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Seminarian who taught in Ukraine urges prayers for peace

Posted on by Catholic News Service

Stephen Coutcher, a Rhode Island seminarian who spent the summer of 2018 teaching English in Ukraine, urged those who feel helpless about the current situation there to pray for peace.

The 23-year-old, in his second year of studies at Our Lady of Providence Seminary in the Diocese of Providence, said he feels a closeness to the country and struggles with what is taking place there now.

Coutcher, who studied contemporary Russian politics, language, culture, literature and the Cold War, said the current Ukrainian crisis is neither simple nor something completely out of the blue.

“I know that the Ukrainian people, as a whole, do not entirely present a united front against Russia, as the media may portray them. … There is a vast divide within the country between Russian government sympathizers and Ukrainian nationalists, and everybody in between,” he explained.

Pro-Russian nationalists largely reside in Eastern Ukraine, which shares its border with Russia, and Ukrainian nationalists largely reside in the western part of the country, closer to the shared border with Poland.

In meeting people of both sides of the issue during his time there, Coutcher quickly learned that there was little to no common ground between the two extremes.

“This polarization goes far deeper than the current political divide in the U.S.,” he told the Rhode Island Catholic, Providence’s diocesan newspaper. “It is incredibly hard to conceive of any type of resolution to the conflict with those who want to join Russia, those others who want to remain a sovereign nation, vehemently opposed to Russia, and those in the middle.

“Especially geographically speaking, one could never conceivably divide up the country in such a way in which everybody would get what they want.”

Four years ago, Coutcher spent his summer in the industrial town of Khmelnitsky, teaching mostly in Russian for beginner students and in English for his more advanced classes. He explained that Ukrainians are generally fluent in both Ukrainian and Russian and because Khmelnitsky lacked tourism, people only spoke either Ukrainian or Russian on the street, in shops and in restaurants.

“That was great for me because I purposely went there to try to further develop my Russian. However, the language gap mirrors the overall cultural divide between the two nations,” he said. “Those cities in Western Ukraine choose to speak strictly Ukrainian, while those in the East speak almost exclusively Russian.”

He found this out the hard way during a visit to Lviv, a major city in Western Ukraine.

At a restaurant, he asked, in Russian, for a table and the hostess asked him, in Ukrainian, if he spoke English. He said he did, but that he didn’t speak Ukrainian. She told him: “We do not speak Russian here; we will speak English or Ukrainian!”

“I learned my lesson pretty quickly,” Coutcher said. “Somewhat ironically, when I visited Kyiv, the capital city, I found that pretty much everybody there chose to speak Russian.”

He said the Ukrainian people he met were extremely hard-working, dedicated and loyal.

“They would do anything for you, especially if you found yourself in need of something. They made sure I had everything I needed, and that I was well taken care of,” which he said goes against how some inaccurately describe their coldness.

Coutcher said it is “imperative that the conflict be resolved as soon as possible and in the best way possible,” which he acknowledged is “probably not going to make anybody happy.”

“Both sides are probably going to have to give in some ways, unless Western Europe suddenly rises to the occasion and defends Ukraine beyond sanctioning Russia,” he added.

The seminarian said prayer and fasting are powerful tools for those who feel helpless watching and reading news reports of what is happening.

“With the season of Lent underway, I would encourage all to take a day to fast and pray specifically for peace in Ukraine. I would encourage them to do it on a day it is already not obligated by the church,” like Good Friday, he added.

“If that is too much, maybe say a rosary, asking for our Blessed Mother’s intercession, specifically for that intention. We are certainly not helpless when we are harnessed with the power of prayer,” he said.

—Laura Kilgus

Self-taught restorer helps save statues for personal devotion in Quebec

Posted on by Catholic News Service

A woman from Victoriaville, Quebec, is using a self-taught hobby to save and restore religious statues, and it has led her to reflect on French Canadians’ relationship with these objects of piety that often end up in the garbage.

Lyne Robichaud volunteered to help when her husband’s aunt wanted to restore a statue. What was meant to be a hobby grew when a parish published an ad inviting people to contact her rather than throwing away statues.

“It’s mostly the heritage and historical aspects of these objects that attract me,” she explained. “A lot of them are forgotten in today’s Quebec. They’re beautiful pieces, and it’s art! It’s not because it’s religious that we should deny or denigrate that it was art.”

She has no formation for this, except a passion for handmade ceramics, where she learned to revel in complex and detailed projects, not knowing she would one day apply these principles to Catholic statues.

“Some people knit, I do this,” she said cheerfully.

Robichaud said many statues suffer from being dropped or left outside for many years.

“Sometimes it’s more unusual: A lady contacted me because her maid, who wanted to wash her statue, erased a good part of the paint,” she said.

Occasionally, Robichaud comes across statues that fell victim of failed restoration attempts.

