I must go. Enjoy!

Dear Readers,

I started this blog over one year ago to try to spotlight some of the peacemaking, acts of love, charity, and positivity that often go unnoticed - with a religious twist. It has since evolved to also include random thoughts or cool things I've read. Unfortunately, the time has come for me to focus on other work.

My friend Adam-Who-I-Still-Think-Should-Become-A-Rabbi joined this blog a couple of months ago and posted a few times. That led to our new adventure, Worship, Gotham!

I am leaving Children of God, in part, to focus on our work on Worship, Gotham! (and, as you can see by the lack of posts, we've got some serious work to do).

But, I am also looking forward to my own writing. Earlier this year my wife and I went to dinner with our friend Mary. She asked us if there was anything we wanted to accomplish before we turned 30. I've never put an age-goal for accomplishments or activities but it did get me thinking. I want to write a book!

I will use the handful of minutes that it took me to blog here to write (books?) instead. I don't know yet the format that this writing will take. There's a children's book I wrote that I once submitted to a publisher and was rejected - perhaps I should go back, rework it, and forward it to other publishers. Maybe I'll write the great Latino American novel I've always wanted to write.

Whatever the case, you can rest assured that in all that I do, in all that I write, there will be hope, there will be love, and there will be God.

I highly recommend the following blogs in the meantime (I check these daily):
Between the 'Burgh and the City - an old NYU friend, Paul Snatchko, blogs about faith, politics, and more.
The Deacon's Bench - Deacon Greg Kandra ponders the world with great insight.
Vision-Mission-Passion - Dr. Barry Kolb, Wendy's uncle and LCMS pastor in Texarkana, writes about church life and sports.
Magdalene's Egg - an ELCA pastor talks sex, religion, and politics.
The American Muslim - Robert Salaam writes about religion, politics, and social issues from the American Muslim perspective.

Do you see a trend?

So, with a heavy heart and excitement for the future, I take leave.

Enjoy,

Christian Alberto Ledesma

a little kiss

I've had trouble posting anything recently because my focus is on my running. As most of you may know, I am running the NJ Marathon and raising money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. I've been so focused on my running and health - and so far, knock on wood, doing really well - that blogging is down a few steps on the list. In all, my running is taking an hour or two or three out of my day.

But, I'm still surfing the web and finding inspiration. This one comes via Deacon Greg Kandra and tells a great story:

A woman who doctors believed could remain comatose indefinitely recently
revived after her husband asked her for a kiss.

Just ten days after giving birth to her son, Telford, Shropshire resident
Emma Ray suffered a heart attack and collapsed while shopping with her husband,
Andrew. Andrew performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her, after which she
was taken to a hospital where doctors were able to restart her heart.

“She could wake up the following day, she could wake up in a month, or you
may be left with a sleeping beauty,” Andrew Ray said a doctor told him,
according to the Daily Mail.

Andrew went to great lengths to try and rouse his 34 year-old wife from her
comatose state, playing recordings of their baby son Alexander and of their
daughter Ella and songs from their wedding reception.

“I would speak softly to her, clasp her hand, pinch her fingers, all the
time telling her I loved her or begging her to wake up. By the time I asked her
to kiss me I was approaching my wits' end,” he told the Daily Mail.

He bent over his wife’s hospital bed and said “Emma, if you can hear me,
please just give me a kiss.”“'What happened next was beyond my wildest dreams,”
he told the Daily Mail. “She turned her head towards mine, puckered up her lips
and gave me a little kiss.”

“I couldn't believe it. My heart felt like it was going to leap from my
chest –it suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted.”

Doctors who witnessed the kiss were astonished by her response.Emma ray
continued to drift in an out of consciousness. Her brain had been oxygen-starved
after her heart attack, resulting in short-term memory loss.

She was eventually allowed home but requires ongoing rehabilitation for the
brain damage.

“The recovery is awful because I have so little memory,” Emma told the
Daily Mail.Her husband said he was grateful his wife had survived.

“She can walk quite well holding hands now, and at least our kids still
have a mother and I still have a wife,” he said, according to the Daily
Mail.

Penn meets a "sane" Christian

It's not often you get to see Penn of Penn & Teller at a loss for words, but you can see it here:



As The Anchoress points out, one of the core messages from this video is what Penn says himself, “How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that?”

