The seeds of suicide
By DAVE MYERS
Southwest Kansas Catholic
St. Veronica wiped the face of Jesus, bloodied by the Romans.
Larry Black of Salina as a boy wiped the face of his mother, bloodied by his father’s fists.
It was one incident of many in a troubled childhood that would ultimately lead to thoughts of suicide.
Black, a substance abuse counselor, was one of two speakers at the annual Teachers Conference Aug. 16 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The annual gathering offers a time for teachers and principals from Catholic schools across the diocese to get together to discuss important issues just prior to the start of the school year.
“The seeds of whether or not you’re a bad person … are planted early in life,” Black told those gathered. “I grew up in an alcoholic home. Imagine being seven, bringing home your report card that you are really proud of, showing it to you father and having him smack you because you didn’t mow the lawn? Or having him wake you at 3 a.m., bring you to Mom and saying, ‘This is what a c___ looks like’?”
And then there were those nights when he had to wipe the blood from his mother’s face brought by his father’s fists.
They are challenges mostly invisible to those on the outside, but yet they infect the heart of the young like a virus. It’s a virus that keeps children from having friends—they certainly can’t bring friends in the house, after all. There’s no consistency, Black said; there’s no structure. There’s no safe place—all so needed by children.
“One thing that would have been so great is to have a teacher who would have just listened to me,” Black said. “It is most important to learn what kids are encountering in their lives.”
Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Trina Delgado echoed these statements:
“We’re told that children are an open book, that we are there to fill in the pages. Yet, emotionally, that book may already be written. What we can do is to help them write the next chapter.”
But to be sure, a bad childhood isn’t the only recipe for thoughts of suicide.
“We teach them the three Rs, but we don’t teach them how to live, how to deal with shame …,” Black said.
The proclivity of social media has created a 24/7 boarding house for anonymous insults, inappropriate photo sharing, and a host of anonymous venom.
We have to start with the people who are “face-to-face with the students,” Black said, referring to teachers. “We must get into the face of the child and listen to them. If we don’t have a relationship, they won’t tell us the hard stuff. Healing starts with one human being making time for another human being.”
When Black was growing up, he battled his own thoughts of suicide. Then, one day when he was working at a fast-food restaurant drive-through window, an in-law who worked at a treatment facility came driving through and asked him to apply for a job as a counselor. The drive-through window closed, and a door opened.
With no experience, he applied. He was trained and suddenly found himself counseling those who were going through similar things to what he had experienced.
“My greatest strength is my pain,” he said. “Through my pain, I can help someone with their pain.”
50,000 die from opioids in one year
By DAVE MYERS
Southwest Kansas Catholic
If you think the opioid epidemic is bad now, it’s nothing compared to what is lurking around the corner.
“We have a flood coming our way,” substance abuse counselor Larry Black told teachers and principals gathered for the annual Diocesan Teachers Conference Aug. 16. “It’s not quite here yet, but it’s coming.”
Today, an estimated two million Americans are addicted to opioid painkillers, with an estimated 50,000 dying from opioids in one year alone.
“We see people on 60 to 80 pills a day,” Black said. “They build up a tolerance. Most start very innocently—normal people who maybe had a knee replacement. Most doctors really have the best interest of their patient at heart, but they’re busy. This doctor doesn’t want the patient to have to drive 60 or 70 miles to get their prescription filled, so they give them a month’s worth of pills.”
The problem is, the pills don’t only give relief to pain, but also to stress—stress from the workplace, the government, the typical anxieties of life. And when that month of pills is gone in a week, that’s when you see problems begin to arise. You see people turning to the black market. You see the criminal element giving supply to the demand.
“My son was the most grateful kid,” Black said. “There was a joy about him.”
Then, at 15, his behavior and attitude underwent a marked change.
“His grades went down. We would stay up with him to do his homework, but he wouldn’t turn it in. We took him to school to make sure he went in, and he’d go right out the back door.
“I think we were good parents,” Black explained. “We didn’t drink or smoke. We went to church.”
The teenager who had been so joyful brought people over “who were just plain mean. One boy later killed his father.”
Amid the trauma of everyday life, miracles do abound. Their son agreed to enter a treatment facility.
