Angelus News | February 23, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 4

ANGELUS 

GETHSEMANE 

OF THE HEART 

This Lent, pray to the angel who 

helped Jesus in his darkest hour 

February 23, 2024 Vol. 9 No. 4

February 23, 2024 

Vol. 9 • No. 4 

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ANGELUS 

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ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

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ON THE COVER 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

A painting depicting Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane by 

19th-century artist Carl Heinrich Bloch. For Christians, Lent can be 

compared to the time Jesus spent praying in the desert. But we may 

also find ourselves this time of year in the agony of the garden, going 

through our own Gethsemane of personal suffering. On Page 10, 

Msgr. Richard Antall reflects on two traditional prayers to the same 

angel that comforted Christ on the Mount of Olives. 

THIS PAGE 

MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES 

People gather near an encampment of 

homeless people in Skid Row on Feb. 6 

after a powerful atmospheric river storm 

pummeled Southern California with 

record rainfall, flooding, landslides, and 

power outages.

CONTENTS 

Pope Watch............................................... 2 

Archbishop Gomez................................. 3 

World, Nation, and Local News...... 4-6 

In Other Words........................................ 7 

Father Rolheiser....................................... 8 

Scott Hahn.............................................. 32 

Events Calendar..................................... 33 

14 

16 

18 

24 

26 

28 

30 

Salesian High’s 1974 graduates return home 50 years later 

Photos: Catholic Schools Week 2024 around the archdiocese 

The healing power of water is the focus at World Day of the Sick 

An explainer on Rome’s very different approaches to China and Nicaragua 

Grazie Christie: How I found the right work-life balance through faith 

‘Cabrini’ is a film worthy of America’s immigrant saint 

Heather King on her father as she ponders: What is a man? 

February 23, 2024 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

Our leprosies of the soul 

The following is adapted from the Holy 

Father’s homily at the Feb. 11 canonization 

Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for 

St. María Antonia de San José (known 

as “Mama Antula”), an 18th-century 

consecrated laywoman from Argentina. 

In attendance was Argentine President 

Javier Milei, who exchanged words and 

a laugh with Pope Francis after the 

Mass. The president, who has made 

disparaging remarks about the pope in 

the past, leaned down and gave a big 

hug to the pope, who was seated in his 

wheelchair. 

The leper in today’s Gospel (cf. 

Mark 1:40–45) was forced to live 

outside the city, forsaken and 

wounded by ostracism and rejection. 

Why? First, because of fear, fear of 

catching the disease and meeting the 

same end, prejudice: (“If he has this 

terrible illness,” people thought, “God 

is punishing him for some sin he committed”); 

and false religiosity: in those 

days it was thought that touching a 

dead person made one ritually impure, 

and lepers were like the walking dead. 

These are the three “leprosies of the 

soul” that cause the weak to suffer and 

then be discarded like refuse. 

In our time too, there are striking 

cases of ostracism … forms of “leprosy” 

to be cured. But what does Jesus do? 

He touches and he heals. 

When Jesus touches the man, he 

responds to his cry for help, he feels 

compassion, he halts, he reaches out 

and touches him, knowing full well 

that in doing so he will in turn become 

a “pariah.” 

Oddly enough, the roles are now 

reversed: once healed, the sick person 

will be able to go to the priests and be 

readmitted to the community; Jesus, 

on the other hand, will no longer be 

able to enter any town. The Lord could 

have avoided touching that man; it 

would have been enough to perform a 

“distance healing.” Yet that is not the 

way of Christ. His way is that of a love 

that draws near to those who suffer, 

enters into contact with them and 

touches their wounds. 

Our God did not remain distant in 

heaven, but in Jesus, he became man 

to touch our poverty. And before the 

worst case of “leprosy,” which is sin, he 

did not hesitate to die on the cross, outside 

the walls of the city, rejected like 

a sinner, like a leper, in order to touch 

the depths of our human reality. 

The second thing that Jesus does is he 

heals. His “touch” is not only a sign of 

closeness, but also the beginning of the 

process of healing … once we let ourselves 

be touched by Jesus, we start to 

heal within, in our hearts. If we let ourselves 

be touched by him in prayer and 

adoration, if we permit him to act in us 

through his Word and his sacraments, 

that contact truly changes us. It heals 

us of sin, sets us free from our self-absorption, 

and transforms us beyond 

anything we could possibly achieve by 

ourselves and our own efforts. 

Our wounds, our sicknesses of the 

soul, need to be brought to Jesus. 

Prayer accomplishes this: not prayer 

as an abstract and repetitive set of 

formulas, but a heartfelt and living 

prayer that places at the feet of Christ 

our miseries, our frailties, our failings, 

and our fears. 

Thanks to the love of Christ, we 

rediscover the joy of giving ourselves 

to others, without fears and prejudices, 

experiencing a renewed ability to love 

others in a generous and disinterested 

way. 

Papal Prayer Intention for February: We pray that those with 

a terminal illness, and their families, receive the necessary 

physical and spiritual care and accompaniment. 

2 • ANGELUS • February 23, 2024

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Becoming ‘another Christ’ 

On Feb. 10 at the Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels, Archbishop José 

H. Gomez celebrated the 22nd Annual 

Black History Mass sponsored by 

the African American Catholic Center 

for Evangelization. The following is 

adapted from his homily. 

Black Catholic history is American 

history. It is American 

Catholic history. And it is also 

a chapter in God’s beautiful plan for 

salvation history. 

It is the story of men and women 

walking together with Jesus Christ in 

holiness, love, and service, building 

his kingdom in America. 

And this history has created a strong 

community of faith, not only here in 

Los Angeles but all across the country 

— men and women who are keepers 

of the flame, carrying out the mission 

of evangelization in our parishes and 

homes, in our schools and in our 

communities. 

And in this work, we are surrounded 

by a great cloud of witnesses who 

have gone before us, holy men and 

women like the Venerables Henriette 

Delille and Augstus Tolton, the Servants 

of God Julia Greeley and Thea 

Bowman, and so many more. 

We still have work to do to break 

down the barriers of prejudice, in our 

society, and also in the Church. 

But throughout history, holiness has 

always been God’s response to injustice. 

So we pray to grow in holiness as 

we follow ever more faithfully in the 

footsteps of Jesus Christ. 

We ask the intercession of those 

holy men and women who have gone 

before us. We ask that they help us 

to proclaim the beautiful truth that 

every man and woman is a child of 

God, made in his image, no matter 

what the color of their skin or the 

place where they were born. 

And Jesus gives us a powerful picture 

of that truth in the tender Gospel 

story of his healing of the leper. 

This leper knows that he needs 

Jesus. He knows that only Jesus can 

set him free from his illness. He trusts 

in Our Lord’s healing mercy. 

In those days, we know, lepers 

were forced to live at the margins of 

society, shunned as “unclean” and 

forbidden to come in contact with 

others. But this leper refused to let 

these social barriers prevent him from 

meeting Jesus. 

He comes to Jesus, kneels down, 

and begs him with a simple prayer: 

“If you wish, you can make me 

clean.” 

Jesus is touched by the man’s faith, 

he is “moved with pity.” 

And even though the law of his time 

forbids Jesus from coming near this 

man, Jesus not only allows the leper 

to approach him, he stretches out his 

hand and touches the man. 

He answers the leper’s prayer with 

such a tender reply: “I do will it,” he 

says. “Be made clean.” 

Nothing can separate us from the 

love of Jesus! 

Jesus came into this world so that 

every person might seek him and find 

healing and salvation. He came to 

make all of us brothers and sisters in 

the family of God. 

This is our work now. This is the 

mission of every member of the 

Church. 

St. Paul tells us, “Be imitators of me, 

as I am of Christ.” 

There is no better definition of what 

it means to be a Christian! We are 

called to live by Our Lord’s words 

and example, to be imitators of 

Christ. 

The saints say that each one of us 

must become an alter Christus, another 

Christ. 

We see this in the lives of so many of 

the Black Catholics who went before 

us. 

Each of them was an alter Christus, 

imitating Jesus, spreading the love of 

God, sharing his mercy, speaking to 

the hearts of their neighbors in need. 

They called the Servant of God 

Julia Greeley “Denver’s Angel of 

Charity.” 

She was an emancipated slave 

who used her freedom to serve 

others, wheeling a little red wagon 

all around the city, bringing food, 

clothing, firewood, and more to the 

poor. Often she would work at night 

or in secret, leaving her gifts of charity 

on people’s doorsteps. 

Mother Mary Lange, another 

Servant of God, started schools for 

African Americans and immigrants. 

She took care of orphans and cared 

for the dying and terminally ill. 

You and I are called to walk in their 

footsteps, as they walked in the footsteps 

of Jesus. 

We are called to be peacemakers 

and healers in our world, as Jesus 

was. We are called to spread his tender 

love, to reach across every barrier, 

to break down the walls of hostility 

that divide us and keep us apart from 

others. 

So let us honor the proud legacy of 

our Black Catholic ancestors by continuing 

their work of building Christ’s 

kingdom in America. 

May holy Mary, our Blessed Mother 

go with us, and may she help each 

of us to become more and more an 

imitator of her Son, and “another 

Christ.” 


WORLD 

■ How a Catholic rose to the top in 

Protestant Northern Ireland 

For the first time in the country’s history, a Catholic was appointed as first minister 

of Northern Ireland. 

Michelle O’Neill was appointed after her party, Sinn Féin, which has ties to the 

Provisional Irish Republican Army, negotiated a power-sharing government Feb. 3 

that ended two years of political deadlock. 

Northern Ireland has been separate from the Republic of Ireland since 1921 

and remains a part of the United Kingdom. Its first prime minister, James Craig, 

described its government as a “Protestant parliament for a Protestant people.” 

Historical disputes about discrimination practices against Catholics contributed to 

“The Troubles,” a 30-year period of political violence in Ireland. 

“The days of second-class citizenship are long gone, and today confirms that they 

will never come back,” O’Neill addressed the Assembly following her appointment. 

Though 

historically 

associated 

with Irish 

Catholics, 

Sinn Féin 

has recently 

maintained 

party positions 

that 

contradict 

Church 

teaching, 

including increased 

access 

to abortion 

and availability 

of gender 

Michelle O’Neill, newly elected as the first minister of Northern Ireland, speaks to legislators in 

Belfast Feb. 3. In Northern Ireland, the title “first minister” is equivalent to prime minister used 

elsewhere. | OSV NEWS PHOTO/KELVIN BOYES, POOL VIA REUTERS 

■ Taiwan: We share Vatican’s 

concerns about AI 

Taiwan, a world leader in chip manufacturing and the development 

of artificial intelligence, joined Pope Francis in calling for greater 

regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). 

