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Cynthia Bowers of CBS’s ‘Sunday Morning’ has an inspiring piece on Roger Ebert, the famed film critic who lost his voice to cancer three years ago. 

A snip:

CBS Photo

He’s been called America’s movie critic. For more than four decades, Roger Ebert has guided our choices at the box office.

His syndicated newspaper column and trademark “thumbs up/thumbs down” routine with TV partner Gene Siskel were legendary.

But now that famous voice has been silenced.

“Do you remember what your last spoken words were?” asked Bowers.

“No, because I didn’t know they would be my last words, or I would have written something great,” Ebert replied.

For the past three years, Ebert has been talking via a computer voice that speaks what he types.

His lower jaw is gone, ravaged by cancer that nearly killed him.

“Are you able to talk in your dreams?” Bowers asked.

“Everything is fine in my dreams. I talk all I want. Life is normal,” he said. “Sometimes in a dream I will remember that I can’t speak, but then suddenly I can speak again.”

Ebert could surely never have dreamed this storyline for his life when he began at the Chicago Sun-Times back in 1967. His elegant style and wit quickly made his movie reviews must-reads.

And what makes a movie great to Roger Ebert?

“I feel it,” he replied. “It fills me with joy for its greatness. When I experience it, I sometimes even feel a tingle in my spine. Honestly, it’s an almost spiritual feeling.”

…

America’s movie critic is back. He sees as many as ten films a week and debuts a new version of his TV show later this month. And instead of shying away from the public and the way he looks, Roger is embracing it.

“I said, ‘The hell with it – this is how I look,’” he said. “People with problems like mine should get on with their lives and not hide because of it. I don’t want to look this way, but I do, so please don’t make it your problem.”

Much more – including video clips - here.

Cardinal Bernardin on the silver screen

A Jesuit priest is turning the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s bestselling “The Gift of Peace” into a movie. Chicago Catholic News has the story:

After sex abuse allegations were recanted against Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in the mid-1990s — and before the cancer that would claim his life was detected — he led a powerful retreat in Mundelein.

“He was emotionally very vulnerable, and somewhat euphoric,” recalled the Rev. Michael Sparough, a Jesuit priest who attended the spiritual gathering.

“He just talked about the trauma and the nightmares he had, and how tremendously stressful this whole thing was, but how the truth was ultimately triumphant.”

“That retreat had a tremendous impact on my life.”

Now, Sparough is leading an effort to bring Bernardin’s story to the silver screen. The 60-year-old priest, who helps run a Barrington retreat center and has written a number of books, is working with two Hollywood script writers to turn Bernardin’s bestseller, The Gift of Peace, into a mainstream feature film.

It’s certainly no done deal, but Sparough said Bernardin’s successor at the Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, has given him permission to turn the book into a screenplay. And Sparough believes the public is ready for a story like this.

“It’s a classic hero’s journey, and I think it’s a story that needs to be told in our time — and my hope is it’s a healing story for those who have been wounded by the Church, and a story that will remind us of some of the best parts of our Catholic tradition,” Sparough said.

In recent years, the Church has been mired in scandal over its handling of clergy sex abuse cases in the United States and around the globe. Pedophile priests were transferred rather than stripped of their duties, and allegations that children were molested often weren’t taken seriously.

The irony, Sparough said, is that Bernardin was considered by many to be ahead of his time in developing policies for dealing with problem priests. And that was before he was accused of abusing a man named Steven Cook when Cook was a student years earlier in Cincinnati.

It’s how Bernardin handled those accusations — made in 1993 and later recanted — that really define “the man, and his story and his life is really a parable of contemporary sanctity,” Sparough said.

Read the rest here.

A glimpse of heaven?

Helen Nale, right, enjoys conversation with her daughter, Helen Valley. Nale believes she caught a glimpse of heaven after a near-death experience. (CR Staff/Owen Sweeney III)

Everyone has seen stories on television about people who believe they died and went to heaven.  They often speak of “seeing light at the end of a tunnel,” being reunited with deceased relatives and returning to earth for unfinished business.

