HUNTERSVILLE — For nine months, eight St. Mark families met the first Sunday of each month to pray the novena in honor of the Divine Child Jesus. Their prayer effort culminated Sept. 3, when 63 parishioners went on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, in Hanceville, Ala., where a shrine to the Divine Child Jesus is located.
In 1914, Salesian Father Juan del Rizzo started the devotion to the Divine Child Jesus in Colombia. While kneeling in prayer one day, Father del Rizzo decided to entrust his efforts to the Infant Jesus. He developed a simple image of the Christ Child depicted with open arms, as if ready to hug everybody, wearing a pink dress and bare footed.
Father del Rizzo then built a shrine in honor of the Divine Child Jesus in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. This devotion and the work that was started continues today, helping children and disadvantaged families buy groceries with donations from pilgrims. At Christmas, many gifts among poor families in the region are also distributed with these donations.
Devotion to the Divine Child Jesus came to Hanceville after Poor Clare Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, better known as Mother Angelica and the founder of EWTN, visited the shrine in Bogota. While she faced the image, Mother Angelica later recalled, the Child Jesus came to life and told her: “Build me a temple and I will help those who help you.” Upon her return home, Mother Angelica continued in prayer along with the nuns of her community, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. Their prayers were answered with a very generous financial contribution from five families who anonymously helped to build the monastery and shrine in honor of the Divine Child Jesus.
In September 2014, St. Mark Parish’s first pilgrimage was organized with 12 people at the invitation of the Martinez-Gaona family, who had been visiting the shrine for five consecutive years for the celebration of the Feast of the Divine Child Jesus, also known as Divino Niño de Bogotá or Divino Niño.
That same year, 14 parishioners attended a couples’ retreat, wishing to live and grow closer to this beautiful place. They decided to continue with the devotion, praying the Divine Child Jesus novena every first Sunday of the month, with the desire to invite more people to join the pilgrimage. In September of that year, 24 people went on the pilgrimage to Hanceville, and the number of people attending the annual pilgrimage each September continues to grow.
Learn more about the devotion to the Divine Child Jesus and the shrine in Hanceville online at www.olamshrine.com.
Lina Maria Hernandez, Special to the Catholic News Herad. Lina Maria Hernandez helps to organize St. Mark Church’s pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Ala.
HOUSTON — Leaders from Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte took time out while attending the annual gathering of Catholic Charities USA in Houston Sept. 28-30 to aid victims of Hurricane Harvey in the region.
They were part of a team of more than 50 Catholic Charities colleagues from around the United States who helped at a Houston warehouse sorting, boxing and loading donations of food, cleaning supplies and hygiene products to distribute to people affected by the hurricane in the Houston and Beaumont, Texas, areas.
They also joined CCUSA’s Mobile Disaster Response Unit at a north Houston neighborhood that was hit particularly hard by Hurricane Harvey, which cut a swath through Texas and Louisiana in late August. The Category 4 storm dumped more than 40 inches of rain in four days, which caused unprecedented flooding that damaged hundreds of thousands of homes, killed more than 80 people and displaced more than 30,000 people. The neighborhood where Catholic Charities staff spent time had been flooded, and residents’ drinking water was contaminated. Volunteers canvassed the area distributing food, water, diapers, cleaning supplies and personal care items.
“I am humbled and blessed to be a part of the body of Catholic Charities USA as we’re all going to work for Houston. It’s a very humbling experience to be here to support and to reach out to our brothers and sisters, and to do just what we can, to help to ease a bit of the challenges that they’re facing. We want the folks of Houston to know that we support you, we stand with you, and we’re just happy to be here,” said Sharon Davis, social work/program assurance director for Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte, while out in the north Houston neighborhood.
Dr. Gerard Carter, executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte, said after their return from Houston: “Two images still stand out in my mind as I surveyed the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. One was seeing children’s toys spread out on the ground beside a trailer just waiting to be carried off to the dump. The other was seeing people’s clothing simply littering the roadway, being run over by cars as part of the debris that was everywhere. I know that many people lost even more, but in that yard and on that street the human component of this hurricane was just so clear and so sad. At the same time, I was very proud to be part of the national Catholic Charities response because our agency staff were, in a very small way, able to offer comfort and hope to those in need.”
—Photos provided by Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte
HAYESVILLE — Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte’s eighth Bishop Begley Conference on Appalachia (BBCA) was recently held at Hayesville First United Methodist Church.