“As Your Holiness has warned, the growing scope of AI applications 

and its implications for human values engender grave ethical risks, 

such as invasion of privacy, data manipulation, and illegal surveillance, 

which all have serious consequences for free and democratic 

societies,” wrote President Tsai Ing-wen in a Jan. 31 letter to the pope. 

The letter was a response to the pope’s 2024 World Day of Peace 

address, which focused on AI and called on researchers and policymakers 

to direct the technology with an eye toward peace. 

Ing-wen vowed that Taiwan will “deepen cooperation” with the Holy 

See in working toward “exercising good technological governance, 

maintaining social harmony and stability, and jointly creating a 

peaceful future for humanity.” 

reassignment 

treatment for 

children. 

■ Pope says antisemitism a 

‘sin’ in letter to Israeli Jews 

Following criticism that he hasn’t 

been supportive enough of Israel in 

its war against Hamas, Pope Francis 

condemned antisemitism as a “sin” in 

a letter addressed to “Jewish brothers 

and sisters in Israel.” 

“The path that the Church has 

walked with you, the ancient people 

of the covenant, rejects every form 

of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, 

unequivocally condemning manifestations 

of hatred toward Jews and Judaism 

as a sin against God,” the pope 

wrote in a Feb. 2 letter sent to Jewish 

theologian Karma Ben Johanan. 

The pope also repeated his calls for 

peace in the region and for Hamas to 

release the remaining hostages taken 

during their Oct. 7 attack. 

The letter followed a private meeting 

with Israeli leaders and the Chief 

Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni, 

who have been critical of the pope’s 

commentary on the ongoing war and 

public support of a cease-fire. 

“Everyone wants peace, but it 

depends on what kind,” di Segni said 

last month in a speech at Rome’s 

Gregorian University. “Whoever does 

evil must be defeated, as happened 

with the Nazis in 1945. You can’t just 

accept the idea that war, in itself, is a 

defeat for everyone.” 

Taiwan President Tsai 

Ing-wen. | WANG YU 

CHING/WIKIMEDIA 

COMMONS 


NATION 

Father Robert Hoeffner. | 

DIOCESE OF ORLANDO 

■ Florida priest, sister 

killed in shooting rampage 

Catholics in Palm Bay, Florida, are 

mourning the death of a beloved retired 

priest and his sister in a shooting 

spree last month. 

The bodies of Father Robert Hoeffner, 

76, and his sister, Sally Hoeffner, 

69, were discovered Jan. 28 after a 

shootout with 24-year-old Brandan 

William Kapas. Kapas allegedly shot 

and killed his grandfather and injured 

two police officers, before being killed 

in a shootout with police. 

Hoeffner’s brother Kevin told media 

the priest knew and had tried to help 

Kapas, who was experiencing personal 

hardships.The car Kapas used during 

the rampage belonged to Hoeffner, 

police said. 

“He was very generous with his time 

and with his money, and with his 

talents, and he just kept giving,” Kevin 

told Treasure Coast Newspapers. 

Hoeffner had just celebrated his 50th 

jubilee as a priest of the Diocese of 

Orlando last April. 

■ Bishops: Failed immigration bill 

‘life-threatening’ and ‘counterproductive’ 

U.S. bishops expressed “serious concerns” about a bipartisan border control bill 

that eventually failed a procedural vote. 

Brokered by a trio of Republican, Democratic, and independent senators, the 

bill proposed making claiming asylum harder and allowing the government to 

immediately deport migrants based on the average number of daily border crossings. 

The bill also included provisions for sending aid to Ukraine and Israel. 

El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the U.S. bishops Committee on 

Migration, worried the bill would “unjustly undermine due process and pave 

the way for avoidable and potentially life-threatening harm to be inflicted on 

vulnerable persons seeking humanitarian protection in the United States,” and 

that it would “create the opportunity for harmful, arbitrary, and counterproductive 

treatment of vulnerable persons.” 

Thanks largely to opposition from Republicans, on Feb. 6, the bill failed to 

receive the 60 votes needed to pass cloture, a procedural vote that moves a bill 

out of debate. 

A key Catholic voice — Pro-life legal scholar Helen Alvaré speaks after accepting the Christifideles Laici Award 

at the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast Feb. 8. A law professor at George Mason University’s Antonin 

Scalia Law School, Alvaré has for years advised the U.S. bishops and the Vatican on pro-life issues. | OSV NEWS/ 

LESLIE E. KOSSOFF 

■ CUA professor fired after hosting ‘abortion doula’ 

A psychology professor at The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C., was fired after she invited a 

self-described “abortion doula” to address a class. 

According to a Jan. 26 report in The Daily Signal, lecturer Melissa Goldberg invited Rachel Carbonneau to speak as part of a 

course called “Lifespan Development.” Carbonneau is founder and CEO of Family Ways, which provides a range of prenatal 

and postnatal services. 

“I am an abortion doula as well,” said a female voice, believed to be Carbonneau, in an audio recording released by The 

Daily Signal. “And I know I’m at Catholic University. I was a student here myself. So I know that carries a lot of weight for a lot 

of people.” 

“While we were unable to confirm what exactly was said in the class, we did determine that the speaker’s views on life issues 

and on the anthropology of the human person were not consistent with our mission and identity as a faithful Catholic university, 

and that she should not be allowed to address the class again,” CUA president Peter Kilpatrick said in a Jan. 30 statement. 


LOCAL 

■ Catholic Charities 

requests donations for 

storm-battered SoCal 

Catholic Charities of Los Angeles is asking 

for donations to help all those affected by the 

damage caused by record rainfall and mudslides 

during the week of Feb. 4. 

Several areas across Southern California 

broke rainfall records and received a significant 

portion of their yearly rainfall in only a 

matter of days. The city of Los Angeles alone 

reported more than 500 mudslides and redtagged 

more than 15 buildings. State officials 

confirmed that at least nine people died 

during the storm. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a 

state of emergency during the storm for eight 

Southern California counties, including Los 

Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and 

Ventura counties. 

The disaster relief fund “will be used to help 

families and individuals who are suffering 

from the effects of the storm, and Catholic 

Charities USA is sending additional funding 

for disaster relief,” said spokeswoman Alexandria 

Arnold. 

To help, visit catholiccharitiesla.org/donate. 

■ Archbishop Gomez featured 

in new Guadalupe film 

Tickets have gone on sale for the film “Guadalupe: Mother of Humanity,” 

which opens in U.S. theaters on Feb. 22. 

The movie gives a reenactment of the moments when Our Lady of 

Guadalupe appeared in Mexico to St. Juan Diego in 1531, plus interviews 

and testimonials from those who have personally been impacted by 

the mother of God. 

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez is featured in the film, along 

with footage of the archdiocese’s devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, 

which includes the annual procession and Mass in East LA and the 

pilgrimage to Mexico City every year. 

To watch the trailer, purchase tickets or request a screening, visit guadalupethemovie.com. 

LA Archbishop José H. Gomez is interviewed 

inside the Cathedral of Our Lady 

of the Angels as part of the “Guadalupe” 

film. | GOYA PRODUCCIONES 

Y 

They’re creepy and they’re kooky — Students at St. Anastasia Catholic School in Playa del Rey performed “The 

Addams Family” musical on Feb. 2-3 at the El Segundo Performing Arts Center. | BRIAN MORRI 

■ Salesian High grad 

makes big play in first 

Super Bowl 

Bishop Mora Salesian High School 

graduate and San Francisco 49ers 

cornerback Deommodore Lenoir 

had a big moment in Super Bowl 

LVIII, forcing a fumble of Kansas City 

Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco in 

the second quarter. 

The 49ers eventually lost in overtime 

to the Chiefs, who won their third 

Super Bowl in the past five years. 

Lenoir, 24, a third-year NFL pro who 

also attended Maria Regina Catholic 

School in Gardena, graduated from 

Salesian High in 2017 and is the first 

Mustangs player to play in the Super 

Bowl. 

His roots in South LA and at Salesian 

High helped prepare him for this 

experience, he told NBC News. 

“It really taught me to be humble for 

everything I got now. It’s a blessing for 

me.” 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

A fitting tribute to ‘Chinatown’ — and LA 

Thank you for the fabulous and thoughtful piece from Joseph Joyce 

in the Feb. 9 issue (“The Perfect LA film?”) about the legacy — and 

continued relevance — of “Chinatown,” one of the greatest movies of all time. 

We associate Jack Nicholson so closely with sitting courtside at the Forum (and, 

er, Crypto or whatever) that we sometimes forget what a brilliant young actor he 

was. I’m not sure I agree with all of Joyce’s observations about Southern California 

and its denizens, but all in all, not bad for someone who relocated from the Great 

Northwest only three years ago. 

We take a little while here to understand, especially the push and pull of our 

relationships with our vehicles and the roads upon which they travel. 

— Mitchell Norton, Riverside 

Correction 

A headline on Page 6 of the Jan. 26 issue incorrectly referred to members of St. 

Michael’s Abbey in Orange County as “abbots.” Monasteries for men such as St. 

Michael’s are typically made up of monks, not abbots, but are often led by a single 

superior referred to as an “abbot.” 

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. 

Celebrating sisters with spirit 

“You can ask God to move 

a mountain, but you’ve also 

got to pick up a shovel.” 

~ Paul Satterfield, international coordinator for 

the Retrouvaille marriage program, in a Feb. 7 OSV 

News article on the ministry for those struggling in 

their marriages. 

“He’s like PG-13 Barbie 

Jesus.” 

~ Elizabeth Lev, Catholic art historian, in a Feb. 5 

The Pillar article on the uproar surrounding this 

year’s commemorative poster for Seville’s Holy 

Week. 

“People jokingly call it 

Moogle all the time — 

Mom Google.” 

~ Swati Kapila, actress and mother, in a Feb. 6 LA 

Times article on LA’s invite-only mom group that’s 

better than Google. 

“I went down to hell when 

I was little, before I knew 

anything about God.” 

~ Writer Aaron Lake Smith, in a Jan. 30 

Commonweal commentary on how he found God 

in punk. 