“The hardest thing to do is to get help,” Black said. “We were almost out of hope. Not only did our son learn how to live life without drugs, I learned to be a better dad. A counselor told us that you can’t focus your life on being right. I had to give up being right and focus on my relationship with my son.”
In other words, when his son got kicked out of his first facility for having been caught with a girl in his room, Black didn’t get angry. Empowered by his newfound advice, he instead joked with his son as they drove home at 3 a.m.: “She was good looking! I would have gotten kicked out for her, too!”
The most important result? “He smiled,” Black said of his troubled son.
It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it took two stints in the treatment center before Black’s son came to terms with his drug use.
“A lot of what happens in recovery is that people feel like they deserve to be punished more for what they’ve done. I ask them, ‘The person who loves you most, how much longer do they need you to suffer?’ I didn’t want my son to suffer one more day.
“Today, my son and I text each other every day to say I love you.”
So, who is the bad guy in all this?
“The biggest bad guys? The pharmaceutical industries,” Black explained. According to addictions.com, “An estimated 254 million opioid prescriptions were filled in 2010 alone, enough to medicate every adult in the U.S. for a month on a round-the-clock basis. In that same year, pharmaceutical companies generated revenues of $11 billion from opioid sales alone.”
The result has been that opioid addiction rates have skyrocketed.
As long as there is demand, there will be supply. The best thing we can do is to communicate loudly and with resolve the dangers of opioids, to call pharmaceutical companies on the carpet. Also, he urged the medical industry to train more physicians to prescribe opioid withdrawal programs, and to increase the availability of the narcotic blocker, Naxalone, for withdrawal.
“In-patient treatment is only the beginning,” Black said. “Each person should be given a recovery coach.
“No one seeks help until the consequence of using outweigh the benefits of not using. We need to endeavor to increase the beneffits of not using.”
For more information or to seek help, visit https://ckfaddictiontreatment.org/, or call (785) 825-6224.
The brain’s love affair with drugs
By Charlene Scott Myers
Special to the Catholic
A man who lived for years with low self esteem — and suffered because of it — urged teachers of Catholic schools to “learn what kids are encountering in their lives.”
The teachers from Catholic schools throughout the Diocese of Dodge City gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe Aug. 16 to discuss “the opioid crisis in Kansas” and to try to figure out why students take drugs that sometimes lead them to suicide.
Three youths of varying ages have committed suicide in recent months in the Dodge City area.
Raymond Colligan was one of the two speakers at the cathedral gathering.
“When I was a freshman at a Catholic high school, my mother learned to dislike one of my teachers because of what he taught,” Colligan recalled.
“It wasn’t such a thing as a bad word, just words used badly,” he explained.
“We students were not allowed to use the ‘N’ word or ‘bullocks,’ (a derogatory and vulgar British slang word that means spineless and lacking in courage.)”
But apparently, his teacher used the words, and some of his classmates taunted him by yelling that Colligan’s name was “bullocks.”
So following his graduation, he set out to prove his rude classmates were wrong.
He devoted himself to Native Americans, and worked for the Jesuits on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota for 18 years.
“And without my consent, I was formed to do the work I do now,” he said.
Colligan received a Masters Degree in Counseling Studies and is a Licensed Clinical Addictions Counselor. He was employed by Valley Hope, an alcohol and drug addiction treatment center, where he worked for 18 years.
He currently is in his fourth year of private practice, in addition to counseling on an outpatient basis.
“My job is to help people seek wisdom,” he told the teachers.
“When a student is ready, God will send the teacher,” added the speaker who said he was “raised by Dominican Sisters.”
“The desire of my heart today is to inspire,” he told his audience of teachers. “The word ‘insparata’ means ‘divinely touched.’”
Colligan noted that drug addiction “now is described as a brain disease,” and explained why drug addicts are “captured” by drug dependency.
“The brain changes,” he explained. “It is profound. You have a love affair with the drugs. The brain has us seeking pleasurable behavior, and the seeking continues despite the consequences.
“There is not a person in this room who has not experienced behavior repeating itself over and over. We are seekers of pleasure, and despite the consequences, we keep at the behavior. We seek relief from stress and wish to feel better and improve our performance.”
