This upcoming weekend, I will be preaching a mission appeal at St Matthew Catholic Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. We go out to different parishioner throughout the country in the summer months from the Diocese of Jackson to parishes in other parts of the country, to share our experiences of being a missionary church here in Mississippi. The following is the homily I am going to preach there this upcoming weekend.
In our Gospel readings these past couple of weeks, we’ve heard how Jesus and his disciples are trying to get away for some rest, but the crowds keep following them. Wherever they go, Jesus and his disciples have captured the imagination and the attention of the crowd. The people are hungry for many things in their lives. Jesus realizes that this goes beyond physical hunger, that feeding their physical appetite will not only satisfy one level of hunger, but it will be a sign that he will be able to feed their other types of hunger as well. With the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, Jesus and the disciples feed the hungry crowds. The crowds eat as much as they want until they are satisfied, with many baskets of food left over. Through this miracle, the crowds recognize Jesus as the true prophet of God who has come into their midst.
As we hear about the crowds who came to Jesus, who hungered for his word and for his ministry, I come to you today as a priest from a missionary diocese in our country - the Diocese of Jackson in the state of Mississippi. You probably picture Mississippi as being in the heart of the Bible belt, which is definitely true. We have a large Diocese geographically, taking up most of the state, all except the cluster of counties along the Gulf Coast. In fact, our Diocese is the largest geographically in the US East of the Mississippi River. Even though we are large geographically, our Diocese has the lowest percentage of Catholics in any Diocese in the United States, estimated to be about 2.3%. There were priests in the state of Mississippi during the time of the Spanish conquistadors and explorers, up until the time that the Spanish settlements were disbanded in the territory of Mississippi. Our Diocese was established in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI. Currently we have around 100 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, and some don’t have even one.
I have been a Diocese priest for 10 1/2 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. While stationed in the Delta, I served 3 parishes and two prisons. I remember telling a priest in California that the territory I served in the Delta encompassed about 1,400 square miles; his jaw just about fell on the floor. However, in those two counties, there was only about 37,000 people. While I was serving there, one of those counties, Humpheys county, was reported to have the highest child poverty and the lowest median family income of any county in the entire United States. For this past year, I’ve been serving as the pastor of St Jude Catholic Church in the town of Pearl. I would describe it as a working class parish in a very rural county, even though it is not far from the city of Jackson, our state capital.
You can probably tell from my accent that I am not originally from Mississippi myself. I was born in Chicago - in the Northside neighborhood of Rogers Park. As a young adult, as I served as a lay missionary in Canada and South America for 7 years, I felt God calling me to be a missionary in my own land. This drew me to a state of Mississippi. For more than a century, the majority of our priests in Mississippi came from Ireland. In fact, I know of one parish in our Diocese in the city of Vicksburg that predates that Civil War, where every pastor they have had has been born in Ireland. There are also a lot of priests from different parts of the US who like me felt the call to be of service in the missionary territories of our own country. We have different priests from religious orders serving in our Diocese - the Redemptorists, the Society of the Divine Word, the Trinitarians, the Norbertines, and the Christian brothers to name some of these congregations.
I recall how two years ago, in August of 2016, I was staying with family friends here 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 sisters who worked in my Diocese had been killed. Sister Margaret Held of the School Sisters of St Francis from Milwaukee and Sister Paula Merrill of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky, had run a medical clinic in Holmes County in central Mississippi, one of the poorest counties in our entire country. They were very beloved members of our Diocese and of the community where they served - all of us were so shocked when we heard that they had been murdered. 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 ladies and their witness of faith to the community as I was preparing for my trip up here to Indianapolis, as they represent the missionary spirit of our Diocese, of bringing the Gospel and the 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. Thank you for your prayers and your support.
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