“We don’t need flying 

saucers to feel awe.” 

~ Nicholson Baker, author, in a Jan. 31 New York 

magazine article on the existence of aliens and 

UFOs. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez stands with several local women religious who are celebrating jubilee anniversaries this year 

after the annual Jubilarian Mass on Jan. 28 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

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. 

“You’re putting the future 

on your face.” 

~ Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of 

worldwide marketing, in a Feb. 1 Vanity Fair article 

on the launch of the Apple Vision Pro. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronrolheiser.com 

The dark night as impasse 

What happens to us when we 

experience a dark night of 

the soul? What’s happening 

and what’s to be our response? 

There are libraries of literature on 

this, each book or article making its 

own point, but here I want to share a 

rather unique and highly insightful 

take on this by Constance FitzGerald, 

a Carmelite nun and someone wellversed 

in the various classical spiritual 

writers who speak about the dark night 

of the soul. 

She uses the word “impasse” to render 

what is commonly called a dark 

night of the soul. For her, in effect, 

what happens in a dark night of the 

soul is that you come to an “impasse” 

in your life in terms of your emotions, 

your intellect, and your imagination. 

All the former ways you understood, 

imagined, and felt about things, especially 

as this relates to God, faith, and 

prayer, no longer work for you. 

You are, so to speak, paralyzed, unable 

to go back to the way things were 

and unable to move forward. And 

part of the paralysis is that you cannot 

think, imagine, or feel your way out of 

this. You are at an impasse — no way 

back and no way forward. So, what do 

you do? How do you move beyond the 

impasse? 

There’s no simple or quick path out 

of this. You cannot imagine, think, or 

feel your way out of this because the 

vision, symbols, answers, and feelings 

you need, in effect, don’t exist yet, at 

least they don’t exist for you. That’s 

the exact reason why you are at an 

impasse and so emotionally and intellectually 

paralyzed. The new vision 

and feelings that can reset your vision, 

thoughts, and feelings first have to be 

gestated and given birth to through 

your own pain and confusion. 

At this stage, there is no answer, at 

least not for you. You may have read 

accounts of others who have undergone 

the same impasse and who now 

offer counsel as to how to undergo the 

dark night. That can be useful, but it’s 

still your heart, your imagination, and 

your intellect that are in the crucible 

of fire. Knowing that others have gone 

through the same fire can help give 

you vision and consolation in your 

paralysis, but the fire must still be 

gone through in your own life to reset 

your own imagination, thoughts, and 

feelings. 

For FitzGerald, being in this state 

is the ultimate liminal space within 

which we can find ourselves. This is 

a crucible within which we are being 

purified. And, for her, the way out 

is the way through. The way out of 

a dark night of this kind is through 

“contemplation,” namely, staying with 

the impasse, waiting patiently inside 

it, and waiting for God to break the 

impasse by transforming our imagination, 

intellect, and heart. 

So ultimately, this impasse is a 

challenge for us to become mystics, 

not that we begin to search for an 

extraordinary religious experience, 

but that we let our disillusion, broken 

symbols, and failed meanings become 

the space wherein God can reset our 

faith, feelings, imagination, and intellect 

inside of a new horizon wherein 

everything is radically reinterpreted. 

How do we do this concretely? How 

do we contemplate? We do it by 

sitting in the tension, helpless, patient, 

open, waiting, and staying there 

however long it takes for us to receive 

in the depth of our souls a new way 

of imagining, thinking, and feeling 

about God, faith, and prayer — beyond 

the impasse. 

Moreover, the broken symbols, 

the disillusion, and our helplessness 

to think or feel our way out of the 

impasse is precisely what assures us 

that the new vision which is given 

to us comes from God and is not 

the product of our own imagination, 

projection, or self-interest. 

One of the most penetrating criticisms 

of religious experience ever given 

was made by Friedrich Nietzsche, 

who claimed that all religious experience, 

all of it, is ultimately human 

projection. He argued that we create 

God in our self-image and likeness for 

our own self-interest, and that is why a 

lot of sincere faith and religion can be 

hypocritical and false. 

Reacting to this, Michael Buckley, 

the renowned Jesuit philosopher and 

theologian, made this counterclaim: 

Nietzsche is 95% correct. Ninety-five 

percent of what claims to be a religious 

experience is in fact human projection. 

But, Buckley adds, Nietzsche 

is 5% wrong, and that 5% makes all 

the difference — because in that 5% 

God’s revelation flows untainted in our 

lives. 

Now, and this is the essential point 

here, that 5% happens precisely when 

we are in a dark night of the soul, 

when our symbols are broken, our 

intellect is impotent, our imagination 

is empty, and our hearts are at a loss. 

It is precisely then, when we are helpless 

to help ourselves that we are also 

helpless to fudge and taint the way 

God is entering us. 

God can flow into our lives pure and 

untainted when we are at an impasse 

and unable to substitute our vision for 

God’s vision. 


A prayer made in 

the moonlight of 

Gethsemane 

Lent is the perfect time for a prayerful 

conversation with the angel who comforted 

Jesus in his agony in the garden. 

BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 


Painting of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane 

inside St. Johann der Evangelist 

Church in Vienna, by Carl Joseph Geiger, 

1822–1905, Austrian. | SHUTTERSTOCK 

Sometimes we make prayer more 

complicated than it should be. 

That great master of prayer, St. 

Francis de Sales, described prayer as a 

conversation or better, a dialogue. 

In his “Introduction to the Devout 

Life” he writes: “It is good to use 

dialogue and talk to Our Lord and 

also to the Angels, to people who are 

represented in biblical mysteries, to 

the saints and even to ourselves, to our 

hearts, to sinners and even to insensible 

creatures, as we see in David and 

other saints in their meditations and 

prayers.” 

A dialogue most appropriate for 

Lent would be to talk to the angel 

who comforted Jesus in his agony in 

Gethsemane. 

This scene, which we remember in 

the first Sorrowful Mystery, is wholly 

scriptural, although we only find it in 

St. Luke’s Gospel. Jesus, we are told, 

knelt down and prayed, “Father if 

thou art willing, remove this cup from 

me; nevertheless not my will but thine 

be done. And there appeared to him 

an angel from heaven, strengthening 

him. And being in an agony he prayed 

more earnestly and his sweat became 

like great drops of blood falling down 

upon the ground” (Luke 22:43–44). 

The classical technique for meditating 

on such a Scripture is to put 

oneself in the scene as a spectator, to 

witness Jesus’ heartfelt prayer, to feel 

the pain of body and soul illustrated 

with his sweat made blood, and to see 

the angel with him. 

De Sales’ words about colloquy 

encourage us to address not only the 

Lord in our dialogue, but also the 

“angel from heaven” sent to comfort 

the Savior. By our prayer, we become 

not just spectators of the scene, but 

interlocutors. 

We find two prayers to this angel 

in the old Raccolta (“Collection”), 


a book containing prayers and pious 

devotions for which indulgences are 

attached. 

One is very short, a cry of pain, 

which St. Pope Pius X recommended 

in a rescript in his own hand: “O holy 

Angel who strengthened Jesus Christ 

Our Lord, come and strengthen us.” 

I know many people who, in their 

suffering, are in their own Gethsemane. 

This prayer helps one to identify 

with Jesus on the eve of his sacrifice 

and humbly ask for aid. 

St. Luke says the angel “strengthened 

Jesus.” Angels are personal beings, so 

we can ask for the Lord’s help through 

the intercession of the spiritual being 

given that special mission to be with 

Jesus in his suffering humanity. 

The second prayer to the angel of 

Gethsemane is longer and is more 

like a conversation with the angel. My 

version is in updated language: 

“I greet you, holy Angel who comforted 

my Jesus in his agony, and with 

you I praise the most Holy Trinity for 

having chosen you from among all the 

holy angels to console and strengthen 

him who is the consolation and 

strength of all who are suffering. 

“By that honor you received and 

the obedience, humility, and love 

with which you assisted the Sacred 

Humanity of Jesus, my Savior, as He 

fainted with sadness contemplating 

the sins of the world, and especially 

my sins, I beg you to pray that I 

may have perfect sorrow for my sins. 

Strengthen me in the afflictions that 

overwhelm me now and in all the 

other trials to come my way, especially 

in my own final agony.” 

The second prayer implies a dialogue 

in which we celebrate with the 

angel his mission to Gethsemane. 

(Angels do not have gender, but 

possessive pronouns are necessary in 

English, hence “his”). 

Asking for the angel’s help, the 

petitioner attempts to understand the 

angelic psychology, “by that honor 

which you received.” Our side of the 

conversation continues acknowledging 

the reason that Jesus was in agony: 

his apprehension of the weight of our 

sins that he was to carry. 

St. John Henry Newman has a wonderful 

meditation on Jesus contemplating 

the ugliness of the sin of the 

whole world which he took on himself. 

That point of meditation makes 

us think that part of that ugliness was 

made by our personal sins. 

The sins of the whole world included 

our own sins. We were there in the 

garden, represented by our sins which 

made Jesus sweat blood. Thus, we ask 

the angel to pray that we have a true 

repentance of our sins. 

Then we pray to the angel for 

strength: What you did for the Sacred 

Humanity of Jesus, please do for us, 

by the grace of God. 

In hospital rooms and funeral parlors, 

in nursing homes and hospice 

care, in the many lonely places of the 

human heart, the shadows of the olive 

trees in the moonlight of Gethsemane 

are present. 

The prayer to the angel who came to 

comfort Jesus, asking for consolation 

in imitation of Jesus, is a perfect example 

of the kind of colloquy de Sales 

recommended. 

It was customary when the Raccolta 

was printed to assign a numerical 

value of “indulgenced” days to the 

prayers and devotions. 

As Catholics, we believe an indulgence 

is a shortening of the “temporal 

punishment” that we deserve for our 

sins, a penalty that still must be paid, 

even though we have repented our 

sins and been forgiven in confession. 

It is about purification. 

Assigning a value of days was a metaphor 

of justice and proportion. These 

two prayers were granted 300 days and 

500 days indulgence, respectively, 

amounts which now the Church calls 

simply, a “partial” indulgence. It is the 

Church’s way of saying that all prayer 

is fruitful for purifying our souls and 

helping us to make up for our past 

sins. 

Who would not be blessed (purified) 

by having a “moment” of conversation 

with an angel? 

Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of 

Holy Name Church in Cleveland, 

Ohio, and the author of several books. 

He served as a missionary priest in 

El Salvador for more than 20 years 

and was named a “Noble Friend of 

El Salvador” in 2011 by the country’s 

National Assembly. 



Roots worth celebrating 

Members of the Salesian High Class 

of 1974 pose with their Golden 

Diplomas, which were given out as part 

of the school’s Catholic Schools Week 

celebration. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Fifty years ago, they were ‘just 

trying to get by.’ Today, Bishop 

Mora Salesian’s class of 1974 

says their education is a gift 

that keeps on giving. 

BY TOM HOFFARTH 

Mauricio Acevedo remembers the angst he and his 

classmates faced during their 1974 senior year at 

Bishop Mora Salesian High in Boyle Heights. 

The Vietnam War, still a year away from ending, required 

18-year-olds to register for the military draft. Acevedo took 

an aptitude test to access his vocation skills. 

“My test said I was going to be a mechanic — that bothered 

me for a long time,” said Acevedo. “I didn’t want to 

do that. I was good in biology and math. I was competitive 

with my buddies.” 

He went to Sister Eliza Martin, a beloved chemistry and 

biology teacher at the all-boys school. She asked what he 

wanted to do instead. He brought up the idea of becoming 

a nurse, like his cousin in the Navy. 

“I remember her telling me, ‘Why don’t you try to be a 

doctor and see what happens?’ ” said Acevedo. 

After 40 years as an emergency room physician specializing 

in internal medicine for Kaiser Permanente in Baldwin 

Park, Acevedo became emotional talking about how 

Salesian prepared him for enrolling in Cal State L.A., then 

taking classes at USC Keck School of Medicine just blocks 

from his Lincoln Heights childhood home. 

“Honestly, after all these years, what she said has stayed 

with me because, by the grace of God, that was an inspiration 

to keep me going,” said the 67-year-old Acevedo, 

standing outside of the Salesian High campus gym on Jan. 

31 as he held on to his new Golden Diploma, one of 55 

honored during the school’s annual Catholic Schools Week 

celebration for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

Alphabetically, Acevedo was first in line to receive the 

recognition, wearing a nametag with his 1974 yearbook 


portrait. Right behind him in line was his brother, Rudy, 

a retired engineer. Eventually, the group gathered on the 

stairs outside the gym for a photograph to commemorate 

their reunion. 

For almost 10 years, Salesian has organized this Mass on 

the feast day of St. John Bosco as a tribute to its past, with 

all its pomp and circumstance. Moises Delgado, the Salesian 

High vice president and a member of the class of 1997, 

called it a “win-win situation” for students and alums. 

“The students get to hear the stories and see the school 

pride in the past traditions the school once had, and they 

get to share their experiences as well,” said Delgado. “The 

alumni recognize that even though time has passed, the 

same type of students attend Salesian today. It still serves 

students that come from hard-working families and have 

opportunities to succeed regardless of what area they came 

from.” 

In addition to the 390 Salesian High students in attendance, 

another 140 elementary students from nearby School 

of Santa Isabel participated. 

Outside at a reception area where the honored guests were 

treated to a lunch, students from the Salesian Lettermen 

Society sporting their light blue sweaters gathered to meet 

the alums. 

Eddie Valdez pointed out to them where the former 

school gym was once down the hill at the site of the current 

football field. The gym they were just in was once a parking 

lot. 

“This is the third Golden Diploma event I’ve been part of 

watching, and it’s interesting to see what they went through 

— and to think about what it might be like in 50 years,” 

said Isaiah Ochoa, a senior on Salesian’s Esports team. 

Sergio Guzman, a 

senior receiver on 

the varsity football 

team, said the alum’s 

enthusiasm “makes 

me more excited 

each time to see 

them come back and 

it encourages more 

school spirit. I think 

of Salesian as a place 

where I have become 

a young man and 

may not have had the 

same opportunities at 

other schools.” 

Jerry Vasquez, a senior 

middle linebacker 

on the football team, 

called it “a blessing 

to see my brothers 

come back and fully 

enjoy what it’s like to still be a Salesian Mustang — once 

a Mustang, always a Mustang, in church, at home, and on 

the playground.” 

Chosen to speak to the gathering prior to the diploma 

distribution, Jose Sandoval, a retired Los Angeles Superior 

Court judge who studied at Harvard University and UC 

Berkeley, told his 1974 classmates that he recalled the Salesian 

faculty “may have had more faith in us than we did 

in ourselves. … We were just kids from East LA trying to 

get by. They could foresee the challenges and setbacks we 

would face, and their guidance helped us get through. Our 

friendships have endured. A word to the new generation of 

Salesian students: Look around and value these guys. They 

will make a difference in your life.” 

David Gonzalez, an Emmy Award-winning technical director, 

videotape engineer, and cameraman at ABC/Disney 

for the last 43 years, said as an alum, the best advice he can 

give to current day Salesian students: Never give up. 

“The school had a profound impact on me,” said Gonzalez, 

who moved to the Inland Empire and is active in the 

alumni association. “We may have been poor, but purpose 

kept us alive.” 

Francisco Ruiz recalled the persistence he learned from 

Salesian faculty as he studied at UC Santa Cruz, then at 

UCLA to get his MBA and work at AT&T for 32 years. 

“We were taught to persevere, to move forward and make 

the best of what we had, stay up all night and study if you 

had to,” said Ruiz, who lives in Whittier. “I have bonds with 

these friends through the years — maybe stronger in the 

last few years than when we were in school.” 

Acevedo, whose son became an orthopedic surgeon and 

his daughter became a nurse, laughs when he thinks about 

how he signed his classmates’ high school yearbook telling 

them he was going to be a doctor. 

“And they didn’t believe me,” said Acevedo, a parishioner 

at Sacred Heart Church where he lives in Rancho 

Cucamonga. “I look back at all the years in college and 

interning and training 

and it all boils down 

to this is where my 

roots were set. That’s 

important because 

when the wind blows, 

something has to 

keep you grounded. 

“I’m blessed because 

I started with nothing 

and here we are now. 

Mauricio Acevedo was one of 

the class of 1974 alumni who 

returned to receive a Golden 

Diploma. Acevedo has spent 40 

years as a physician for Kaiser 

Permanente in Baldwin Park. | 


This was where I 

was supposed to be. 

Whatever Salesian is still doing now, it’s working. We can’t 

take that for granted.” 

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning journalist based in Los 

Angeles. 


SCHOOLED 

IN FAITH 

Students, teachers, and staff 

around the archdiocese found 

creative ways to celebrate the 50th 

National Catholic Schools Week. 

Our Mother of Good Counsel School students 

perform as part of Harmony Project’s youth orchestra 

program on Jan. 28 as part of Catholic Schools Week. 

Our Mother of Good Counsel was also celebrating its 

90th anniversary. | RON VILLANUEVA 

A second-grader at St. Francis de Sales School in Sherman Oaks poses with the 

donated blanket and handwritten note he planned to give as part of the school’s “Day 

of Giving Back” on Feb. 1 for Catholic Schools Week. | ST. FRANCIS DE SALES SCHOOL 

Crespi Carmelite High School in Encino hosted a Power 

Soccer game on Jan. 30 between a team with Duchenne 

Muscular Dystrophy versus the school’s coaches and staff. 

Auxiliary Bishop Albert Bahhuth, pictured, was on hand to 

bless the game, staff, and students. | YANNINA DIAZ 


As part of its Catholic Schools Week celebration, St. Anthony Catholic School in 

Oxnard allowed students a “Global Day of Play” and hosted an evening movie for 

families. | ST. ANTHONY CATHOLIC SCHOOL 

Students at Holy Angels Elementary 

School in Arcadia celebrated Catholic 

Schools Week by racing as part of its 

Run for A Cure event in honor of their 

former fifth-grade teacher, Jennifer 

Bouvet, who the school lost to cancer in 

2022. | KATHERINE OROZCO 

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez walks with students at St. Pius 

X-St. Matthias Academy in Downey for the archdiocese’s kickoff to 

Catholic Schools Week on Jan. 29. The school was commemorating its 

70th anniversary as February part of the celebration. 23, 2024 • | ANGELUS VICTOR ALEMÁN • 17

TESTING THE WATERS 

At the annual World Day of the Sick Mass, 

attendees pondered the healing power of God. 

BY MIKE CISNEROS 

Archbishop José H. Gomez 

blesses attendees with holy 

water brought by the Order 

of Malta members from their 

pilgrimage to Lourdes. | 


Lourdes has the Gave de Pau 

River flowing near it. The 

Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels has the 101 Freeway. But what 

connects the two is the living water 

of Jesus Christ, said Auxiliary Bishop 

Slawomir Szkredka during his homily 

at the annual World Day of the Sick 

Mass on Feb. 10. 

Water was a central theme during 

the Mass, with attendees getting dusted 

with holy water from Lourdes and 

the Gospel featuring Jesus during the 

wedding at Cana. 

In his homily, Szkredka spoke of 

three lessons that those — healthy or 

sick — could learn from the Virgin 

Mary’s interaction with Jesus and 

his turning water into wine at the 

wedding. 

First lesson: Attentiveness to the 

needs of others. “She knows that this 

couple is about to be embarrassed by 

the lack of wine during their wedding 

feast. And she attends to their needs. 

… We know how much it means to us 

in our sickness when someone pays 

attention to us. Mary is the attentive 

mother who knows our needs, who 

pays attention to our needs, who says 

“do not worry, I am here.” 

Second lesson: Confident prayer. 

“When Mary discovers something 

is missing, what is her first reaction? 

She goes to Jesus without any hesitation. 

… This kind of confidence 

is something Mary wants to instill in 

us. Don’t stay with your needs. Bring 

them to Jesus.” 


Third lesson: Accept God’s will. “We 

will do the same today, praying for 

our brothers and sisters who are sick, 

asking for all the miracles for physical 

healing, emotional healing, spiritual 

healing. … But at the end, we will 

always say, ‘Your will be done.’ ” 

The bilingual Mass — put on every 

year by the Order of Malta — featured 

an anointing of the sick and blessings 

for caregivers. Each guest also received 

a small bottle of water from Lourdes, 

along with prayer petition cards that 

will be taken in May to the Our Lady 

of Lourdes grotto in France. 

