South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, January 8, 1993 Page: 3 of 16
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Gulf Coast Register/South Texas Catholic and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries.
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AROUND THE DIOCESE
January 8,1993--3
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PC3CG From page 2
Such evangelical poverty is the source of peace, since
through it the individual can establish a proper relationship
with God, with others and with creation. The life of the
person who puls himself in this situation thus witnesses to
humanity’s absolute dependence on God who loves all
creatures, and material goods come to be recognized for
what they are: a gift of God for the good of all.
Evangelical poverty is something that transforms those
who accept it. They cannot remain indifferent when faced
with the suffering of the poor; indeed, they feel impelled
to share actively with God his preferential love for them
(cf. “Soliiciludo Rei Socialis,” 42). Those who arc poor in
the Gospel sense are ready to sacrifice their resources and
their own selves so that others may live. Their one desire
is to live in peace with everyone, offering to others the gift
of Jesus’ peace (cf. Jn. 14:27).
The Divine Master has taught usby his life and words the
demanding features of this poverty which leads us to true
freedom. He "who, though he was in the form of God, did
not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but
emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-
7). He was bom in poverty: as a child he was forced to go
into exile with his family in order to escape the cruelty of
Herod; he lived as one who had “nowhere to lay his head”
(Ml. 8:20). He was denigrated as a “glutton and adrunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt. 11:19) and
suffered the death reserved for criminals. He called the
poor blessed and assured them that the kingdom of God
belonged to them (cf. Lk. 6:20). He reminded the rich that
the share of wealth stifles God’s word (cf. Ml 13:22) and
that it is difficult for them to enter the kingdom of God (cf.
Mk. 10:25).
Christ's example, no less than his words, is normative
for Christians. ,We know that, at the Last Judgment, we
shall all be judged, without distinction, on our practical
love of our brothers and sisters. Indeed, it will be in the
practical love they have shown that, on that day, many will
discover that they have in fact met Christ, although without
having known him before in an explicit way (cf. Ml 25:35-
37).
“If you want peace, reach out to thepoor!” May rich and
poor recognize that they are brothers and sisters; may they
share what they have with one another as children of the
one God who loves everyone, who wills the good of
everyone, and who offers to everyone the gift of peace!
Guatemalan accepts Nobel Peace Prize, calls for end to war
By Catholic News Service
OSLO, Norway (CNS) — Guatemalan Indian leader
Rigoberta Menchu, accepting the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize,
called for international help to end her country's guerrilla
war and eradicate human rights abuses.
Accepting the gold Nobel medal and a diploma at a
glittering ceremony at Oslo's Cily Hall, she urged greater
efforts to stamp out racism and discrimination against all
indigenous people.
“I invite the international community to contribute” to
revive stalled Guatemalan peace talks, the 33-ycar-old
Catholic woman said in an emotional speech loan audience
J* '2
i n
Jorge Serrano said Ms. Menchu could help revive the
country’s stalled peace process.
“Her acts of good will can serve for peace in every
country, including Guatemala.” Serrano told reporters at a
Central American summit in Panama Dec. 10. In Guate-
mala, talks have been deadlocked for months between left-
wing guerrillas and the government on ending a 30-year-
old war in which about 100,000 people have been killed.
Serrano has blamed guerrillas for the current impasse
and has denied that rights abuses arc systematic.
Ms. Menchu — whose father, mother and a brother were
killed by the military — wiped away tears after she spoke.
She said heronly wcaponsare words.
She called for the release of last
year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner,
B urmese opposi lion leader Au ng San
Suu Kyi. who has been under house
.arrest in Rangoon since 1989.
Apart from a gold medal and a
diploma, Ms. Menchu will receive a
check for S970.000 as part of the
award, named after Sweden’s Alfred
Nobel and first awarded in 1901.
“The goal of Rigoberta Mcnchu’s
work... is reconciliation and peace,"
said Francis Sejersted, head of the
Nobel Committee who formally
handed over the prize.
“Even in the most brutal situa-
tions, one must retain one’s faith
that there is a minimum of human
Guatemalan
Indian leader
Rigoberta
Menchu
smiles as
she displays
her 1992
Nobel Peace
Prize Dec.
Win Oslo.
Norway.
(CNS photo
from
Reuters)
that included Norway’s King Harald and Prime Minister
Gro Harlem Brundtland. Ms. Menchu, wearing traditional
bright-colored Maya clothes from her Guatemalan high-
lands, said it was “essential that the repression and perse-
cution of the people and the Indians be stopped,” adding
that the prize would help focus international attention on
Guatemala's dismal record of human rights abuses.
She said other countries should bring pressure for a joint
accord on human rights as a first step toward peace in her
country.
In Panama City the same day, Guatemalan President
feeling in all of us. Rigoberta Menchu
Turn has preserved that faith,” he said.
The United Nations has designated 1993 the Interna-
tional Year for Indigenous Populations, which coinciden-
tally started the day Ms. Menchu received her prize.
She has suggested the United Nations combine this with
a campaign against racism.
While growing up in her home village of Chimel,
Guatemala, Ms. Menchu taught Bible classes to children.
