By PEGGY MOEN
MINNEAPOLIS — “Consider it a harbinger of Heaven,” said a wise old Jesuit at the end of a gathering of like-minded friends decades ago.
And such was the August 17 Catholic Servant 23rd Annual Benefit Dinner, held at the Church of St. Helena here. The Catholic Servant is a monthly newspaper distributed free for Catholics in St. Paul-Minneapolis. And the featured speaker was a Jesuit, Fr. James Kubicki, a noted author and retreat director. Over one hundred attended this delightful dinner and program.
Following the social hour and dinner, John Sondag, editor of The Catholic Servant and director of religious education at St. Helena’s, introduced the many Catholic Servant writers at the banquet. One of them, Rachel Lu, commented: “Moving mountains quietly, that’s John Sondag’s great talent in this world.”
The media may be saturated with gloom and despair, she said, but “The Catholic Servant is always giving up hope.”
“My goal is to help people become saints,” Sondag said of his work with The Catholic Servant. “It’s saints who bring about change,” be they housewives, bricklayers, or priests.
Sondag quoted the late Pete Welvang of Leaflet Missal as saying “every [The Catholic Servant] edition is a miracle,” adding, “believe me, it is.”
Pete and Diane Welvang were recipients of the 1996 Catholic Servants of the Year Award. This year’s winner of the Annual St. Pope John Paul Catholic Servant of the Third Millennium award is Professor Douglas Bushman, STL.
Bushman said, “Oh, goodness, it’s beautiful,” upon receiving his award, a painting of the teaching Christ. “Thank you for this honor.”
Bushman earned a Licentiate in Sacred Theology degree from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. When he returned to the Twin Cities in 1982, St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Minneapolis hired him, making Bushman the first lay theologian working in a parish in the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese. His most recent post is director of parish mission and formation at St. Joseph’s in West St. Paul, where he has been serving for the past two years.
At the banquet, Bushman said, “No one has taught me more than my wife.”
Fr. Kubicki, the banquet’s guest speaker, focused on two verses from St. Peter (1 Peter 3:15-16) in his talk: “Be always ready to give an explanation to anyone about the reason for your hope,” followed by, “but give your reason with reverence and gentleness.”
It is important, Fr. Kubicki stressed, to have our reason but to offer it in “such a way that others are attracted.”
He added: “Knowledge and action go together.”
Fr. Kubicki also quoted theologian Scott Hahn as saying, “The Catholic faith is like a lion. You just have to let it out of its cage.”
Father added: “We don’t want to bite people’s heads off.”
He reminded everyone of Christ’s words, “Let the greatest among you be the servant of others.”
Fr. Kubicki cited Pope John Paul II in Crossing the Threshold of Faith as saying that it is more significant to be baptized than it is to be ordained. And it is also more significant than being Pope.
“In Baptism, we’re given a whole new identity” as we are joined to the Body of Christ.
We should be “sharing everlasting life” by “sharing with our world the hope that we have,” Father said.
“The celebration of the Mass never ends . . . we have to live that offering in our daily lives. That’s what it means to be a Catholic servant,” letting people know “here is what God has done in my life.”
Several of the speakers mentioned the U.S. bishops’ National Eucharistic Revival, taking place from Corpus Christi 2022 to Pentecost 2025, in connection with how to serve as Catholics.
Also present at the banquet were Bishop Emeritus John LeVoir of the Diocese of New Ulm, Minn., Fr. James Reidy, a retired associate professor of English at the University of St. Thomas, Fr. Michael J. Miller, a pastor in New Prague, Minn., Fr. Marcus Milless, parochial administrator of the Church of St. Helena, along with members of his family and many other notable Catholic servants.
Many stayed after the formal program to visit with friends and talk about their apostolic endeavors.
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