CHARLOTTE — Kathy Izard, who led the development of Moore Place, a permanent housing facility to end chronic homelessness in Charlotte, recently presented a message of hope, faith and love to hundreds of St. Gabriel parishioners. Izard described the journey to build Moore Place as the fruit of listening to the “quiet whispers” of God.
“We wanted to highlight the challenges faced by the homeless in our city,” said Karen Brown, ministry leader and volunteer coordinator at St. Gabriel Parish.
On Oct. 25, Izard captivated the Charlotte parish’s audience with her amazing story of faith.
“St. Gabriel has a big heart for those who are homeless and hungry with nine ministries serving this population. Examples of these are our Room in the Inn Ministry, our monthly Men’s Homeless Shelter dinner, and partnering with St. Matthew to furnish apartments for homeless women and children. We thought Kathy’s personal story would resonate with our parishioners who care deeply about the homeless,” Brown said.
Izard started her presentation with a quote by Mark Twain: “The two greatest days in our life are the day we are born and the day we figure out why.”
“I never planned to write a book in my kitchen for six years,” Izard explained. This year Izard received the Christopher Award for “The Hundred Story Home,” a memoir chronicling the miraculous creation of Moore Place.
“I never imagined building a building,” she continued. Yet the Bank of America Neighborhood Excellence Local Hero Award and the N.C. Housing Volunteer of the Year Award both went to Izard for building the apartment complex with 120 units intended to provide homes for the chronically homeless.
“But I kept saying yes to that quiet voice of God. Be still, and listen to your whispers. I think God has a plan for each of us,” Izard said.
Izard, the mother of four daughters with her husband Charlie, worked as a successful graphic designer in Charlotte. “Our family volunteered at Urban Ministry Center (an interfaith mission in the Charlotte area dedicated to end homelessness), for 10 years. It was the perfect excuse to skip church once a month,” Izard admitted. “We loved making meals there. It was one of our favorite family activities. But I always stayed on the right side of the steel counter, which separated ‘neighbors’ from volunteers.”
According to her memoir, even as she led a successful life, Izard wondered about her purpose in life and whether God was truly present in the world.
But, something – or rather, someone – changed all that.
Her answer did not come quickly, but it came clearly through the book-turned-motion-picture “Same Kind of Different as Me” by Ron Hall, Denver Moore and Lynn Vincent, which is about the bond formed between an affluent art dealer and a homeless man. After reading the book, Izard kept hearing a small whisper: “Invite them to Charlotte.” She reached out to Moore, and he agreed to present at a fundraiser for Urban Ministry Center.
“I showed Denver the entire UMC, looking for affirmation, but receiving nothing even when showing him the garden, the soccer team, the art room – not a word said. The whole thing was wildly uncomfortable. Here I thought Denver, the wise book character, was going to fly off the pages and transform the life of one of the ‘neighbors’ and I was going to be a witness to it,” Izard recalled. “At the end, he asked me what was upstairs. There was nothing upstairs but offices. His reply was transformational.”
“Where are the beds?” Moore asked her. There were no beds, she answered, and he replied, “You mean to tell me you do all this good in the day and then lock them out to the bad at night? Are you going to do something about this?”
“Denver changed me. I could no longer not see the problem: the beds. The next day 1,000 guests arrived at the True Blessings fundraiser and we raised over $300,000,” Izard said. But Moore’s question haunted and propelled her: “Where are the beds?”
Other whispers guided Izard’s mission, including words from her father: “You can do anything, Kathy, really anything.” Her marketing professor: “Where is the concept, Green?” Corinthians 13:1: “And now these three remain; faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” And a calendar quote: “Start something big and foolish like Noah.” She answered each whisper with a modest “yes.”
Five years, many donations and many whispers later, Izard’s team developed Moore Place and named it after Denver Moore and donors John and Pat Moore.
“It was impossible to imagine how these two events had taken place independently and were intricately linked,” Izard recalled. But Moore Place was the result after Denver Moore’s vital role in persuading Izard to start the project, and after John and Pat Moore took a step in faith by providing the UMC with a generous donation to start the project.
Volunteers scoured the streets of Charlotte collecting lists of chronically homeless by interviewing thousands of potential “neighbors.” A list of 807 were identified, the most vulnerable given first priority.
“The realization hit me hard: once homeless people were housed, they are just people,” Izard said.
In partnership with Urban Ministry Center, Moore Place is responsible for ending homelessness for 120 Charlotteans.
Residents including Ronnie Leggitte and Tabby Burns have been living at Moore Place since it opened in 2012.
