Gentleman-Genius,”
and that his blood and Christ’s are mingled and enter a
single heart.
Because of his sins, Jacob had a real fear of hell. A
self-confessed sinner, the poet had a mystic sensibility.
“The river of my life has become a lake,” he writes in one
poem. “What it reflects is nothing but Love. Love of God,
Love in God.”
Jacob was arrested by the Gestapo at a private home after
leaving the monastery. Like Edith Stein and her sister, conversion
from Judaism was not enough to spare him from
the Holocaust. It is said that he continued to joke even in
Drancy, France, a camp where the Nazis held Jews before
sending them east to the concentration camps. He died
there of pneumonia on March 4, 1944, before he could be
sent on to Auschwitz.
Some of his friends drew up a petition to have him
released. Picasso, who owed much to him, refused to sign,
saying, “Max is an angel and will fly over the walls.”
Jacob was a man of inconsistencies and contradictions: a
poet who lived in poverty despite his famous friends, and
who earned more selling his gouache watercolors in cafes
than from his writings; a mystic who had a vision of Christ
at the movies; a man unhappy with himself but intoxicated
with God.
It is those contradictions that make the life of Jacob worth
a look from Catholics. St. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith
Stein) told her sister, “Let us go and die for our people,”
on the way to Auschwitz. Jacob, a prisoner doomed to die,
wrote a poem in which he said, “I thank you for having
caused me to be born to the suffering Jewish race, for he
alone is saved who suffers and who knows he suffers and
offers his suffering to God.”
He is a sinner-saint for our complicated times. The
concept of the divided self was not invented in our times,
but has never been more generalized in culture. Jacob’s
contradictions resonate with contemporary problems with
identity.
“I don’t agree with myself,” he said, “I struggle against
myself, against my heart, against everything.” What doesn’t
match modern sensibility — his firm faith and his mystic
grasp of “love of God and love in God” — is the most valuable
thing he can teach us today.
Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of Holy Name Church in
Cleveland, Ohio, and author of “The Wedding” (Lambing
Press, $16.95).
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 29

DESIRE LINES
HEATHER KING
Noah’s
Ark meets
distance
learning at
the Skirball
The Skirball Cultural Center, a
bit north of the Getty Center on
the east side of the 405, is an LA
educational institution “devoted to sustaining
Jewish heritage and American
democratic ideals.” And they’ve just
launched “Noah’s Ark at the Skirball:
The Art of Imagination.”
The digital program comprises a suite
of virtual programs and educational resources,
all absolutely free, developed
for pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade
distance learning.
The brick-and-mortar Noah’s Ark
installation has been open since 2007,
drawing approximately a million
visitors from around the world. The
challenges of remote instruction
spurred the pivot to digital, making the
message and meaning of Noah’s Ark
now available nationwide and even
abroad.
Features include streaming videos
and interactive lesson plans, virtual
field trips facilitated by Noah’s Ark
educators, and online professional
development courses focused on arts
integration.
I was eager to learn just how deeply
into the Genesis story the Skirball goes.
Do they let the little tykes know that
God was so frustrated with mankind
that he was sorry he’d created us? And
that Noah’s Ark was actually a grudging
alternative to wiping animals and
the human race out entirely?
I actually think such bracing truth is
good for children, an approach that
perhaps explains why I never became
a mother.
Turns out, at any rate, that the idea is
more to use Noah’s Ark as an archetypal
flood story upon which to hang the
idea of the disasters that come upon
The “Noah’s Ark at the Skirball: The Art of Imagination”
installation includes a gigantic wooden ark and
features more than 300 life-sized animal puppets and
sculptures. | THE SKIRBALL CULTURAL CENTER
every human being. Storms, arks, and
rainbows are the watchwords. The
curriculum begins with a “Welcome
to Noah’s Ark” video (available on
the Skirball’s YouTube channel) that
introduces the core flood tale message:
“That everyone, including the youngest
members of the community, can
make a difference in the world.”
