March 29, 2024
living the beatitudes today

living the beatitudes todayWe might consider the Sermon on the Mount, and specifically the eight beatitudes, as the way to live happily within the gift of free will which our Creator gave to us.

“What Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount, therefore, is the new law that would discipline our desires, our minds and our bodies so as to make real happiness possible,” said Bishop Robert Barron in his book, Catholicism.

There are ample examples of people living out the beatitudes all around us, in the world and in our diocese. This story offers an example for each of the beatitudes in hopes they will inspire you to look around and find more.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

One of the hallmarks of this beatitude is being aware of our utter need for God and trusting God.

“Our Lady whispers the word Trust to me often! I have a devotion to Our Lady of Trust and take great comfort in resting in her loving arms and speaking the words, Jesus, I Trust in You. I learned very early on in my life that faith is a gift and that we must ask for it,” said Jackie Sempek, who works at Broom Tree Retreat and Conference Center.
Her need for trust in God has been great – Sempek lost her first husband after a two year battle with brain cancer and was left with five children ranging from age 7 to 15. Earlier, she had been the one dealing with illness.

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Jackie Sempek prepares the chapel at Broom Tree Retreat and Conference Center.

“I was diagnosed with Stage 3 lymph cancer ten years prior to my husband’s illness. I was pregnant with our second child when I noticed the lumps. I waited to start chemotherapy until after she was born, and when she was just 12 weeks old, after two cycles of chemo, I frighteningly discovered I was pregnant with our third. It was during this very dark time that the Christ’s triumphant sovereignty over sin and death from the Cross became real to me and that glorious truth continues to inform my life,” she said.

After her husband died she moved to be closer to family support and by happy coincidence ended up being near Broom Tree.

“I would say that suffering is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. The worst thing is to be separated from God,” said Sempek, who in the years since has remarried and found a work and ministry home at Broom Tree.

“There is often a grace attached to becoming overwhelmed by life’s circumstances. It takes us to a place beyond our capacities and it is there where we can either choose to surrender to God and believe that apart from Him we can do nothing, or we continue on with our flailing coping mechanisms which eventually leave us even more overwhelmed and broken than we were to begin with, “she said.

“My experience has taught me to surrender quickly and often to the merciful love of God. It is from there that we begin to really live. When we see our poverty, we see God.”

Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land

To be meek does not mean being a pushover. Rather, meekness is about deeply governing our passions and using them rightly, most often for others. This exhibits itself in behaviors and attitudes of compassion, gentleness, charity, forgiveness and kindliness.

Dorothy Day was the first to admit her struggle, writing in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, “I have not always felt the richness of life, its sacredness… My life has been divided into two parts. The first twenty-five years were floundering, years of joy and sorrow, it is true, but certainly with a sense of insecurity one hears so much about these days.”

In time Day became a deeply faithful Catholic and one of the best known social justice advocates of the 20th century, founding the still active Catholic Worker Movement. In 2012 the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously recommended the canonization of Dorothy Day and today she is known as a “Servant of God.”

Day cites many influences in shaping her faith and work, among them Fr. Pacifique Roy, a Josephite priest from Quebec, ministering in Baltimore who visited the Worker movement in New York. “He began with the Sermon on the Mount, holding us spellbound, so glowing was his talk, so heartfelt.”

Fr. Roy encouraged the group to act always for the “supernatural motive.”

“If we did our works of mercy to be praised by men, or from pride and vanity and sense of power, then we had our reward. If we did them for the love of God, in whose image man had been made, then God would reward us; then we were doing them for a supernatural motive,” Day wrote.

Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted

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The Cathedral of Saint Joseph funeral ministry prepares breakfast for the attendees.

In parishes all across the Diocese of Sioux Falls we comfort each other at the death of loved ones. This takes many forms, one of which is providing lunches, dinners and other types of social time after wakes and funerals. It’s a way for us to enter into and support the suffering of another; to mourn with them.

For years at the Cathedral of St. Joseph, Joan Miron and others have worked this funeral ministry.

“The Bereavement Ministry of the Cathedral of St. Joseph has had many volunteers over the years, women and men, to help serve funeral lunches dating back to Dorcas Baldwin, Cleo Grogan and Florence Kunkel to name a few,” Miron said. Today, she lines up volunteers and cakes, others order the food and make sure the kitchen is ready in advance, help out during and clean up after.

“It serves as a ministry to the bereaved that mourn and extends our parish hospitality to them,” she said, “Our volunteers find this ministry to be fulfilling and it also provides great fellowship.”

Taking it a step beyond, Joan and her husband Al wanted to ensure such a service was able to be sustained and available to all.

“Having been part of this ministry and having been very blessed, my husband and I established the Al and Joan Miron Family Endowment Fund to help defray the costs of funeral lunches for those in need,” Miron said.

Last year when Al died suddenly and unexpectedly, Joan asked that the memorials for Al would be directed into the fund.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill

Among the professions in Chad Campbell‘s career are a couple that one might associate with seeking justice – postal inspector in a large city and police officer in Sioux Falls. But it is his current role as leader of the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House where his true hunger for upholding the dignity of each person is being filled.

He felt a call to the ministry of the homeless shelter.

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Chad Campbell, Executive Director, Bishop Dudley Hospitality House

“I knew in my heart I had to answer that call, as difficult as it might be,” Campbell said. “I saw firsthand everyday how our society viewed those less fortunate and how they were cast aside and viewed as less important than others and many are considered just a burden to society. I will tell you that most of the individuals that I speak with on a daily basis have little to zero self-worth. I know that I was called into this ministry to help serve those that I observed struggle on the streets from 2008 to 2014 (as a police officer).

“One guest would often ask me ‘why do you care so much about me when no one else does?’ I didn’t have to even think about the answer, ‘because you are my brother and sister in Christ and you are a child of God.’”

