Another American woman is up for canonization, having lived in a very hard time in the United States.SERVANT OF GOD MARGARET MARY HEALY-MURPHY was born  in 1833, to Jane Murphy Healy and Richard Healy in Cahersiveen, County Kerry, Ireland. When she was only five years old her mother died in childbirth, and over the next few years, Margaret watched her family and the rest of Ireland struggle to survive the ravages of famine.

Amazingly, Margaret Mary was a relative of Daniel O'Connell, who worked politically to end slavery through the British Parliament system, as her own family would later own slaves in America. Her father was a doctor who helped the poor in the neighboring regions of Cahirciveen.

Margaret immigrated to America with her father when she was 12. Her father died shortly after their arrival. She accompanied her brothers, aunts, and uncles when they made their way across several southern states and eventually to Mexico, where they operated a hotel.

 She met John Bernard Murphy in Matamoros, Mexico. He had been stationed there while working as a volunteer in General Zachary Taylor's army. They married in Matamoros in 1849 in the Matamoros Cathedral. In 1850 the couple settled in Corpus Christi, where John owned a ranch and worked as a lawyer. The Murphys also owned slaves who worked on the ranch. 

 While her husband was traveling for business, Margaret Mary ministered to the pastoral and material needs of her neighbors, reportedly even riding 35 miles on horseback to secure medicine for Yellow Fever victims.

 With the Civil War brewing and her husband away, most likely for safety, Margaret moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, helping her neighbors with chores and cooking meals for those in need. After the war, Margaret volunteered at St. Patrick’s Parish, even as the Yellow Fever epidemic reached the city. She worked alongside the pastor, Reverend John Gonnard, who later died from the illness. 

One of the patients Margaret tended to was Mrs. Delaney who entrusted her daughter, Minnie, to Margaret’s care. Margaret and John Bernard adopted Minnie and sent her to a boarding school in New York with the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur. They also adopted Margaret’s goddaughter, Lizzie, who had lost her mother as well. Upon graduation, both girls entered the religious life with the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament Sisters. 

 In 1875, John was invited as a representative at the First Constitutional Convention for Texas, held in Austin. When he returned, he was persuaded to run for mayor of Corpus Christi, which he held from 1880 to 1884.

When John died in1884, he left Margaret Mary with a fortune, which she decided to put to good use, helping others. She started a tuberculosis hospital in Corpus Christi. After a few years, she moved to San Antonio. In 1887, responding to a plea from the bishops during the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, she was inspired to use her own finances to build the first black Catholic Church and school in the city.

With racial prejudice prevalent, she struggled with securing finances to sustain her project and maintain a stable faculty. In 1893, with the blessing of Bishop John C. Neraz, Margaret founded a new religious congregation, the Sisters of the Holy Ghost, now known as the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate. These sisters supported Margaret’s mission of working with the poor and people of color.

Mother Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy died on August 7, 1907, leaving behind 15 sisters, two postulants and three missions. Even today, her congregation continues “manifesting the compassion of Jesus to the poor” in the United States and Zambia.

On June 28, 2022, Archbishop García-Siller announced his intention to formally open the diocesan phase of investigation into the life of Mother Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy.

SACRED HEART IN THE USA

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Today, the vigil of the feast of the SACRED HEART OF JESUS, the U.S. Bishops Consecrated the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

 

O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: You know the longings of our hearts, and You desire that we enjoy friendship with You. From Your pierced side, You have poured out the wellspring of life, for which we thirst. Your heart burns with a love for all people to return to a right relationship with You. 

We celebrate the abundant gifts You have given this nation, founded on the self-evident truths that our Creator has endowed all people with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

We make reparation for the offenses against You and against human dignity that have taken place in this nation. 

 May our hearts be united to Yours, so that our families and communities enjoy peace and happiness; may broken relationships be reconciled, injustices repaired, and the wounds of our land be healed. 

May Your holy Catholic Church serve as a sign, pointing all people to Your infinite love. May your holy Catholic Church serve as a sign, pointing all people to your infinite love. 

O Desire of Nations and Center of History, we ask you to bless these United States of America. Who live and reign with God the Father  in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

 

BIRDS WITH HUMOR

 

It seems to be the time for birds. Everyday I see a large calendar over my desk featuring the fun art of CHARLEY HARPER, who was a Cincinnati-based American Modernist artist, best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters, and book illustrations. I love his work because of his great sense of humor and his sometimes play on words. For example, his  pileated woodpecker pecking for ants he titled “Antypasto". 

Charley was born in Frenchton, West Virginia, in 1922 into a farming family. On his family farm, he developed an early appreciation and love of animals as well as design  which influenced his work to his last days. 