Human beings also like fun, and experience cultural pressure to experiment “with this or that,” he added. “The human brain loves what it loves. It took a long time in the midst of my growing up to learn that I lived in a culture that addicts us.
“My father was an Irishman, and I developed my self esteem based on my performance and work. My first job was when I was a junior in high school. I was driven, compulsive, and later learned I was addicted to work.
“Along with that job came cigarettes. I was a junior and 18, and I carried a pack of cigarettes, and they couldn’t do anything about it!
“I learned that white people and white cultures have an addiction to superiority. For the 18 years I lived with Native Americans, I learned that some cultures have awful, awful problems, and that rich people can be dangerous with their huge sense of entitlement.”
Jesus said that it was as difficult for a rich man to enter heaven as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, Colligan noted.
“Poor people can get addicted to powerlessness and being victimized,” he said. “I have witnessed that.”
To break a self image and change your story takes a tremendous amount of hard work, he acknowledged.
“As a little boy, because of my father’s neglect, I believed I was unlovable, and I was not sure I would ever amount to anything. I had to learn how to free my mind.
“We need to look at the way we think,” he said. “AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) has an expression ‘stinkin thinkin.’ We have to take on our attitude and way of behaving. That’s what AA calls recovery, and that’s what I call salvation!”
Please Forgive
By the MOST REV. JOHN B. BRUNGARDT
Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City
Yes, troubling news regarding the abuse scandal in the Church. We discussed it at length at our diocesan directors’ meeting and our presbyteral council meeting. Some of the words expressed: betrayal, sadness, “punched in the gut,” shame, anger, horror, pain, ...
I reflect in my mind and heart and spirit:
- We all seek Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the Wounded One. Jesus Forsaken on the cross. We ask for healing for the victims and their families. Christ is the Divine Physician of our body and soul. He will heal all. “And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God” (Luke 17:15).
- We are sinners. We bishops are sinners. We priests are sinners. All are sinners. The Gospel from a recent Holy Mass was the question to Jesus: “how often must I forgive … ?” Jesus responds: “seventy-seven times,” meaning we are called to keep forgiving our brothers and sisters, over and over (Matthew 18:21-22). I am sorry. Please forgive us bishops and priests.
- We seek justice. Justice for the perpetrators and enablers. We ask for deeper involvement by civil authorities and the laity, in order to seek justice. “It is [the Lord] who judges the world with justice” (Psalm 9:9).
Bring all to prayer – our Loving Lord is with you; He loves you so much.
Stewardship Conference, Aug. 25, Dodge City
‘You must be crazy!’
or ‘How to have a conversation with those you disagree’
WHAT? Stewardship Conference
WHEN? 9:30 a.m. - 3:50 p.m., Saturday, August 25
WHERE? Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 3231 N. 14th St., Dodge City
WHY? The day will be filled with discussions of topics relevant to the present time. The ministry showcase in the gathering area will highlight dozens of ways you can become involved. The day concludes with the celebration of Mass
COST? There is no cost to attend.
FOOD? A lunch is provided free of charge.
FREEBIES? The ministry showcase typically offers dozens of free items to take home.
WHAT ABOUT DAYCARE? Bring the kids! Daycare will be provided.
DO I HAVE TO REGISTER? Yes, primarily for a lunch count. Go to www.dcdiocese.org/stewardship, or, you can call Eric at (620) 227-1537.
By Dave Myers
Shelley Hansel could hardly have come up with a more appropriate topic for her keynote presentation at the Aug. 25, 2018 Stewardship Conference at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City: “How to have a conversation with those you disagree.”
Holiday dinners and discussions around the water cooler can be exercises in frustration and oftentimes anger if the individuals doing the conversing have strong differences of opinion. And in these days of intense political polarization, vehement differences of opinion are more common than not.
How many friends and family have you unfriended on Facebook due to their political views?
“We can learn how to love our family and friends while disagreeing,” Hansel says.
Most of the topics being addressed at this year’s Stewardship Conference will be just as timely.
Steve Bellinger, for example, will discuss “What if someone comes to church with a gun?” (This topic may affect your thoughts on the first address!) Yesteryear, the answer would have been an immediate, “Call the police!” But in the days when guns are more common than they were in old Spaghetti Westerns, the question isn’t as easy to answer.
I wonder just how many people around me are carrying guns?
