The Dialog

Dialog reporter

WILMINGTON — For Franciscans, living in community is as much a part of their vocation as teaching, caring for the sick or, in Sister Julie McCole’s case, feeding the poor. Sister Julie finds community among the people who work and volunteer at the Emmanuel Dining Room West on Jackson Street, where she has been the director for the past five months, and from the people they serve.

She tries to share more than a meal with the men, women and children who line up each day for breakfast and lunch, about 550 meals a week. She offers a kind word, an encouraging smile. Read more »

My father used to say he wanted to be a sailor when he grew up. The thing is, he was already a grown up when he announced that ambition. He wasn’t talking about the Navy; he was talking about taking the helm of his own boat someday and catching a good wind.

What kept Dad from heading to a dock to cast off every weekend or summer was his family. A wife and seven children come with some responsibilities and those duties were Dad’s priorities in life. Family always came first for my father and mother.

Dad’s jobs were mostly in sales. I marvel that he was able to raise us on a salesman’s salary, and in retrospect, I understand the pressures my parents faced in having a big family. But I know raising seven made them happy because they rarely showed any signs of the strain of the task. Read more »

Thirty-three diocesan and religious-order priests are celebrating significant milestones of their ordinations this year.

(Information about six additional Oblate jubilarians previously appeared in the May 15, 2015 issue of The Dialog.)

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Bishop Malooly is looking for men who are interested in becoming permanent deacons to serve the Diocese of Wilmington.

Deacon Harold Jopp, director of the Office of Deacons, announced Nov. 4 that the bishop welcomes candidates for a diaconate formation program that will begin in June 2016. Read more »

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis visited retired Pope Benedict XVI at his Vatican residence June 30 to wish him a happy summer.

After a 30-minute visit from Pope Francis, the retired pope then headed off to the traditional papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo outside of Rome. It was the first time the retired pope returned to the villa since spending about two months there after he resigned in early 2013.

Pope Francis chats with retired Pope Benedict XVI at the retired pope’s home at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery at the Vatican June 30. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano)

The 88-year-old retired pope is expected to remain at the summer villa just two weeks, until July 14. Before he resigned, Pope Benedict, like many of his predecessors since the early 1600s, spent a large portion of the summer months at the 135-acre papal villa to escape Rome’s oppressive heat.

Pope Francis, however, who, even as archbishop of Buenos Aires, is not known to take a full vacation, lightened his schedule just a bit for July.

He will still hold his Angelus prayer and address every Sunday; however, there will be no Wednesday general audience for all July, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman. The general audience will resume in August in the Vatican’s solar-powered and air-conditioned Paul VI hall.

For the month of July, all audiences with the pope are expected to be suspended, except a meeting with members of the Catholic charismatic renewal movement in St. Peter’s Square July 3.

Pope Francis will not invite groups of Catholics to his residence, the Casa Santa Marta, for his early morning Mass throughout July and August.

Despite the somewhat reduced schedule for July, the 78-year-old pope will visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay July 5-12, returning to the Vatican July 13.

He will visit at least seven cities and villages, whose altitudes range from 35 meters (116 feet) to 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) above sea level, and deliver 22 speeches, homilies and greetings. Millions of people are expected to attend the more than 37 scheduled events.

KOLKATA, India (CNS) — Sister Nirmala Joshi, who succeeded Blessed Teresa of Kolkata as superior general of the Missionaries of Charity and led the order for 12 years until retiring in 2009, died early June 23 in Kolkota at age 81.

Church and political leaders paid tribute to Sister Nirmala for her devotion to serving poor, sick and hungry people. Read more »

Catholic News Service

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) — Christian leaders in the Holy Land hope two new Palestinian saints will become intercessors for peace and a bridge among faiths.

“I am sure they follow our situation from heaven and will continue to intercede for peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land,” Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali of Jerusalem said at a news conference May 6. “Their intercession is strong and efficacious.” Read more »

Dialog Editor   This is the first in a series of stories on members of religious orders in the Diocese of Wilmington. The series is part of the paper’s coverage of the Year of Consecrated Life declared by Pope Francis.   The Christu Jyothi Sisters or Sisters of Christ the Light are the newest order of religious women in the Diocese of Wilmington. The order, founded in 1992 in India, now has two sisters working for the Capuchin’s Ministry of Caring. Sister Lissy Sebastian Karottumalayil, CJS, works at the ministry’s Emmanuel Dining Room on Jackson Street in Wilmington. Read more »

Dialog Editor

The members of 38 religious orders of women and men in the Diocese of Wilmington bring God’s light to the people they serve.

Bishop Malooly told a congregation of religious — sisters, brothers and priests — at evening prayer on the World Day of Consecrated Life Feb. 2 at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Church in Greenville that an aspect of the feast of the Presentation of the Lord is Christ’s light revealed to Simeon and Anna in the Temple, the revelation of God’s light to the world. Read more »

Now is the time to be especially nice to religious sisters, priests and brothers in your life; 2015 is their year.

The Diocese of Wilmington will begin its celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life on Feb. 2 with Solemn Evening Prayer at 6:30 p.m. at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Church in Greenville.

Bishop Malooly will preside at the service that’s sponsored by the diocese’s Office for Religious. Read more »