Browsing News Entries

Browsing News Entries

Bishop Bambera Urges Christians to Unite and Pray for Peace for Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Join Bishop Chad Zielinski of the Diocese of New Ulm during the Ecumenical Prayer Service on January 21st at 3:00 p.m. This year, the prayer service will be held at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New Ulm. Individuals and Congregations, representing several different Christian denominations in southwest and west-central Minnesota, will gather together for this Ecumenical Celebration of the Word of God. The Service is held as part of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. There will be a reception to follow.

 

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is observed annually by the Catholic Church between January 18 and 25. In his message for this year’s observance, Bishop Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs urges Christians throughout the United States to unite across denominational lines and pray for peace.

“Given the paralyzing nature of polarization and tragedy of war that have spread throughout our world today, the importance of living the love of Christ in our own circumstances cannot be overemphasized. May Christians throughout our country come together across denominational lines to pray for peace in our world and an end to the sad divisions that prevent us from fully loving each other as Christ loves us all.” 

Each year a different country and theme is highlighted during the week-long observance. For 2024, the Christians from Burkina Faso in West Africa developed the prayer materials and chose the theme from St. Luke’s Gospel, “You shall love the Lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)

 

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity started in 1908 when Father Paul Wattson, SA, the founder of the religious order, the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, conceived of the idea of a Christian Unity Octave -- an observation of eight days of prayer -- for an end to divisions between Christians. Since the Second Vatican Council, it has been co-organized by the World Council of Churches and the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.

 

More resources to pray and reflect during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity may be found here

 

Surrogacy is an Injustice to All Involved, Bishop Barron Says in Support of Pope Francis

“Pope Francis strongly condemned the practice of surrogacy calling it ‘a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child.’ He emphasized that a child is a gift and as such can ‘never (be) the basis of a commercial contract.’ Surrogacy represents the commodification and instrumentalization of a woman’s body, treating her as a ‘carrier’ rather than a human person. And just as troubling is the fact that the child is reduced to terms of buying and selling as an object of human trafficking.

 “The commercialization of women and children in surrogacy is underlined by the belief that there is a right to have a child. The child becomes an object for the fulfillment of one’s desires instead of a person to be cherished. In this way, the genuine right of the child to be conceived through the love of his or her parents is overlooked in favor of ‘the right to have a child by any means necessary.’ We must avoid this way of thinking and answer the call to respect human life, beginning with the unborn child.

 “It might be the case that couples earnestly want to have children without resorting to surrogacy, but painful and even life-threatening medical obstacles make childbirth hazardous or impossible. The serious prospect of a life without biological children has been dismissed by some, but we have a responsibility to accompany these couples in their suffering. The Church teaches that married couples are not obliged to actually have children, but to be open to any life that might be the fruit of their union. The desire to utilize surrogacy might feel like the desire to form a family naturally, but no matter how well-intentioned, surrogacy always does grave injustice to the child, any discarded embryos (who are our fellow human beings), the commodified birth mother, and the loving union of the spouses.”

Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, issued this reflection in support of the Holy Father’s recent remarks to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, which included a specific mention of the harms of surrogacy.

Minnesota bishop issues letter about steps needed for Sister Annella Zervas’ cause

By Patti Maguire Armstrong

CNA - A letter from Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Crookston Diocese released Oct. 15 announced that preliminary steps are being taken that could lead to opening a cause for the canonization of Sister Annella Zervas, OSB.

Zervas died at the age of 26 in 1926 in her family home in Moorhead, Minnesota, after a debilitating and painful skin disease. 

Amanda Zurface (no relation to Zervas, although pronounced the same), a canon lawyer, read the bishop’s letter at the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in the St. Benedict Monastery cemetery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, where Zervas is buried. Approximately 150 people gathered for the event, many of them part of a monthly group that has been praying for Zervas’ canonization.  

Sister Annella Zervas, OSB, entered the Order of St. Benedict in St. Joseph at age 15 in August of 1915. She made her perpetual vows in 1922 and worked as a music teacher until a peculiar skin disease eventually made it impossible. Credit: Photo courtesy of Joanne Zervas

Although Zervas died almost 100 years ago, she remains very much alive in the hearts and minds of a growing number of people, largely because of the efforts of Patrick Norton, a house painter, husband, and father of three from Avon, Minnesota.

On Oct. 27, 2010, while painting light posts in front of the grotto, Norton says a religious sister in an old-style habit appeared to him and told him he was doing a good job. They chatted a bit, and when she turned to go, she vanished before his eyes. He later identified her as Sister Annella Zervas through photos and discovered she was buried in that cemetery. Since then, he has felt called to share her story far and wide. 