Thanks to The Anchoress via Deacon Greg for pointing this video out.

Congratulations to NET!

I'm watching the first official hour of NET!

Congratulations to Deacon Greg and everyone at NET for their launch! Best wishes for the success of good TV.

I wonder if they'd be interested in Worship, Gotham! . . . .

Where do Communion wafers come from?

When I was little I used to think that the Pope, at the Vatican, had a big wafer-making factory and distributed them accordingly. I was off by about 4138 miles.

They're made in Rhode Island. Watch!


Hat tip to the good Deacon Greg, who has been getting a lot of press for his Mad Men-like ad blitz for the new NET channel!

A Thanksgiving homily from Deacon Greg

Deacon Greg posted his homily for Thanksgiving. I think it's a beautiful message. I tried to quote some excerpts but you have to read the whole thing to really appreciate it, so I hope Deacon Greg doesn't mind me reposting it all here:

A priest I know likes to say that Thanksgiving is one of his favorite holidays, and not just because of the food.

The church is always filled, he says, and the great thing is that people come to mass today not because they have to…but because they want to.

He makes a beautiful point. There are no rules saying any of us has to be here this morning. I’m sure a lot of people have other things to do -- trips to make, turkeys to stuff, tables to set. Somewhere, there’s a football game waiting to be watched. In the middle of all that, going to mass isn’t required. This isn’t a day of obligation.

Rather, it is a day of opportunity.

It’s an opportunity to think back on what we have been given…and to give something in return: thanks. Actually, “thanks” is too small a word. We are here to give gratitude. They should call this day “Gratitude-giving.”

We are here to honor, with grateful hearts, what God has done for us.

Very often, in our prayer lives, we spend so much time on our knees, asking for things. Pleading. “God, help me pass this test.” “Keep me from throttling my teenager.” “Help me find a job.” “Protect my son in Iraq.”

The scripture tells us to ask and we shall receive, and to knock and it will be opened. So we ask, and we knock.

But what happens then?

In Luke’s gospel today, 10 people are cured by Jesus of leprosy. Only one comes back to say thank you. Tellingly, the person who comes back isn’t Jewish. But neither was St. Luke. Luke is the only one of the evangelists who was not a Jew. And his gospel was written for those, like himself, who were the outsiders, the foreigners. Christ’s message, Luke tells us, is meant for everyone.

But in the gospel story, not everyone comes back. Only one, a Samaritan, returns to give glory to God. We don’t know what happened to the other nine. Maybe they had turkeys to stuff or football games to watch.

Implicit in this episode is the idea that something is missing. Giving thanks is a vital and necessary part of our relationship with God.

All the lepers were cured. But only one, the one who gave thanks, was saved.

And that is because thankfulness, we discover, is a measure of faith. A measure of our dependence on God, and of our own humility.

But sometimes thankfulness can be hard to express.

Most of us know someone who is having a difficult time this Thanksgiving. The woman who is spending her first holiday as a widow. The father who lost his job and is worried about where he will find Christmas gifts for his children. Those friends and neighbors who are hurting or alone.

Where are the blessings for these and others who are feeling, in a particular way, burdened, afflicted, cursed?

The simple, indisputable fact is this: every breath is a blessing. Every sunrise. Every snowfall. “Bless the God of all,” Sirach exclaims, “who has done wondrous things on earth.” Incredibly, we are part of that wonder, part of God’s continuing creation in the world. And what a blessing to be able to say that!

The German mystic and philosopher, Meister Eckhert, once wrote: “If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is ‘thank you,’ that will suffice.”

That is why we are here: to pray those words, and to make them matter.

So taking a cue from Meister Eckhert, let’s make this something more than a holiday, more than an excuse to have a second slice of pie and take a long nap in front of the television.

Make this very day a kind of prayer. Beginning here, and now.

As the day unfolds, carry that prayer with you. Live it. Give it. This is, after all, a day for giving -- giving thanks. It doesn’t have to end when you say grace over the turkey. In fact, it doesn’t have to end tonight -- God’s gifts certainly won’t. Every beat of your heart affirms an unmistakable mystery: God has given you life. Extravagant, wonderful, painful, challenging life.

Let’s strive to remind ourselves of God’s blessings, wherever we find them, however they come to us. And to give thanks for them, every day, in every moment.