Jessica Soto-Botello of Catholic Charities will discuss a topic much more weighty for a large minority of southwest Kansans, but important as well to friends, family and employers. Her topic? “What to do if I’m deported.”
It’s not out of the question for a person who doesn’t speak Spanish to be deported to a Spanish-speaking country. Or for a mother to be deported without being able to notify her children who await her arrival at home in a southwest Kansas town.
It’s a notion that most of us are blessed not to have to worry about, but there’s a good chance we know someone who does.
Another topic to be discussed is, “How to Fire a Volunteer.” It might be considered an odd choice for a Stewardship Conference, except when considering that this is something with which parishes often have to contend.
Conference organizer Eric Haselhorst noted that the workshop is just as much about helping volunteers to focus their talents where they’re needed most.
This year’s conference will be a little different than in years past. Instead of 50-minute breakout sessions, they will be only 20 minutes long, allowing people to attend more of the talks.
Several concurrent talks will discuss the idea of mission when it comes to coaching, conversation, and being a parent of high school age kids. Gentry Heimerman, diocesan Director of Young Adult Ministry, will discuss “Being a Missionary in Youth Ministry.” And Denise Flax will present information on making dDo-it-yourself evangelization videos.
The day includes a free lunch, a large ministry showcase highlighting area ministries (and how you can get involved), and lots of freebies. The day will conclude with the celebration of Mass.
For more information, or to register online, go to www.dcdiocese.org/stewardship, or call (620) 227-1537.
Diocese offers certification in youth ministry
The Catholic dioceses of Dodge City and Salina, in partnership with Newman University, will begin offering classes in youth ministry through the ITV (Interactive Television) system in September.
Two three-credit-hour courses, and three one-credit-hour courses – as well as a project decided upon by the student and the coordinating instructor -- are required to earn certification in youth ministry.
If one class is taken each semester beginning in September, 2018, a student could obtain certification by the Spring of 2020. Since the classes are a special focus of the Pastoral Ministry Formation Program, students may choose to continue classes until they earn a degree or diploma in Pastoral Ministry Formation.
Dodge City Bishop John B. Brungardt and Salina Bishop Gerald Vincke encourage every parish to have one or more parishioners prepared with a Youth Ministry Certificate so that they may support and encourage our youth in their unfolding discipleship.
The classes will:
• Seek to help those who minister to youth specifically and those who minister indirectly understand the components necessary to develop a comprehensive ministry to meet the spiritual, catechetical and social needs of our youth.
• Form adults in missionary discipleship to engage the gift of our teenagers in our Church.
• Unpack the U.S. Bishop’s document, “Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry”, and, “Pastoral Juvenil Hispana”.
The first course, “Theology and Methods of Ministry,” presented by Father Robert Schremmer, Vicar General, will be offered from 8:30 a.m.-Noon, Saturdays from Sept. 8-Nov. 3, 2018. This is a three-credit-hour course and is required for certification.
Core three-credit-hour courses include: Introduction to New Testament; Christian Morality and Social Issues; Christology; Sacramental Theology; Theology of the Church; The Creeds and Faith; and Introduction to Old Testament.
“The Why of Ministry,” a one-credit-hour course, will be presented by Gentry Heimerman in the Spring of 2019, and is also a required course. Heimerman, Director of Young Adult Ministry for the Diocese of Dodge City, is one of the coordinators of the new youth ministry certification program.
One-credit-hour courses include: RCIA Kansas; Celebrating Crossing Cultural Boundaries; Get Equipped; and Accompanying Youth and Young Adults on Their Journey.
Cost is $50 per credit-hour. Through “Church in Partnership”, a program of the Diocese of Dodge City and Newman University, these costs are discounted from regular prices charged by Newman University per credit hour.
For more information, visit www.dcdiocese.org, or contact Coleen Stein, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., (620) 227-1538.
Passion for the Mission
By CHUCK WEBER
Executive Director, Kansas Catholic Conference
The smile of a newly ordained priest is unforgettable. His eagerness to face worldly and spiritual challenges is unmistakable. Saving souls for Christ is now his sacred mission of service. A steadfast reliance on the Catholic Faith, the Sacraments and the time-tested wisdom of Mother Church will see him through.
