CHURCH TODAY Volume L, No. 5 www.diocesealex.org Serving the Diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana Since 1970 May 27, 2019 Helping our kids rise up Forty-five students were confirmed on May 2 at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Church in Alexandria. Pictured above with the confirmandi are Father Daniel O’Connor (Pastor) and Father Derek Ducote (Parochial Vicar). After the long season of Lent, He is finally risen! It is a blessed duty to walk alongside the children in our lives. See pages 12 and 13, and the Diocese of Alexandria website to continue celebrating the Easter season through pictures of First Holy Communion and Confirmation celebrations around the diocese. INSIDE “Our Lady of Prompt Succor, we are Deacon candidates Why your teens need a summer lost unless you hasten to our aid!” continue formation ministry experience Our Lady of Prompt Succor is the patroness Fifteen new deacon candidates were It’s not easy to decide which summer of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, and her accepted to continue their formation at the events to offer your kids and teens. But intercession is sought during Hurricane Season annual Deacon Mass of Renewal held Saturday, providing opportunities for them to be ministered at every Mass in New Orleans and many parts May 11. See page 8 for more information on to throughout the summer is worth every of the state. See page 2 for the full story of her the deacon formation program and how you can inconvenience. See page 20 for more. patronage. help. PAGE 2 CHURCH TODAY MAY 27, 2019 INDEX Looking back National / World News ............3 Embracing the Liturgy ..............4 June 2005: National News .........................5 Left: SISTER HELEN MARCANTOGNINI, the last of the original Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows to travel Feature ....................................6 from Rimini, Italy to serve at St. Mary’s Residential Training School, retired in 2005 after 51 years of service. Diocese News ..........................7 Social Justice ...........................8 Today: Vocations / Clergy ...................9 St. Mary’s held a ribbon cutting ceremony on May 1, 2019 to introduce the new group home community Parish News ..........................10 located on the school’s campus. The $9.2 million project consists of 12 homes with eight beds in each, Picture Spread .......................12 all of which are handicap accessible and will include 24-hour supportive services to assist the residents. Parish News ..........................14 A $450,000 grant from Red River Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas helped to fund the News and Events ...................15 construction of six of the new group homes. Multicultural ...........................16 Tamara McNulty, Director of the school’s development program, said she’s thankful for the generous Marriage and Family ..............18 donations. “St. Mary’s really stepped out on fa ith when we started with this project,” McNulty explained. “So, Schools / Youth .....................20 we are super excited that our community has joined behind us, and is making the contribution to make these Diocesan Briefs .....................22 homes possible for our clients.” For more information on how you can donate towards the new homes, visit Calendar ................................23 https://www.stmarysalexandria.org/. CHURCH Our Lady of Prompt Succor and Hurricane Season By Emily Ann McCullough to announce that the British had TODAY Guest Contributor miraculously been defeated! General Jackson came in person Finding herself short of to deliver his thanks. Masses are teachers in the early 1800’s, still prayed every January 8th in Mother Saint Andre Madier, an thanksgiving for the victory. Volume L, No. 5 Ursaline nun in charge of the first May 27, 2019 school in what is now the United Present Day Devotions States, wrote to her cousin, Our Lady of Prompt Succor P. O. Box 7417 Mother Saint Michel Gensoul in is the patroness of Louisiana and Alexandria, LA 71303 France, asking for reinforcements. the city of New Orleans and her [email protected] The school was for girls of any intercession is sought during 318-445-6424 ethnic background, slave or Hurricane season at every Mass free. Mother Saint Michel asked in New Orleans and many of the Publisher: Diocese of Alexandria Bishop Fournier of Montpelier if cities in the state. Anyone can Publication Manager / Editor: she could go to New Orleans to visit the National Shrine of Our Cari Terracina, ext. 255, help. The Bishop, himself short Lady of Prompt Succor in New [email protected] of nuns, said the only way she Orleans, where the original statue Multimedia Manager / Advertising: could get permission to leave is kept. Joan Ferguson, ext. 264; was to ask the Pope, who was Whatever storms you are [email