Extension magazine - Winter 2022

4
Letter from Father Wall
Extension | Winter 2022 5
‘S
Listen to
the angels
speak
TAY AWAKE!” Jesus tells us in
the first Sunday of Advent’s
Gospel.
We are in the season when
the angels begin speaking to
us, but they speak in a way
that requires us to be tuned
in to hear them.
This is the time of year
when things speed up,
pressure mounts and
schedules are crowded. But if
we can slow down our hearts
and spirits just a little, we
too will be able to hear the
angels. They are among us
to announce good news and
glad tidings even in a world
battered by suffering, so
much of it self-inflicted.
Our world is preparing
to receive once again the
greatest gift of all time.
This gift comes in a small,
easy-to-miss package: a little
baby named Jesus. His arrival
marks the coming together
of our humanity and God’s
divinity, a moment which
forever changes everything.
But like the characters
that made their way into the
Nativity story (the shepherds,
the Wise Men, Joseph), we
too must become adept at
listening to the angels, so
that we do not miss this great
event. Indeed, the angels are
all around us, pointing us to
the unlikely places where
God is being revealed.
God, they tell us, is in a
baby in a manger who came
so that we might have life.
God is in the heart of Mary,
whose motherly love knows
no limits for her son and for
all of us.
God is in the ear of Joseph,
telling him and us to protect
our little ones.
And, as you will find out
in this edition of Extension
magazine, God is being born
into our present-day realities
and struggles, and the angels
are speaking once again.
God’s presence is being
born among the homeless
and trafficked women served
by Jean Fedigan, our 2022-
2023 Lumen Christi Award
recipient.
God is found in the joy
of a veteran who now has a
roof over his head, thanks to
a rural Texas priest named
Father Ron Foshage, who
used his Lumen Christi Award
money in 2020 to build
miniature homes.
And God is most definitely
found this holy season among
our children.
God’s embrace is among
the abused, tortured and
neglected children of Puerto
Rico, who have found a loving
home at the Extension-built
Santa Teresita. Santa Teresita
will receive $1 million in
Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) funds
to build a hurricane-safe
structure, thanks to Catholic
Extension’s disaster recovery
program in Puerto Rico
following Hurricane Maria.
God is in the innocent
children of Uvalde, Texas,
whose healing process is
being assisted by Catholic
Extension following the mass
shooting in their community.
As you will see, these
children recently delivered
letters to Pope Francis with
our help. Through these
letters, they in no uncertain
terms affirmed to the Holy
Father their faith in Jesus,
who came among us as the
Prince of Peace.
Likewise, God is found in
the children displaced by
war in Ukraine who have
been served so beautifully
by our Ukrainian Catholic
leaders here in the United
States and abroad. With
your generosity, they have
sheltered these refugees of
war, just as the child Jesus
was once a refugee.
We are being asked to
wake up so we can follow the
voices of the angels showing
us that even in a violent and
turbulent world—much like
the world in which Jesus
was born—God still chooses
to come among us. Jesus’
light still shines through the
darkness.
We are in this season
when our ability to tune in to
what is happening around us
is paramount.
Perhaps that is what
makes the song “Silent
Night” such a sacred melody
to so many of us. There is a
reason why it is translated
into more than 300 languages.
This song about the arrival
of Jesus conveys peace and
calm. And the irony about
the song’s origins is that it
“We are being asked to wake up
so we can follow the voices of the
angels showing us that even in
a violent and turbulent world—
much like the world in which Jesus
was born—God still chooses to
come among us.
was written in Europe in the
early 1800s, a time of intense
warfare, famine and social
upheaval.
Yet the song’s central idea
is simple. In the silence we
find that all is calm and all is
bright. There, we get in touch
with a “heavenly peace”
emanating from this sleeping
baby.
I hope that the stories in
this edition open you up to
the heavenly peace that your
generosity is helping to bring
about.
I pray that in this special
season you may be touched
by the God of love and
tenderness, who shares our
humanity, who is born into
abject poverty, but who
nonetheless promises us
deliverance from all evil.
Stay awake, enter the
silence and listen to the
angels pointing to God’s
presence all around us.
May God bless you and all
whom you love.
Rev. John J. Wall
PRESIDENT, CATHOLIC EXTENSION
Father Jack
Wall, president
of Catholic
Extension, visits
Jean Fedigan,
Catholic
Extension’s
2022-2023
Lumen Christi
Award recipient,
at her shelter for
homeless women
in the Diocese of
Tucson, Arizona.