Newly ordained priests (in fact, all priests, Consecrated Religious and lay servants of the Catholic Church) inspire and energize me as I embark on my own mission—serving as Executive Director of the Kansas Catholic Conference (KCC).
The KCC is the “public policy voice” of the Catholic Bishops of Kansas, including a man I have long known and admired, Bishop John Brungardt of the Dodge City Diocese.
Understandably, few Catholics in the pew are aware of the KCC mission. Much of our work takes place at the Statehouse in Topeka. The KCC supports and promotes legislation that respects the dignity of the human person and serves the common good. It happens in the spirit of the Beatitudes and in accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Bills signed into law—or defeated—impact our daily lives.
Protecting human life, defending religious liberty and preserving traditional marriage and the family, are foundational Catholic principles. The Catholic Church in Kansas has been and will continue to be at the forefront of these “hot button” issues. Other concerns, including school choice, healthcare, immigration, and the welfare of the poor, elderly and disabled are always under our watchful eye.
As a husband and father of five children—including a son with Down syndrome and my elderly mother under our care—I hope to bring my own life experiences to bear in working with elected officials. My experience as a former state legislator will also be helpful.
In the weeks and months ahead please look to the Southwest Kansas Catholic and the Kansas Catholic Conference website and Facebook page for updates and analysis on the issues facing Kansas Catholics. I promise to communicate with you about what’s happening, including an initiative to make prayer a central theme in all that we do. Please let me know what is on your mind.
Like a newly ordained priest setting off on a new, exciting journey, your support and prayers will be crucial to the success of our common mission. It is one thing to win a cultural debate—or even a vote. It is quite another to seek a servant’s temperament, win over a heart and bring someone closer to Our Redeemer.
Thank you for the privilege of serving you in this way.
Chuck Weber resides in Wichita with his family and is a longtime parishioner of the Church of the Resurrection. He can be contacted by email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Cathedral rectory chapel dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul
By TIM WENZL
Southwest Kansas Catholic
The 477th anniversary of Father Juan De Padilla’s “first Mass in Kansas” on June 29, 1541, was celebrated fittingly enough with an outdoor Mass at the parish rectory in Dodge City. Father Wesley Schave, pastor of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Father Aneesh Parappanattud, MSFS, parochial vicar, concelebrated. The rectory chapel, here before without a patron, was dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul.
Following the Mass, the congregation was invited into the rectory to view the chapel and tour the priests’ residence. A storyboard inside the residence provided a brief history of the rectory entitled “This Old Catholic House.”
The residence, constructed in 1890, was the home of James M. and Maude Kirkpatrick. The Kirkpatricks belonged to the First Methodist Church. They had six children: two sons and four daughters. Kirkpatrick was an attorney. He served two terms as Ford County Attorney. Toward the end of his career, he limited his practice to abstract and title law.
The house remained in the hands of the Kirkpatrick family until one of the daughters sold the residence to Charles L. Clinton in 1943. Clinton owned the Wholesale Brokerage Company and was a member of the National Candy Wholesale Association. He also served as Mayor of Dodge City from 1951 to 1954.
In 1953, during the pastorate of Msgr. Joseph Grellner, plans were underway to expand Sacred Heart School with additional classrooms, offices, a kitchen and a gymnasium-auditorium.
The nine Sisters of St. Joseph who taught in the school were living in a convent at 907 Central Avenue. This residence needed to be removed to allow room for construction to proceed.
The Clinton home, located just north of the school on Elm Street, was purchased as the new convent for the Sisters on December 31, 1953, for $25,000
The two-story stucco home served the Sisters of St. Joseph as a convent for the next 32 years.
Father Joseph Bahr, pastor from 1984-1988, was looking to purchase a residence near the parish plant and make the rectory space between the church and school available for offices and classrooms.
The two Sisters of St. Joseph in ministry at the school during this time offered the convent to the pastor and his assistant as a rectory.
The Sisters moved to Saint Mary of the Plains College to live in community with the Sisters in ministry on the campus.
This house has served as the rectory for the priests at Sacred Heart Cathedral and now the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe since 1985.