I want to conclude with a little tradition from my wife’s family. Every Thanksgiving, her dad asks one of the kids at the table to read aloud George Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation from 1789.

It includes this beautiful sentence:

"Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

That author’s magnificent work – truly the greatest story every composed – is continuing. He has made us a part of it. And that is reason enough for us to be here, on this day of opportunity, not obligation, to tell Him how humbled, and happy, and grateful we are.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving! And remember to pray today!

(Photo courtesy of the NY Times)

Tony

I'm a sap, I know. So, it should come as no surprise when I say that I teared up watching this short film from The Responsibility Project on Deacon Greg's blog:



Enjoy!

Prayer for the Unemployed

Deacon Greg posted this Prayer for the Unemployed. Pray:

O Saint Joseph, we pray to you for those who are out of work, for those who want to earn their living or support their families.

You who are the patron of workers, grant that unemployment may vanish from our ranks;

that all those who are ready to work may put their strength and abilities in serving their fellowmen and earn a just salary.

You are the patron of families, do not let those who have children to support and raise lack the necessary means.

Have pity on our brothers and sisters held down in unemployment and poverty because of sickness or social disorders.

Help our political leaders and captains of industry find new and just solutions.

May each and every one have the joy of contributing, according to his abilities, to the common prosperity by an honorable livelihood.

Grant that we may all share together in the abundant goods God has given us and that we may help underprivileged countries. Amen.

-- Catholic Prayerbook

The 401-keg.

I wonder how many times I can borrow from Deacon Greg this week before I get cut off... BUT, I could not pass this up because of the theme on my blog today. He cites a fellow deacon's financial tip:

If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.

With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000.

With AIG, you would have less than $15 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It's called the 401-Keg.

God is the ultimate judge

There's an internal fight brewing within the Catholic Church. Magdalene's Egg blogger, Father Anonymous, notes that it's not the first time in Church history.

On one side you have the hierarchy and conservative base claiming a moral argument in their support of life. To that end, they claim that voting for a supporter of abortion rights amounts to endorsing "homicide."

On the other side, you have a growing attempt by liberal Catholic groups arguing that the Democratic Party better reflects the full spectrum of Catholic teachings because they take into consideration ALL human life.

The NY Times wrote about it today. It seems that the Catholic Church is moving away from the business of informing consciences and more into the business of telling people how to vote. So, a group of nuns, clergy, and laity are arguing on the side of the individual's right to right to act according to one's conscience.

Deacon Greg Kandra pointed to this article on conscience by a retired priest:

Are bishops making Democratic Catholics choose?

Published:Sunday, October 5, 2008

By The Rev. EMMETT COYNE

On Oct. 2, I was a guest at the First Friday Club of Greater Youngstown which meets on the First Thursday of each month. “Preparing to Vote in 2008 Presidential Elections,” was the timely topic, and the presenter was Jim Tobin, associate director of the Ohio Catholic Conference Social Concerns Department in Columbus.

He sought carefully to nuance his presentation to avoid an obvious partisan position. A priest friend of mine who left active ministry in Washington, D.C., eight or 10 years ago had an exit interview with the cardinal. The cardinal asked him why he was leaving. He replied that there was no room for him in the Catholic Church. The cardinal was puzzled and asked what he meant. He replied: “I’m a Democrat.”

In the past there was the perception that the hierarchy in the United States tilted toward the Democrats. In these latter days the perception is the hierarchy tilts toward the Republicans as Democrats are viewed as the party of pro-choice and the Republicans, pro-life. Any American bishop today who comes out publicly to identify with a Democratic candidate would be shunned by his fellow bishops. Popes, cardinals, bishops have not been shy, though, about photo ops with Republican politicians, particularly as they preen being anti-pro-choice. “Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?” was the title of a 2006 book to which the author answered with a resounding no.

Jim Tobin followed carefully the script of the American Bishops, “The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” He attempted to acknowledge Catholic voters have a thicket of moral issues to cut through, yet abortion hovered above them all. Reflecting the bishops’ exposition, he underscored that all issues do not carry the same moral weigh.

