52 Masses

Since I’m still more than 2 years away from my trip, there isn’t as much to say now as there will be when I hit the road.

Nonetheless, I hope to keep this blog current with new links and messages, whether that’s some of the people I’m communicating with as I plow forward, links to worthwhile organizations (such as this one) or other items that fit in here (such as this review).

If you’d like to stay abreast of any new content that I post here, I encourage you to follow me. You can do so by clicking on the small follow icon that appears and disappears at the bottom of the page (at least that’s what it does for me).

 

Were I tempted to write about Thomas J. Scecina, the Catholic Priest who served as a POW in World War II, my good friend and Scecina High School graduate Chris Crabtree would have disabused me of that notion.

It’s not because Scecina is an unworthy subject for the words and sentences treatment. On the contrary. It’s only because Chris and Jeff Langholz have already delivered a portrait of Scecina so thorough that I wouldn’t dare try to follow.

Scecina is one of the central characters in their new book, Hold Strong. It’s a historical novel based on the mostly unexplored story of U.S. soldiers taken as prisoners of war in the Pacific Theater. The novel captures the story after the soldiers had endured the Bataan Death March, during their time on the Arisan Maru, a Japanese hellship for American POWs. It’s a harrowing tale that takes no shortcuts.

Through exhaustive research into materials unclassified 30 years after the war, combined with interviews they conducted, Chris and Jeff deliver a plausible explanation for some of the events surrounding the ships’ fates. I’ll spare you the details to allow you to discover the story on your own. But the novel digs into, and prompts meaningful questions about, the decisions made in combat, both at the strategic and individual levels, all the while keeping you riveted by the remarkable events as they transpire.

And for Catholics, the book does a marvelous job exploring Scecina’s commitment, and how he inspires the men around him in the face of horrific conditions. Chris and Jeff manage to do in this historical novel what I want to do with my project – present a compelling picture of our faith at work.

Hold Strong is currently available on Amazon, linked here. A print version will follow.

 

 

One of the things I truly appreciate about the Catholic school education my children have received is the expectation of service. At Andrean, where my oldest son and daughter attended, and Marquette, where my son is now a junior, the students must perform a few dozen hours each school of volunteer work. As far as I know, those obligations are standard practice in the parochial school system.

It was that system that brought Cormac and I to Duneland Community Church on Saturday morning. Cormac was there to move closer to his service-hour requirement. I wanted to learn about the program he was volunteering for, Free the Girls.

Free the Girls is a Chesterton-based organization designed to help young women who had been victims of human trafficking as they rebuild their lives. It’s active in three developing countries: Mozambique, El Salvador and Costa Rica. The organization was founded in 2010 by Dave Terpstra and his wife, who were simply looking for a way for ordinary people to help fight the global scourge that is human trafficking.

The organization is not engaged in extricating the women from captivity, or the immediate rehabilitation process. Instead, they are focused on the next step in the process. “That’s our niche: reintegration,” says Terpstra.

Free the Girls accomplishes it’s goal through a rather simple model. It collects gently used bras from all over the country, then ships them to the organization and partner organizations in the three countries. There, the freed women sell them into the active used clothing markets in those countries.

The women are charged, after sale, half-price for the first batch of bras, which goes up to full price after several cycles. After a year of selling only bras, the women must add a second product line that they can obtain from wholesalers to then sell in addition to the undergarment.

After the two years, they’re no longer eligible to sell the bras, but they have that additional product that they can continue to sell. “They know how to sell in the local market,” he explains. The idea is to leave them prepared to build a life after exiting the program.

The bras are collected in a variety of ways. The group has drop-off sites around the country. American Eagle’s Aerie brand also runs a drop-off site, with any donors receiving 15 percent off the purchase of a new bra. And some bras simply get sent in via the mail.

They all come to Chesterton, chosen as the site because its pastor is on the board of directors at Free the Girls and the church is housed in a former warehouse. It was the perfect location from which to operate such an enormous endeavor.

