The last couple of weeks we have been hearing from the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel. We continue to hear from this chapter today. In the last couple weeks, we’ve heard of Jesus feeding the hungry crowds through the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. We've heard him talk about how he is the bread of heaven that gives us eternal life. However, in response, the crowd is murmuring with discontent about how this lowly carpenter's son thinks he can lecture them about having been sent from heaven by God, his father. Jesus' teachings on the Eucharist in these readings from John’s Gospel give us an opportunity to reflect upon what it means for us to receive Christ as the bread of life in our day-to-day reality and how it can transform our lives.
The Eucharist unites all of us as Catholics throughout the world, as all of us make up the Body and Blood of Christ in the Church. In this context, I come to you today as a priest from a missionary diocese in our country, the Diocese of Jackson, located in the state of Mississippi. When you hear a mission appeal in your parish, you probably anticipate someone talking about the missions in a far away country, but this mission appeal today comes from right here in the United States. All of you here in the Midwest state of Indiana probably picture Mississippi as being in the heart of the Bible belt in the Deep South - this is a true image. The Diocese of Jackson is very large geographically. It takes up most of the state of Mississippi, all except the area along the MS Gulf Coast. We are the largest Diocese geographically east of Mississippi River. However, we have the lowest % of Catholics in any Diocese in the US: 2.3%. There were priests in our area during the time of the Spanish conquistadors, up until the time the territory of Mississippi was formed prior to it becoming a state. Our Diocese was established in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI. Currently we have around 90 parishes and missions, but most are rather small, reflecting the rural nature of our state. Most counties in our Diocese only have only one parish; some don’t have even one parish.
I’ve been a Diocesan priest for 13 years. My first assignment as pastor was in the communities of Yazoo City and Belzoni in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, the cotton growing region along the Mississippi River. and the region of one of the highest levels of poverty in our country. While stationed in the Delta, I served as the priest in 3 parishes an 2 prisons. The territory I served in these two counties in the Delta encompassed about 1,400 sq miles. However, the population was only about 37,000 people in these two counties combined. A couple of weeks ago, I did a mission appeal in southern California and stayed in the Diocese of Orange - that entire diocese was much smaller than the mission area I covered in those two counties in the Delta. I had a 30 minute drive between two of these parishes in which there was just cotton fields and swamp land, no towns or gas stations or anything like that. While serving there, one of those counties, Humpheys county, had the highest child poverty rate and lowest median family income of any county in the US. For the past 4 years, I have been serving as the pastor of St Jude in Pearl, a working class parish in a very rural county, although not far from the city of Jackson. For the past two years, I have also served as the Vicar General of the Diocese.
From my accent, you can probably detect that I am not from Mississippi originally. Hopefully, you can detect a little bit of a Midwest accent as well. I was born in Chicago, where I lived until I was 12 years old, at which time my family moved to southern California. I came into the Catholic Church as a young adult through the RCIA program. Right after my conversion to Catholicism, I served as a lay missionary in Canada and Ecuador. That brought me to Diocese of Jackson and the state of Mississippi.
I recall how five years ago, in summer of 2016, I was staying with family friends up in Indianapolis trying to rest and recuperate from a bout of pneumonia. I received a text from a good friend back in Mississippi, telling me that CNN had just reported that two religious sisters who worked in my Diocese had been killed. Sister Margaret Held of the School Sisters of St Francis from Milwaukee WI & Sr Paula Merrill of Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, KY, had run a medical clinic in Holmes County in central MS, one of the poorest counties in US. Over 1/3 of the residents in rural Holmes county received medical care from their clinic. They were very beloved members of our Diocese and of the community where they served; all of us were so shocked that they had been murdered by someone who had been suffering from mental illness. Going to their memorial service at the Cathedral in Jackson the next week with all my fellow priests was a very emotional experience. I thought of these two wonderful religious sisters and their witness of faith to the community as I was preparing for my mission, as they represent the missionary spirit of our Diocese, of bringing the Gospel and love of Christ to the people of Mississippi.
I want to thank all of you for the opportunity to share with you our experiences in the Diocese of Jackson. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ and it is important for us to be in solidarity together in proclaiming God’s kingdom here on earth. Collection. Thank you for your prayers and your support.
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