Flood stories occur across cultures
and traditions. The children can watch
versions told, for example, by the
Maasai, a group of people from Kenya
and Tanzania; and by the Lenape, an
indigenous people of the northeastern
woodlands of Canada and the U.S.
30 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

Heather King is an award-winning
author, speaker, and workshop leader.
“Live storytelling lies at the heart
of the on-site experience,” explains
Rachel Stark, the Skirball’s director of
education.
Language arts and visual arts lessons
emphasize the key values of Noah’s
Ark: welcoming the stranger, taking
care of the world and one another, and
learning how to serve the community.
Virtual field trips, led by Noah’s
Ark educators, take place in Zoom
classrooms in which children are
encouraged to participate in storytelling,
closely observe their surroundings,
and engage in art-making and creative
storytelling.
Free lesson plans are available to
download, and the Skirball even offers
a series of virtual teacher-training
workshops.
Says Stark, “The idea is that each of
us is Noah. Each of us is responsible
for building a better world. We all want
to draw on the strength of community,
find our way to safe shelter, and orient
towards hope.”
Designed by Olson Kundig Architects,
with contributions by Brooklyn-based
puppeteer Chris Green,
the actual installation occupies an
8,000-square-foot gallery, includes a gigantic
wooden ark, and features more
than 300 life-sized animal puppets
and sculptures, all handcrafted from
recycled materials and found objects.
A red cowboy boot becomes a rooster.
A yellow croquet ball transforms into a
Norway rat. Cotton curtain fringe and
a bicycle seat are fashioned into a ram.
Children and adults alike are invited
to imaginatively interact. People can
spin the wind-turbine zebra and touch
the elephant and immerse themselves
in the storm gallery.
Some calamities consist of real-life
storms. Then there are metaphorical
storms in our lives. Where do we seek
shelter, find home, seek the helpers?
The Skirball has served mostly public
schools, but Catholic schools have
always been a regular audience as
well, especially for Noah’s Ark. “The
message is that everyone’s story is
valued, so we can look for the areas of
commonality and also celebrate the
differences. Everyone is useful and
needed in some important way.”
In the Lenape video, for example,
“the message is that even though you
may be small, you can make a difference.
It features a muskrat who says,
‘I can do it!’ Young people, who are
A screenshot from the “Welcome to Noah’s Ark”
video. | THE SKIRBALL CULTURAL CENTER
suffering right now from isolation and
uncertainty, can be the change-makers.
We’re trying to offer them the tools to
express themselves. Interview a family
member, we invite them. Record your
story. Reflect on your process.”
The children have responded strongly
and with excitement. Many have been
mesmerized by the animals, choosing
their own favorite. They’ve spoken
about the sounds they heard and how
the storytellers took them on a journey.
Some have turned on the video feature
and allowed themselves to be seen on
Zoom for the first time.
So check out “Noah’s Ark at the Skirball:
The Art of Imagination.”
Because we’re all Noah. And what’s
maybe more important: We’re all that
little muskrat.
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March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 31
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LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
Lent be not proud
I
love Lent. So do most Catholics, I
suspect, even though we grumble
about it. We complain because
we want the chocolate (or coffee or
TV or whatever), but we’re secretly
pleased when we resist the temptation
to indulge.
Now, I have friends who rush to
judgment right there. They say that all
asceticism is futile (or worse) because
it leads to pride in personal achievement,
and pride is chief among the
deadly sins.
I grant that pride is always a real
danger. We can indeed become proud
of our fasting. But we can just as easily
take pride in our refusal to fast. Pride
is like the anvil in an old Warner
Brothers cartoon. It’s somehow always
just above us, ready to fall the remaining
distance.
But I’ll go a little further here. I’ll say
that our affection for Lent, most of the
time, comes not from pride, but rather
from satisfaction. When we make our
Lenten sacrifices, we’re doing something
for the sake of love. And doesn’t
love demand that we do something?