The conference brought together an ecumenical audience of more than 40 people to address food insecurity in far western North Carolina through learning, prayer and the distribution of small grants. The keynote presenter was Dixie Shaw, program director of Hunger and Relief Services of Catholic Charities Maine. Shaw spoke about numerous creative ways she has marshalled resources to fight food insecurity in northern Maine’s Aroostook County, and the web of partnerships she has developed to ally with Catholic Charities in this work. For example, through the Catholic Charities Maine “Farm for Me” program, the agency provides 24 food pantries in Aroostook County with fresh vegetables thanks to food grown on the program’s six acres, partnerships with local farmers, and a partnership with a local micro-processing company which flash-freezes the harvest surplus for distribution during winter months.
Other sessions at the Bishop Begley Conference on Appalachia provided a reflection on the parish-based food pantry at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Franklin which has assisted those in need in Macon County for 17 years; looked more in depth at the extent of food insecurity in the 16 counties of far western North Carolina through data provided by Asheville-based Manna Food Bank; and offered advocacy tips to address food insecurity through the shaping of public policy.
Manna Food Bank is a non-profit that works with 229 community-based agencies and food assistance programs in 16 western North Carolina counties, including the food pantries operated by Catholic Charities in Asheville and St. Francis of Assisi Church in Franklin.
Sobering information was shared at the conference, such as: 13,000 people each week seek food assistance in western North Carolina, and just over 42 percent of these people are children or seniors; an estimated four out of five households assisted by Manna partnering agencies live on less than $20,000 a year; and nationally, North Carolina ranks 11th in the nation in childhood food insecurity with 26.7 percent of children struggling to have access to three meals a day (2014 Map the Meal Gap Study).
Also at the conference, Catholic Charities Far West Growing Opportunities Grants totaling $16,000 were distributed to seven non-profit organizations and ministries combating food insecurity in the four counties of Cherokee, Clay, Graham and Swain. Funded projects included three food pantries, three community gardens, and a non-profit assisting people facing both low income and diabetes to receive health appropriate food assistance.
Go to www.ccdoc.org/fwncto find more information about this conference, resources on food insecurity, and the Catholic Charities Far West Growing Opportunities Grant Program and this year’s grant recipients.
Joseph Purello, Special to the Catholic News Herald. Joseph Purello is the director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte’s Office of Social Concerns and Advocacy.
MINT HILL — A chance encounter on a cruise ship steered a Mint Hill couple to a lifetime of serving people in one of the poorest areas of Appalachia.
Debby Lawrence and her husband Jim first learned of the extreme poverty in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky through their son Chris, who went on a mission trip organized through the Christian Appalachian Project. The trip was supposed to last three weeks.
“Well, he just did not come on back for the whole summer,” Debby Lawrence recalls. When their son did finally return, he was excited to talk about the Christian Appalachian Project and share all that he had experienced in eastern Kentucky.
Three years later, the Lawrences were on a cruise and while attending Mass they heard the priest celebrant talk about the people in eastern Kentucky and how they needed help. Debby Lawrence realized that the priest was none other than Monsignor Ralph Beiting, the founder of the Christian Appalachian Project and the person responsible for her son’s summer adventure. The Kentucky-born priest, who died in 2012, began helping Appalachian residents fight poverty in 1946, when, as a seminarian, he accompanied several priests on preaching trips to the mountains of eastern Kentucky. The oldest of 11 children who grew up during the Great Depression, Monsignor Beiting was no stranger to need, but the incredible poverty he saw in Appalachia planted the seeds of what eventually became the Christian Appalachian Project.
The Lawrences asked Monsignor Beiting how they could help, and he suggested that they go on a short-term mission trip. They were so touched by that experience that they ended up becoming long-term missionaries with the organization and even moved to eastern Kentucky for two years to serve the elderly residents there.
The Lawrences continue to lead mission trips to eastern Kentucky, and since 2011 parishioners from St. Luke Church have gone on summer mission trips with them through the Christian Appalachian Project.
On the parish’s most recent mission trip, the Lawrences, Bobby Francis, Bob Hayes, Sandy Coughlin, John Luther and David Esposito completed two construction projects in four days. They built ramps and porches, replaced windows and revamped kitchens for elderly residents in need that had been identified through the Christian Appalachian Project.
“We would have breakfast at seven, pack a lunch and go to our designated project site. We worked on projects and interacted with families until about 4:30. We would get back to the Follie Community Center and have a well-needed dinner. After, we had a group share and devotional. We finally had enough time to clean up the hall and get a decent night’s sleep. The next day we would do it all over again,” Lawrence describes.