He attended West Virginia Wesleyan College and graduated from the Cincinnati Art Academy, where he also taught for many years

Supposedly on the first day, Charley met fellow artist Edie McKee*, whom he married shortly after graduation in 1947. 

After a WWII tour of duty with the 104th Infantry in Europe, aided by an art scholarship,  he went on a four-months' painting tour of the country with his bride. He worked in a Cincinnati studio as a commercial artist by day and in his home as a fine artist by night."

Charley returned to the Art Academy of Cincinnati as a teacher and also worked for a commercial firm before working on his own. He and his wife worked out of their Roselawn and Finneytown homes, and later, with their only child, Brett Harper, formed Harper Studios.

Charley Harper died of pneumonia in Cincinnati on Sunday, June 10, 2007, at age 84.

During his career, Charley Harper illustrated numerous books, notably The Golden Book of Biology, magazines such as Ford Times, as well as many prints, posters, and other works. As his subjects are mainly natural, with birds prominently featured, Charley often created works for many nature-based organizations, among them the National Park Service, Cincinnati Zoo, Cincinnati Nature Center, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Hamilton County (Ohio) Park District, and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. He also designed interpretive displays for Everglades National Park.

In a style he called "minimal realism", Charley Harper captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. When asked to describe his unique visual style, Charley responded: 

When I look at a wildlife or nature subject, I don't see the feathers in the wings, I just count the wings. I see exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior, and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures. I regard the picture as an ecosystem in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or unutilized parts; and herein lies the lure of painting; in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe.”

He began his career by creating very realistic pictures but began to lose his interest in this approach. This skill wasn't wasted, however, for as he said “You’ve got to know how to put everything in before you will know what you can leave out successfully.”

"I felt shackled by the laws of perspective and shading and decided that the constant attempt to create the illusion of three dimensions on the two-dimensional plane of the picture was limiting me as an artist. Realistic painting persuades the viewer that he is looking into space rather than at a flat surface. It denies the picture plane, which I affirm and use as an element of design. Wildlife art has been dominated by realism, but I have chosen to do it differently because I think flat, hard-edge and simple."

Charlie said it was the difference between painting the thing itself or painting a picture of the thing. "I didn’t start out to paint a bird – the bird already existed. I started out to paint a picture of a bird, a picture which didn’t exist before I came along, a picture which gives me a chance to share with you my thoughts about the bird.

Once you accept this seemingly simplistic but really quite profound premise, you will appreciate the many varied approaches to the making of pictures, all of which start where realism leaves off, but all of which require an understanding of realism for their successful execution.”

He contrasted his nature-oriented artwork with the realism of John James Audubon, drawing influence from Cubism, Minimalism, Einsteinian physics and countless other developments in Modern art and science. His style distilled and simplified complex organisms and natural subjects, yet they are often arranged in a complex fashion.

His serigraphs were large expanses of rich color, which gave the viewer a very different perspective on the animal kingdom. He was a conservationist as well as an artist, revealing the unique aspects of  wildlife subjects through highly stylized geometric reduction. 

 He said he was "the only wildlife artist who has never been compared to Audubon," yet his wildlife art was just as instructive - the only difference was that he laced his lessons with humor.Charlie believed that humor made it easier to encourage changes in our attitudes and awareness of environmental concerns.

On the subject of his simplified forms, Charley noted:

"I don't think there was much resistance to the way I simplified things. I think everybody understood that. Some people liked it and others didn't care for it. There's some who want to count all the feathers in the wings and then others who never think about counting the feathers, like me.”

The results are bold, colorful, and often whimsical. The designer Todd Oldham wrote of him, "Charley's inspired yet the accurate color sense is undeniable, and when combined with the precision he exacts on rendering only the most important details, one is always left with a sense of awe." Charley, on numerous examples, also went outside the medium of graphic art and included short prose poems for the artwork he made.    

In his art work Charlie  imaginatively investigated the similarities between human and wild animal behaviors, but completely without anthropomorphism. "I learn as much as I can about the creatures that interest me, and they all do. I observe them and find out how they interact with each other and their environments and ask myself, 'What if?'"

In 2002 his artwork was selected for the International Migratory Bird Day conservation theme- Exploring Habitats.

*EDIE McKee HARPER was an American photographer, artis and wildlife conservationist, working in many mediums, including sculptures, paintings, textiles, jewelry and lithographs for 60 years. She died 3 years after Charlie.

Birds: top- Pileated woodpecker

 Left-  Clair de Loon

Right- Barn swallow

Left- Goldfinch

Right- "His eyes are on the sparrows"

Left- Scissortail flycatcher

Rigt- Rosebreasted  Grosebeak

A LIFE OF DARKNESS

As we begin a new month, it is time to get back to some new saints.  The following was meant to be last month with others, who in suffering, offered themselves to God.