A summer of love
Totus Tuus, Prayer and Action, bring youth closer to Christ and each other, all while providing a powerful witness
By Carleigh Albers
Special to the Catholic
It has been one year since Kade Megaffin last served the Diocese of Dodge City as a summer missionary. Each year was different; one summer he was bouncing from town to town allowing small children to dump chocolate syrup on his head, and the next summer he was whipping out paint buckets to paint stranger’s homes with high school students.
This year? He’s entering as a seminarian for the Diocese of Salina.
“I would not say that the summer mission programs played directly into my discernment, but at the same time, they really did impact my discernment greatly,” Megaffin said as he reflected over his time in southwest Kansas. “There was never really an ‘Aha!’ moment during these programs, but these programs gave me an opportunity to teach the faith (which means I had to learn it), to serve the Church, and to grow immensely in my personal relationship with Christ through the sacraments, prayer, and good virtuous friendships.
“I have now served three summers of mission, two in the Dodge City Diocese and one in the Salina Diocese, and I can say with confidence that my spiritual life grew to a level of strength capable of properly discerning seminary greatly because of these summer mission programs. God only knows where I would be without these summer mission programs.”
Totus Tuus and Prayer and Action have been striving to bring youth to Christ in the Diocese of Dodge City since 2015. The diocese has had 41 young adults serve as team members on the summer missions program. Twenty-seven of the 41 have been natives of the diocese with outsiders serving from Paraguay, Wyoming, Indiana, Nebraska, and neighboring dioceses. There have also been six seminarians who have served on summer missions.
“Summer missions are two programs used for evangelization for people in the Diocese,” said Adam Urban, Director of Youth Ministry for the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City. “It is mission work that brings college students into the diocese. The missionaries get a lot more out of serving than the kids who participate in the programs.” Urban served as a missionary in 2015 and 2016 on the first summers of Prayer and Action.
“Summer missions affected my decision to enter ministry full time,” Urban said. “It was very fulfilling and I knew nothing would fulfill me as much as serving other people. It affected my vocational discernment; working for Prayer and Action that summer introduced me to the diocese and got my foot in the door. I think it is where movement in the church is happening right now.”
The reasons why people serve vary from person to person.
“I decided to apply for summer missions in the Dodge City Diocese because of the need,” Megaffin said. “I have several friends in and around the diocese and they let me know that Dodge was looking for people to work their summer programs. I almost call Dodge my home. Even though I had spent time in other places, I call Ulysses my hometown. So, working for the diocese was like going back home for the summer.”
Megaffin and Urban aren’t the only young adults who have been deeply affected by serving over the summer. Missionaries have formed deep friendships with those who they serve alongside, while also growing in their faith and developing their prayer.
TOTUS TUUS
Totus Tuus consists of teams made of four college aged students; two men and two women. Each team travels to a different parish within the diocese each week to teach youth about the Eucharist, Marian devotion, vocations, and other topics of the Catholic faith, while infusing high energy and joy into all that they do.
The program originated in Wichita 31 years ago. Last summer the teams reached out to 590 youth. This summer the two teams reached out to 700 youth across the diocese.
A Totus Tuus tradition is that on Fridays, the kids get to end the week with a “human sundae” by picking a teacher to become the “ice cream” that they can pour toppings onto.
“We do it for the kids’ enjoyment,” said Megan Seamaan, a Nebraska native who served this summer on a Totus Tuus team. “For us, it is a humbling experience to simply sit and allow ourselves to become a human sundae. There is beauty in the mess; sitting there not being able to see because there is chocolate dripping into your eyes, and listening to the laughter, seeing the joy that it brings the kids.... That’s why we do it, for the kids.”
Krysten Brake, a native of Kinsley who served on Totus Tuus in 2017, feels similarly. She served for four summers of Totus Tuus; three with the Diocese of Wichita and one with the Diocese of Dodge City. Brake emphasized the importance of the parish priest being involved with these programs and being a witness.
“The priest has more influence than he knows on the youth,” Brake said. “The priests that are involved in the whole Totus Tuus program throughout the week are the ones that have the most impact. This sounds weird, but I know it has much more impact on me when the priest is willing to put on regular clothes and be involved in the water fight. This shows everyone that priests are human, too, and like to have fun just as much as we all do. Priests have great opportunities to impact everyone throughout the week by saying Mass every day for us, hearing confessions, allowing us to have Adoration, but I think seeing the human side of the priests are some of the most memorable impacts.”