A few days before Christmas, I met one of them.

Helen Nale, a 94-year-old parishioner of St. Andrew by the Bay in Annapolis, suffered a stroke in early December. At the hospital, doctors told her family she was dying.  She even began a “death rattle.”

But, for some unknown reason, Nale’s health made a sudden and dramatic turnaround. She awoke from a coma, said some prayers and was eventually released.

Nale doesn’t remember much of what happened in the hospital that day because she believes she was in a better place. She says she caught a glimpse of heaven and returned to earth with a mission to help some family members return to church.

Nale didn’t see any bright lights in the next world, but she told me a lot about winged angels with curly hair, happy reunions with family members, magnificent buildings and an overwhelming feeling of happiness.

“It was all a beautiful thing to be with God and the angels,” she said.

Helen Valley, Nale’s daughter and a fellow St. Andrew parishioner, said her mother has a “new lease on life” and that her experience has inspired the entire family.

Skeptics might say there’s a neurochemical explanation for Nale’s experience – that her brain was under stress and released chemicals that caused hallucinations.  Maybe.  Talk to Nale, however, and you will meet a woman who has no doubt about experiencing God’s profound love in a deeply personal way.

You can read the story here at The Catholic Review. 

What do you think?

A special Polish Christmas carol



If I’m counting correctly, tonight’s Midnight Mass at Our Lady of Hope in Dundalk will mark the 20th time I’ve had the honor of serving as organist for the joyful Christmas liturgy. People of all ages will crowd into the contemporary-styled church, which is usually dimmed slightly and illuminated with flickering candles and glowing Christmas lights. The effect is warm and almost otherworldly.

In front of the ambo, figures of Joseph and Mary will stand next to a hay-strewn manger bearing the newborn Christ child. The Magi statues will be placed on the other side of the church, symbolically traveling toward the holy scene before arriving on the Epiphany. 

Tonight, there will be a certain formula we dare not break in the singing of the carols. Expect to hear ”O Come All Ye Faithful,” ”Away in a Manger,” “Silent Night,” and “Joy to the World” – in that order.

But there’s another, less familiar song I’ve added to the repertoire.

As a postlude, I always pull out the stops and fill the massive worship space with a lilting Polish carol, “Dzisiaj w Betlejem” – “Today in Bethlehem.”  Nearly every year I’ve played the charmingly simple song, a gentleman approaches me after Mass and thanks me for highlighting his favorite Polish carol. He presses a $20 bill into my hand despite my protests.

“Dzisiaj w Betlejem” holds a special place in my heart, too.

Growing up in a Polish and Czech family, it was one of the kolendy – carols – we heard every Christmas season. It became an even more important song more than a decade ago when my mother was battling the last stages of cancer.

On the Christmas of 1998, my mom only had a few weeks left to live. She slept almost constantly in the hospital bed we set up in her bedroom, relying on morphine to manage the pain. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she would speak of seeing long-gone relatives and would sometimes talk in the Polish tongue she remembered from her youth.

On that Christmas Day, I set up a speaker in her room to let her hear an album of kolendy that included “Dzisiaj w Betlejem.” I don’t know if she was aware of the music, but I like to think it may have lifted her spirits in some way and brought her some sense of peace.

When I play that tune tonight, I will be thinking of my mom and all those who have lost loved ones this year. My prayer is that no matter what you are going through in life, the Prince of Peace will bring you comfort.

In the words of Dzisiaj w Betlejem’s refrain:

Angels are singing, Kings gifts are bringing, Shepherds are praying, Cattle are kneeling; To the little Jesus, To the Son of Mary who this day is born to us!

Have a blessed Christmas, everyone!  Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia!

VIDEO REPORT: John Harbaugh on faith and the Ravens

Two years ago, I profiled Baltimore Ravens’ Head Coach John Harbaugh for a feature story in The Catholic Review.  The gracious NFL coach gave me great insights into his Catholic faith, but there was plenty that didn’t make it to the printed page.  Below is a video report I put together using portions of the Harbaugh interview  in Owings Mills that have never been reported.   Go Ravens!