Lourdes is such a powerful place 

that Order of Malta organizers said 

they chose it as the theme for this 

year’s Mass: “A Spiritual Journey to 

Lourdes.” As part of the event, they 

also featured photographs of Lourdes 

at the cathedral, along with people 

who have gone on the pilgrimage to 

France to speak about their experiences. 

For this year’s Mass, the Order of 

Malta also had a 4-foot statue made 

of Our Lady of Lourdes — carried 

on a platform bedecked with yellow 

roses — that they used in the opening 

procession, similar to how they do it 

on the pilgrimage. 

“It’s such a beautiful experience in 

Lourdes and we realize that for many 

people this is the closest they’re going 

to get,” said Ann Sanders, an Order 

of Malta Dame who co-chaired the 

World Day of the Sick event with Katy 

Calderon. 

Tom Condon was one of those in attendance 

at the Mass, helping to bring 

up the gifts for holy Communion. 

Although he was seated at the Mass 

in a wheelchair — having severe arthritis 

in his hips that makes it difficult 

to stand or walk for long periods of 

time — Condon, 85, was not simply 

a bystander to the World Day of the 

Sick Mass or the Order of Malta 

organization that helps put it on. 

For years, Condon served as the first 

Los Angeles president of the Order of 

Malta, the service organization whose 

history goes back nearly 1,000 years. 

As a successful businessman in the 

securities industry, he transferred his 

talents to use for giving back and helping 

others. 

“I found it very uplifting,” said Condon, 

who, along with his wife, Julie, 

was in the Order of Malta’s second 

class, which is rarer. “Things that I 

had never done personally over the 

years. 

“I really got to a point that I looked 

forward to it immensely.” 

Condon has had a unique experience 

with the Order of Malta. After 

years of leading and serving during the 

Order of Malta’s sponsored pilgrimages 

to Lourdes, France — where 

malades (“sick” or “disabled people”) 

are taken to the grotto and spiritual 

baths of Our Lady of Lourdes — 

Condon spent his 10th time on the 

pilgrimage, not as a worker, but as a 

malade himself. 

“As a malade, I could sense the care 

and loving that people put in it themselves,” 

Condon said. “It’s not a chore, 

it’s a privilege.” 

Sanders had the opposite experience 

of Condon: She first went to Lourdes 

as a malade and later served on pilgrimages 

as a nurse. 

“It was very humbling,” said Sanders, 

who went to Lourdes in between 

kidney transplant surgeries due to a 

genetic disease. “But it’s such a boost 

Massgoers revere the brand-new statue of 

Our Lady of Lourdes procured especially 

for this year’s World Day of the Sick Mass. | 


to your spiritual life. To experience 

that and to feel God’s love in so many 

ways. 

“They just showered you with love 

and you knew that that love was God 

working through them. Now being in 

the Order as a Dame of Malta, I get 

to now be the one that allows God to 

work through me and now share that 

love with those that we take on the 

trip.” 

As someone who spent his life serving 

the sick and the suffering — and 

who is now the recipient of such care 

after his wife died in 2021 — Condon, 

dressed during the Mass in his Order 

of Malta uniform, appreciates even 

more the organization’s mission to aid 

those who are ill or debilitated. 

“You can tell when you go to a hospital, 

you can tell that the person taking 

care of you is because it’s a job,” Condon 

said. “When you go someplace 

like Lourdes where the person is there 

because they want to be involved and 

want to take care of you, you can feel 

the love.” 

Mike Cisneros is the associate editor 

of Angelus. 


PILLARS OF LEADERSHIP 

Meet this year’s Archbishop’s Awards honorees 

BY ANGELUS STAFF 

From left: Delia Wilson-Johnson, Daniel K. Walker, 

Thomas J. Blumenthal, Archbishop José H. Gomez, Lew 

and Lisa Horne, Clare and Jim Gurbach. 

Two married couples and three 

individuals with long records 

of committed service will be 

honored at the recently renamed 

“Archbishop’s Awards” dinner at the 

Beverly Hilton Feb. 24. 

Previously known as the Cardinal’s 

Awards, the black-tie gala dinner is a 

34-year-old tradition in the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles that also serves 

as a fundraiser for charitable causes. 

Proceeds from this year’s dinner will 

go to five Catholic schools with early 

childhood programs, one in each of 

the archdiocese’s five pastoral regions, 

as well as to the St. Sebastian Sports 

Project, which supports inner-city 

students participating in sports. 

Here’s a quick look at this year’s 

honorees: 

Thomas J. Blumenthal is the president 

and CEO of the iconic Beverly 

Hills jewelry store GEARYS. A convert 

from Judaism, Blumenthal is a believer 

in finding ways to honor those 

with vocations to religious life, as well 

as helping women embrace leadership 

roles. He is a board member at St. 

John’s Seminary in Camarillo, Mount 

Saint Mary’s University in LA, and 

Santa Clara University’s Jesuit School 

of Theology. 

“I see Tom celebrating his faith as 

the pillar of everything he does for 

the community,” said Msgr. Kevin 

Kostelnik, who baptized Blumenthal 


and his parents when they entered the 

Catholic Church in 2008. “His gift 

of inclusivity is calling people of all 

faiths and walks of life to be leaders.” 

Thomas said he sees his support for 

vocations as a way of paying it forward. 

“It’s important to me to help them 

because those coming into this will 

be our spiritual directors of the future, 

and it’s natural to honor those who 

have served us so well in the past … 

they are a great example of those who 

come before them.” 

Lew and Lisa Horne know a thing or 

two about being community leaders. 

For years, Lisa has led a weekly 

rosary group for friends to pray for 

their children’s path toward heaven. 

A Dame of the Sovereign Military 

Order of Malta, she has found her 

faith strengthened during the order’s 

annual trips to Lourdes. After their 

daughter Christina was diagnosed 

with multiple sclerosis (MS) soon 

after graduating from USC, they knew 

what to do. 

“Taking her to Lourdes as well was 

an important part of the healing 

process … I wanted to give her that 

faith moment,” Lisa said. The Hornes 

have funded research for MS and are 

proud to share that Christina and her 

husband, Dane, recently celebrated 

the birth of a son. 

Lew is the board vice chair for 

Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters, 

a member of the Caruso Catholic 

Center Advisory Board, and a board 

member and past chair at the Los 

Angeles County Economic Development 

Corporation. He also serves as 

co-chair of the Central City Association 

Homelessness Initiative, a responsibility 

borne out of a family connection: 

He lost his brother to life on the 

streets in a homeless encampment. 

In May 2023, Lew was honored at 

the Champions for Youth Gala by 

Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters, an 

honor that resonates strongly with 

him: He began sponsoring a little 

brother named Eddie 13 years ago. 

Delia Wilson-Johnson has been an 

influential voice and inspirational 

example of compassion, prayer, and 

change in South Los Angeles for 

decades. 

A Compton resident and parishioner 

at St. Lawrence of Brindisi Church in 

Watts, Delia’s knowledge and expertise 

have benefited numerous archdiocesan 

outreach programs, including 

the African American Catholic 

Center for Evangelization and the 

Anti-Racism Task Force. She is also a 

member of the Ladies Auxiliary of the 

Knights of Peter Claver, which focuses 

on portraying higher principles of 

Christian womanhood and promoting 

friendship, unity, and Christian 

charity. 

But her most rewarding role these 

days, she said, is facilitating the Rite of 

Christian Initiation of Adults: “Every 

conversation I have with those in formation 

helps me grow in my faith.” 

Her former pastor at St. Lawrence, 

Bishop Matthew Elshoff, described 

Delia as a force of nature. 

“She proclaims the word ‘evangelization’ 

with an exclamation point,” 

said Bishop Elshoff. “On top of that 

is an incredible faith where she will 

always assure people the Holy Spirit is 

present and will help.” 

Daniel K. Walker is the fourth-generation 

leader of Farmers & Merchants 

Bank, which his great-grandfather 

C.J. Walker started in Long 

Beach in 1907. Now the executive 

chairman of the board, he believes in 

modeling the bank’s five basic pillars: 

honesty, integrity, the home, the 

church, and service above self. 

“Our bank is God’s blessing,” Daniel 

said. “As I have been getting closer to 

Catholic organizations … I have told 

them clearly: My involvement with 

you is to allow you the opportunity to 

transform individuals in need of faith. 

If we don’t accomplish that goal, we 

are not following what the Bible is 

teaching us.” 

When the Archdiocese of LA decided 

during the COVID-19 pandemic 

that it needed the support of the 

government’s Paycheck Protection 

Program (PPP), the bank made more 

than 350 PPP loans totaling $50 

million available to the archdiocese. 

More than 66,000 Catholic school 

students benefited from keeping 

their teachers, with some 5,400 jobs 

retained. 

In the 1950s, the bank assisted 

Rev. Robert Schuller when he built 

a church that became the famous 


Crystal Cathedral. Six decades later, 

Walker and Tiber helped orchestrate 

funding so that the Diocese of Orange 

could purchase the same building to 

serve as its new cathedral. 

“Dan has always been in a servant 

leadership mindset,” said F&M 

Executive Vice President Kevin Tiber. 

“He has identified F&M Bank as an 

unapologetically Christian business.” 

Clare and Jim Gurbach saw firsthand 

the inequities when the oldest 

of their three daughters was playing 

volleyball at American Martyrs Catholic 

School: The opposing teams played 

with makeshift uniforms, lacked equipment, 

and had volunteer coaches. 

So in 2009, they helped found the 

Saint Sebastian Sports Project, named 

after the patron saint of sports and 

athletes. Its mission: to provide every 

child, regardless of family income, 

the chance to learn, grow, and share 

in the joy of participating in a school 

sports team. 

The project was launched with four 

schools in the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles and a few thousand dollars 

that had been donated as seed money. 

Since then, more than 60 schools 

have joined, hundreds of thousands of 

dollars have impacted thousands more 

children, and the quality of coaches, 

referees, and involved parents has 

made a noticeable difference. 

With Clare as its executive director 

and Jim as the “do-whatever-is-needed” 

man, the Gurbachs have created 

a template to show Catholic schools 

how to overcome obstacles, including 

a lack of equipment, uniforms, or 

coaching. Their work has resulted 

in dramatic increases in children’s 

school attendance, confidence, teamwork, 

and academic achievement. 

“The Holy Spirit really tapped us on 

the shoulder when we saw a disparity 

in resources, and our pastor had 

always instilled in us to act on things 

we are passionate about,” said Clare, 

referring to American Martyrs pastor 

Msgr. John Barry. 