Echoing the bishops, he noted Catholics have to act according to a well-formed conscience. A well-formed conscience, according to the bishops, is interpreted as being fashioned by Catholic moral teaching. Historically, the institutional church did not articulate clearly and concisely, unambiguously and unequivocally its understanding of moral positions. Through centuries it clarified positions. It would like members to think otherwise. When the Church governed the Papal States it routinely condoned capital punishment, a position from which it has shifted.

One’s conscience is one’s own. Ultimately, we live and die as a unique person if we are true to our own conscience. While we seek input from sources outside of self, in the end we have to decide for ourselves. Following the conscientious decision of another is not necessarily being true to self.

Conscience trumps hierarchy

Franz Jagerstatter was an Austrian farmer during the Third Reich. As a father of three daughters he was inducted for military service. He refused, saying Hitler’s wars were immoral. Even his bishop attempted to persuade him to comply “for the good of the Fatherland.” He remained steadfast and was eventually beheaded in a Berlin prison. Jagerstatter, a simply Catholic farmer, was able to conclude Hitler’s wars were immoral while the German-Austrian bishops were unable. They counseled compliance not dissent. He was true to his conscience, despite the bishops and today is being considered a saint, like Thomas More, faithful to his conscience.

Bishops indeed have a task to teach and educate, but they cannot usurp the role of judge of another’s conscience. That is domain of God alone. Unfortunately, today, they are perceived as being the judge of others’ conscience, particularly as they have politicized the Eucharist. They are determining who has a right to receive or not. They have sadly undermined their role as teachers by selective unfairness. They are slow to deny Communion to politicians who favor capital punishment, support an immoral war, the inequity of income distribution, etc.

The prayer a Catholic prays before receiving Communion is, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you.” But now a Catholic needs to pass judgment on having a well-formed conscience before proceeding to receive Communion (praying now, “Lord, I am worthy!”).

Cardinal Newman’s Letter to the Duke of Norfolk is an effort to discern a personal conscience. He concludes the letter: “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts, (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink — to the Pope, if you please — still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.” Could not one today replace pope with bishops?

The present tilt of the American bishops to intimidate Catholics against supporting Democratic candidates by implying that they cannot possibly have a well-formed conscience undermines the individual’s right to act according to one’s conscience. It usurps God as the ultimate judge.

Francis of Assisi, Deacon?

I just learned something from Deacon Greg Kandra. Saint Francis of Assisi was a deacon, not a priest!

I did not know that.

"St. Francis of Assisi at Prayer"
by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1645.

Read the blog entry here.

What it feels like to be denied

I have posted before on the subject of denying Communion. I disagree with the Catholic Church denying anyone Communion. I think the Church should accept everyone, "flaws and all."

Here's the account of someone who was denied. Doug Kmiec is a conservative Reagan Administration official who has publicly supported Barack Obama. As a Catholic, he believes that Obama cares more about "life" issues including poverty and human rights and believes that Obama's abortion reduction agenda will do more to help the issue than the Roe v. Wade opposition.

April 2008. On that day the children were not with us [at church]. It was only my wife Carol and myself. I turned out to be the subject of the homily. Without warning or prior conversation, this blue-collar kid from Chicago had somehow given offense not just to this priest who stood before me, but in my memory, which was now running at top speed, to all those watchful religious eyes: to the good Franciscan sisters who watched the Kmiec brothers play basketball beneath the convent window; to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who instructed us in black-and-white from the old 6" Philco as we sat upon the living room couch; to my school days pastor who, on May 7, 1959, distributed Communion to me for the first time; to the Bishop whose hands confirmed my membership in the body of Christ in 1963; to Brother Konrad Diebold, F.S.C, the Christian Brother who led us in prayer in high school chapel....A litany of saints, these splendid women and men of the cloth. ...

These men of faith were generous of heart, conduits of the Holy Spirit and always inclusive. Taking time to talk, to encourage, to share happiness and to comfort sadness. Most of all, supplying the gifts of faith, hope and love. A faith that carries us through this life in exile we don't always fully understand or appreciate. A hope for a destination that in all of its unknown quality one knows is a sublime contentment and peace freed of this world's anxieties. A love that didn't depend upon status, intelligence, or even how much we were able to put in the collection basket. We were accepted as we were--flaws and all.

Until that evening, when all was revoked.

