Number 5: Save the Date for the upcoming Detention Ministry Conference on Saturday, September 13, 2003, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. 

What new vocation would you embark on when you're in your mid-70s?  His name is Refugio Hernandez or "Cuco" for short.  In the 1960s he was a Farm Workers' union organizer.  In the 70s and 80s, he was a deputy sherriff.  And in the new Millenium, he's back to organizing -- volunteers...ministers...hope for the imprisoned. 

Cuco saw a need for both a greater number of and more dedicated prison and jail lay ministers in El Centro.  He responded by networking in parishes and organizations to stir up a willingness to minister without judging, to serve the desperate without asking why.  Now he is helping to organize the entire Imperial Valley, from Calipatria to Centinela State Prisons and all the jails in between. 

Cuco can be contacted at 760-352-2895by all those interested in serving incarcerated Catholics in detention settings in Imperial County. Volunteers are needed everywhere.  Above (see photo), Cuco shows Kent Peters and Jo Brower, during their recent visit to El Centro, his plans for organizing detention volunteers.  Using maps and pins to organize detention ministry in Imperial County, Cuco will keep track of the volunteer recruitment progress and the needs of multiple facilities.
 

Update: Life Options to begin in Imperial County  

Life Options, a program of the Office for Social Ministry to formally link each parish in the diocese with at least one pregnancy care center, has begun in Imperial County.  To the left (see photo), Jo Brower (center), program coordinator, visits with Birthright of El Centro director, Debbie Ellett (Left), and Luli Ramirez (right) from Our Lady of Guadalupe, Calexico. 

Jo's pastoral visit finalized the plans to make Life Options a reality.  As Birthright of El Centro is the only pregnancy care center serving women and families in Imperial County, all parishes will be linked to it.  To see a Life Options brochure, click on the logo below or go to the web page address below the logo. 

If you know of someone who might make a good Life Options parish liaison to Birthright of El Centro, call Jo Brower at 858-490-8323 or e-mail her at jbrower@diocese-sdiego.org.

http://www.osmelink.org/messages/060403%20Life%20Options%20Brochure.htm 

Update: Evangely Aliangan, former Working Together program coordinator for the OSM, left the OSM on June 30, but we have good news... 

Evangely has accepted a position with St. Rose of Lima Parish.  As Family and Life and Activity Director she will will be responsible for youth activities, pre-marriage workshops, married couples' gatherings, divorced and widowed gatherings, single parent issues, the Respect Life Committee, senior gatherings and bereavement ministry.  Please keep her in your prayers! 

There is no doubt, a version of this legislation will pass congress, but there are provisions that need to be included to help insure that families will make the transition successfully.  We support the following:

1. Restore benefits eligibility for legal immigrants
2. Include increased funding for child care for low-income families
3. Extend the Transitional Medical Assistance program for five years
4. End family caps that deny additional benefits following the birth of a new child

Please call Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and ask them to "promote the above mentioned provisions in the TANF reauthorization ." 

Senator Feinstien's DC office phone number is 202-224-3841.

Living the Christian Life in the Public Square
By Senator Sam Brownback

St. Thomas More, the patron saint of politicians and lawyers -- two professions that desperately need a patron saint -- taught that "man cannot be separated from God, nor politics from morality." St. Thomas More stood boldly as a sign of contradiction in his own society by refusing to be separated from God when political pressure sought to separate politics from morality.

You have the same calling. The example of St. Thomas More, like that of all the saints, is one that we all must follow in our daily lives. I think it is this example that we must all heed as we struggle to turn the ordinary events of our daily lives into true opportunities of loving and serving God, the Church and all souls with the same fervor with which our Lord performed his simple and humble, life-changing service to us.

We can begin to follow that example by living unity of life. Unity of life is an important Catholic principle that helps keep the totality of our life here on earth in its proper balance. By unity of life, I mean living one's faith fully while living and working in the middle of the world. Our faith should form our decisions and animate our actions, whether we work as politicians, carpenters, social workers, doctors or yes, even as lawyers.

Our faith is who we are. When we fail to live our faith in our daily lives, or fail to allow ourselves to be shaped by the loving providence of God, we fail to live fully the lives God wants us to live. Our faith and our daily life in the world cannot and should not be separated.

