It’s been 52 years and counting that St. Michael Church in Palmer has operated its Slippery Gulch eatery at the Alaska State Fair (Aug. 24 to Sept 4). The blue metal building with white trim is located on the Green Trail, near the midway and the Rate Race booth, Slippery Gulch is run entirely by parish volunteers to raise money for the church and its outreaches.
The other night, in my dream my husband and I were standing in front of our garage door at our old house in Anchorage. As we pulled the door down, we discovered crude swastikas had been scrawled on the door’s panels with black paint. We looked at each other in horror, and that’s when I awakened.
We seldom sense the presence of the sacred in moments of terror, natural or man-made. Nature itself, of course, follows the patterns instilled in the universe by God from the moment of first creation. Of course, we humans sometimes find ourselves crosswise with nature’s powers, but God obviously means no evil intent; nature does what nature was created to do.
After a contented life in Southern California, Alan Rice began to drift — both away from God and through the Western part of the country. He finally hit the road to Alaska six years ago. He describes the consequences of sin and poor decision-making as a descent into dishonesty and self-absorption that eventually landed him on the streets of Anchorage and at the doorstep of the Brother Francis Shelter in the winter of 2012.
Five young religious women traveled from New York to Alaska earlier this summer to share their lives with youth campers at St. Therese’s Camp in Wasilla.
Our closest friends have seen our virtues and our warts, our acts of kindness and our petty pride. Hang out with someone long enough and you notice the fruits of their life. In these cases, it is not enough to think of evangelization as reacquainting a once Christian culture with the long-forgotten Gospel.
Last month, Anchorage’s St. Patrick Church unveiled a large bronze sculpture of David — the fourth statue installed in the parish’s outdoor cloister by the renowned sculptor and painter Roberto Santo. Santo creates original work as well as fresh interpretations of classical works by much older masters.
Mat-Su resident Sharon Lasselle knew her Catholic Relief Services trip to Ethiopia wouldn’t be a luxury vacation. “We would be walking a lot, we would be traveling on very bumpy roads, it would be very hot,” she remembers the application stating.
The Catholic Anchor was recognized nine times for excellence in journalism at the national competition sponsored by the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada. The contest winners, for works published in 2016, were announced in June at the Catholic Media Convention in Quebec City, Canada.
The universality of the church is a beautiful mystery and reality, one that calls us to live in ‘communion’ with one another.