Suddenly the life-long chain of liturgy was broken into pieces. The priest--the priest who had just joined with us in the prayer of the Rosary was now red-faced shouting. I thought. Talking about me. I had cooperated with evil. I had? I had killed babies? My heart was black. I was giving scandal to the entire church. I had once been a leader but now I forfeited any semblance of respectability or leadership. The good father grasped tightly the edges of the ambo, the unusual name given to the lectern in the Catholic Church. No faithful Catholic would ever contemplate doing what I had done. I was dead to the Holy Mother Church.

My wife held my hand tightly. We looked at each other in disbelief. Here was someone in the vestments of the priesthood who had called us to have our prayers be heard, who recited the Kyrie with us, asking the Lord's mercy upon us, now seemingly merciless, telling me and the many there assembled that I was unworthy. I was to be publicly shunned and humiliated. My offense? Endorsing Senator Barak Obama for President of the United States.

The irony of ironies was that my motivation for the endorsement was entirely Catholic. No, Obama doesn't share the Catholic faith, but he certainly campaigns like he does. As reflected in his book, the Senator is focused on the human person, on the common good, on the social justice of economic arrangement. All is so very Catholic.

It was time for Communion. Notwithstanding the indictment of the homily, I did not think of myself as unworthy of receipt of the sacrament--at least no more so then pre-Obama endorsement. Communion in the Catholic tradition is indeed sacred. We believe the bread and the wind is transformed--transubstantiated--into the body and blood of Christ. I have often watched my parish priest focus his gaze with reverence upon the bread and the wine during the offertory to gain some appreciation for the significance of the divine person whose presence on can scarcely grasp....

But I was not to receive the Eucharist that evening. The couples who stood in line before my wife and myself received the body of Christ in their hands or on their tongues and returned to their seats. My wife received. My hand outstretched, the priest shook his head from side to side. Was that a no? It was Judgment Day, and I hadn't made it. LSAT Insufficient. Inadequate GPA. Do not pass GO...go directly to Hell.

Right there I was letting down every priest that had shared the faith tradition with me. I imagined my late mother, who seldom returned home from the factory until well after midnight, so that we could afford the tuition at the Catholic school, hanging her head in shame. All the traditions--prayers before meals, May alters and rosaries, novenas and indulgences, the pilgrimages to ten churches on Good Friday--all had somehow been zeroed out. Catholic identity theft, stolen right there by our Lord's faithful servant, Father _____. I won't tell you his name because he doesn't represent the Church's thinking. Indeed, Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, who a month or so later investigated the incident "for the good of the Church," said it was important to call what happened "shameful and indefensible."

I was grateful for the Cardinal's apt description, though like an insurance payment long after suffering a bodily injury, I must say at the moment on that evening, I was the one who felt without defense and entirely shameful. Right there in that moment every Catholic good deed and good thought and good wish of love of neighbor that I once had seemed inconsequential and insufficient. Like a child feeling unfairly disciplined, but disciplined nonetheless, I pleaded with empty hand outstretched: "I think you're making a mistake, Father." His red complexion redder now, betraying righteous anger. His stretched hand over the top of the Ciborium, the container for the consecrated bread as if I was going to grab a handful and make a run for it, and then the pronouncement: "No, you are the one who made the mistake."

From the back of the Communion line someone shouted out, "Are you judging this man, Father?" I was grateful for the intervention. Will the Last Day be like this? One friend making an appeal for another? The response was cold: "He has judged himself and been found unworthy."

With no further appeal possible and with my wife exiting in confusion, tears, and offended embarrassment, I returned to my place along. My place? Did I have a place any longer? Was I expected to leave? The double significance of losing the body of Christ--of not having ingested and no longer standing among "the body"--was suddenly all I could think of. Condemned for announcing to the world that I intended to vote for a man who I thought lived the Beatitudes. A black man; a caring man; a talented man. A man different from conservative self and yet calling me to find the best of that self. A man who, in so many ways, asks to care for the least advantaged as he seeks the public responsibility to carry with him, as if it was his own burden the plight of the marginalized and unemployed worker, the uninsured, the widowed mother grieving over a son lost in Iraq. Their hurts, far worse than mine. It was wrong to be damned; to be excluded from the grace of the sacrament of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all I could think was the old Tolstoy folk wisdom "God knows the truth, but waits."