BL. ELZBIETA ROZA CZACKA was born in Bila Tserkva in Kiev Governorate (today Ukraine)) as the sixth of seven children to Count Feliks Czacki and Countess Zofia Ledóchowska. Her great-grandfather was Tadeusz Czacki and her uncle was Cardinal Włodzimierz Czacki. The Czacki family of the Świnka coat of arms came from Silesia and were part of the Polish nobility. Many outstanding ancestors contributed to its importance, including Cardinal Włodzimierz Czacki, the secretary to and friend of Pope Pius IX and later advisor to Pope Leo XIII. Róża's father was the grandson of Tadeusz Czacki, the founder of Krzemieniec Lyceum, member of the Commission of National Education, co-author of the May 3rd Constitution and co-founder of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning. Through her mother, Zofia, she was related to Cardinal Mieczysław Ledóchowski. In her childhood she learnt how to play on the piano and also learnt how to ride horses. She also became proficient in English and also mastered German and French and also studied ecclesial and medieval Latin.

Gifted with a very good ear for music, Róża took singing, dancing and piano lessons. She also went horse riding. The Czacki family was wealthy, which allowed for the selection of appropriate teaching staff and educational activities. The parents required from their children considerable independence and self-discipline, and paid particular attention to virtues such as modesty and respect for the dignity of others, including those who were of lower social status. Róża's mother had a strict approach towards her children and tried to avoid expressing warm feelings. (Photo right is the palace where Roza was born.)

Since childhood, Róża experienced health problems.  A hereditary eye disease plagued her, yet her family refused to accept her progressive blindness, even though the disease was making it increasingly more difficult for Roza to function.

 The turning point came in 1898, when as a result of falling off a horse, the retinas of both of Róża's eyes became detached. At the age of 22, she became completely blind.

Roża's parents spared no efforts to restore her daughter's sight. It was hoped this would be achieved thought trips abroad to the most renowned ophthalmologists. These, however, proved fruitless. The breakthrough finally came when Róża turned to the ophthalmologist Bolesław Ryszard Gepner, who told her: ‘Don’t allow yourself to be carted from one foreign fame to another. There is nothing here that can be done, the state of your eyesight is quite hopeless. You’d be better off taking care of the blind, as they are not looked after by anyone in Poland’. 

 Róża decided to start her mission to help the blind through charitable work. She visited the patients of ophthalmic clinics, contacted doctors who could treat them and organized fundraising at Holy Coss Churchin Warsaw. In this charity work, she was supported by her mother, whose approach to her daughter had now warmed. Róża came to the conclusion that her aid to those in need should not be limited to sporadic actions. She traveled to the West to learn how to organize institutional care for the blind. Braille was not yet used in Poland, so she found inspiration in the outstanding French promoter of braille, Maurice de la Sizeranne.

After returning to Warsaw in 1910, Roza opened a shelter for young blind women, where she taught them to read braille. These lessons started also being attended by blind males. The small center soon expanded its activities, and in 1911 it became the Society for the Care of the Blind, whose official status was confirmed that same year by the tsarist authorities.

 The Society ran care and educational facilities for the blind, including: a primary school with Polish as the language of instruction, a basket-weaving workshop for boys and male adults, a nursery for the youngest children and a nursing home for elderly women. In 1912 she also established open care of the blind and she instigated the transcribing of books into Braille. In 1913, she founded the first library for the blind in Poland.

Róża drew attention to the fact that the blind suffer not only on account of their disability, but also due to ingrained social perceptions of their supposed mental and psycho-physical debilities. She considered it a mistake to exclude blind people from everyday activities or to keep them in isolation. Roza tried to combat prevailing stereotypes though education and the example of her own active life. By writing studies, various appeals and memoranda to representatives of the authorities she popularized knowledge about the blind. Her goal as an organizer of aid for people without sight was to provide them with maximal independence, enabling them to find their place in society with a sense of being useful and having their own dignity.

The work she had begun was halted by the outbreak of the First World War. Her Society struggled with serious shortages of food and other items essential for everyday existence. Initially, she lived in the home of the habitless sisters of the Third Order of St Francis. She planned to found a new congregation whose major mission would be to serve the blind. Róża took her vows and adopted the religious name of Elżbieta (Elisabeth). After the ban on wearing religious garments was officially lifted, she donned the Franciscan habit. Her work received approval from the apostolic nuncio Achille Ratti (the future Pope Pius XI) who lauded her efforts as an exceptional apostolate.

Shortly before the Second World War, Sr. Elzbieta's work was in full bloom. By its outbreak she had turned Laski into a modern center. There, her pupils received a basic and vocational education allowing them to live on their own, financially independent, included in society and often having their dignity restored. The number of blind students as well as teachers and carers grew. There were 41 blind students in 1928. By the school year of 1938/39, there were 230 blind children, youths and adults in the boarding schools of Laski, and 437 at the Society's open centers in Warsaw and other cities.