Angelus contributor Tom Hoffarth 

contributed to this story. 

To learn more about the Archbishop’s 

Awards and this year’s honorees, visit 

CardinalsAwardsDinner.org 


February 23, 2024 • ANGELUS • 23

A study in contrasts 

When it comes to repressive Communist regimes, why is the Vatican’s 

diplomatic approach to China and Nicaragua so different? 

BY ELISE ANN ALLEN 

A demonstrator holds a crucifix during a protest 

against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s 

government in Managua May 15, 2018. | OSV/ 

OSWALDO RIVAS, REUTERS 

ROME — Imagine that two different 

governments are engaged in 

crackdowns against the Catholic 

Church, including putting priests and 

bishops in jail, limiting or even expelling 

religious orders, and subjecting 

Catholic organizations of all stripes to 

tight vigilance and control. 

In the abstract, one might think that 

since the offenses are similar, the Vatican 

response would be the same, too. 

Yet the reactions of Pope Francis and 

his advisers to Nicaragua and China 

reveal contrast rather than continuity. 

With Nicaragua, the Vatican’s criticism 

has been clear, constant, and 

increasingly acerbic; when it comes to 

China, such pushback has been conspicuous 

mostly by its absence. 

In the end, the explanation for this 

contrast probably lies not in moral analysis 

but geopolitics: China is a superpower 

and Nicaragua isn’t. Bluntly put, 

Francis needs to stay in Beijing’s good 

graces far more than Managua’s. 

Pope Francis has spoken out on Nicaragua 

several times this year. On New 

Year’s Day, he prayed for Nicaragua, 

“where bishops and priests have been 

deprived of their freedom,” assured the 

families and friends of those imprisoned 

of his closeness and prayer, and 

voiced hope “that the path of dialogue 

will always be sought to overcome 

difficulties.” 

A week later, in an annual speech to 

diplomats, he said the situation in the 

country “remains troubling: a protracted 

crisis with painful consequences for 

Nicaraguan society as a whole, and in 

particular for the Catholic Church.” 

“The Holy See continues to encourage 

a respectful diplomatic dialogue for 

the benefit of Catholics and the entire 

population,” he said. Shortly after, Bishop 

Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, who 

had spent more than a year in prison, 

and 18 others were released from prison 

and exiled to Rome, where they were 

welcomed personally by Vatican Secretary 

of State Pietro Parolin as official 

guests of the Holy See. 

When it comes to China, on the other 

hand, Francis and his aides have been 

much quieter. Nothing was said when 

pro-democracy protests erupted and 

were quickly quashed in Hong Kong 

between 2019 and 2020; when a new 

national security law was imposed in 

the city which was used to arrest and 


charge several high-profile activists, including 

several prominent Catholics; or 

when Cardinal Joseph Zen, the retired 

bishop of Hong Kong, was arrested and 

convicted by a Hong Kong court with 

several others in 2022 for their pro-democracy 

advocacy. 

The Vatican barely let out a whisper 

last year when Chinese authorities 

repeatedly violated the terms of the 

2018 provisional agreement between 

China and the Holy See on episcopal 

appointments. 

To the consternation of many, the 

terms of that agreement remain secret, 

prompting criticism that it has induced 

the Vatican to remain mute on China’s 

record on human rights and religious 

freedom. 

Last spring, the Vatican simply issued 

brief statements voicing concern after 

China made several unilateral transfers 

of bishops without Rome’s knowledge 

or consent, including the November 

2022 transfer of Bishop Pen Weizhao 

to the Diocese of Jiangxi and the April 

2023 transfer of Bishop Shen Bin to 

Shanghai. 

Rather than condemning such blatant 

violations of their agreement, Vatican 

officials have instead used these transfers 

to push forward efforts to strengthen 

ties. 

In the case of the unauthorized transfer 

of Shen Bin to Shanghai on April 

4, 2023, the pope’s approval was only 

announced three months later. That 

announcement was accompanied by an 

interview published by Vatican News, 

the Holy See’s official information platform, 

in which Parolin expressed hope 

that a resident papal representative to 

Beijing could soon be named. 

Francis also offered a direct friendly 

greeting to the “noble Chinese people” 

during his final Mass in Mongolia last 

summer, and he also recently held a 

meeting with a delegation from the National 

Federation Italy-China in honor 

of the Chinese New Year. 

With the 2018 provisional agreement 

up for renewal for a third time this fall, 

it appears there is an effort to accelerate 

the move toward strengthened ties, with 

more bishops being named in the span 

of one week at the end of last month 

than have been named for the entire 

duration of the 2018 agreement thus far. 

Last month, the Vatican announced 

the suppression of the Apostolic Prefecture 

of Yiduxian in China and the 

establishment of the Diocese of Weifang, 

marking the first formal creation 

of a new diocese by the Holy See in 

China since the Communist revolution 

in 1949. 

The Jan. 29 Vatican statement said 

the decision to replace the Yiduxian 

prefecture was made on April 20, 2023 

— notably, in the interim between the 

unauthorized transfer of Shen Bin and 

the pope’s acceptance of that move 

— and that at the same time, Bishop 

Anthony Sun Wenjun, 53, had been 

appointed to lead the diocese. 

Days before, on Jan. 25, the Vatican 

announced the ordination of a new 

bishop for the Diocese of Zhengzou, 

who it said had been appointed by the 

pope on Dec. 16, 2023, “in the framework 

of the Provisional Agreement 

between the Holy See and the People’s 

Republic of China.” 

Then again on Jan. 31, the Vatican 

announced a third episcopal appointment 

in China, revealing that Bishop 

Pietro Wu Yishun, named bishop of the 

Apostolic Prefecture of Shaowu, Minbei, 

in the province of Fujian on Dec. 

16, 2023, had been ordained a bishop 

earlier that day. 

The most important takeaway from 

this slew of appointments — together 

with last year’s appointment of a resident 

papal representative to Vietnam 

— is that the Vatican is eager for diplomatic 

progress in the Far East. 

While the pope’s words on Nicaragua 

resounded in news headlines, his 

actions on China have also sent a clear 

message about his intentions and priorities, 

and as the old adage goes, actions 

often speak louder than words. 

Elise Ann Allen is a senior correspondent 

for Crux in Rome, covering the 

Vatican and the global Church. 

In this file photo, China’s flag is seen as Pope Francis greets the crowd during his general audience in St. Peter’s 

Square at the Vatican June 15, 2016. | CNS/PAUL HARING 


WITH GRACE 

DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE 

How I found ‘real work’ 

If there is one thing written into the 

reality of our human experience, it 

is the necessity for work. 

On this earth, if man is to have a 

shelter, he’ll have to put up a roof. If 

he’s to eat, he’ll have to farm or hunt. 

If he doesn’t want to freeze, he’ll have 

to build a fire. There is no living without 

sweating, no existence without 

effort. This is actually an excellent 

thing, because it’s hard to imagine 

anything more spiritually and morally 

unhealthy than an idle life, or one 

devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. We 

are not built for that, but for the satisfaction 

of pulling order out of chaos, 

and of seeing our plans give fruit. 

We can overwork, however, and that 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

can have disastrous consequences. 

When my third child was 11 months 

old, I had a nervous breakdown. One 

early morning I went to work at the 

small community hospital where I 

was a radiologist. I had left my chubby 

baby in his sleep-damp pajamas sitting 

in the highchair, deliciously babbling 

and laughing. The kindergartner and 

the preschooler were cheerfully eating 

their cereal, half-dressed and uncombed. 

Trading that bright kitchen 

for my lonely dark room in the cold 

hospital with its nauseating smell of 

disinfectant was too much for me. I 

put my head on my desk and wept. 

I cried for days after that, entirely at 

sea about the arrangements of my life. 

I had decided early on to be a 

doctor, filled with enthusiasm for 

what I believe is one of the noblest 

of vocations. But I married a fellow 

student in my third year of medical 

school and our first baby was born 

nine months later. I went straight into 

residency, choosing radiology for its 

relatively easy training period. It might 

have been easy, if I didn’t have a baby 

and then another. Our third was born 

during my last year and I went straight 

to work at a hospital as soon as I was 

done. I aimed to “have it all.” 

I was miserable at the hospital. All 

those years of study and extreme 

effort, the longing for the children, 

which was always paining me, all to 

end up sitting in front of a computer 

interpreting images and speaking into 

a recorder nine hours a day. I have to 

confess, with shame, that I was horrid 

to those around me — short-tempered, 

impatient, quick to complain 

and criticize. I kept up my professionalism 

as far as my patients and my 

radiology work, but I was bitter and 

made my poor co-workers pay for it. 

It was during that time that a friend 

invited me to an Opus Dei retreat. 

She had given me a prayer card of its 

founder, St. Josemaría Escrivá, which 

described Opus Dei as a “way of 

sanctification in daily work and in the 

fulfillment of the Christian’s ordinary 

duties.” You can see why I was drawn 

to “the Work.” 

There I was, walking a dark path in 

which my ordinary duties were taking 

me straight to hell, not heaven. I knew 

I was all wrong, and here was hope 

— that I could learn to be a light to 

others, even in difficult circumstances, 

and that my work, if not pleasant 

in itself, could be made beautiful by 

being offered to God as a prayer. 


Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a mother of five 

who practices radiology in the Miami area. 

I found great comfort in my new 

hope and I persevered, helped on by 

lovely quotes like this one from the 

saint: “The work of each one of us, 

the activities that take up our time 

and energy, must be an offering worthy 

of our Creator. It must be operatio 

Dei, a work of God that is done for 

God: in short, a task that is complete 

and faultless.” And: “Professional work 

is also an apostolate, an opportunity 

to give ourselves to others, to reveal 

Christ to them and lead to God the 

Father.” My attitude improved and 

I found strength to be cheerful and 

patient. 

However, I could not salvage a situation 

which was inherently unbalanced. 

I was needlessly neglecting my 

family, in short, and much of my unhappiness 

was born of guilt and from a 

constant yearning to be with them. 

After a few days of weeping I put in 

my resignation, with the full support 

of my husband. Perhaps it didn’t make 

much sense from a purely material 

perspective, but it made perfect sense 

in every other way. I entered the prettiest 

time of my life, so far, treasuring 

every moment with my children 

because of all the moments I had 

missed. And we went on to have two 

more that would not have been ours if 

I had stayed at the hospital. 

