Catholic Diocese Tucson

CATHOLIC OUTLOOK 19 AUGUST 2019 C COURY from page 12 He noted that St. John Paul II institutedpolicies that reintroduced some of the sacrificial elements of the liturgy before Vatican II back into Masses, including requiring that all altars be permanent and that Resurrection crosses in the sanctuary be replaced with sacrificial crosses. For Catholics living their faith before the changes of Vatican II, contemplative prayer arose from liturgical prayer. People from that generation found a contemplative state through their ordinary devotions, he said. “My mother and people of her generation, people did it at church. For her, it was really contemplative. “You would go to benedictions in big monster churches, it was dark and the smoke’s going up and you could smell it and they were singing and they bring out the monstrance. It’s all this real mystery and you are sitting there and God’s there,” he said. “Then she takes you over to the little Mary altar and all the little candles glowing and all the Mary pictures are there,” he added. “It’s a very contemplative experience. As a little kid, you feel like Mary’s here, God’s here, Joseph’s here.” Father Coury knows that contemplative prayer isn’t for everyone, especially when it comes to family members. “My mom and dad, they knew the sacraments. That was their life. They loved that. “Like my mom,” he continued. “If I were to say to her ‘Come on, mom, we will teach you how to pray.’ She’d whap me. “She’d say, ‘What are you talking about? I know how to pray. I pray every day. I pray the rosary. I go to Mass.’” Kindness – the fruit of contemplative prayer – was a benchmark of his family’s life and faith going back 80 years. “My dad was in World War II,” Father Coury recalled. “My dad came back to Detroit. One of my brothers was born during the war. It was on one of those furloughs, my mother conceived. He went back and forth for six years in the Navy. Then I was conceived.” After the war, “he just had to get a job and work. He had a wife and a kid and another on the way. Where does kindness come in in that? “He was a very kind man, a very generous man all his life,” Father Coury recalled. “The little money he made, he gave at church. He raised seven kids. He worked at the car plant. He was very kind, very generous with what he had. My mother was too. “I look back on that and say ‘How did he do that?’” the priest said. His father never had much, but what he had, he used it to help other people. People today have a lot of money and stuff and they horde it. They can’t give anything. They resist generosity. Retreat centers like this are places where people come to, not because they want you to talk to them about baptism. They are coming here to be quiet, for spiritual direction. How can you find Jesus in your life or where is Jesus speaking in your life, how do you experience Jesus in your life, how do you keep that going? How do you do that? That’s the stuff they want to hear about. They know the sacraments. HOME from page 11 Father Coury called sickness “the last transition.” “I see that so much here,” at Our Lady of the Desert, the church that resides within the Redemptorist Renewal Center complex. He cited cancer, stroke, heart attacks and “terrible circulation issues” as the most common illnesses that strike his community’s senior population. “When they get sick and are approaching their passing, they want to do it in a way that deeply connected to God,” he said. “They want to be rooted in God: ‘It’s me and God in this together.’” Traditional prayers, such as the rosary, are helpful, but developing a closer relationship with God is much more important. “So when they pass, it’s not just going to be an end, a darkness,” said Father Coury. “It’s going to be just merging with God – them merging with God, them merging together, just a merging of love.” What happens to the regrets and failings of a lifetime? “In purgatory, what will happen is all that junk you feel will be knocked off in an instant and you’ll go right through to God,” he said. “That stuff is not going to last for more than an instant. You are going to walk through the door and any backpack you carry is going to be knocked right off and into God you go.” Weisenburger during a series of press interviews following the initial announcement July 8. The cost of leasing the detention center initially was only $100 a year, so “the price is right,” the bishop said with a smile. “It feels like it is a tremendous blessing.” The staff had already begun planning to address the stark inside of the new facility, CCS leaders said. The bishop added that the volunteers who staff it exude warmth and welcome. “We think we can match the warmth (of the former monastery) and increase it.” The county board was initially scheduled to vote on the lease Aug. 6. Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said in a July 8 memo that he was recommending approval of the lease. “These facilities are available and are presently vacant due to the aggressive and successful alternatives to detention program and implemented by the Juvenile Court,” Huckelberry wrote. “The county will pay for building, operating and maintenance cost which will include utilities, food service through the juvenile kitchen and laundry service through the juvenile laundry.” Part of the detention center is still in use, and the CCS facilities will be accessed through a different free- standing entrance that will look less foreboding than a lockdown facility. Signage for the county operation and CCS will be clearly marked, CCS officials said. Cavendish added that the care and welcome provided by the scores of volunteers are what make the monastery a successful stop for the asylum-seekers, most of whom are women and families with children. “They will continue to be respectful and warm to our guests.” Harmon noted that “the monastery was an empty building when we first moved in,” and staff and volunteers turned it into a livable space. Cavendish added that she believed once accommodations are made, people will forget that they are entering a former detention facility. “It’s what it was. It’s not what it will be.” The bishop said that Rulney has agreed to temporarily extend access to the monastery past July 31 until the lease at the detention facility has been approved and operations can be transferred. Rulney has been “extraordinarily generous to us,” he said. Bishop Weisenburger praised the county for making the site available, noting that with access to the local airport and bus facilities, ample parking for volunteers and its turnkey status, “it checks all of our boxes.” The bishop also thanked members of the ecumenical community, which had rallied with volunteers to the monastery site and are expected to continue to support the mission at the detention facility. “The community really rallied beautifully around this project,” the bishop said. Noting the extensive search conducted by county leaders before choosing the detention center, the bishop said, “I don’t know that there was any other facility that will meet our needs as well as this one.” “We actually feel in some respects, it’s an upgrade.” C COUNTY from page 9 Catholic Outlook file photo Children sitting on cots in the former Benedictine Monastery turned shelter.