As of this writing, I have successfully kept the name of the priest and his religious order out the public record. Every expert in Canon Law who has examined the question and concluded under Canon 915 that the denial of Communion was unauthorized and inappropriate. After the event became public, Cardinal Mahoney called the priest into his office, and several months after that meeting, Father ______sent Carol and myself a letter of apology. The letter is thoughtfully written and the apology accepted. Perhaps there was a Providential hand at work using the two of us to teach a lesson to a larger congregation. The lesson? Any Voter Guide even hinting at a Catholic duty as a matter of faith and morals to vote against Senator Obama is seriously in error.

I'll close like I closed my original post, with Mark 2:17:

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Thanks to Deacon Greg Kandra for posting this.

Deacons at the airport

A quick break from politics brings us this. Thanks to Deacon Kandra for spotlighting this story:

Deacons’ Ministry Is At World’s Busiest Airport

ANDREW NELSON, Staff Writer

Published: September 4, 2008

Atlanta airport chaplains Deacon Don Kelsey, foreground left, and Deacon Mike Landaiche stand in the airport atrium. Their main function is to assist in meeting the spiritual needs of the traveling public and airport employees, but they also simply help those needing direction or guidance through the airport. (Photos by Michael Alexander)

ATLANTA—More than a quarter of a million people daily fly out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. And 60,000 airline, concessionaire, airport and security employees work there.

Deacons Don Kelsey and Mike Landaiche care for the souls of all of them.

The two men in their Roman collars stroll the baggage claim area. They say a quick hello to the security workers and joke with attendants at the Air Canada ticket counter. A man and woman pulling luggage are pointed to the correct parking garage. In Terminal E, the international arrival area, a confused passenger just off a flight from Korea is sent in the right direction.

The two deacons of the Atlanta Archdiocese are part of the Interfaith Airport Chaplaincy, a 25-year program to serve the spiritual needs of the airport community.

Air travel puts millions of people in transit. And Atlanta is the world’s busiest airport. Every day there are the road warriors away from home. Or people traveling to funerals to pay their respects to loved ones. Or young people about to embark on global adventures.

Deacon Don has been walking the terminals for close to 20 years. A ministry in the airport made sense as a retired official with the Federal Aviation Administration. He’s been there to greet Olympic athletes and was rushed out of the airport on 9/11. Often it is the small kindnesses that fill his hours on the concourses.

For instance, he spotted a mother feeding an infant and trying to mind her three other youngsters at the same time. He stepped in, spoke a few words with the mother and turned his attention to the boys. Out came the paper and crayons.

“First thing I know, I am on the floor with the three boys. And I probably spent an hour with them. For me to do that for her was to help her through a struggling time,” says the 75-year-old.

As Landaiche studied to become a deacon, he was challenged to think creatively about where he could serve the church.

“You have to have an open mind,” says Deacon Mike, 74, a diaconate cross and airport photo ID hanging around his neck. Deacon Mike, a world traveler who has touched down in 43 countries, has been doing this work for several years.

The airport chaplain program follows the military model, where the chaplains tend to the diverse spiritual needs of everyone who crosses their path. The deacons, two out of nearly 200 permanent deacons in the Atlanta Archdiocese, said they are not out to convert people Instead they aim to be of comfort when nothing seems to be going right.

Deacon Mike once was invited to pray by a Muslim. He said the request forced him to craft a prayer that respected both faith traditions.

“To be there whenever they need someone to be there,” is how Deacon Don puts it.

This image serves as a symbol for the Interfaith Airport Chaplaincy (IAC) at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Various members of Atlanta’s religious community created the IAC in 1980. The image hangs in Atlanta’s IAC office.

Today there are some 140 airport chaplaincies in more than 39 countries, from Oslo, Norway, to Bangkok, Thailand, according to the International Association of Civil Aviation Chaplains. The first known airport chapel was opened in 1951. Located in Boston’s Logan International Airport, Our Lady of the Airways continues to serve passengers and workers in the Boston Archdiocese. It is located between Terminals B and C on the ground level. Today, there are more than 50 Catholic airport chaplains working in nearly three dozen airports around the country.

Atlanta’s airport chaplain program dates back to 1972 as a project of the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta. In 1980, the Interfaith Airport Chaplaincy was incorporated as a nonprofit with a three-person board of directors: Father Jack Druding representing the Catholic Church, a Protestant minister and a Jewish rabbi.

