Guest Columnists

Remember there are certain things the coronavirus cannot do, says Sulpician Father Gerald Coleman: cripple love, shatter hope, corrode faith, destroy peace, kill friendship, suppress memories, silence courage, invade the soul, or steal eternal life.

The great mystic and saint, Teresa of Avila once said she often lived her days as if God were absent. I suppose many of us suffer from this indisposition as well. What is it that happens? We all share this problem: Taking relationships for granted. Whether we’re talking about God or a spouse, a good friend, a close relative, our children, companions in community, distancing happens. Emergencies happen. We are busy, worried, overworked and inattentive.

The extraordinary journey of Anne Marie Becraft, who became Oblate Sister of Providence Mary Aloysius, is one that powerfully illustrates the foundational presence of black Catholics in the U.S. church and nation at large. It is also a story that disrupts and revises much of what has been said and written about the American Catholic experience.

Sheep respond to only one voice: their shepherd’s. When strangers call out to them, they ignore the illegitimate voices. When their own shepherd calls, they follow.

For some years, I was part of a team of spiritual directors, psychotherapists and lecturers offering a nine-month renewal program to groups of missionary priests and brothers. The men were ordained or had professed vows for 10 years. They had labored for the Lord in some very difficult and dangerous mission stations in Africa and Latin America. Many of them were traumatized and, like so many veterans of war, needed help to regain physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.