Once a month or so, volunteers such as the Marquette kids and the others there Saturday are brought in to spend a few hours sorting and packing the donations that came in for shipment to the three countries.

“We’re just asking for a couple of hours of time. Yes, we’d love money, but right now we’re just interested in people’s time,” says Pam Gumns, warehouse manager.

“My favorite part of Free the Girls is just seeing what the average person can do just by showing up. If these people didn’t show and pack boxes, then these women couldn’t improve their lives and get out of trafficking. There’s a very tangible collection,” says Terpstra, who spends most of his time in Mozambique.

If you’d like more information about Free the Girls or how to help, visit http://www.freethegirls.org. Gently used bras can be sent to Free The Girls, 1552 Pioneer Trail, Chesterton, IN 46304.

Note: This piece is roughly 15 years old. I wrote it for one of the first issues of Organic Farming Magazine, a publication which no longer exists. I see it as the kind of story I’ll be telling at each of the parishes I visit.

First-time visitors to the small Southeastern Indiana town of Oldenburg must wonder if somewhere along the way, a historically wrong turn has been made. The first thing that catches the eye, before beginning the descent into the tiny village, is the trio of Old World spires that peek over the treetops. Down below beckon the brick streets and sidewalks, their glorious red patterns mocking the dull gray pavement left behind. And a glance at the street signs noting the intersection of Maulbeerfeiger Strasse and Wasserstrasse will render the conclusion a traveler has not just been transported back in time, but across the ocean as well.

In this setting, the farm at the other end of town, the one operated by four Franciscan nuns, seems perfectly natural.

Which, in fact, it is. For more than 150 years, the Sisters of St. Francis have owned and farmed this Franklin County land. Yet it’s been only over the last 15 years that the sisters have found the ideal way to employ the land in a way that embodies the spirit of their patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi.

In the 1990s, Michaela Farm was converted to an organic operation, producing only naturally grown crops and grass-fed livestock. To the sisters, the choice to grow organic foods fits perfectly with their mission to nurture sustainable relationships among land, plants, animals and humans.

“It has to do with care for the earth and a kinship with all of creation,” Sister Ann Marie Quinn said.

That care is being tackled on several fronts at the farm. Besides traditional food production, the sisters also strive to educate the community on environmental issues and practices that can be implemented at home.

Their work also includes fostering spirituality through communing with the natural environment.

Each of the sisters working at Michaela Farm has a specific responsibility toward meeting that mission. Sister Ann Marie develops educational and spiritual programs; Sister Marie Nett tends the gardens; Sister Carolyn Hoff oversees the grounds and buildings; and retired Sister Claire Whelan manages the farm’s Share The Bounty program.

All of these women were employed in Catholic schools throughout Central and Southeastern Indiana and Southwestern Ohio before opting for a life on the farm. To Sister Carolyn, the decision was easy. “I am a city girl, but my heart is here. I’ve always loved working outside,” she said.

The Oldenburg Franciscans were founded in 1851. Three years later the order was given its first 40 acres of farmland. The sister for whom the farm is named, Michaela Lindemann, was the land’s first caretaker.

The farm grew steadily through the years, eventually reaching 500 acres of grounds on the eastern edge of Oldenburg.

Through most of the first 125 years, the land was tended by area farmers. But that practice gradually slowed—the apple orchard was sold, the dairy cow operation phased out—until the mid-1980s, when the entire farm operation was shuttered.

At that point, the sisters contacted Rev. Al Fritsch to perform an audit of the land. It was Father Fritsch who proposed turning the land into an organic farm, one that would become an “educational, environmental and spiritual center,” said Sister Carolyn.

Michaela Farm today encompasses 300 acres, with 100 acres devoted to woodlands, 100 to pastures and gardens, and 100 more to fallow grounds and buildings.