protected] Napoleon’s prisoner at the time. facing in your life - whether they Circulation: Sandi Tarver, ext. 209; be actual hurricanes this year or [email protected] Prompt and Favorable simply storms in your soul - have Mother Saint Michel wrote a Fire and War and Hurricanes Another famous miracle faith in the intercession of our The CHURCH TODAY (USPS letter to Pope Pius VII, knowing Many miracles have been occurred during the Battle of New Blessed Mother under her mantle 393-240) is published by the Catholic it would be a miracle if it got to attributed to the prayers of the as Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Diocese of Alexandria, once a Orleans. As Andrew Jackson’s him, so that is exactly what she Virgin Mary under the title of Our Trust that her answer to you will month, free of charge to members of soldiers (including the pirate Jean asked for. She prayed before a Lady of Prompt Succor. One of Lafitte and his men) faced an be as “prompt and favorable” as the parishes in the Diocese of statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it has been for the past 200 years. Alexandria, Louisiana. Out of them happened during the great army twice their size, residents “O most Holy Virgin Mary, if diocese subscriptions are $20 a year. fire of New Orleans in 1788., of New Orleans came to the you obtain for me a prompt and when the Ursaline convent was convent to pray all night with the favorable answer to this letter, I To pray: The office is located at nearly destroyed. As the winds sisters, again begging Our Lady 4400 Coliseum Blvd., promise to have you honored at blew the devastating fire towards of Prompt Succor to intercede on Our Lady of Prompt Succor, Alexandria, LA 71303. New Orleans under the title of the convent, the order was given their behalf. The next morning a hasten to help us. Periodicals postage paid at Our Lady of Prompt Succor.” Her for the sisters to evacuate. But Mass was offered in the convent Alexandria, LA. letter was sent on March 19, 1809, Sr. St. Anthony (Marthe Delatre) for victory. A statue of Our Postmaster: and she astonishingly received placed a small statue of Our Lady Lady of Prompt Succor had Emily Ann and her husband, Send address changes to his “favorable answer” on April of Prompt Succor in the window been placed on the altar. The a former Protestant minister, The CHURCH TODAY, P. O. Box 29, 1809. She commissioned the as Mother St. Michel prayed, sounds of the battle were heard became Catholic in 1998. 7417, Alexandria, LA 71306 now familiar golden statue of the “Our Lady of Prompt Succor, even in the chapel. The prioress She has worked in Religious Blessed Mother holding the baby we are lost unless you hasten promised in prayer to have an Education ever since, and at Website: www.diocesealex.org Jesus, Bishop Fournier blessed it to our aid!” At that moment the annual Mass of Thanksgiving present teaches Religion to third To receive a free subscription, and her work, and she arrived in wind changed direction causing offered if the American soldiers graders at St. Frances Cabrini call 318-445-6424, ext 255 or New Orleans, statue in hand, on the convent to be one of the few won. A messenger ran in while School, Alexandria. e-mail [email protected] December 31, 1810. buildings saved from the fire. Communion was being served May 27, 2019 CHURCH TODAY PAGE 3 Washington’s archbishop plans to get ‘out in field’ to meet people, listen By Julie Asher call for it; the significance of his Archbishop Gregory said. “It Catholic News Service appointment as the first African seems to me that the task that lies American archbishop to head an before me is to both listen to the HYATTSVILLE, Md. archdiocese with “a storied history people -- to hear them, to hear the (CNS) -- Archbishop Wilton D. of African American Catholics hurt, acknowledge it, recognize Gregory will have a lot of things going back to pre-nationhood”; it, but then also to invite them on his plate when he becomes the what he’ll miss most about his to reach into their own spiritual newest leader of the influential former archdiocese; and a few treasuries and to say now we can’t archdiocese situated in the of his side interests, like cooking allow our history to determine nation’s capital: the sexual abuse and golfing. our future and to invite them with roiling the Catholic Church, the Archbishop Gregory said me to chart a new direction and tense political climate on the Hill the abuse scandal erupting again engage them.” and the challenges that come with in the church over the last year Archbishop Gregory said he learning about a new archdiocese is “chapter two” of what the is hopeful the U.S. bishops, when The newest archbishop of church went through in 2002. they meet in June in Baltimore, Washington knows what his first He was bishop of Belleville at will build on Pope Francis’ “motu priority will be however.