During the war, students had to be evacuated, and Sr. Elzbieta herself was wounded during the siege of Warsaw, when a bomb fell on the building where she was staying. She lost an eye, which had to be removed, without anaesthesia. 

After the end of the war, Sr. Elzbieta had much help, even from groups in New York. In 1950 she retired her role as the Superior General for her order, having held the post since around 1923, due to her declining health. She died in Laski on 15 May 1961. She was beatified in September 2021 along with Cardinal Stefan Wysznski (The Primate of Poland who led the Church’s resistance to communism). 

She lived her life in darkness, yet spread the Light of Christ to all whom she touched. Her feast day is May 19.

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THE POPE'S FIRST

 

Sunday is Pentecost, but many do not know of the feast that follows, which is dedicated to MARY MOTHER of the CHURCH. On this day the Vatican releases Pope Leo’s first encyclical, “MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS: (Magnificent Humanity): On the Protection of Human Dignity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”  

This year marks the publication of the social encyclical “Rerum Novarum  by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. Rerum Novarum, discussed the needs of the working class amid the industrial revolution. The text by-passed both socialism and unrestrained market power, opting for cooperation between competing interests that is centered on the dignity of the human person.

Pope Leo XIV indicated at the beginning of his pontificate that he intended to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Leo XIII by responding to todayʼs industrial revolution: “developments in the field of artificial intelligence.”

“In our own day,” he continued, “the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.”

Time Magazine included Pope Leo XIV in its 2025 list of the “World’s Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence” , praising the pontiff’s focus on the ethical concerns related to the emerging technology.

The magazine listed the top 100 fluential people in artificial intelligence (AI) in four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers, and Thinkers. Leo XIV is among the 25 most influential thinkers in the field, according to Time.

In a profile included in the magazine, Time technology correspondent Andrew Chow noted that Leo XIV chose his papal name, in part, based on the need for the Church to address ethical matters related to AI and wrote that the Holy Father is “already making good on his vow.”

 

 

THE WEEK OF BIRDS

 

My God-daughter, Amie Hood Garabaldi, took these amazing photos of a rufus hummingbird last week when she visited Shaw.  She has always loved wildlife and has the giftedness to show us beauty which we often may not see up close.

I am lucky to also have a God-son, who  does wonderful wildlife photography, especially birds. He studed under an internationally noted wildlfe photographer, who recognized James' talent. 

Amie also captured this flock of whimbrels in migration flying over Shaw as the sun was setting.

GEESE ON THE ROOF

 

Canada geese are known to nest on flat rooftops, especially in urban or suburban areas. They choose these high, open spaces to protect their eggs from ground predators and to gain a clear view of their surroundings. They are often attracted to "green roofs," planters, and quiet, elevated spaces.

It is a first for us, and we have daily been fascinated by this mother goose who chose the roof of our llama/sheep fold. We were all concerned as the days went by. How could those goslings get off that roof.  There are some birds, such as the marbled murrelets who actually push their babies out of trees, when they know they are old enough to fly. But for geese it is a problem as the goslings cannot fly down, creating a challenge for them to reach food and water. At times parents will drop the goslings down to the ground, where they can survive the fall by landing on soft surfaces or because of their light weight. A rather hit and miss prospect.

Once the female starts sitting on the eggs, they will hatch in about 25 days. Baby geese can walk within hours of hatching, and the parents will try to lead their new family away from the nest area.

 Because the goslings cannot fly until they are three months old, they may be unable to jump safely from the roof to follow their parents. Generally newly hatched goslings can fall about 2 storeys without hurting themselves, because they are so small and fluffy.

If the nest is more than two storeys high, or there is a barrier more than 4 inches tall preventing the goslings from jumping off, it is rcommended to call the local wildlife rehabilation center. 

Then today at dinner, we watched two raptors, either juvie bald eagles and or a pair of red wings (they were going too fast to identify) fly by the windows.  Hours later at Vespers I spied a raptor out of the corner of my eye swooping very near if not from that goose rooftop. Looking closer I noted movement and could see yellow goslings. 

What to do? Where is that camera when you need it? One of the nuns bravely climbed up and got the babes into the pasture near the pond, with the hope they could hide in the grass and maybe soon get to the pond and the rushes which would protect them. 

 Time will tell, but we hope to see some of these babes survive- as much as we dislike the adults at times.  Perhaps my greatest complaint -not the poopy mess they make- is that they drive away smaller ducks, such as the colorful wood duck, which no longer come to make its nest near the pond’s edge.

UPDATE:  So far all three goslings have made it and are daily swimming with both parents. Our shepherdess carefully passes them, with eyes averted, as she tends to her wooly flock.