To live unity of life we must realize that we have all been called to holiness. That call involves our cooperation with God in the conversion of our hearts, families and in the conversion of our culture. It does not matter what our station is in life, we must all work to sanctify our daily lives. It is by doing this that we perform the most effective witness we can.

As some of you may know, this Easter marked my first as a Roman Catholic. I was deeply struck by the beauty of the Easter celebration. Our call to live faithful lives in the world is beautifully demonstrated in the Easter liturgy in so many ways. During the Easter Vigil, as the candle slowly processes from the back of the Church to the altar, we are reminded of how the power of Christ shattered the darkness. As we participate in that life-giving act of God, we become candles of light shattering the darkness for those around us.

What a powerful witness we are called to be. We have to convert the culture by our own example; we have to convert the culture by being good Christians and by being good citizens.

You will have to convert the culture by being good lawyers, and many of you will have to convert the culture by also being good parents. We start the conversion of our culture in our daily lives -- we begin with ourselves and with our families.

I think we all have a responsibility to do our duty to God and family regardless of whatever pressures the culture or society may place upon us. It seems we need to keep in mind that in our very families we are raising the next generation of citizens; the best thing we can do, therefore, to convert the culture, other than through living our daily call to holiness, is to raise good families with members that are properly formed in their faith and duty.

They are the next generation of Christians and also the next generation of citizens. We change the culture by being good citizens and by being good parents. It is the duty of every parent to instill within their children the fundamentals of the faith. God trusts us with the upbringing of these little ones only for a time; we should not fail to perform that duty to the fullest. It is what will transform our culture.

You also have to convert the culture through your work. When Mother Teresa visited the United States just a few months before she died she said something incredible to me: "All for Jesus, All for Jesus, All for Jesus."

"All for Jesus" was one of the most simple and yet most profound things she could have said. If we, as individuals, of whatever means or resources, do it "all for Jesus," every day of our lives, we fulfill our duties and responsibilities as Christians.

To do this we must never give up the struggle to live lives of personal sanctity in the midst of our world. I am convinced that only through our prayer, and our example we can have the impact on our world that we are called to have. Mother Teresa faithfully lived her call to witness the light of our Christian faith to the "poorest of the poor."

You have the same call; you have the same challenge. You will meet, every day, the "poorest of the poor" -- ironically, they won't seem to be the poorest of the poor, and you might not always recognize their poverty. But they are. They will be the ones working alongside you in corporate America, in the courtroom, or in whatever circumstances you find yourself. Spiritual poverty, of course, is the most debilitating poverty that exists, for it fills the soul with a false sense of worldly security while leaving the soul starved of the nourishment that only Christ can provide.

Many of you will bring Christ to the spiritually poor; others of you, I would challenge to bring Christ to the physically poor as well. Clearly, much work is needed in the world to bring Christ to those who are suffering. If that is your calling, I encourage you -- I challenge you -- to heed it. We must always reach out to the poorest of the poor. You have to convert the world and you must do it by living a life of personal sanctity.

Of course, much of living lives of personal sanctity rests in our willingness to abandon ourselves to Divine Providence. The problems we confront in our daily lives are problems that often require our immediate and prayerful attention; but above all they demand that we understand them in their proper context.

We have to have complete confidence that God is in control and that whatever circumstances or problems that might confront us are ultimately ordered, by God, to the good of our own salvation and the salvation of others. It is important that we never become discouraged by the problems that confront us or circumstances that surround us. We must lives our lives as good citizens, full engaged in the world around us.

Finally, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith so eloquently stated earlier this year: "by fulfilling their civic duties, guided by a Christian conscience, in conformity with its values, the lay faithful exercise their proper task of infusing the temporal order with Christian values, all the while respecting the nature and rightful autonomy of that order, and cooperating with other citizens according to their particular competence and responsibility. ... The lay faithful are never to relinquish their participation in public life, that is, in so many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good."

To be good citizens we must be good Catholics; and to be good Catholics we must be active citizens. God bless you all for the good work you have already done -- and for the good work you are about to undertake.