Later on, I went back to work part 

time, and from home. I’ve been very 

fortunate to find professional fulfillment 

and also to live fully the joy of 

home, children, and husband. I thank 

God for this. I also thank him for the 

hard lessons I learned, and even for 

my nervous breakdown. The real work 

of sanctification is being done all the 

time by him, of course. We just have 

to be attentive, pray, and follow where 

he leads. 


NOW PLAYING CABRINI 

MOTHER 

CABRINI’S 

‘EMPIRE OF 

HOPE’ 

The first feature film about America’s 

immigrant saint hits all the right notes. 

Cristiana Dell’Anna in 

“Cabrini.” | IMDB 

BY STEFANO REBEGGIANI 

Francesca Cabrini was born in Italy 

in 1850. After being rejected 

by three religious orders because 

of her “weak constitution,” she founded 

her own missionary congregation 

in Codogno, Italy. At the time, it was 

the only missionary order comprised 

solely of women. 

In 1889, she and six of her Missionary 

Sisters set off for New York City. 

Over the course of 34 years she established 

an astonishing 67 hospitals, 

orphanages, and schools, mostly for 

Italian immigrants. She was canonized 

in 1946 by Pope Pius XII — the 

first American citizen to be named a 

saint — and was proclaimed patron 

saint of all immigrants. 

The first biopic ever dedicated to 

the life of Mother Cabrini premiers 

in theaters on March 8, coinciding 

with International Women’s Day. It is 

brought to us from the director (Alejandro 

Monteverde), producers, and 

writers of “Sound of Freedom,” the 

2023 independent movie that grossed 

over $240 million worldwide. 

With strong writing and directing, 

the film succeeds in depicting Cabrini 

— played by Italian actress Cristiana 

Dell’Anna — as a truly great woman 

in American history, one whose life 

and spirituality has plenty to say to the 

Catholic Church in the United States 

today. 

“Cabrini” centers around the very 

beginning of her mission in New York 

City at the end of the 19th century, 

when the condition of Italian immigrants 

in most American cities was 

dire. The Italian neighborhood of 

Five Points in Lower Manhattan, 

where Cabrini established her first 

house, was plagued by disease and 

perhaps the highest murder rate 

recorded anywhere. 

Most Italians lived in utter poverty 

and were denied basic rights, including 

access to hospital care. They 

were often the victims of racism and 

discrimination, called slurs like “dago” 

and “Guinea pigs.” 

It was here that Cabrini found 

herself. And thankfully, “Cabrini” 

does not try to conceal its subject’s 

weakness. 

As a child, Cabrini almost drowned, 


leaving her with serious lung damage 

that should have left her bedridden for 

the rest of her life. In one scene, we 

see her collapse from exhaustion a few 

days into her mission. A doctor gives 

her two, maximum three years to live. 

In emphasizing Cabrini’s human 

shortcomings and weakness, the film 

presents a saint who didn’t accomplish 

great things because she was endowed 

with extraordinary willpower or unusual 

talents. Rather, we meet a woman 

who was convinced from the start 

that her mission, humanly speaking, 

was impossible. That she was bound 

to fail. Her success was based on her 

complete and utter trust in God. 

In other words, it was precisely her 

weakness that made her more suitable 

for her mission. 

As the movie shows, that trust led 

her to aim for the impossible. “The 

world is too small for what I intend to 

do,” she tells Pope Leo XIII (played by 

legendary Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini) 

in an early scene. This from a 

woman who was not supposed to leave 

her bed for the rest of her life! 

Her drowning incident left her with 

a deep-seated terror of water, but this 

did not prevent her from crossing the 

Atlantic by boat some 30 times. In one 

scene, she quotes St. Paul: “I can do 

all things through him who strengthens 

me.” 

“Do you want to be king?” an astonished 

Pope Leo asks her at the end of 

the movie. “Yes,” she replies, “I want 

to build an empire of hope.” 

Cabrini invites us to do something 

strange, even radical: to rejoice in our 

weaknesses, our laziness, our lack of 

courage, our lack of natural talents 

because they make us more, not less, 

apt for the mission that God is entrusting 

us. 

The second part of the film follows 

Cabrini’s struggles in New York City, 

where the local church and the mayor 

are opposed to her work. We see the 

saint overcome impossible odds to 

establish an orphanage, a house, and 

then a hospital. 

Two other aspects of this saint’s 

character emerge in this part of the 

film. First, her absolute trust in divine 

providence. “Begin the mission and 

the means will come,” she repeats in 

several scenes. 

The second is the insistence on freedom 

and love. Her missionary work 

consisted in presenting children with 

love, without asking them to change. 

“The wounds the children bear,” she 

says in one of the movie’s scenes, 

“are only healed through love, and 

through an education of the heart.” 

Cabrini is often presented as a “social 

saint.” But the primary source of her 

vocation was the immersion in the 

tangible experience of the love of 

God. 

“Let all your affections, O daughters, 

be concentrated in this beautiful 

Heart, and you will always and truly 

be happy,” she wrote to her sisters during 

one of her transatlantic voyages. 

“But if, on the other hand, some 

private affection either to you or to 

creatures binds you, you will always 

have some annoyance, some hours of 

tedium and melancholy. … Put on 

your wings, I pray you.” 

Missionary work was a natural 

consequence, almost a reflex, of this 

immersion in the love of God. 

“We must from time to time dive 

into God, immerse ourselves in the 

salutary water of his grace and loving 

kindness, and then fly, that is, work 

with much vigor.” 

“Cabrini” offers viewers a refreshing 

opportunity to think about the true 

meaning of our lives, the love of God, 

and the mission that he’s entrusted to 

those who are baptized — one that 

surpasses our strengths. The key to 

this mission, Cabrini’s life suggests, is 

to have a tangible, concrete experience 

of his love. 

Cabrini says it best in the film: “You 

need to have the courage to be what 

God wants you to be.” 

Stefano Rebeggiani is an assistant 

professor of Classics at the University 

of Southern California. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

What is a man? 

Allen King Sr. with the author 

and her brother Joe, circa 1958. | 

COURTESY HEATHER KING 

Culturally we’ve been pondering 

the question: What is a 

woman? Maybe it’s time to ask: 

What is a man? 

My father — a bricklayer with eight 

kids — saw the world as a place of 

mystery and beauty, but that things 

could go so consistently, abysmally 

wrong gnawed at him. 

“Doesn’t that get my goat!” he’d 

rail in the parking lots of grocery 

stores, spotting a cart left by a careless 

shopper. “If that thing ever got rolling, 

it could pick up momentum, barrel 

right into a 3- or 4-year-old kid…” He 

shook his head, leaving us to imagine 

the twitching limbs, the tiny skull 

bleeding onto the asphalt. 

What he was really thinking, I knew, 

was that the kid would have to be 

brought to the doctor — and doctors 

cost money. 

We had supper together every 

night. Around the dining room table 

we bonded, and made fun of one 

another, and endlessly bickered. 

Dad meanwhile totted up imaginary 

figures in the air, calculating the cost 

of a replacement window for the one 

we’d broken playing baseball (again), 

new winter jackets for the boys, piano 

lessons. 

Milk in those days was delivered by 

Mr. Gilman of Runnymede Farms, 

and came in glass bottles. One night 

we were eating supper and, as happened 

frequently, drained the gallon. 

“I’ll get some more,” my younger 

brother Ross offered, and made for the 

kitchen. Right away, dad started in. 

“Don’t drop the milk. For Crimey’s 

sake, don’t drop the milk, it’s up to a 

dollar-thirty. Whatever you do, don’t 

drop the milk.” 

Almost inevitably, just as Ross was 

about to reach the table, he dropped 

the milk. Glass shattered. Milk 

splashed, ran in runnels, and pooled 

on the floor. 

My father wasn’t violent, but for a 

second we stopped breathing and 

looked instinctively to the head of 

the table. A stricken, defeated look 

crossed his face, and then he bent 

over double and silently buried his 

head in his hands. 

Had dad lost it for good? Had we 

finally pushed him over the brink? 

What if he pushed back his chair, 

put on his brown Carhartt jacket that 

smelled of White Owl cigars and Old 

Spice, climbed into his pickup, and 

left? Who would take us out in the 

boat to check the banged-up lobster 

traps? Who would bake bread on 

weekends, fuss over the tomato plants, 

and sit out on the breezeway with his 

buddies drinking Bud on Saturday 

afternoons and listening to the Red 

Sox? 

Who would go around the house 

singing “How Great Thou Art” in 

that crackpot fake tenor? Who would 

recite Housman’s “A Shropshire Lad” 

with what sounded suspiciously like a 

catch in his throat? 

Mom couldn’t leave us. But what if 

daddy, fount of all fun, all jokes, all 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

food, shelter, clothing, security, order, 

warmth, bolted? 

Was he crying? Had we made dad 

cry? 

At last he straightened up. His 

beat-up hands dropped to his knees. 

His face, unthinkably, was wet with 

tears, and so red we thought he might 

have had a heart attack. He was still 

trembling. He was gasping. But finally 

we realized he wasn’t crying. He was 

laughing. 

“Janet, get me a napkin,” he choked 

out, and moved to high-five Ross. 

“Don’t spill … HANH HAH … don’t 

drop … Lindy Gilman’s kids will 

eat even if we’re in the poorhouse!” 

… but he was laughing so hard he 

couldn’t go on. 

Suddenly we sprang into action. 

One of us ran for rags. Someone else 

started picking out the biggest chunks 

of glass. Someone, maybe me, passed 

behind the back of dad’s chair and 

patted his thinning hair. 

But in a way, I am still sitting at that 

table with my father: head in hands, 

face hidden, present physically, yet a 

million miles away. 

Sitting with him while he perhaps 

contemplated the years stretching 

behind and ahead: of waking in the 

dark, of driving 40, 60, 90 miles to his 

job laying bricks, of standing all day 

in bitter cold or scorching heat, of 

constant anxiety, constant frustration, 

constant fatigue. 

Sitting with him knowing that when 

he opened his eyes his family — 

whose entire purpose, it sometimes 

must have seemed, was to break his 

heart — was going to be looking back 

at him: waiting, bereft, refusing to 

leave. 