Father Druding, now retired at 72, served 10 years at the airport, spending some 20 hours a week there as he worked at nearby parishes. (Father Druding, in fact, convinced Deacon Don to give the ministry a try.)

Father Druding said the ministry is invaluable, especially since so many travelers face stressful situations.

“It was great because (airline officials) knew someone was there that was interested and concerned” if a passenger was upset, he said. The work was “ministry to the people,” he said.

Atlanta’s airport chapel is a quiet place, about the size of a bedroom. It is blue and a cloud sculpture hangs from its ceiling. It is nestled between the bustling atrium and the strip of car rental agencies.

Rev. Chester Cook, a United Methodist minister, has been leading the nonprofit organization for seven years. He is assisted by as many as 30 chaplains from various faiths and volunteers. The program runs on an $80,000 budget raised from private donations, church contributions and foundation grants.

It is a “marketplace ministry,” where chaplains help workers and travelers with words of encouragement or get them through a crisis as they go about their lives, he says, after having a conversation with airport workers about aiding a troubled man before he becomes an issue for police.

The nonprofit organization relies on faith groups to sponsor chaplains. Rev. Cook says he hopes to have a Jewish chaplain soon. And while it is great to have the deacons, Rev. Cook says he often fields phone calls asking if Mass is celebrated at the airport. It is not, but officials at the archdiocese are studying how priests can be available to serve at the airport.

Some 2,000 people visit the atrium chapel every month. A more prominent location and bigger space may draw even more people looking for respite. In the fall, the chapel will be located on the second floor, within viewing distance of the atrium. It’ll more than double the chapel’s size, sitting 50 people, with three offices. There will be two smaller rooms for meditation, prayer and reading.

“In our new facility, we’ll be in your face. Prime real estate,” says Rev. Cook.

People travel through airports for life-changing events, funerals or visits to a dying loved one. Flyers have a lot on their mind and weigh serious questions, said David Miller, author of “God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement.”

“They are in a sad state. Sometimes going to talk to the chaplain may give them a sense of peace out of their time of grieving,” says Miller, president of The Avodah Institute.

Chaplains have traditionally been in places of dying or possible danger, such as hospitals and the military, where people face life and death. But now chaplains are showing up more in offices to help employees with concerns of daily life, he said.

The deacons work every Tuesday. They show up around 9:30 a.m. and stay until mid-afternoon. The routine varies. If the weather is bad and the luggage area is filled with angry passengers, they make a point to stroll through there. They will stick their head in to the lost luggage areas since emotions can get heated. They like to think their presence can help people keep tempers in check and provide a friendly face to airport workers who feel under siege.

Deacon Don said despite the competition among airlines, when tragedy strikes the workers overlook whether they get paid by United, Delta, American, any airline, but that they are working for “a community and they all join together to support one another.”

“I don’t think that is ever publicized,” he said.

They like to work on concourses B and E.

On the way to the trains, after going through security, they are spotted by Atlanta police officer Raymond Morrison who patrols the airport.

“It does me good to see them. They are very approachable. I can go talk to them,” he says. “They seem genuine, very good people. Just having the guys around has a calming effect.”

The deacons and Morrison collaborate on the HOPE team, which helps the homeless and mentally ill find permanent help instead of a trespassing charge.

Stu Cohen is a manager with the Transportation Security Administration. He sits in a perch watching the security area.

“I’ve never seen either one of them frown. They really bring a light. You can always count on them,” says Cohen.

He tells Deacon Mike that he’d like to talk sometime about his faith journey.

With their Roman collars, the deacons stand out from travelers with rolling luggage. And their anonymity on the concourse makes them available for the traveler. Everyone knows they’ll likely never run into the deacons again, so barriers of embarrassment fall quickly. Prayers and requests for help come easier, as travelers know tomorrow they will be miles away.

Deacon Mike recalls when a man coming up the arrival escalator asked to pray together. The passenger returned from a medical trip to learn of terminal cancer. A quick prayer and they went their separate ways.

“You get a sudden request for something extremely important to somebody and then after that it goes away. The person goes away. He doesn’t know who I am. I don’t know who he is. But that’s not important because the Holy Spirit knows who both of us are,” says Deacon Mike.