Nick Hernandez, a college student from Hays, learned more about hands-on ministry while serving on Prayer and Action. Prayer and Action is a mission trip designed to serve our neighbors in need. High school students work on painting homes and other various projects while growing in fellowship and diving into the sacraments in a deeper way.
Prayer and Action
Prayer and Action began in 2015 and has since served the communities of Garden City, St. John, Ness City, Meade, Fowler, Jetmore, Scott City, Sublette, and Satanta. This year, there were 51 youth who attended, 14 adult chaperones, and eight college students. They completed 26 projects this summer.
“The biggest take-away was learning about other people’s stories and hearing how God has been working through their lives to get where they are at right now,” Hernandez said.
Not only do the missionaries grow in friendship with one another, but also in practicing virtues with one another. For most missionaries, they are searching for an opportunity to grow closer to God.
“Was it worth it to spend my summer in Southwest Kansas? Absolutely!” Seamann exclaimed.
“The environment that comes with these programs will expose your flaws and weaknesses,” Megaffin added. “The beautiful thing about it though, is that you are so close to the sacraments and prayer that you have the opportunity to take it all to God almost immediately. I have personally grown in patience, spiritual endurance, kindness, humility, charity, and more virtues than I probably even realize. Plus these programs have helped to foster in me a deep love for the Dodge City diocese.”
Often, missionaries are recruited through their friends who have previously served for the diocese. Their experiences propel them to desire the same growth for their friends. The missionaries highly recommend college students to serve, but for different reasons.
“I would say to future missionaries to always keep an open mind no matter what mission work you are doing,” Hernandez advised. “Remember to always keep God at the center of your life.”
“I think that summer missions have brought new life to the diocese,” Brake said. “There has always been some youth programs within the diocese, but there has been no change or newness in approach to the youth until recently. The summer missions have been a new and exciting way for the youth to get involved in the diocese and in their personal faith life. Kids from here should serve their own diocese to give the youth an example and to give their own faith experience. The youth in the Diocese need people to share their experiences with their faith and how important faith is.”
“I would recommend serving on the summer mission programs for the Diocese of Dodge City to anyone because I firmly believe there is no greater way for a college aged Catholic to grow in their own faith, lead others in faith, and further the Kingdom of Christ in their own diocese,” Megaffin insisted. “This diocese needs servers and young adults to set the example in both deed and word so that we can rekindle the flames of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our people. Our summer mission programs are the perfect place to do that.”
Applications are currently being accepted for the summer of 2019. If you or someone you know would be interested in serving on summer missions for either Totus Tuus or Prayer and Action, visit www.dcyoungadult.com/summer-missions to learn more or apply today. Check out more on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prayerandactiondcd/ and www.facebook.com/TotusTuusDCD/.
Dead Sea Scrolls foretold the coming of the Son of God
Editor’s note: This is the second of a series of articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
By Charlene Scott-Myers
Southwest Kansas Catholic
One text of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are 1,000 years older than any other extant manuscripts, specifically is a prophecy of the days to come of Jesus and His teachings.
Text number 4Q246 reads:
“He shall be called the Son of the Great [God], and by his name shall he be hailed as the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High. (See BAR Magazine, March/April 1990, page 24).
According to John J. Davis, author of “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” this is the first time that the expression “Son of God” has been found in a Palestinian text outside of the Bible.
A Catholic Dominican priest, Father Roland de Vaux, joined G.L. Harding in excavating Khribet Qumran between 1951 and 1956.
“Evidence from this small village indicates the Dead Sea Scrolls were copied there,” Davis wrote. “The inhabitants – most likely the Jewish sect known as the Essenes – hid the scrolls in nearby caves when they learned of the approach of the Roman army.”
The hated Romans had ravaged Jerusalem and the many smaller villages in the nearby mountainous areas, but had left the rougher country near the Dead Sea and the high mountain fortress of Masada that was King Herod’s refuge as the last to be attacked and conquered.
(The oldest Hebrew text prior to the 1947 Dead Sea Scroll discoveries was the Ben Asher Text located in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.)