“I love the fact that I am able to actually take care of myself. Self-care and self-love are things you just can’t get on the street. A nice shower and a good shave, clean clothes. No heavy loads on my shoulders,” Leggitte said.
“My whole attitude has changed. Since I have been here, I am clean and sober. I have a personality of love and yearning to learn just absolutely everything I can,” said Burns. She beamed as she shows off her 366-square-foot, fully furnished living area, decorated with her collection of unicorn art and plants and a picture of her 20-year-old daughter hanging over the couch.
Izard said she has taken to heart Denver Moore’s words: “In a way we are all homeless – just working our way towards home.”
“Trust the whispers, no matter how crazy it may seem,” she urged. “Be willing to take that leap of faith.”
Ana Lothspeich, pastoral care director at St. Gabriel Parish, said she hopes parishioners gain the insights Izard outlined.
“Homelessness is a chronic problem in Charlotte. Homeless people feel ‘invisible’ to society and those around them,” she said. “After listening to Kathy, St. Gabriel Church’s commitment to serve the homeless and hungry is even strong-er.
We look forward to continue being part of the solution.”
— Lisa Geraci, Correspondent
For more
At www.urbanministrycenter.org: Learn more about how you can help people in need in Charlotte
Order Kathy Izard’s book: “The Hundred Story Home” is available on Amazon, or call 704-926-0622 to purchase directly through UMC. Cost is $15; all proceeds benefit Urban Ministry Center’s Moore Place.
CHARLOTTE — History was made in the Diocese of Charlotte Oct. 26, when a Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form was offered for the first time.
The Solemn Pontifical Mass, one offered by a bishop or a cardinal, was the first such Latin liturgy ever offered in the diocese.
A standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 people gathered inside St. Ann Church to attend the Mass, offered by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C., auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Mary Most Holy in Astana, Kazakhstan.
An outspoken defender of the Catholic faith who grew up in the persecuted underground Church of the former Soviet Union, Bishop Schneider preached on the Kingship of Christ.
Jesus Christ is not only the king of heaven, Bishop Schneider said, but of all creation.
“Christ is the true King over all human ways and all human societies. He has conquered it by His Precious Blood,” he said.
“All things are in His Power. His empire not only includes Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, but also all those who are outside the faith.”
Individuals, families, nations – indeed, all peoples – fall under Christ’s authority and it is out of love for Him that we recognize His Kingship, he said.
Excluding and alienating Christ from public life, and preventing people from worshiping Christ as King and confessing their faith, is a sign of dictatorship, Bishop Schneider said.
Christians must especially stand up for Christ’s Kingship over the entire world when confronted by atheistic dictatorships, he said.
He recalled the “luminous” witness of the 14-year-old martyr José Sánchez del Río, who was executed during Mexico’s Cristero War. Although he was imprisoned and tortured by the anti-Catholic government forces, the boy refused to renounce his faith – defiantly proclaiming “Viva Cristo Rey!” even as the soldiers cut him with machetes, stabbed him with bayonets, and finally shot him in the head. Moments before he died, he drew a cross in the dirt and kissed it.
Pope Francis proclaimed him a saint on Oct. 16, 2016.
Martyrs and saints like St. José Sánchez del Río show us the way to enthrone Christ in our hearts, our minds and our wills, Bishop Schneider said. We should look to their example and ask for their intercession in our lives, praying that Christ will be “the king of every soul.”
Father Joseph Matlak served as deacon, Father Jason Barone was subdeacon and
Father Noah Carter was master of ceremonies for the Mass.
The liturgy was the first Mass of a confessor not a bishop, “Os Justi.” The Mass setting was “Missa Iste Confessor,” by Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina.
The liturgy commemorated Blessed Karl, the last emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. Crowned in 1916 during the height of World War I, he sought a peaceful end to the conflict and in the war’s aftermath he was forced into exile. He died sick and penniless in 1922, aged only 34. His last word before dying was “Jesus.”
The liturgy was offered under the auspices of the Emperor Karl League of Prayer for Peace Among the Nations, which promotes the cause for canonization of Blessed Karl.
The celebration was hosted by St. Ann Parish and the Charlotte Latin Mass Community, which presented Bishop Schneider with a spiritual bouquet of prayers after the Mass.
Bishop Schneider bowed and replied with a smile, “Thank you, and remain always Catholic!”
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, editor. Photos by Patricia L. Guilfoyle and Markus Kuncoro.
More online
Learn more about Blessed Karl
Learn more about St. José Sánchez del Río
CHARLOTTE — More than 500 catechists and ministry leaders from throughout western North Carolina attended the Diocese of Charlotte’s second annual Catechetical Conference, held Nov. 4 at the Charlotte Convention Center.