‘Christ has no hands but ours’

It is said that after German bombers destroyed an English cathedral during the Second World War, dedicated volunteers worked to repair one of the church’s broken statues of Christ. Rather than restore the figure’s missing hands, the artisans left Christ handless – replacing the artwork’s “Come unto Me” inscription with “Christ has no hands but ours.”

While the authenticity of that popular story is a matter for debate, the message it conveys is not: Christians are called to be Christ’s presence in the world today.

Priests carry out that call in a special way – celebrating Mass, anointing the sick, absolving sins, helping the poor and serving in ways that often go unnoticed and unappreciated.

Stephen Golder Photo

Stephen Golder, a photographer who lives in Georgia, recently completed a powerful project focused solely on the hands of priests.

With the blessing of leaders of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Catholic convert devoted seven months to following priests in northern Georgia, photographing their hands as a project for the recently completed Year for Priests.

Stephen Golder Photo

As you can see from the photos posted in this blog, the results are stunning.

Here’s how Golder describes the effort:

Stephen Golder Photo

Photographing these hands, especially focusing in detail on the movements and images of the Eucharist, has left us properly awestruck at the incredible beauty of our faith.

It is our hope that these images will remind the faithful of the enormous gifts our priests bring to us: not only Christ in the Eucharist, but Christ in all they do.

 

Deacon Greg Kandra, author The Deacon’s Bench, was probably the first to call national attention to this innovative effort. He met with the photographer, who convinced the good deacon to allow his own hands to be photographed as well.

St. Teresa of Avila wrote a prayer that seems to fit perfectly with Golder’s design:

Christ has no body now on earth , but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now. Amen.

Stephen Golder Photo

No greater love

An off-duty police officer risked his life to save a stranger from an oncoming train at a Spanish metro station.  Talk about courage!

Parents of murder victim offer forgiveness

In the nearly 14 years I’ve covered the State House in Annapolis, I’ve heard a lot of arguments for and against the death penalty. Proponents often insist the ultimate punishment deters violent crime and exacts justice. Opponents say it’s inhumane and unfairly targets minorities.

Few people have provided more powerful personal testimony against the death penalty than Vicki Schieber, the mother of a murder victim whose Catholic faith propels her to forgive.

Vicki and her husband, Syl, will share their story tonight at the Greene Turtle in Fells Point beginning at 7:30 p.m. as part of the Tap into Your Faith series for young adults.  

Below are excerpts from a story I wrote a few years ago in The Catholic Review, along with a CR video clip featuring Vicki. The Schiebers will discuss much more at tonight’s talk and answer questions. Everyone is welcome. 



When police arrested the man who brutally raped and murdered Shannon Schieber in 1998, the Schieber family faced unrelenting pressuring to seek the death penalty.

The district attorney, prosecutors, members of the media and others in Philadelphia assured Shannon’s parents that putting their 23-year-old daughter’s killer to death was the only way to serve justice and bring them “a sense of closure.” Some even implied that failing to pursue the death penalty was a sign they didn’t really love their daughter.

Reflecting back on those heart-wrenching days, Vicki Schieber, Shannon’s mother, said her family was “re-victimized” by the debate surrounding the death penalty. Knowing the Catholic values her daughter embraced, Mrs. Schieber said there was no way she could demand the taking of another life. “The death penalty wasn’t going to honor Shannon’s life and it wasn’t going to bring her back,” said Mrs. Schieber, a parishioner of Blessed Sacrament in Washington, D.C., who spoke at a Nov. 7 forum on the death penalty sponsored by the archdiocesan respect life office at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland.

“I thought about everything we ever taught Shannon to believe — to turn the other cheek, to show compassion and to be forgiving,” Mrs. Schieber said. “If you have a set of principles and then don’t live by them when you are tested, were they ever your principles to begin with?”

