The Kansas City Star insulted residents of our neighborhood by calling us a “Murder Factory.” It was poor sociology and gave little recognition to the work of St. Therese, the Blue Hills Neighborhood and CCO have been doing for years. It is true that neighborhood needs are great and perhaps the additional attention will help.
St. Therese has invited the ministers from all the churches in the zip code for lunch on Thursday February 12. Along with CCO we will introduce the idea of declaring the neighborhoods around our churches to be Holy Ground. We will propose the idea of a joint Prayer and Praise service with massed choirs to launch our individual and common efforts to claim our neighborhood as Holy Ground.
As I reflected in my column in this Sunday’s bulletin, Catholic and Anglican churches used to make themselves highly visible to their neighbors. We used to “beat the bounds” of our parishes on Rogation Days, carry our worship into the streets in processions on Corpus Christi and patronal festivals, invite our neighbors to parish celebrations, and conduct a regular census. Can some of these venerable practices be dusted off? Can we make an effort to listen to our neighbors and assure them of our prayers? Invite them to Mass and to our “Financial Peace” classes? We are already doing so much in our neighborhood, but do they help make our neighborhood Holy Ground?
Charlie
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Nicea's City Gates
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Ordination, 2002
Traditio
On the Appalachian Trail
Fall 2007
The Holy Sacrifice
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About Me
- Fr. Ernie Davis
- Kansas City, Missouri, United States
- I've been married to Valerie for 30 years and we have 3 adult children. For the last several years I have been section-hiking the Appalachian Trail through Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and now have hit the Virginia Blues. My favorite times to hike are early spring and late fall. At this rate I will finish the AT when I am about 92. I grew up on Amelia Island, Florida, and still love the deserted beaches found on Cumberland Island. I got my M. Div (cum laude) at the General Seminary in NYC and earned an MPA in Nonprofit Management from UMKC. I've led pilgrimages to Rome, the Holy Land, Turkey and France. As if I didn't already have enough to do!
4 comments:
I don't see how you can deny the paper's assertion that there are more murderers in 64130 than any other zip code in missouri. Maybe you should focus your efforts on HOW TO PREVENT MURDER! I mean if all these people are killing other people what difference does it make if they are in debt or not?
Do you realize what you said? "All these people..."? Please.
It's not an insult to tell the truth.
To state as a fact that the residents of St. Therese's neighborhood create murderers like a factory creates cars is just as untrue of 64130 as it is of 64131. At breakfast with my neighbors yesterday (close to St. Peter's), several shared stories of murders and shots fired at houses around here in recent years. To imply that my neighbors created those murders is just as untrue as it was to state that St. Therese's neighbors created murders there. Let's pay attention to solving problems together, not pitting residents of certain neighborhoods against each other.
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