The conference, organized by the diocese’s Education Vicariate and partly funded by the Diocesan Support Appeal, was designed to provide teachers and faith formation leaders with resources, information and inspiration to help their students – youth and adults alike – become strong disciples of Christ.
The conference opened with a bilingual Mass celebrated by Bishop Peter Jugis. Father Julio Dominguez concelebrated.
In his homily, Bishop Jugis spoke of St. Charles Borromeo, whose feast was commemorated that day. The archbishop of Milan’s devotion to education in response to the widespread confusion of the Reformation – when clarity about the Catholic faith was needed – serves as a model for Catholic teachers in today’s confusing times, he said.
St. Charles Borromeo edited the catechism that sprung from the Council of Trent, founded some of the Church’s first modern seminaries to train priests, and was the first to establish the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) throughout his diocese. CCD has been a religious education program for Catholic children since 1562.
All of St. Charles Borromeo’s accomplishments, though, are not the reason why he’s recognized as a saint, Bishop Jugis said. He’s a saint because of “his personal holiness and his union with Jesus.”
That is “an important message we can draw from,” the bishop said, and he encouraged those present to focus on strengthening their personal relationship with Jesus before then teaching others: “First to know Jesus oneself, to be growing in an intimate friendship with Jesus, and then to be able to help our young people themselves to know Jesus and for them to grow in their intimate friendship with Jesus.”
“It’s all, of course, about Jesus,” he said, “knowing Him and forming strong disciples who are capable of following Him – not only just knowing what He teaches, but with their heart and their whole being following Jesus as disciples.”
Spend time in Eucharistic Adoration, he encouraged participants, to deepen that relationship with Jesus. Their “strong witness” and devotion to personal prayer, he said, will inspire others to follow Christ.
Catechists attending the conference said they were excited to spend time learning from each other and finding ways to improve or enliven their ministry, whether it’s teaching children in faith formation classes or adults in the RCIA program.
Nicole Waer, director of religious education for Holy Spirit Church in Denver, said she was particularly interested in applying the conference’s theme, “Living as Missionary Disciples,” in her parish’s growing youth programs.
Keynote addresses were given by Sister Mary Johanna Paluch, professed with the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George and an associate theology professor at Franciscan University, and Esther Terry, director of the Camino program at the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life.
Both keynote speakers talked about the Catechism of the Catholic Church, encouraging everyone to read it and pray with it, not just use it as an occasional reference tool.
This is the 25th anniversary of the Catechism, which was promulgated by St. John Paul II in 1992. It sums up, in book form, the beliefs of the Catholic Church, but Sister Johanna noted with a smile, “Nobody reads it. People think it’s only for bishops.”
But, she emphasized, “The catechism is for everybody.”
It is the definitive resource for teaching the Catholic faith, second only to Sacred Scripture, she said. And the current Catechism is not a random invention, but instead a compilation designed for today’s audiences that is built on catechisms dating all the way back to St. Irenaeus and St. Augustine.
More than simply “words printed on a page,” the Catechism presents the truths of the Catholic faith in a concise, understandable way so that Catholics can better know Jesus and become His disciples – and that’s really what teaching the faith is all about, Sister Johanna said.
“Please, please read the Catechism! Find Jesus in the Catechism! Find your faith in the Catechism!” she urged. “I promise you that you’ll love it and that your life will change.”
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, Editor
CHARLOTTE — For this month only, relics of several saints will be on display for veneration at St. Patrick Cathedral.
Father Christopher Roux, rector and pastor of the cathedral, displays the relics – some of which are from saints whose relics are not available anywhere else in the diocese – throughout November for public veneration.
The saints’ relics and their feast days are:
• St. Jean Marie Vianney – Aug. 4
• St. Francis of Assisi – Oct. 4
• Sts. Jacinta and Francisco Marto – Feb. 20
• St. Jude the Apostle – Oct.28
• 6 Passionist Saints:
o Paul of the Cross – Oct. 20
o Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows – Feb. 27
o Gemma Galgani - April 11
o Bl. Dominic Barberi – Aug. 27
o Maria Goretti - July 6
o Vincent Strambi – Sept. 26
• St. Stanislaus Kostka – Aug. 15
• St. Therese of the Child Jesus – Oct. 1
• St. Isidore - May 15
St. Patrick Cathedral is located at 1621 Dilworth Road East in Charlotte. For St. Patrick Cathedral’s Mass schedule and more information, go to www.stpatricks.org.
— Catholic News Herald