“When I see the extent to which some have been massacred, I want to restore them. I come across some funny ones with faces that are badly made up. I want to make them look more noble again,” she said.

Mary and Sacred Hearts statues are most popular; St. Anne statues are also quite popular. But sometimes Robichaud finds rarer models. She’s currently working on a state of Christ the King. Some time ago, she restored a concrete St. Jude.

“He has a flame on his head,” she explained. “It had been repainted. It looked like he had a red wig!”

The research phase is quite time-consuming. She takes inspiration from photos of existing works to pinpoint the appropriate colors. She’s helped by a Facebook group dedicated to Quebec’s religious heritage.

“People provide me with good information. Recently, I was looking to identify a crowned statue of Mary full of gilding. It is thanks to their help that I knew that it is a representation of Our Lady of Good Health in India.”

Robichaud counts neither the time nor the money invested. She thinks for a few seconds before estimating the workload that such a hobby requires.

“It depends on the size and condition of the statue. You forget about time. I would say, however, that it takes a good 20 hours per statue. Even before redoing the painting, there is a great deal of preparation work to be done.”

She disinfects moldy sections, reseals surfaces and applies missing plaster. She has to re-create some parts from scratch. Then several tests and mixes are needed before finding the desired shade of paint.

The materials are not that expensive, she said.

“It’s time! If I had to calculate it, it would be terrible,” she added with a laugh.

Part of her involvement consists in giving owners advice on how to properly take care of their statues, including the best practices for cleaning and maintenance.

Her best advice? “Don’t put it back outside! But if it’s out there, install a pedestal to avoid contact with the ground. Ideally, it should be sheltered or brought indoors in winter.”

Robichaud has completed about 30 restoration projects so far. Before the start of the pandemic, she was thinking of selling the statues to pay for the cost of the materials. She said she is open to the idea of restoring more statues but wants to avoid cluttering up her basement.

“If I stay with all this, I won’t be able to continue accumulating,” she explained.

Because of her Facebook page, she receives requests from various regions of Quebec as well as France.

“People have to travel to bring it to me. I’ve had requests for people who live too far away. I’m then forced to say no.”

These multiple requests made her realize that few resources exist to restore such objects, to which people remain attached.

A woman who had just bought a house found a very damaged Sacred Heart statue. She looked in vain for restoration services before discovering the work of Robichaud.

“The next day, she made the round trip to bring me her statue. Is it faith? Is it guilt for throwing away an object of devotion? Is it our Judeo-Christian upbringing that makes us want to revive these objects of worship?” Robichaud asked. “All these questions arise. … This is a new challenge for me, and this is a good one.”

— Philippe Vaillancourt

Seeing a vocation discovered

Posted on by Catholic News Service

Andy was my sister’s friend and I’d see him from time to time when I came home from college. Nice kid.

But then one summer, my parish needed an interim youth minister, so they hired me. My sister and her friends faithfully came to every event. Including Andy.

This nice young man suddenly became the most loyal “youth group kid,” never hesitating to show up, Bible in hand. He was engaging and funny, sharing his love of architecture and LSU football with anyone.

It’s sort of a youth minister’s job to notice the traits and qualities within young people that they may not even notice within themselves. It’s one of the “happy accidents” of accompaniment — we “learn” the teen. And so a youth minister is called to tell those young people what we see in them and encourage them to use their gifts and talents.

So at the end of the summer, before I headed back to college, I casually mentioned to Andy that I thought he’d make a good priest someday.

He laughed.

And then he told me I wasn’t the first person to tell him that, and he would think about it. Standard interaction in youth ministry, really. I imagine most youth ministers have said, “Have you considered the priesthood?” a time or two.

It’s what comes next that’s significant: the loving and present attention a mentor in faith gives as he or she helps that young man discern, walking with him as he journeys and ponders the realities of his life, trying to hear God’s voice.

So I stuck around in Andy’s life. He and his family had become close friends, and as he went off to LSU to study architecture we kept in touch. He’d tell me about things he was working on, share papers he’d written, even visiting me with my sister in Chicago so he could tour the works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

He was a friend, not just a “former youth group teen,” and the thought of him becoming a priest sort of left my mind. He’d design beautiful buildings and make his mark on the world.

But a few years later, he called me up and told me he had some news. As we sat on my back porch, he shared that for the past few months he felt like maybe he needed to think about the priesthood. So, he applied and had been accepted to seminary. And he was going.

I laughed.

It was the first time one of those young men I’d noticed something in, and said something to, had seen the same thing in themselves.

Six years later, on a hot summer day, I sat in the front row of our cathedral and watched that gangly youth group teen walk up the aisle in a chasuble, swing a thurible around the altar, elevate the host and say the words of consecration, and then I knelt at his feet as he bestowed his priestly blessing upon me for the first time.

Little Andy, now Father DeRouen, asked me to lector at his first Mass; the other lector was the youth minister who came after me.

Two people who’d been in Andy’s life during his teenage years, who walked alongside him as he grew deeper in his faith and dove into Scripture, were the ones to proclaim God’s word at his first Mass of thanksgiving.

We often mistakenly think of youth ministry in terms of “numbers” — how many teens are coming each week and when can we get them to volunteer to stuff something in the bulletin?

But the success of youth ministry is measured not in crowd size or how many pizzas we order. It’s measured by the moments we get to see vocations discovered, come to life and flourish.

—Katie Prejean McGrady is an international Catholic speaker, writer, and author of four books.

—CNS

—Originally published in the Summer 2021 issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.

 

Second session of the Diocesan Synod

Posted on by Cori Urban

Delegates to the second session of the Diocesan Synod considered recommendations to build vibrant parishes.

The meeting, at St. Anthony Church in White River Junction Oct. 27, focused on the word “vibrant” and how it is exhibited in parishes: Can we consider that a “vibrant parish” is one that is full of energy and enthusiasm for fostering salvation, both individually and collectively? We also need to identify how that energy and enthusiasm is lived out in parishes. How do we measure vibrancy?  What criteria do we use?

Consideration also was given to a survey for implementing a process to build vibrant parish communities, taking into account the limited availability of priests and recognizing that the presence of priests for more than just the celebration of weekend Mass is essential.

The third recommendation was to investigate new forms of lay and diaconal parish leadership, helping to free priests to focus more on pastoral ministry and less on administration.

Earlier this year Burlington Bishop Christopher Coyne announced plans to convene the first Diocesan Synod in Vermont since 1962. Its purpose is to establish a pastoral plan for the immediate future of the Catholic Church in Vermont and to establish particular laws and policies to do so. This is at least a yearlong project and is “a serious undertaking by the Church,” he said.

The third synod session will be Nov. 10 at Immaculate Conception Church in Burlington.

After the synod completes its work, policies, laws and directives to carry out a plan for the future in the Vermont Church will be enacted.

 

 

Seattle Catholics celebrate 10th anniversary of St. Kateri’s canonization

Posted on by Catholic News Service

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of St. Kateri Tekakwitha’s canonization and the local miracle that elevated her to sainthood, Native people and others from around the Seattle Archdiocese gathered for a Mass at St. James Cathedral Oct. 22.

“She was called to be a saint from the day she was born,” said Elsa Finkbonner of Ferndale, whose son Jake was healed from flesh-eating bacteria in 2006 when he was 6. It was the second miracle needed for St. Kateri’s canonization by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012.

“Her significance in Jake’s healing is clear, it’s precise and it could not have been more planned,” Elsa told the congregation as she shared the story of Jake’s miracle near the conclusion of the Mass.

Jake suffered from a seemingly minor cut to his lip during a basketball game, which developed into an infection with flesh-eating bacteria. Two days later, he was airlifted to Seattle Children’s hospital; the next day, doctors told his parents, Elsa and Donny: “If you guys are praying people, you need to pray, because we’re just trying to save your son’s life,” Elsa recounted.

Father Tim Sauer (who at the time was their pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Ferndale), suggested they pray to then-Blessed Kateri, an Algonquin/Mohawk woman born in the 17th century, for her intercession to heal Jake, who is half Lummi Indian.

The Finkbonners and many others prayed to Kateri. Elsa also recounted how St. Anne Sister Kateri Mitchell, who happened to be in Seattle for a meeting, placed a relic of Blessed Kateri on Jake at the hospital and prayed over him with Elsa.

The next day, Elsa said, doctors told the Finkbonners that the disease ravaging Jake’s body for nearly two weeks had stopped progressing.

Jake, who is now 22 and a student at Western Washington University in Bellingham, also spoke to the congregation to share an “important piece of my family’s story … that God calls us all to be saints.”

He said everyone should be ready to respond to God’s call, whether it’s involuntary — like the call his family had to answer when he was injured — or voluntary.

The voluntary calls, he said, are the opportunities that God gives us to serve. His grandmother is a “fantastic example” of what it means to serve, Jake said. She helped pay for Catholic education for Jake and his sisters, grew a huge garden and gave away most of its harvest and frequently invited parish priests and parishioners over for dinner.

There are plenty of opportunities for people to serve, Jake said, and they can be as simple as sharing a meal with someone on the street, opening a door for a stranger or picking up a cup of coffee for a coworker.

During the Mass, two large images of St. Kateri were displayed, including an 8-foot-tall icon that usually hangs in the sanctuary of St. Paul Church on the Swinomish Reservation. The icon was placed in a specially made box for safe transport to the cathedral and back.