The buildings include the enormous brick barn, the largest all-brick farm building in Indiana, and possibly the country, Sister Carolyn said. The L-shaped building, approaching its 100th birthday, is more than 13,000 square feet. A second barn houses three late-model tractors, one of the only concessions to the 21st century available on the grounds. You will find no half-empty bags of fertilizer here—it’s composting all the way.

Visitors to the farm are most attracted to the Labyrinth, the Old English herb garden filled with aromatic and culinary herbs. Standing sentry at the center of the garden is a statue of St. Fiacre, patron saint of gardeners.

Four vegetable gardens are tended by Sister Marie, who grows a variety of plants. Asparagus, rhubarb and lettuce were ready to be harvested in late May, while strawberry picking season, a favorite for the retired nuns living in the nearby Motherhouse, was just around the corner.

The sisters also raise beefalo, a beast that’s three-eighths bison and five-eighths cow. Beefalo require less food than a traditional beef cow, while producing a leaner, healthier meat, Sister Carolyn said.

Much of the food grown and produced here goes directly to the Motherhouse, the retirement center that houses 125 nuns. Other food is sold to the community or packaged as part of the sisters’ “Share the Bounty” program.

Looking forward, Sister Ann Marie hopes to supply a greater percentage of the food for the Motherhouse (it currently provides about 20 percent of the center’s food supply), plus more to the community at large. To that end, the sisters helped launch a community-wide Supported Agriculture Program, “networking with other local farmers that have a similar vision,” she said.

Objectives include the completion of a local green market, where other organic farmers in the area can peddle their products and make consumers “aware of what practices are used and become more conscious of where food is coming from,” Sister Ann Marie said. Additionally, the sisters are leading the effort to form an organic cooperative, a “local avenue for wholesaling and retailing foods.”

In years past, the sisters employed several lay people to assist with the farm’s operations. But budget constraints demanded the release of most of the hired help, with only two recent high school graduates employed this past summer.

To Batesville’s Brady Hornberger, work at Michaela Farm simply offers a steady paycheck and the opportunity to remain outdoors.

But for Lindsey Jackson of Milan, the farm’s mission dovetails perfectly with hers.

Jackson wants to attend the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism in Boulder, Colo., so a stint at Michaela Farm is the perfect kind of resumé filler.

“I’m interested in natural healing, so I figured this would be an awesome experience,” Jackson said while hacking away at weeds with a foot-long sickle. “I try to eat as organic as possible— a lot of water, definitely no pop and no caffeine except the herbal teas I make.

“What’s better than stuff that comes from the earth?” she asked.

You will find no affirmative answer to that question from her employers, who are committed to preserving and growing Michaela Farm in its natural state. By doing so, Sister Ann Marie says, they “honor farming as a profession that brings life to the whole community.”

Obviously, the highlights of my year-long trip will be the Sunday Mass attendance in a new church each weekend. And I won’t just be attending Mass, but spending time that entire weekend with the subjects and the church community, to the extent they’ll have me.

But those aren’t the only parishioners I’ll be meeting.

My plan is to embark on four 10- or 12-week trips. I’ll probably start off in the Southwest in winter, visit the Northeast in spring, the Northwest in summer and the Southeast in the fall. Of course, it doesn’t take 7 days to travel from Maine to New Hampshire or even from Montana to Idaho. That still leaves a lot of time to kill.

And I hope to have a way of filling that time. I’ll contact the dioceses I’ll be traveling through to learn what parish events will be taking place during the week. Events such as CYO games, BINGO, pot luck dinners or volunteer work – your typical life in a Catholic parish. And I’ll just drop in to take part. Ultimately, I’ll be fully immersing myself in Catholic life over the course of the year.

So as I winnow the suggestions for parish visits (and I’ve gotten some really intriguing ones already), some of the ones that don’t make the weekend cut may still get a dose of me during the weekend. I’ll leave that to them to decide if that’s a good thing.