Sitting with him while all that was 

good and kind and decent in him, and 

all that was fearful and weak and in 

pain had perhaps met, and clashed, 

and in some place that was unknown 

to us, where we could not follow, on 

some terrible battlefield in which our 

fates hung in the balance, he had 

chosen us over himself; had chosen 

the spark of life that is humor over 

despair, over death. 

In a way, that is who I write to. My 

father, in that moment before he 

lifted his head — and stayed. 

For weeks, we’d be finding splinters 

of glass under the sewing table, the 

desk, the radiators. There would be 

more anxiety. There would be more 

imaginary — and several real — catastrophes. 

But for now, God was in 

his heaven and all was right with the 

world. Until the next broken bottle of 

milk, or window, or leg, or spirit, life 

could go on. 

Because dad had laughed. Daddy — 

our rock — had laughed. 

The author and her 

father in 1952. | COUR- 

TESY HEATHER KING 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

The Lenten love of the martyrs 

We’re at the beginning of Lent, and it’s a good time 

for us to ask why? Why do we do it? And why does 

it last so long?! 

Well, we know there are biblical precedents. Jesus fasted 

for 40 days, and so did Moses, 

and so did Elijah. The 40 days 

reminds us of Israel’s 40 years 

in the wilderness and Noah’s 40 

days of rain. 

We know that the ancient 

Fathers at the Council of Nicaea 

(A.D. 325) recognized a 40-day 

fast. And there were 40-day fasts 

in Rome and Egypt long before 

that. 

But why? That’s what my kids 

used to ask when they were 

driving the conversation about 

bedtime back to first principles. 

And it’s not a bad thing for us 

grownups to do when we think 

about Lent. 

Why do we fast at all? Why 

does Lent last so long? 

The earliest Christian discussions 

are lost to history. But 

historians propose many possible 

reasons, and today I want to 

consider just one. 

Christians practiced long 

self-denial once a year because 

they were training themselves 

up for martyrdom. They were 

building up endurance because 

persecution was something real 

to them. It wasn’t always active, 

but the laws were still on the 

books, and the Church never 

knew when full enforcement 

might come back. 

Lent was the way Christians 

stayed ready — prepared to give 

themselves away as martyrs. In the persecutions of Decius 

and Diocletian, many failed the test. At the thought of pain, 

discomfort, and death, they renounced Jesus Christ. The 

“Angels Bring Food to Jesus in the Desert,” from a Mir-at al-quds of Father 

Jerome Xavier, 1549-1617, Spanish. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

Christians who witnessed this watched in horror. They desired 

never to do the same. 

It’s quite possible that the original Lent was only a week 

long. But by the fourth century Christians knew that they 

needed more than that. 

We do, too. We know it from 

history. But we also know it from 

experience. We know our sins. 

We know our weaknesses. 

The martyrs knew that if they 

made the effort to strengthen 

their will, God himself would 

make up for what they were 

lacking. Grace would build on 

nature, complete it, and elevate 

it. 

This was Lent, then, in the 

third century and at the beginning 

of the fourth. It was a time 

of self-denial, self-mastery, and 

self-possession. But such discipline 

was a means and not an 

end. It’s not about checking off 

the boxes. It’s not about toughing 

it out. 

It’s about love. We possess ourselves 

in order to give ourselves 

away in love — just as Jesus did 

on the cross, and just as Jesus 

does in the Mass. 

As I prepared this column, I noticed 

that its term of publication 

would begin on February 23 and 

end on March 7. It begins with 

the memorial of St. Polycarp 

and ends with Sts. Perpetua 

and Felicity, all martyrs of the 

early Church. Their stories were 

preserved by eyewitnesses who 

depicted the martyrs’ suffering 

in liturgical terms. It was a gift 

of self — body and blood. It was 

given freely in love. Its result was communion with Christ. 

That’s the meaning of Lent. We prepare ourselves for the 

most profound love with Jesus. Press on! 


■ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16 

Religious Education Congress. Anaheim Convention 

Center, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim. Events run Feb. 

16-18, and include speakers, sacraments, films, and 

workshops. Keynote speaker: Jessica Sarowitz, founder of 

Miraflores Films. Cost: $75/person until Jan. 15, $85 after. 

For more information, visit recongress.org. 

Retrouvaille Marriage Retreat: Spanish. San Fernando. 

Retreat runs Feb. 16-18. Call Adolfo and Dora Rubio at 

818-367-4198 or Salvador and Maria Acosta at 626-934- 

7452 for more information or to register. 

Fish Fry. St. Clare Church, 19606 Calla Way, Canyon 

Country, 4:30-8 p.m. Runs every Friday in Lent. Includes 

two-three pieces of beer-battered cod, coleslaw, choice of 

side, or fish tacos with rice and beans. Dine in or take out. 

Cost: $15/person, two-piece dinner or two tacos, $16/person, 

three-piece dinner. Family pack available for $55. Call 

661-252-3353 or visit st-clare.org. 

Fish Fry — Knights of Columbus #4919. Nativity Church, 

1415 Engracia Ave., Torrance, 5-7 p.m. Runs every Friday in 

Lent. Baked or deep fried fish, baked potato or French fries, 

coleslaw, roll, and cake. Cost: $12/adults, $10/seniors, $7/ 

children under 12. Indoor seating and takeout available. 

50/50 raffles as time permits. 

■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17 

Lenten Retreat. St. James Church, 415 Vincent St., Redondo 

Beach, 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Hosted by the Catholic Daughters 

of America Court of Our Lady of Victory, this free retreat 

led by Msgr. Timothy Nichols invites men and women to 

get their spiritual house in order before Easter. Includes 

Mass and complimentary continental breakfast. Theme: 

“On the Road with Jesus and Mary.” Call Mary Costello at 

310-316-0768 or email mmcostello1@verizon.net. 

“Don’t Get Robbed by Satan’s Scams” Conference. St. 

Didacus Church, 14325 Astoria St., Selma, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Led by Father Bob Garon and Dominic Berardino. Topics 

include “Old Lies of the New Age” and “God’s Remedies 

for the Devil’s Poisons.” Mass and catered lunch included. 

Register at events.scrc.org, call 818-771-1361 or email 

spirit@scrc.org. 

■ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20 

Career Fair. Holy Cross Cemetery, 5835 W. Slauson Ave., 

Culver City, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Open positions in the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles for embalmers, funeral service assistants, 

and more. Bring résumé for on-the-spot interviews. 

For more information, visit lacatholics.org/event/career-fair. 

■ WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21 

Record Clearing Virtual Clinic for Veterans. 5-8 p.m. Legal 

team will help with traffic tickets, quality of life citations, 

and expungement of criminal convictions. Free clinic is 

open to all Southern California veterans. Registration 

required. Call 213-896-6537 or email inquiries-veterans@ 

lacba.org. 

Amazed Bible Study. Visitation Church, 6581 W. 88th 

St., Los Angeles, 7-9 p.m. Ten-part video/lectio series on 

Eucharist: Discovering the Mass in the Bible. Series runs 

until May 8. Cost: $20/person. Visit visitationchurch-la. 

com/eucharisticrevival. Call 310-216-1145. 

■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 

Anniversary Mass for Bishop David O’Connell. San Gabriel 

Mission, 429 S. Junipero Serra Dr., 10 a.m. Celebrant: 

Archbishop José H. Gomez. Blessing of memorial exhibit to 

follow after Mass. 

■ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25 

Rite of Election. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 

W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3 p.m. for San Fernando and 

San Gabriel Pastoral Regions, or 6 p.m. for Our Lady of the 

Angels and San Pedro Pastoral Regions. Those seeking to 

be initiated this Easter Vigil are obligated to be elected by 

Archbishop José H. Gomez and participate in the Rite of 

Election. Email Leticia Perez at LPerez@la-archdiocese.org. 

Santa Barbara Pastoral Region Rite of Election. Our Lady 

of the Assumption Church, 435 Berkeley Ave, Claremont, 

2:30 p.m. or La Purisima Church, 213 W. Olive Ave., Lompoc, 

5 p.m. Those seeking to be initiated this Easter Vigil 

are obligated to be elected and participate in the Rite of 

Election. Email Leticia Perez at LPerez@la-archdiocese.org. 

Lenten Speaker Series: Mary Mother of God, Untier of 

Knots. St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care, 1911 Zonal 

Ave., Los Angeles, 4 p.m. Peace & Justice Mass, 5:30 -7 p.m. 

presentation, available in person or on Zoom. Sessions run 

on Sundays from Feb. 25 to March 24. Speakers include Dr. 

Megan McKenna, Dr. Michael Howard, and Sister Norma 

Pimentel, MJ. Visit stcamilluscenter.org/lent. 

■ FRIDAY, MARCH 1 

Life-Giving Wounds: A Healing Retreat for Adult Children 

of Divorced or Separated Parents. Mission San Luis 

Rey, 4050 Mission Ave., Oceanside. Retreat runs from 6 

p.m. on March 1 to 3 p.m. on March 3. Participants 18 and 

older are invited to move through the broken images of love 

in their parents’ relationship to their deepest origin and 

identity as God’s beloved. Co-sponsored by the Separated 

& Divorced Ministry. Cost: $375/single room, $325/ 

double room, includes meals, lodging, and all materials. 

Partial scholarships available upon request; email jmonell@ 

la-archdiocese.org. Visit rcbo.org/acod. 

Fish Fry. St. Margaret Mary Church, 25511 Eshelman 

Ave., Lomita, 5 p.m. Runs March 1, 8, and 15. Baked or 

beer-battered fried fish, baked potato, corn on the cob, and 

desserts. Spirits available for purchase. Discounts available 

for seniors and children. 

■ SUNDAY, MARCH 3 

Rite of Calling. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 

W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3 p.m. for San Fernando and 

San Gabriel Pastoral Regions, 6 p.m for Our Lady of the 

Angels and San Pedro Pastoral Regions. This rite is for those 

journeying through RCIA to complete Christian Initiation in 

the Church. Email Leticia Perez at LPerez@la-archdiocese. 

org. 

■ SUNDAY, MARCH 10 

St. Joseph’s Table. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, 

23233 Lyons Ave., Newhall, 1-6 p.m. Hosted by the Italian 

Catholic Club of SCV, includes free plate of spaghetti and 

roll, other Italian foods for sale at minimal prices. Donated 

baked goods welcome. Call Anna Riggs at 661-645-7877 

for more information. 

■ TUESDAY, MARCH 12 

Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San 

Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is 

virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at 

CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics. 

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.

Angelus News | February 23, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 4

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