St. Kateri, the first Native American saint, was orphaned at age 4 and physically scarred by a smallpox epidemic. Later, she was baptized and given the name Catherine — “Kateri” in Mohawk. She devoted her life to teaching prayers to children and helping the sick and aged. When she died at age 24, those at her bedside witnessed her facial scars suddenly disappear a few minutes after death.

Native peoples and culture were honored throughout the celebration of her canonization anniversary. Before Mass began, a statement acknowledging that the cathedral sits on traditional Native land was read, as well as a prayer honoring “all past, present and future Indigenous stewards of these lands and waters.”

During Mass, Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne used a cedar branch, brought by the Native community, to sprinkle the congregation with holy water carried in a special eagle bowl. The bowl, carved by Jimmy Wilbur of the Swinomish Tribe, featured the face of Christ and the cross carved in the eagle’s heart.

The prayer of the faithful included a prayer for St. Kateri’s intercession that was recited by the entire congregation. Shortly before the conclusion of Mass, the Native community presented gifts of blankets, a traditional form of honor, to the archbishop and others.

After Archbishop Etienne gave the final blessing, the congregation processed out of the cathedral accompanied by the drumming of Deacon Scott Aikin, an enrolled tribal member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation of Northeast Kansas, who serves at Holy Redeemer Parish in Vancouver.

— Jean Parietti

Sculptor Edmonia Lewis shares message of human dignity through time

Posted on by Catholic News Service

Edmonia Lewis, the first African American and Native American sculptor to achieve international recognition through works that reflected her Catholic faith and the dignity of people, is being commemorated on a new postage stamp.

The stamp, the 45th in the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage series, will be issued Jan. 26 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.

The stamp’s design features a painted portrait based on an Augustus Marshall photograph taken between 1864 and 1871 while Lewis was in Boston, the USPS said.

Lewis overcame multiple obstacles before arriving in Rome in 1865 and opening a studio where she incorporated the neoclassical style popular at the time and establishing herself as one of the most significant sculptors of the 19th century.

Her work is in the permanent collections at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Howard University Gallery of Art in Washington. Works also are scattered in church institutions in the U.S. and Europe. Some continue to be discovered after being missing for decades.

Art historian Elizabeth Lev, who grew up in Boston and has lived in Rome for 30 years, said it was in the Eternal City, where its cosmopolitan atmosphere meant skin color mattered little, that Lewis found inspiration to pursue sculpting in her preferred medium of marble.

Lev described Lewis’ worked as reflecting her mixed ancestry as she created sculptures of notable abolitionists as well as figurative images that reflected experiences of people of color, particularly following the abolition of slavery.

Lewis also portrayed religious images, at times imitating neoclassical and Renaissance artists. Details of Lewis’ early life are limited. She was born in 1844 in Greenbush, New York, near Albany. Her father was Haitian American and her mother was Chippewa. Both died before Lewis was 5. Lewis was raised by her mother’s family until she was 12 and was known as “Wildfire,” according to a Smithsonian American Art Museum biography. In 1859 at age 15, her older brother, who had become a successful gold miner in California, helped Lewis enroll at Oberlin College in Ohio, one of the first institutions in the country to admit African Americans. She took the name Mary Edmonia Lewis.

She did not graduate, however. Despite the school welcoming African Americans, Lewis was subjected to racism and sexism. In 1862, two friends became ill after Lewis served them wine, opening the way to charges that she poisoned them.

The charges were dismissed at trial, but soon after Lewis was severely beaten by white vigilantes who left her for dead. About a year later, she was accused of stealing artists’ materials from the school, but again was acquitted because of a lack of evidence.

Lewis left Oberlin in 1863 for Boston, again with her brother’s assistance. There she studied under portrait sculptor Edward Brackett.

Having saved enough money from the sale of her work, Lewis traveled to Europe in 1865 at age 20 in the hope of establishing her sculpting career. After stops in London, Paris and Florence, Italy, Lewis settled in Rome, where she opened a studio during the winter of 1865-1866 collaborating with other female sculptors in a male-dominated discipline. Lev said that how Lewis became Catholic is uncertain.

Lev related one story which finds that the Native American tribe that raised her in New York was being ministered to by Jesuit missionaries.

Lev, however, doubts that was the case and points to Lewis’ time in Rome as likely being more influential in the development of her Catholic faith One of Lewis’ most well-known sculptures is “Forever Free,” created in 1867. That sculpture and others, Lev said, is how Lewis used her art to communicate in a subtle and nuanced way to address issues of social justice.

“That’s where I think we can learn from someone who knew about racism really, the woman who was beaten to within an inch of her life at Oberlin. The woman who every step of the way had to overcome obstacles,” Lev told CNS.

Lewis died in London in 1907 at age 63. She never married and had no children. She is buried in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in city’s borough of Brent.

— Dennis Sadowski

—Published in the Feb. 19-25, 2022, edition of The Inland See.