Think of young couples, newly in
love. (I’ll speak only for men, because
that’s what I know.) Young men stay
up late doing things they ordinarily
wouldn’t be caught dead doing. They
write poems. They bare their hearts.
They talk about their feelings. They
even miss meals so they can be near
their beloved. As difficult as these
things are, they leave us with a sense
of fulfillment.
Lent satisfies us in a similar way. It’s
designed to be a time of growth, and
we grow through our Lenten exercises.
Growth is a sign of life, and in
Lent we know we’re alive.
Yes, we grow through the pains of
fasting and self-denial. But we should
also grow through positive action. As
we loosen our grip on worldly things,
we should also make the most of our
freedom. We should take positive
steps toward the Lord Jesus.
The things we do for Lent are certainly
pleasing to Our Lord. When he
preached his great manifesto, the Sermon
on the Mount, he told us to pray,
fast, and give alms; and he even told
us how to do these things and how not
to do them. He said, “When you fast.
… When you give alms. …” Not “If
you fast” or “If you give alms.”
He assumed
“The Sermon of Jesus
on the Mount,” fresco by
Franz Xaver Kirchebner
in the parish church of
St. Ulrich in Gröden,
South Tyrol, Italy, late
18th century.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
we would do as
he said — and
as he did. He
would not deny
us the chance to
be godlike in our
self-denial.
It’s nothing
to be proud of.
It’s all a grace
from God. But
it’s OK to be
pleased with it. When you feel that
way, you’re experiencing a satisfaction
that’s both natural and supernatural.
It goes well with love.
Lent is almost over. Now make the
most of what remains. You’ll love
these days even more than the days
just passed.
32 • ANGELUS • March 26, 2021

■ AVAILABLE ONLINE 24/7
“Walking with Jesus in Difficult Times” SCRC virtual event. Available to view online 24/7 for free.
Event includes teachings by Father Bill Delaney, SJ, Sister Regina Marie Gorman, OCD, and Patti Mansfield,
with a special video tribute to the late Father John H. Hampsch, CMF. Register for free at events.scrc.org.
■ FRIDAY, MARCH 19
Fish Fry. Nativity Church Annex, 1415 Engracia Ave.,
Torrance, 5-7 p.m. Hosted by the Knights of Columbus
Council #4919. Takeout only. Dinner includes baked or
deep fried fish, baked potato or french fries, coleslaw,
roll, and cake. Adults: $10, seniors: $8, children under
12: $5. Masks and temperature screening required for
entry.
St. Joseph Mass. Archbishop José H. Gomez will
celebrate a Mass at 8 a.m. at the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels to celebrate the feast of St. Joseph,
which also marks the start of a special “Amoris Laetitia
Family” year declared by Pope Francis. Mass livestream
can be accessed from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels, LA Catholics, and United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops social media channels. For more
information, visit lacatholics.org/st-joseph.
Lenten Lectio Divina: A Journey of Listening to
Scripture. The Mary & Joseph Retreat Center is
hosting a remote retreat with Christine Sanchirico via
Zoom from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Lectio Divina is a
slow contemplative reading of Scripture. Each week,
Scripture is read four times, with time for reflection
after each reading, and time for gentle sharing.
Cost: $15/session. Visit https://maryjoseph.org/
event/lenten-lectio-divina-a-journey-of-listening-toscripture/all/.
■ SATURDAY, MARCH 20
Cards of Hope for Easter Workshop for Children.
Cards of Hope for Easter is a hands-on workshop for
children 6-11 years old. Children will learn to make
a pop-up Easter card to be given to elderly people
isolated due to the pandemic. Register children 6-8
for 1-2 p.m. session, 9-11 for 3-4 p.m. session. Each
workshop features a different card design. Register
at http://store.la-archdiocese.org/cards-of-hope-foreaster.
