Women Pray for Peace with Bishop Malloy
By Amanda Hudson, News Editor
May 17, 2018
ROCKFORD—Bishop David Malloy celebrated the annual Mass for Peace sponsored by the Catholic Women’s League at a gathering at the Poor Clares Corpus Christi Monastery chapel on May 9.
He was joined by Father Leonard Jacobs, pastor of St. James Parish in Rockford and spiritual director for the Catholic Women’s League; Father Nicholas Federspiel, chaplain to the Poor Clares; Deacon Ronald Graw; the Poor Clare nuns and a comfortably-filled chapel of lay women and men.
After speaking about the service provided by the Poor Clare Colettine nuns, the bishop spoke of the service of the lay Catholic women before him. He identified that lay vocation as including “to be lay women; to be active; to be visible signs of Catholic women’s faith in society and in the Church.”
As always, the Mass served as a prayer for peace.
“We lose peace to anger and to social ambition,” Bishop Malloy said as he reflected on the world’s lack of peace. He noted “how much we need to pray to God, and be reminded especially of our fellow brothers and sisters in need, our fellow Christians and Catholics who internationally are suffering from that lack of peace.”
Inner peace is challenged, he said, by the rhetoric and “the increasingly coarse dialogue that is presented to us in television, in movies (which will) trickle down even into our own hearts.” We need, he added, “constantly to be in prayer, our need for the sacraments ... to take away that bitterness, that anger that begins to reside in our hearts.”
Aware of many volunteer organizations’ struggles today to recruit leadership, Bishop Malloy expressed gratitude to Catholic Women’s League officers, past and present.
“It’s often not fun to step forward to take a position of leadership, a position of officer,” he said. “We’re here in a special way to commit our prayers and thanks to those officers.”
He took note of “this goodness, this faith, this prayer, simply this stick-to-itiveness to Christ” that Catholic women transmit into their families and society.
“How important it is that we keep this mission going,” he said, “(to keep) these contributions going, that we keep these opportunities for Catholic women to come together to share their faith, their encouragement, sometimes a correction, (and) their laughter too, that too is part of being a follower of Christ.
“Officers, thank you. Sisters, thank you. To all of you who are a part of this league, thank you.”
The Catholic Women’s League officers installed at the Mass for the coming year are: Jacque Bolger, president, of St. James Parish in Rockford; Mary Ellen Nash, vice president, of Holy Family Parish; Angie Cash, secretary, of St. James Parish; and Mary Kay Tapp, treasurer, of St. Peter Parish in South Beloit.