Appalachia’s poverty and socioeconomic ills have been well documented, and the six counties in Kentucky served by the Christian Appalachian Project are no different: 13 percent of the population is disabled, 12 percent are unemployed, nearly half are obese, and residents’ lifespan is six years less than the average American.
“When driving through the mountains everything looks to be quite normal but within the ‘hollers,’ people have just about nothing,” Lawrence says. “Many are elderly and do not have cars, proper plumbing, or even access to their homes. The trailers most citizens live in are outdated and falling apart. They have found a way to make do generation to generation, but they need help. A lot people are ill, disabled and are completely dependent upon each other.”
“Hollers” are the flat lands within the mountain valleys of Appalachia. Each “holler” has a name and a family that has been tied to it for at least a century. At one time, these families were successful coal miners. But as the demand for coal has declined, so has the prosperity of these families. Ironically, some are unable to buy the same coal that once provided them with a living, to heat their homes.
For the Lawrences, this dim reality just means that more help is needed.
“I am not trying to solve problems or determine answers,” Lawrence says. “I go to serve individual people that have a need. There are so many, so many that need us.
“These are the most resourceful people I have ever seen. They are great Christians. They love God. Every time we help them they tell us, ‘Thank you for coming. I love you.’ They really say that, and they really mean it. They are not envious of anyone or anything. These are some of the most amazing people I ever met. I love these people. They are my people. They have stolen my heart.”
The Lawrences said they would love to have more parishes embrace the summer mission trips that the Christian Appalachian Project offers. For more information, email Debby Lawrence at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
— Lisa Geraci, correspondent
CHARLOTTE — In a humble brick building 60 years ago, 175 families gathered to celebrate the first Mass at St. Gabriel Church. The property had been purchased for just $100 and was a mile outside of Charlotte’s 1957 city limits. Consecrated to the service of God and named after the Archangel Gabriel, the parish has seen remarkable growth and changes in its six decades.
Within just 20 years, the parish population swelled to 1,400 families and was the largest in North Carolina. A church expansion, and later a significantly bigger church and other campus buildings, accommodated the growth. Today, more than 3,330 families call St. Gabriel home, with seven Sunday Masses, more than 80 ministries, and 1,050 children in its faith formation program.
On a beautiful evening last month, the parish celebrated its 60th anniversary with a special Mass and food truck picnic. The Sept. 23 liturgy featured all five of St. Gabriel’s choirs, including its adult and youth choirs, New Spirit Ensemble, Alegria Hispanic choir and handbell choir. Joyous hymns in English and Spanish reflected the diversity of the parish and underscored that St. Gabriel Parish belongs to all.
Homilist Deacon Michael Goad noted, “How far we have come and yet as a church how much there is for us yet to do in our Father’s vineyard. To whom much is given, much is required. Whether you’ve just joined St. Gabriel or whether you’re a founding member, this is your church, this house of God is your home. May the Holy Spirit continue to lead and guide us. May we be worthy of our calling as a people of God and of God’s continued blessings upon us. And may Almighty God complete the work He has begun in each one of us and in those we seek to serve.”
After Mass, parishioners young and old enjoyed a food truck picnic in the church’s courtyard with many staying well past sunset. Father Gabriel Carvajal-Salazar, parochial vicar, and Alegria choir leader Manuel Esquivel entertained with accordion and guitar, and “selfies with the Archangel Gabriel” were popular for all ages.
“A truly glorious celebration” and “We should do this again!” were sentiments echoed by many.
In reflecting on the parish’s 60th anniversary, Father Frank O’Rourke, pastor, shared, “How blessed we are to join as a community of faith in celebrating our parish’s 60th anniversary. Under the patronage of the Archangel Gabriel, we – and those who came before us – are invited to be messengers of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
“With gratitude, we reflect on our humble beginnings in a small brick building, where a cafeteria table served as the altar for the 175 families who gathered for Mass. Today, we are a vibrant parish of 3,335 families with numerous ministries that connect us and help us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
“What a legacy we share! I know you join me in giving thanks to the Lord for the generosity of Spirit evident in all who worship, serve and seek to grow in faith in our parish of St. Gabriel. Truly, the Holy Spirit continues to gather the faithful here!
“May we keep the flame of faith alive in our hearts as we answer the call to ‘go out to all the world to tell the Good News’ (Mark 16:15). We count ourselves blessed in the legacy that is ours. May we, too, ‘proclaim the greatness of the Lord’ (Luke 1:46) in this, our time.”
— Darby McClatchy, special to the Catholic News Herald. Darby McClatchy is the communications coordinator at St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte.