There is much indifference in the world, which might be considered the opposite of this beatitude.

“Indifference is something that I see every day,” Campbell said. “I see people walk by people on the street or sitting in the Dudley House and not even acknowledge their existence. As human beings, we all crave the same thing – acceptance and relationship with our peers.

“Many individuals staying at the Dudley House have burned bridges with their families and friends and they have nowhere to turn. I like to think that even though we are not perfect, we attempt to offer individuals the opportunity to re-connect with society that will allow them to prosper and grow in self- awareness and self-sufficiency,” he said.

“I often feel that even as Christians we judge our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate than we are,” Campbell said. “It is our responsibility to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.”

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy

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Deacons Harold Pardew and William Radio

Deacon Harold Pardew grew up unchurched and unbaptized in a large family that was in pieces. He remembers standing in a field as a boy cursing at God about what happened to his family. “From then on it was like God sent a troupe of angels to help guide me,” he said.

He was over 20 years old before he stepped foot into a church, Sacred Heart in Aberdeen, but when he did he felt connected. In short order he met his future wife, Mary, a Catholic, and his faith journey took off.

The sense of God’s mercy for him, mostly understood as it often is, in hindsight, opened him to see the needs of others. As a hospital chaplain Deacon Pardew saw the pain of parents who suffered miscarriage and who did not have the opportunity to properly grieve or take care of the lost child.

“The first were Janet and Troy Cronen. Life begins at conception and regardless of when it ends, the person deserves the dignity of a burial. I promised them I’d help give their miscarried child, Lee, a proper burial,” said Deacon Pardew.

He called a friend and asked her to ask a bunch of friends for $20 each to gather the $250 needed. Two hours later she called back with $1000 committed. He protested that he only needed $250 – she assured him he would need more for future babies. The Angel Lee Cronen fund was set up through the Catholic Community Foundation and for 20 years has mercifully helped parents through these tough moments. Deacon William Radio has stepped up to help with the ministry.

Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God

There is little doubt about the undivided love of God by St. Teresa of Calcutta. How often she encouraged not only her Missionaries of Charity, but all of us, to see the face of Christ in everyone we encounter.

From the origins of the community St. Teresa wanted the focus on Jesus. She was concerned that letters and papers regarding the creation of the community would be misunderstood.

In communicating to her spiritual director and Archbishop Ferdinand Pirier, who helped establish the Missionaries, she wrote, “… I have entrusted my deepest thoughts – my love for Jesus – and his tender love for me—please do not give anything of 1946. I want the work to remain only His. When the beginning will be known people will think more of me—less of Jesus … I am only His instrument—why so much about me—when the work is all His. I hold no claim to it. It was given to me.” From the book Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, 2007, pp. 5-6.

But of course what makes her ministry, her leadership of the Missionaries and her extraordinary evangelization in India and around the world so remarkable is that she did these things while feeling a spiritual emptiness and separation from God.

In another letter to Archbishop Perier, having earlier described feeling the absence of God, she wrote, “Please pray for me, that it may please God to lift this darkness from my soul for only a few days. For sometimes the agony of desolation is so great and at the same time the longing for the Absent One so deep, that the only prayer which I can still say is “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in Thee, I will satiate Thy thirst for souls.” p. 165

Over time and with the help of spiritual directors she came to some peace about her spiritual situation.

“For the first time in this 11 years I have come to love the darkness. For I believe now that it is a part, a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness and pain on earth …Today I felt a deep joy that Jesus can’t go anymore through the agony, but that He wants to go through it in me. More than ever I surrender myself to Him.” p. 214

Her clean heart has led so many to see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God

Father Charles Duman, now in his 90s, was new to the parish as its pastor. Someone didn’t care for him. Rumors, untruths and more were anonymously spread. Thinking he knew who was behind it, he confronted the person only to learn he was wrong and the person had nothing to do with it.

Thirty years later and retired Fr. Duman attended a priest retreat during which the retreat director gave a talk on forgiveness. It hit him and he felt the need to seek the forgiveness of the man he had wrongly accused, and to let go of the resentment he had felt for so long.

On his way home from the retreat he sought out and found the man. Stopping at his house “trembling,” he discovered something he had forgotten – he had actually sent a letter of apology and the man had long ago forgotten about the whole thing.

Fr. Duman calls it “one of the most important lessons in nearly 66 years of priesthood,” so much so that he shared the story with his brother priests and deacons at a clergy gathering last year celebrating his 65th priesthood anniversary. The reconciliation of the two men led to a friendship that lasted until the other man died.

“Reconciliation brings peace. You hang on to things and you know you should deal with it. I’m so glad I did,” said Fr. Duman.

Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

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Sr. Miriam Shindelar supervising the distribution of furniture from a generous benefactor.

The Oblate Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament have been walking with Native Americans for decades. The brokenness and persecution found today have their roots in history, but of course the injustices can still be found today.

That does not deter the actions of the community in seeking justice.

“The works of mercy that we do and our ministries are meant as acts of reparation and atonement,” said Sister Miriam Shindelar, community leader. “It is our deepest desire that our presence can serve in some small way to further the cause of reconciliation and healing.

“Through all this there is joy and peace,” she said. “We are a Eucharist-centered community who are deeply grateful to have the Eucharistic Presence of Jesus in our Convent Chapel, and who are able to bring this sacramental Jesus to some of those we serve.”

There is a peaceful trust in God as they do what they can.

“Our joy comes from knowing that we are serving God and that God who has sustained us in the past will continue to do so in the future. We trust that God has begun the work here and will see it accomplished according to the Divine Plan,” Sr. Miriam said.

“Our sisters are privileged to be here on this Reservation for we receive far more than we give.”