Guy Hokanson
(June 2008 CYO mission trip)Manresan family members pictured on the Mexico mission trip include Guy and Marcia Hokanson
“A la santé!”
The Lamb, April 2005
In past editions of The Lamb we have written about a variety of subjects including fellow Manresans living or deceased. This is of our editor and his beautiful wife Marcia, and their children Shawn and Sara.
Nearly ten years ago I as an usher still served the 11:30 Holy Mass. Often they were the first ones in church. We’d exchange pleasantries and got to be very good friends, now they’re family to me and my loving wife. Shawn at 12 years old expressed a desire to become an usher, now known as ministers of hospitality. I took him on and he is still at it, even though he is a 4.0 student at LSU. Sara is still in high school and maintaining a very high average. They were sort of new in the parish. I told them about Manresa and the Adoration Chapel. They’ve been faithful adorers ever since. Guy is a faithful Manresan also. They are now two of the best known, loved and honored persons in the parish, and are very active. I don’t know how to heap enough praise on Guy and Marcia for the effort they put into publishing The Lamb monthly. Marcia is the design expert and proof reader. “She has her work cut out for her with this writer.” They not only put hours of work into it but I’d guess days on end. The Manresans thank them immensely as does the rest of the parish. When we run out of issues in church many come and ask for more. We’ll have to print more I guess. But with your faith and talent you can do it. After all, this is the greatest parish in the world, with people like you who make it great. Now here comes the coup de grâce. They weren’t sacramentally married until this past Saturday March 12, 2005. The best pastor in the Diocese took care of that at a special Holy Mass, with Father Harry celebrating. Many parishioners and Manresans attended including this writer and his loving wife who were honored to be chosen as witnesses. We are old enough to be their parents, so thank you for the honor. Gotta also mention how beautiful the bride looked. She wore an off-white dress with white flowers in her hair like a picture in Vogue magazine. (Hope that’s the right magazine.) Summing it all up, they’re a very Catholic family with very beautiful smart Catholic children. May God continue to bless them and pray that their sacramental married life lasts till they’re at least 100 years old or more. We also pray they keep on living our Manresa motto which goes like this: “To the Lord I give all the hours of my life and the use of my death.” Guy and Marcia we wish you all the best God has to offer, or as we say in French, “A la santé!” God Bless. PS - The groom looked great too. Editor’s note: Ordinarily we would prefer not to publish such self-serving articles. It is only due to deep respect for the author, Oswald Schexnayder - and a long-standing agreement that he would “write something about y’all when you receive the sacrament” - that it appears here in its entirety. Obviously, it needs to be taken with a heckuva lotta salt. All honor and glory goes to God, who makes all things possible.
A sacramental love letter
The Lamb, April 2005
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
March 12 of this year was a very special day for us. With the support of family and friends, and by the grace of God, we received the sacrament of Matrimony and returned to the Holy Eucharist that evening. Our pastor, our witnesses, our participants - in fact each and every person attending the ceremony either in person or in spirit - provided a special blessing for the evening that will last us a lifetime. Our heartfelt prayers of gratitude go out to all who have encouraged and supported us over the years as we strived to reach this precious goal. To all who have offered a simple phrase here or given a comforting hug there, to all who have shared a smile, shed a tear, or said a prayer with us when it was needed the most, to every Eucharistic minister who has so genuinely shared Christ’s blessing with us while we awaited His banquet: May God bless you all for showing His love to us, and may you truly appreciate the sacraments and experience their awesome cleansing grace as He has so lovingly enabled us to do. Amen. In His most precious name, Guy & Marcia Hokanson Parishioners, St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church
Amazing grace
TWO DAYS, THREE SACRAMENTS, ONE GOD
The Lamb, April 2005
It took several years to gain the proper resolve. And it took a few more years to gain the proper permission. But what happened in just two days has changed my life forever.
Mistakenly thinking that the combination of a civil marriage and a strong Catholic faith had been the near-equivalent of a sacramental marriage, I was jolted by the impact when my wife and I actually received the sacrament of Holy Matrimony on March 12. Sure, I had expected a tide of emotions, but what God delivered was a flood of His amazing grace - in tsunami proportions. Where I was looking for relief, He presented a new resolve. Where I wanted rest, he armed me with strength. Where I had hoped to accomplish a goal, He honored me with a new mission. Where I expected excitement and anticipated tears of joy, He gave me peace, peace, beautiful peace. Where I longed to reach a destination, He showed me a new beginning. Where I had prayed for a continuation of the status quo in my marriage, He created an absolutely new dimension that showed everything in our marriage - from the mundane to the sublime, from the ordinary to the intimate - in a whole new light, His light. God is good. He hears what we want and knows what we need. He is so definitely, so infinitely, so lovingly good! Just a few weeks earlier, I had experienced an absolute explosion of emotions upon learning that my wife and I would soon be able to receive the sacrament. I wondered then if it would be an appropriate time to relate in writing my experiences of the past several years, so that others might either avoid the same challenging fate or be inspired to resolve it. But after receiving the three sacraments of Reconciliation, Matrimony, and Holy Communion within a two-day span, I suddenly find that the struggle is over, the hurt is healed, and the only thing left to share now is God’s amazing grace. “T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” What I need to do now - what we all need to do - is to use the gift of His grace to fulfill His will, and to show others how to do the same. Thank you, my dear sweet Lord! “I was blind but now I see.”