It takes faith

I was writing my own piece on yesterday's Gospel reading, but then came across this from Deacon Greg Kandra. It's a beautiful story that brings hope:

This week, in the Boston Globe, I read the story of an elderly couple named Sol and Rita Rogers. They’ve been married 61 years. They’ve raised a family and lived a long and happy life together. A few years ago, that began to change. Rita developed Alzheimer’s. And she is slipping deeper and deeper into dementia.

Several weeks ago, she was taken to a health care center, where she now has to live. The first few days, she screamed and talked incoherently. She could barely form words with her mouth. Most tragically, she could no longer recognize her husband. She had no idea who he was. This was agony for him. He would go home from visiting her, trembling with grief, overwhelmed by sadness.

One morning, he went into her room, and saw her lying there and had an idea – an idea, he said, that could only have come from God. Sol climbed into his wife’s tiny twin bed, and put his arms around her. And he just held her. He hugged her. He whispered to her. That’s all. But something happened. As he put it, “I got into bed with her and loved her and it lifted my depression.” And Rita was transformed, too. She responded to his touch. And she began to talk.

He now does it every day. Rita’s doctor says that her “old memory” recalls being in his arms, remembers how he used to hold her, and part of her is able to come back.

Now Sol spends a couple of hours of every day, just holding Rita, telling her he loves her, and she tells him she loves him. Just as they have for 61 years.

I can’t think of a more beautiful example of what married love is all about – for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. The venerable Matt Talbot said that it is constancy that God wants. Persistence. Perseverance. Sol Rogers had that – and more.

And so did the Canaanite woman in today’s gospel.

It comes down to never giving up for someone you love.

Never losing faith.

The Canaanite woman was the mother of a very sick girl, a child tormented by a demon. The girl may have suffered from epilepsy, or schizophrenia. Terrors in the night. Paranoia. Inconsolable fear. We can only imagine what the mother was going through. The helplessness, and the worry.

But this mother had something more powerful. She had faith – faith in someone who was not even a part of her race or religion. Jesus became her last, best hope.

And so the mother went to Jesus and implored his help. Not once. Not twice. But three times. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. Finally, Jesus was so moved by her faith that he couldn’t refuse her. And her daughter was healed.

Hearing this story again, we discover something timeless and true. It is something that St. Paul even mentioned in his famous letter to the Corinthians, the one we hear so often at weddings.

Love never fails. It can spark miracles.

Because love itself is a miracle.

Love that endures across 61 years is a miracle.

Love that pleads for a sick child again and again and again is a miracle.

A miracle of unceasing devotion … and unwavering faith.

Yes: faith. Faith is a subject we’ve been hearing about a lot over the last few weeks in our Sunday readings. Last week, you’ll remember, Peter tried to walk on water, but began to sink when his faith failed him.

We are being taught a valuable lesson in all this. Faith transforms. It can turn water into walkways. And it can drive away demons.

But it requires more than we realize -- more than we often feel able to give.

Faith requires that we keep walking, even when the wind and waves are against us.

Faith demands that we keep pleading, even when God seems to turn away.

Faith asks us to wrap our arms around those we love, even when they don’t remember who we are.

It defies logic, or reason. But that is what is so extraordinary – and so extraordinarily difficult. Faith asks us to believe in the unbelievable…to trust that the impossible will be possible.

Like love, faith asks that we surrender ourselves to something we can never fully understand

And it asks us to persevere.

If we do that, the result may astonish us. We may find ourselves walking where we’ve never walked before. We may see life renewed, and hope restored.

Sol Rogers said he knows that his wife Rita will never fully recover. But he told the Boston Globe, “While she’s with me, I want to enjoy every minute.”

And so he holds her. And she smiles. And the demons are dispelled.

Every day, for as long as he is able, he says he will do this.

Call that love. Call it commitment. But those moments exist because Sol never gave up. He persevered. And he continues to.

Since I read that story, I’ve been thinking of Sol and Rita. I think of them late at night, when I hold my wife’s hand before we go to sleep. I think of what it takes to love, truly love, another. It takes constancy, as Matt Talbot put it. Tenacity. Trust. The belief in something, and Someone, greater than ourselves.

It takes what the Canaanite woman had.

It takes faith.