In the Gospels, we hear many stories of people coming to Jesus to bring healing in their lives. They have faith that Jesus can cure them and perform a miracle. In our Gospel today, the Canaanite woman asks for healing for her daughter, presenting us with an amazing story of faith. Even when Jesus does not seem open to healing her daughter, she persists in her faith, pleading and paying him homage. Jesus finally is able to recognize her great faith and heals her daughter.
As we hear this great story of faith today, I come to you as your brother in our Catholic faith. My name is Father Lincoln Dall. I am a priest from the missionary Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi. I come to you to share stories of faith from our missionary Diocese. We might think of missions bringing the faith to people in faraway lands, but we also have mission territory right here in the US. The Diocese of Jackson is located in the deep South, located between the states of Louisiana and Alabama. While it has been hot here in the southern California this summer, hot and humid is the norm in Mississippi. Very hot and humid. We are the largest Diocese in the eastern part of the United State East in territory, but we also have the smallest percentage of Catholics of any Diocese in our country, at about 2.3 per cent. Our Diocese, is comprised of 65 counties in the state of Mississippi. Some counties have only one parish, and some counties have no parish at all.
I have been a priest for 15 year in the Diocese of Jackson. My first assignment as pastor was in the Mississippi Delta, the region of rich farmland that hugs the Mississippi River where a lot of cotton is grown. I was pastor of three parishes and chaplain of two prisons located in Yazoo and Humphreys counties. My territory covered about 1,400 squares miles, but had only a total of 37,000 inhabitants. To put this in perspective, Orange County, which is its own Diocese, is less than 1,000 square miles. The two parishes in Yazoo City were about 25 miles from the parish in Belzoni, between which were no towns and not even a gas station, but only farmland, swamps, and bayous. While serving the Catholics of Humphreys county as their pastor, that county had the highest child poverty rate and lowest median family income of any county in the US.
I currently serve as pastor in two parishes located in the towns of Raymond and Clinton, just outside the City of Jackson. I am also the vicar general of the Diocese, an assignment I have had for four years. In addition, I am very active in prison ministry in the Diocese, serving as chaplain in two prisons.
You may have been expecting me to have a strong Southern drawl. However, from my accent, you can tell that I am not originally from Mississippi. I was born in Chicago and grew up as a teenager in Santa Ana in Orange County, so I have a strong connection to Southern California. I started my career as an accountant, but felt God calling me to missionary work. I became a lay missionary, serving in Canada for three years, working in a soup kitchen and with the indigenous people there, and also for three years and in Ecuador, working in a mission site in a large rain forest jungle.
I spoke about serving as pastor in Yazoo City. There is someone from Yazoo City, Mississippi who one day could become a saint. Her name is Sister Thea Bowman. Born in Yazoo City in 1937 to an African American family, her father was a doctor and her mother an educator. Even though they were not Catholic, her parents felt that their daughter would receive the best education possible at the Catholic school run by nuns. Thea decided to become Catholic as a girl and at the age of 15, decided to become a nun herself. She joined the Franciscan sisters of perpetual adoration, the order of sisters that taught at her school. She taught English on the elementary school and college level. She became a great evangelizer in the Catholic faith, reaching out to people of different races and cultures. She also was an accomplished singer and musician, being one of the editors of the African American Catholic hymnal. She came back to our Diocese in the 1980s, serving in the office of intercultural ministry. She died in 1990 at the age of 52. I mention Sister Thea Bowman because her joyful spirit and creative approach to ministry represents the missionary spirit of our Diocese. We indeed have a diverse Catholic population in the Diocese of Jackson, with many Asian and Hispanic Catholics and a good number of historically African American churches.
We will be taking up a collection for the Diocese of Jackson today at mass. These mission funds we collect go to help our Catholic schools and the small parishes in the rural areas of our Diocese. I mentioned my prison ministry; some of these funds have helped expand our prison ministry and to purchase Bibles, catechisms, and rosaries for them. Some weeks we visit more than 200 prisoners. Another example of the use of our funds is the purchase of a copy machine for a small African American parish in the Mississippi Delta in the town of Indianola when the current copy machine stopped working.
I am so glad I was able to visit your parish this weekend. As Catholics, it is important for us to have unity and solidarity, to share in the Body and Blood of Christ around the altar, and to share our experiences and stories with each other. Thank you for any help you can give us. Be assured I will pray for all of you and for your parish community. I ask for your prayers for our missionary Diocese as well.
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