Current News

GREENVILLE—Black Catholics are united not only by heritage and history, but also through the sacraments.

That was the key lesson ValLimar Jansen and other speakers shared with more than 300 people from around the state who attended the annual Black Catholics’ Heritage Celebration in Greenville April 5-6.

The theme was “Family Reunion 2013,” and discussions focused on how the faithful should recognize other Catholics as part of a larger spiritual family united through belief in Christ and the power of the Eucharist.

Jansen, a singer, songwriter and recording artist who also frequently speaks on Catholic liturgy and worship, led a vibrant session April 6 that used music, storytelling and audience participation to stress the unique nature of Catholic unity.

“Our one baptism makes us all family … we belong to the same family and come from the same Father,” she said. “We cannot grow tired of each other because we’re all walking the same road of faith together, connected for eternity.”

Jansen said access to the sacraments can help people get through any of life’s trials. Confession, she said, is especially important because it offers a path back to oneness in God’s family that can be damaged through sin.

“Remember that nothing can separate us from God,” she said. “His love is greater than any circumstance. When we participate in reconciliation and we’re back in oneness with God … you can know beyond any doubt that He is with us, He knows all about us and loves us still.”

Jansen said black Catholics will be challenged on a daily basis by today’s culture, especially because, as a denomination, they are a minority not only in the black community but in the Southeast as a whole.

“Our belief does not always bring us good times,” she said. “It’s not easy to be a Roman Catholic in the South. We must take this faith of ours and go out every day expecting to see Jesus in the face of the strangers we meet, and expecting to love everyone as God instructed us. We need to recall that in the Eucharist, we’re being formed by Jesus who is present, filled and transformed by the real presence of Jesus.”

Special breakout sessions on April 6 offered men, women and young people the chance to talk about issues specific to their experience. The “Men’s Cave” focused on helping men learn how to develop faith-filled relationships in the family, the parish, and the business world. Women took part in a session called “In My Mother’s House,” where they discussed values garnered from their mothers, teachers and important women in their lives, plus how to pass knowledge about faith and morals to today’s young women.

Photos: Jansen(top); Jacquelyn Lambert (left) and Martha Harris (right), both of Greenville,  share a moment of laughter during the Black Catholic Family Reunion on April 6.

CHARLESTON—Meet the new director of Research and Planning for the Diocese of Charleston — Lydia Doyle.

The Atlanta native fills a position that has been vacant for almost three years, since Lisa Rawlins Durst resigned in August 2010. Doyle said she spent her first week on the job familiarizing herself with the diocesan plan for development and formulating ideas on how to best move forward.

At 30, she already has six years of research and planning experience with various agencies, including the University of Georgia, local governments and non-profits. Her most recent post was a two-year stint at a historical society in North Carolina.

Doyle has a bachelor’s degree in history from Notre Dame, plus a master’s in historical preservation and a juris doctor degree, all of which aid in her chosen career path.

She said she loves figuring out where an organization is, where they want to go, and planning how to get there.

“It’s always something different. I love working with people and getting out there on the road,” she said, adding that she usually puts about 30,000 miles a year on her “poor little car.”

Doyle said she’s excited about working with the Catholic Church because it has personal meaning, allowing her to help connect people with their faith. To that end, she’s looking forward to visiting all the parishes and getting to know people at each church.

One thing that is important at all churches is keeping adults connected to their faith through ongoing education, and creating programs that span across generations and income groups, she said.

Her first trip won’t be around the state, but across the country to Seattle, Wash., for a conference on Catholic facility management to help with her position on the building and renovation committee.

In the meantime, Doyle is settling into her new town with her two dogs, which she calls “humane society specials,” and waiting on the arrival of her horse. She said she started begging for a horse and riding lessons when she was 5 and her mom finally relented when she was 9. She has been riding competitively ever since.

One tactic that modern secular, progressive, anti-Catholic, agnostic, atheistic, outright angry celebrities employ is to ridicule away the names of Christian festivals by appealing to their supposed ancient pagan origins. They tell us, for instance, that our celebration of Easter is nothing other than the celebration of an ancient Germanic-Anglo Saxon fertility goddess named Eostre and the use of the Easter bunny and its eggs are links to this ancient “goddess.”

This supposed explanation for the origin of the English name of the Christian solemnity known as Easter has but one ancient source. St. Bede the Venerable, an eighth century English monk, notes in his writings that “Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘Easter’ and which was once called after a goddess named Eostre.”

Strange how one monk’s explanation for how the Resurrection came to be called “Easter” in English is cause to dismiss the whole event as a mean-spirited Christian attempt to supplant ancient, enlightened celebrations of a goddess. The truth is that the genius of Christianity is its ability to find itself within a given cultural context and interpret existing symbols and festivals in light of Jesus Christ.

If the fertility goddess Eostre’s name is indeed the origin of the word Easter, it was a logical way Christian evangelists could explain to pagans how the true God is the real author of creation. Only He has been able to overcome death, the ultimate robber of humanity’s ability to continue in existence.

The Easter bunny and its eggs were not used as symbols for the Resurrection until our Lutheran friends employed them in the 17th century. Nonetheless the rabbit, or bunny, or hare, is one of the most prodigiously reproducing, fertile animals on planet earth. The creation of God, who can create by mere pronouncement of His Word, may be likened to the ability of this animal to pro-create.

While rabbits do not lay eggs we know that, like humans, females are able to reproduce only because their reproductive systems produce eggs. The egg can be seen like the boulder that once lay across the entrance to Jesus’ tomb, which was broken like an egg so that the Lord could rise forth to new life.

Perhaps we could interpret the word “Easter” in a different way. To modern ears, Easter sounds more like the direction east on the compass. Multiple references in both the Old and New Testaments describe the coming and return of the Lord as originating in the east, just as the sun rises in the morning, to shine His light on the world.

Ezekiel, for instance, says, “The glory of the LORD entered the temple by way of the gate facing east.” And Matthew says, “For just as lightning comes from the east and is seen as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” The priest celebrant may face the altar during Mass to remind us of this.

The celebration of Easter is not a Christian’s way of supplanting, or honoring some pagan goddess. It is the Christian’s way of looking for the Lord — as did the women at the tomb on Easter morning — and honoring the God of perfect creation, light, and peace.

Unlike the solitary explanation that we call it “Easter” after a pagan deity, our celebration of the Resurrection has the whole Bible as its source. All we must do is continue to look for His return by a

worthy way of life.