What do we have to do to truly be a disciple of Jesus? Who will be chosen to enter into God’s eternal kingdom? In essence, that is what Jesus is asked in today’s Gospel as he is teaching in the towns and villages on his way to Jerusalem: “Jesus, will only a few people be saved? Will I be among them?” In his response to this question, perhaps Jesus is telling us that it is entirely another question that we need to be asking instead. Perhaps the question we should be asking pertains to how we can grow in our relationship with Jesus and grow on our journey of faith, not worrying about who will gain entrance to God’s kingdom.
As all of us are journey of the road of disciples, as we all try to grow in different ways in our relationship with Christ, I come to you today as a brother of X from a missionary diocese here in the US, the Diocese of Jackson located in the state of Mississippi. Indeed, we have mission territories overseas, but we also have mission territory here in our own country. The Diocese of Jackson is very large geographically, taking up most of the state of Mississippi. We are the largest Diocese geographically east of MS River, but we have the lowest % of Catholics in any Diocese in the US at 2.3%. Whereas the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has more than 4 million Catholics covering about 5,400 sq miles, the Diocese of Jackson has about 55,000 Catholics covering more than 37,000 square miles, an area almost seven times as big as the entire Archdiocese of Los Angeles. We have 90 parishes & missions, but most are small, reflecting the rural nature of our state. Most of the 65 counties in our Diocese only have only one parish; some don’t have even one parish.
I have been a Diocesan priest for 14 years. My first assignment as pastor was in the communities of Yazoo City and Belzoni in the heart of the MS Delta, the cotton growing region along the Mississippi River that has one of the highest levels of poverty in our country. While stationed in the Delta, I served as the priest in 3 parishes and 2 prisons. This pastoral assignment in these 2 counties encompassed large area of approximately 1,400 square miles. However, the population was only about 37,000 people in these two counties. I had a 30 mile drive between two parishes in the middle of cotton fields and swamp, with no towns or gas stations or stores in between. 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 United States. I current serve as vicar general of the Diocese and pastor of two parishes in the towns of Clinton and Raymond in the outskirts of city of Jackson.
From my accent, you can probably detect that I am not from Mississippi originally. Hopefully, you can detect a little bit of a California accent. Although I am originally from Chicago, I lived as a teenager in Santa Ana in Orange County. After serving as a missionary in Ecuador, Canada, and Africa as a young adult, I decided to become a priest in a mission area of the United States, which brought me to Mississippi.
I had mentioned that I had served as pastor of the Catholic Church in the small town of Yazoo City. There is actually someone from that town who could be canonized as a saint one day. Thea Bowman, who was born in that town in 1937, was educated at a Catholic school in our Diocese. Raised in an African American Methodist family, she converted to Catholicism as a girl and decided to join the order of sisters that taught at that school, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration from Wisconsin. She was the first African American sister in that order. Sister Thea Bowman became a renowned professor in literature, African American church music, and African American Catholic spirituality. She later returned to our Diocese to head the office of intercultural ministry & to work on racial healing in Mississippi. She brought a lot of joy and love to many people within the Church. She worked to bring people of different races and cultural groups together, respect their unique gifts. Her life was cut short when she died of cancer in 1990 at the age of 52. Her cause for canonization was approved by the US Bishops in 2018. I thought of Sister Thea and her witness of faith as I was preparing for my mission appeal at your parish, as she represents the missionary spirit of our Diocese, of bringing the Gospel and love of X to the people of MS and beyond, of working together in the rich cultural diversity & traditions that make up our Church.
I want to thank all of you for the opportunity to share with you our experiences in the Diocese of Jackson. We are all bros&sis in X. It is important for us to be in solidarity together in proclaiming God’s kingdom here on earth. We are going to take up a second collection for our Diocese. Those funds are used to help fund the small mission parishes and schools in our Diocese. I thank you for any support you can give us. As I will pray for all of you, I ask that you pray for our Mission Diocese of Jackson.
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