In the letter he wrote, Cozzens thanked the group for “perseverance in prayer and witnessing to the importance of living a holy life as seen in your commitment through spreading the message of Sister Annella.” 

The bishop shared that he too is inspired by the nun’s story, which he first learned about through his own sister. He acknowledged receiving many requests from people to begin the formal process of investigation to determine her holiness. However, he noted, “there are formalities and stages that involve canon lawyers, historians, theologians, and doctors to instructing a cause of beatification and canonization. … I ask that you be patient as we follow the procedures set out for us by the Church for a study such as this, and I also ask for your prayers.”

Cozzens shared the website For the Promotion of the Life of Sister Annella Zervas, OSB, for people wanting to stay informed about the study of Zervas’ life, to share a story about her, or to report answers to prayer through the nun’s intercession. (People can also email sisterannellazervas@gmail.com.)

When Zervas died, many believed she was a saint. Two booklets about her life were written: “Ticket to Eternity,” by James Kritzeck, published in 1957, and “Apostles of Suffering in Our Day,” written by Benedictine priest Joseph Kreuter and published in 1929.

There is uncertainty as to whether there was ever a cause opened for Zervas.

Older writings often refer to Zervas as “Servant of God,” a title given to a candidate for sainthood after a cause has been opened and is under investigation prior to being declared “Venerable.” (Venerable is the title given to a candidate whose cause has not yet reached the beatification stage but whose heroic virtue has been declared by the pope.)

“That is one of the things that needs to be investigated,” Zurface told CNA at the cemetery prior to the reading of the letter. She credited Norton with resurrecting an interest in Zervas’ life.

According to Norton, 100,000 copies have been distributed of the booklet “Apostles of Suffering in Our Day.” 

People have also learned of Zervas through an interview Norton did in a video titled “The Sanctity of Two Hearts.” 

Those praying for the Benedictine sister’s intercession have reported miracles and answers to prayers. But the Church is always cautious about such things, Zurface said, so it’s premature to say any more than is in the letter. 

The nameplate on the gravestone of Sister Annella Zervas, OSB, in the Saint Benedict Monastery cemetery in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Around 150 people gathered for an event where a letter was read from the bishop about steps being taken to look into opening a cause for Zervas. Oct. 15, 2023. Credit: Patti Armstrong

Monsignor David Baumgartner, rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston and the other canon lawyer preparing the groundwork for the cause, noted in a phone interview that the main tasks right now are to work on bylaws to form a guild and to establish it as a nonprofit organization. 

A “guild” is the traditional association formed to support, through prayer and promotion, a candidate for sainthood. 

“When the guild is established, they will be the ones to petition for a cause to open,” he explained. “The letter was presented at this time, so people will be aware of what the diocese is doing in regard to Sister Annella.”

After the reading of Cozzens’ letter, Norton shared with the group his own story of how he came to know Zervas. And Rose Lindgren from Sartell, about 10 miles from St. Joseph, told the group she was healed of bladder cancer five years ago without treatment after praying to Zervas.

A life of suffering

Zervas was born Anna Cordelia Zervas in Moorhead, Minnesota, on Palm Sunday, April 7, 1900. Even as a young girl, she had a deep interior life, taking great pains to prepare for her first holy Communion and walking a mile daily to attend Mass.

Childhood photo of Sister Annella Zervas, OSB. Photo courtesy of Joanne Zervas

She left home for the Order of St. Benedict in St. Joseph at age 15 in August 1915. Her letters home reflect her happiness, but she also battled with terrible homesickness. When she made her perpetual vows in 1922, she said that any doubts as to her vocation vanished. But by the following year, a peculiar skin disease attacked her body, which included terrible itching day and night. 

Zervas continued her work as a music teacher at St. Mary’s School in Bismarck, North Dakota, until eventually her condition made it impossible. Her body began to swell, her skin turning a deep red and burning. Her swollen limbs oozed and developed sores; her skin sloughed off in chunks and strips; thornlike stickers developed within her pores and had to be painfully removed. 

Zervas was diagnosed in 1924 at the University of Minnesota with pityriasis rubra pilaris, a chronic skin disease that had no medical treatments at the time. With the consent of her superiors, she was transferred to her parents’ house in Moorhead, Minnesota, where her mother cared for her for two years until her death. 

“The pains became more intense; the patient’s cheerfulness remained the same,” Father Kreuter wrote in “An Apostle of Suffering in Our Day.” “’Yes, Lord, send me more pain, but give me the strength to bear it,’ is a prayer that was repeatedly uttered by Sister Annella in the midst of excruciating pains of body and anguish of soul which lasted almost continually for two long years.”