It is very wonderful being with all of you here today to celebrate Mass around the table of the Lord. My name is Father Lincoln Dall. I come to you as a brother in Christ from the Diocese of Jackson in Mississippi, in the deep South. When you receive a visit from a missionary at your parish, you are probably expecting a missionary serving in a faraway land. I am from a missionary territory in our own country. Our Diocese has the lowest percentage of Catholics of any Diocese in the US, about 3%. Most of our 90 parishes are small and located in rural areas, far different from the reality here in Los Angeles. We also do not have any large cities in Mississippi, so our parishes are spread out throughout sparsely populated rural areas.
Today, we hear the familiar creation story from the opening chapters of the book of Genesis, of how God created the universe as a fruit of his goodness and creativity. God created the universe because he did not want to be alone, just as God saw that man would not want to be alone and how man needed a partner. The birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth were a part of God’s creation. Friday, we celebrated the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, a saint who had a deep love for all of God’s creation here on earth. Even though Francis was born in the 12th century, his teachings still speak to our modern world today. I think of our Diocese of Jackson and your Diocese here in Des Moines, how our states are both very rural, how we see God’s creation in the nature around us. But our rural states present us a lot of challenges in our ministry, with priests covering many small parishes and of traveling large distances. We try to respond to those needs in our ministries in the Diocese of Jackson with our Catholic schools that are located in rural areas, with our small parishes located in remote parts of our Diocese, and with the different intercultural ministries that we have, including our growing Hispanic population and our historic African American parishes.
You probably do not detect a strong Southern accent in my voice. That is because I am not originally from Mississippi. I am actually originally from Chicago. I am currently the pastor of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Raymond, MS and Holy Savior Catholic Church in Clinton, MS, two towns just outside the city of Jackson. I have also been serving as the vicar general of the Diocese for the past five years.
In wanting to share some specific ministry stories with all of you from our Diocese, I thought of the prison ministry in our Diocese, something that is very dear to my own heart. I have been involved in prison ministry most of my priesthood. I go out to the federal prison in Yazoo City, which has about 6,000 inmates, and the Mississippi state prison just outside of Jackson, with about 4,000 inmates. Often, the prisons in Mississippi are places of gangs, of violence, and of drugs, places without a lot of hope. For many years, we struggled to even get access to see the inmates. Often, at the state prison, I would have mass at the foyer of the building where the inmates lived, sometimes in the fire station at the prison, or even on a picnic bench outside the prison cafeteria. About a year ago, we got access to have Mass in the chapel and have been able to go out every week, which has made a huge difference. You probably can imagine what terrible living conditions they have in the prisons in Mississippi. If you can believe, most of the inmates live in housing units that have no air conditioning at all. Unbelievable. Yet, our ministry has transformed the lives of many inmates. We sometimes have more than 200 inmates attending Mass during any given week. We have had more than 20 men enter the Church this year. I have inmates themselves as the leaders of our Catholic community at the prison, even Eucharistic ministers. They try to be witnesses of our Catholic faith to the other inmates. You can tell I am very passionate about the prison ministry. It is amazing to see God at work in this mission environment of the prisons.
I am here as a priest from the missionary Diocese of Jackson to share some of our stories with you as a part of our Church’s larger missionary effort. Pope Francis has said that we as a Church should never lose our missionary identity. We always need to be a Church who goes forth into the world and invites others to our faith. Pope Francis calls all of us to be missionary in spirit, for all Catholics to be a part of the universal mission effort of the Church. And I think most importantly, in a world torn apart by divisions and conflict, we must recognize each other as our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we see ourselves as missionary in spirit, when we encounter our neighbor and invite him into our faith, it will open up so many possibility for us as well on our own journey and to see the Gospel in a new wonderful light.
I am so grateful to be here with all of you this weekend. To celebrate around the altar of the Lord. Your parish is going to have a second collection to help us with the missionary needs of our Diocese, to help our prison ministry, our rural parishes, and our rural schools. I want to thank you for any help you are able to give. Also, I am ask for your prayers for our Diocese of Jackson. And be assured that I will keep all of you and your parish in my prayers as well.
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