Putting the Pieces Together: The Art of Collage.
The Mary & Joseph Retreat Center is hosting a collage
workshop, 10 a.m.-12 p.m., with Sue Ballotti. All
supplies provided, no experience (or skill) needed.
Register early; class size is limited due to current health
guidelines and safe distance requirements. Workshop
may take place outdoors. Cost: $25/person. Register
at https://maryjoseph.org/event/putting-the-piecestogether-the-art-of-collage/.
COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic. St. John the Baptist
Church, 3883 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, 8
a.m.-5 p.m., while supplies last. Requirements: Age 65
or older, must provide ID and insurance information, if
available.
Easter Triduum workshop. The Office of Divine
Worship invites you to a Zoom workshop presented
by Father Pedro Lopez, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Topics of
discussion will include what the elect needs to know
about the Easter Triduum and how to better prepare to
celebrate the Easter Triduum. Participants will reflect
on each of the elements, signs, and symbols used
in the liturgies of Holy Week. Cost is $10. For more
information contact Lety Perez at lperez@la-archdiocese.org
or call 213-637-7595.
■ SUNDAY, MARCH 21
Zoom Sunday Lenten Series: Mother of God, Undoer of
the Knots. St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care Education
Fundraiser, 4-8 p.m. This six-week series features a new
speaker and topic each week, a music reflection, and a
post-election discussion. March 21: Megan McKenna, “The
Poor Saves Us.” Cost: $25/session or $100/series. Religious:
$20/session, $80/series. For scholarships, call St. Camillus
office at 323-225-4461. Visit stcamilluscenter.org for more
information.
“Pueblo Amante de Maria” Virtual Procession, Rosary,
and Tagalog Mass. Incarnation Church of Glendale will
host a virtual procession and rosary at 1:15 p.m. to celebrate
500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. Tagalog Mass
to follow. To join on livestream, visit the Incarnation Church
Facebook page. For details, call 818-242-2579.
■ TUESDAY, MARCH 23
Holy Week in the Time of Pandemic. The Office for
Worship will be hosting a free workshop via Zoom at 10
a.m. for liturgical ministers and those who help prepare the
liturgy for their parish. The workshop will go over the new
liturgical guidelines on how to celebrate Holy Week in time
of the pandemic. For more information, contact Leticia
Perez at Lperez@la-archdiocese.org.
LA Council of Catholic Woman Rosary Conference Call.
Starts at 8 p.m. Call 424-436-6200, code 410510#. Prayer
requests open. For more information, call Carol Westlake at
661-263-0435. Held every Tuesday and Thursday through
April 29.
■ SUNDAY, MARCH 28
Palm Sunday at the Cathedral. English Masses at 7:30
a.m. and 10 a.m. Spanish at 12:30 p.m. All are open for
in-person attendance. The 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Masses
will be livestreamed via Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels’
website and social media channels.
■ MONDAY, MARCH 29
Archdiocese of Los Angeles Chrism Mass. Starts at 7
p.m. at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Mass will
likely be closed to the public due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Livestream available on LACatholics.org and cathedral
Facebook page.
■ SATURDAY, APRIL 17
Called and Gifted. The Office of New Evangelization invites
you to join a three-step process of discernment to discern
God’s call through the charisms that God has given you.
Process starts with an Online Self-Study Program that you
will have a month to complete starting April 17. Cost is $39/
person. To register or learn more, visit LACatholics.org/
called-and-gifted.
■ SUNDAY, APRIL 18
Diaconate Virtual Information Day. The Office of
Diaconate Formation invites all interested in joining the
diaconate program to learn more, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Send
your name, parish, and pastor’s name to Deacon Melecio
Zamora at dmz2011@la-archdiocese.org. Presentations will
be in English and Spanish.
Items for the calendar of events are due four weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com.
All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.
March 26, 2021 • ANGELUS • 33

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