When they learned of the great monetary value of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Bedouins, archaeologists, scholars, and just plain thieves began to ravage the caves along the northwest shores of the Dead Sea, surely dunking themselves into the murky and sticky sea in the horrible heat, and later selling the scraps (which most of them could neither read nor decipher).
Davis reported that “Expeditions were launched into various valleys or ‘wadis,’ dry creeks or river beds with hills on either side, along the west shore of the Dead Sea,” (where their footprints and mine from visiting there many years later were washed away with the tide.)
A total of 230 caves were explored by archaeologists after the original finds. About 40 of these caves contained pottery and other objects, while 25 caves held pottery of the same type as that found in the original cave. A dozen or more caves contained manuscript fragments.
My husband Dave and I saw several ancient pots and clay dishes from Israel at the recent scrolls exhibit in Denver. (The pots and dishes looked almost identical to Frankoma ware that is created and sold in Oklahoma!)
One of the larger wadis in Israel is found at Wadi Qumran, which we visited. It is situated next to a site that formerly contained many ruins. Once thought to be the remains of a Roman fort, this site now is known as Khirbet Qumran or “ruins of Qumran.”
We walked around and among those ancient stones, whose rooms had been occupied as long ago as the end of the second century B.C. to A.D. 68. Large stone remains of a long, narrow room were thought to be the dining and prayer room of the monks who had occupied the site and worshipped there, having fled from the Romans when they attacked Jerusalem.
“A religious community lived at the site from the end of the second century B.C. to A.D. 68,” Davis wrote. “The Romans had a garrison there between A.D. 68 and 86, and the final occupation at the site was by Jewish insurgents in the second war against Rome (A.D. 132-135).”
Those last insurgents killed themselves and their families rather than surrender to the Romans and become their slaves for life.
One-fourth of all the scrolls and fragments found in the caves were copies of different books of the Hebrew Old Testament, and every book in the Hebrew canon is represented among the scrolls, except for the book of Esther.
Parts of books such as Deuteronomy, Isaiah, the Minor Prophets or the Psalms were found in more than ten copies. The Book of Job was written in the normal square Hebrew characters called paleo-Hebrew script, and in Aramaic translation.
Among the Jews at Qumran, the most popular scripture was the Book of Daniel.
Davis reported that “No fewer than eight manuscripts of the book were found in three different caves.”
“The most spectacular discovery among the Dead Sea caves was a complete scroll of the book of Isaiah in Hebrew that measured 24 feet long,” he added. “The text of this Old Testament book (about 100 B.C.) was very much like the Ben Asher Text of A.D. 926.
“This fact gave scholars confidence that the translation of the book of Isaiah, which appears in our modern English translations and is based on the Ben Asher text, is a reliable one.”
Surprisingly, Davis revealed something that I never have read previously in my studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“As noteworthy as the Dead Sea finds were in 1947 and following, there is historical evidence that similar scrolls and manuscripts had been discovered in the region much earlier,” Davis wrote.
Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis, fourth century A.D. refers to Old Testament manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek found concealed in clay jars near Jericho in A.D. 217.
Eusebius lived from the third to the fourth century A.D. and referred to the discovery of the manuscripts found in the large jars.
Then in the eighth century A.D., Timothy I, who was the patriarch of the Nestorian Church, recorded the fact that “more than 200 psalms of David” were found near Jericho.
Here are some more facts that you can file away for future use: three-fourths of the Dead Sea manuscripts include the Apocrypha (14 books in the Greek Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew Canon), the Pseudepiographa (books that were falsely ascribed to Old Testament writers), and commentaries on books of the Old Testament such as Habakkuk, which dates to 25 B.C. – and sadly for readers has had the bottoms of many of its columns eaten away!
The Dead Sea Scroll monks also wrote a rather severe piece of literature called the “Manual of Discipline,” dating back to 100 B.C. They didn’t seem to care much for women.
The historian Josephus, whom I have quoted many times in other articles, did write about the Essenes, whom he hardly could ignore since at one time there were 4,000 of them living along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, where I went for a float among the chunks of salt.
Recently it came to light that the head of a Jewish sect had written a letter to a king or priest in 160 B.C. The letter cited 22 matters on which the sect disagreed with mainstream Judaic thought.
So, some scholars now believe the people at Qumran may have been Sadducees rather than Essenes.