The Rosary of Compassion Epilogue, Garden of Roses Stories of Abuse and Healing, January 5, 2010

The Rosary of Compassion: Epilogue

Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing
January 5, 2010

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I am a little late with this given that we offered the Rosary of Compassion a month ago. OK I am very late. Well that is what happens when you try to start a not-for-profit on a shoestring. I meant to post this on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. No time. Hey, I am a single mother of two active children. They need me, and I have to put them first.

Our retreat was small — six members of our mixed group of survivors and other Catholics praying and meditating on the Mysteries of the Rosary and how they relate to the sufferings of individual and communities from the wounds of abuse. We were were welcomed to Ascension Catholic Church by Franciscan Friar Fr. Ben Innes, who joined us to bless the room and pray with us for our hearts to be filled with compassion.

Having Fr. Ben as a pastor is like having Friar Tuck as a pastor. As you can see he enjoys eating those donuts at coffee and donuts after Mass. He is also gifted at making everyone laugh. My daughter says that his homilies are a cross between the Christian Channel and Comedy Central

For example Friday, January 1, was the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God — a Holy Day of Obligation. Fr. Ben called it a Holy Day of Opportunity. Get it? Who wants to be obligated to get up and go to Mass at 9:30 AM on New Years Day? Instead of thinking that you are obligated to go to Mass, maybe you can think you have the opportunity to go to Mass. Well, maybe you had to be there in person to find the joke funny.

In addition to Fr. Ben, we had another visitor — Kim Petros, Ascension's Youth Minister. Kim is the tall pretty lady in the picture below.

Left to right is Mary, who does not want her full named used, Chris, who is both a survivor and a Catholic parishioner, Elizabeth Goeke, my clergy abuse survivor co-founder, former nun, former Catholic, and current Episcopalian parishioner, and Kim Petros.

Kim does good work in Ascension's Youth Group with my son, who has Asperger's Syndrome. He has difficulty with social skills and is getting teased in Middle School. School is painful for him, but Ascension is a haven for him because people are kinder and more accepting of his eccentricities. I am grateful for this. At the same time I acknowledge that clergy abuse came all too close to touching our family in ways I shudder to think about. My son was never subjected to clergy sexual abuse, and for that I am eternally grateful. Because the clergy abuse scandal erupted in the media in 2002, an abusive priest was removed from our parish. Fortunately, as a result, the Church that might have destroyed my son's life is now his sanctuary.

I think faith is all about acknowledging good and evil at the same time. We cannot achieve complete goodness without acknowledging the evil and striving to overcome it. At the same time, the existence is evil does not mean there is no possibility of goodness. We all do good things at times and bad things at other times. It is the human condition.

Jesus made a habit of hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors because when we are humble in acknowledging that we are flawed, we are most open to the presence of God.

I digress. I have a tendency to do that. Back to the Rosary.

Some people out there may think that saying the Rosary for clergy abuse survivors is the same old thing that the Catholic Church always does about it's problems — pray about them. But this Rosary was different. We did not use Church materials other than the Rosary itself. Our meditations were written jointly by two Catholic parishioners — Ann Czuba and Sharon Burke — and by clergy abuse survivor Elizabeth Goeke.

Here is Elizabeth writing away. She is overloaded with responsibilities and didn't get all of her meditations written before the retreat so she had to write some during the retreat. Elizabeth feels, as do I, that the Mysteries of the Rosary help for put the sufferings of survivors into a healing context.

Quenton Czuba, Ann's husband put it a very good way. Last summer our group listened compassionately to two survivors from the Los Angeles area. One had met with Cardinal Mahoney after her lawsuit for abuse was settled. The survivor did not feel that Church officials treated her compassionately.

Quenton advised, "Next time you meet with a Church official, take a crucifix with you and put it on the table."

He added that the sufferings of survivors were like the sufferings of Jesus during His crucifixion.

When we recited the Rosary, we were all meditating on that. We Catholics can come closer to Jesus by embracing survivors with support and compassion.

Well, that is enough sermonizing for the day. The kids need to eat dinner. We are having curried squash soup made from scratch along with homemade sourdough croutons, and we are all making it together!

I did say that I am always a Mom first and foremost.

This is Elizabeth's work. She decorated the room. I can't decorate worth a.... worth a..... well you get the idea. I am no good at decorating. I think part of the healing for Elizabeth has been being welcomed into a Catholic Church to co-lead a retreat her way.

We had to give St. Francis a place of honor in the retreat. Ascension is staffed by Franciscan Friars from the Province of Santa Barbara. St. Francis influenced the Catholic Church in his day by living the changes the Church needed to make.