Mrs. Schieber’s request for a sentence of life without parole was ultimately given to Troy Graves, who also pleaded guilty to 13 other sexual assault in two states.

What Shannon would have wanted

Mrs. Schieber said it wasn’t an easy decision. She and her family struggled with tremendous anger that someone would snuff out the life of a daughter she described as the “joy of our lives.”

Shannon was gifted “beyond belief,” according to her mother. At 18 months, she was already reciting the alphabet — forward and backward. By the time she was 3, she was reading at a second-grade level. In school, Shannon earned top grades, serving as president of her high school and president of her freshman class at Duke University, where she graduated in three years with a triple major in mathematics, economics and philosophy.

Shannon was also very committed to social justice. She earned a full scholarship at the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia — not with the intent of making boatloads of money for herself, Mrs. Schieber said, but to have a successful career in finance so she could help the poor.

“After her death, Shannon was sitting on my shoulder, telling me, ‘Don’t let him kill all of you, too,” said Mrs. Schieber. “She was telling me to take all that energy and do good with it.”

To pursue the death penalty would have put her on the same footing as the murderer himself by being willing to take a life to satisfy one’s own ends, Mrs. Schieber said.

‘No such thing as closure’

It is wrong to suggest that executing people brings a sense of closure, according to Mrs. Schieber. Every time she sees a beautiful young family in church, she is reminded that her daughter will never have the chance to marry and raise a family of her own. Even if the killer were executed, those reminders will persist throughout her life, Mrs. Schieber said.

“There is no such thing as closure when a violent crime rips away someone you love,” she said.

Mrs. Schieber pointed out that the death penalty is a human institution and subject to mistakes. More than 120 people have been exonerated for murders they did not commit, she said. At a practical level, the death penalty is also a waste of money, according to Mrs. Schieber. Sustaining the death penalty infrastructure and appeals process costs millions of dollars per case, she said. “It only costs about $50,000 (annually) to keep my daughter’s murderer in prison,” she said.

As the Maryland General Assembly is expected to debate a bill replacing the death penalty with sentences of life without parole, Mrs. Schieber urged Catholics to sign petitions in support of the effort to help convince lawmakers to support a culture of life.

“All life is sacred,” she said.

Want happiness? Be grateful.

Early this summer, when life wasn’t quite going in the direction I wanted, I read Mitch Albom’s “Have a Little Faith.” Albom, a well-known Detroit sports columnist and author of “Tuesdays with Morrie,” wrote the book after his childhood rabbi, Al Lewis – ‘The Reb’ – asked him to deliver his eulogy.

At the same time Albom began meeting with his rabbi to prepare the eulogy, he encountered Henry Covington. Covington, a former drug dealer, was pastor of the “I Am My Brother’s Keeper” ministry in Detroit. The inner-city preacher had turned his life over to God one night when other drug dealers set out to kill him.

“If you save me tonight,” Covington said, “you can have me.”

The criminal reformed his life. He began a ministry to the homeless, sheltering them in a church that had a gaping hole in the roof.

The two men of faith shared an unshakeable trust in God and a palpable sense of joy. What’s more, they viewed everything they had as a gift from God.

One day when Albom was speaking with his rabbi, he asked how a person finds happiness.

“Be satisfied,” the Reb said. “Be grateful. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you.”

“That’s it?” Albom asked.

“That’s it.”

In a column for The Catholic Review, Father Joseph Breighner once pointed out that none of us can control what happens to us, or around us, in life.

“But we can control what we choose to focus on,” he said. “Whatever we focus on will expand. If we focus on what’s wrong, we will see more of what’s wrong. If we focus on what’s right, we’ll see more of what’s right. Life, fundamentally, is a choice, a decision, to look for the best and to be our best.”

This Thanksgiving, I’m focusing on what’s right. I’m thankful for family and friends who stand by me, for a job that I love when so many are looking for work and for the gift of life.

Take the Reb’s and Father Joe’s advice. If you want some joy in your life, be grateful. Focus on what’s right.

It works.