Through her church ties she became involved in social
reform, including heading the National Coordinating Com-
mission for the United Peasants Committee.
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Oscars
By Pamela J. Edwards
We are all made of stardusL This Isn’t the poetic license
I of popular song, it’s fact. Life on earth is the residue of
jVnnumcrable stars and planeLs exploded millions of years
' ago. We are stars spiritually, too, as the readings from
Advent to Epiphany reveal. Stars, illumination and light
tbound; not pretty ornamental lights that gallop across the
lawn in the shape of reindeer, but stars revealing God’s
light in a cold dark winter of sin.
We all know how the star brought the Magi from the East
as it “went ahead of them until it came to a standstill over
Lhe place where the child was. They were overjoyed at
seeing the star, and on entering the
house, found thechildwith Mary his
mother. They prostrated themselves
and didhim homage. ..and presented
him with gifts of gold, frankincense,
and myrrh." (Matthew 2).
“Is it to be wondered at,” asked St.
John Chrysostom, “thatadi vine star
ministers to the rising Sun of Righ-
teousness? It halLs above the head of
the child as if saying, This is he.’”
In thedepthsof the pagan winter, the
Sun of Righteousness Malachi
prophesied rose with healing in its
wings.
“Then all magic was broken,” wrote Sl Ignatius of
Antioch, “and every bond wrought by wickness was bro-
ken, and the ancient kingdom was razed. When God
appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal
life, his counsel began to be fulfilled.”
Yet Christ the Sun of Righteousness is also a star.
He is the Daystar: “a light shining in dark place, until the
day dawns and the daystar rises in your hearts.” (Second
Peter 1:19), and the “bright morning star” (Revelation
22:16).
Stars not only illuminate, they guide. In his book, W0
Portraits of Christ, Henry Gariepy writes, “Christ as the
Bright Morning Star, shines brightly when all other stars of
our life fade away....prestige, position, possessions, and
persons dear to us will one by one grow dim and fade away.
But after everything else has vanished, Christ will still
shine...on in the darkest night and will radiantly beam over
the horizon of life when the dawn breaks and the shadows
flee away.
An artist once drew a picture of a lone man rowing his
little boat on a dark night. The wind is fierce, the waves
crest and rage... But there is one star that shines through the
dark and angry sky above. On that star the voyager fixes his
eyes and keeps on rowing through the storm. Beneath the
picture are the words, ‘If I lose that I'm lost.”’
We draw courage from the entire winter cycle of the
Church because it’s the story of light: “one grand feast
beginning with dawn on the first Sunday of Advent ("It is
now the hour for us to rise from sleep’’), growing in
brilliance like the sun at Christmas, reaching zenith at
Epiphany, and finally settling at Candclmas (Presentation
in the Temple). It is the glorious symbol of sun and light
that gives this season its unity. All is centered on Christ, the
true Sun.” (Pius Parsch).
And just as the light of a star beckoned the Magi to the
Child, it beckons us as well. ‘The obediancc of the star calls
us to imitate its humble service: to be servants, as best we
can, of the grace that invites us all to find Christ,” said Leo
the Great.
In his “Sermon for Epiphany,” Mark Searle relates
Christ’s first Epiphany to the Magi to His Epiphany in the
cold city streets of our secular world:
“In this city, we are mostly strangers: strangers as much
to its glitter as to its degradation, strangers to its power and
its powerless, gawking spectators of its opulence.
Ill-at-ease amid its ghettos, its violence, its profanity.
Faces flash by us on the street, ‘tired of wishes, emptied of
dreams,’ everyone a stranger, never seen before nor since.
And yet, each a face, a life, a history for whom the Christ
was bom and whose image he held in mind in the hour of
his dying.
In this strange land, amid these unfamiliar faces, there is
a way to see the Epiphany: it is to see ourselves and to
recognize our condition in these otherwise alien people.
It is to know ourselves compacted with
them in a common destiny, the destiny
of children marked for death, heirs of
the promise through the Child marked
for death.... since this Immortal One
was born mortal with us and for
us...whatever he took on himself we
must ourselves take up.
Knowing we share the same curse and
the same promise as the Jews and the
Puerto Ricans, the shop-girls and the
pom-peddlers, Marshall Field and the
city cop, the lady swathed in fur and the
women and children marked by wanton
hunger, in knowing ourselves co-heirs
with them, members of the same Body, we know the Child
the wise men found with Mary his mother, the Child
marked to die. Wc observed his star at its rising and have
come to pay him homage: to proclaim his death until he
comes in glory."
1992 was a dark year for many of us: unemployment,
illness, poverty, discrimination, war, violenco—even the
weather failed us. It is the time of year to take stock, to
ponder the past and gather strength to encounter another
year.
Yelaswegoforwardinto 1993, we recall Psalm 147read
during the 1 si Week of Advent: “He tells the number of the
stars; he calls each by name." Wc are all made of stardust.
And as stars God is calling us all to be servants of the Sun
of Righteousness.
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Horseman, Pete & Vega, John Michael. South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, January 8, 1993, newspaper, January 8, 1993; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth855936/m1/3/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .