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Happening ... in the Local Church
 Liz
Hanks reads in the sun room of her home. (Photo by Louisa J. Reese) |
Rooted in faith, family, education and Cajun culture, Liz Hanks touches lives in her quest to walk with Christ.
By Louisa J. Reese
For The
Catholic Moment
MUNCIE — Liz Hanks grew up in the Cajun town of Ville Platte, La., and was deeply influenced by the faith and spirit of her mother, Madia Foret Ardoin, and her father, Ferdie.
Hanks, a member of St. Francis of Assisi Parish, recently spoke about how Cajun culture, family, faith and education enriched her life and fueled her passion for sharing those riches with the Church and the larger community.
“… My mother was a joyful, happy, well-grounded, loving woman,” Hanks said. “She was a big influence on me … (even though) she died when I was 20.”
Hanks has been involved in various Church activities in Muncie for many years. She still leads the Becomers Bible Study Group, for adults, which she started 24 years ago.
“Liz is very caring for the people in her study group,” said Father John Kiefer, pastor of St. Francis Parish. “Her ministry … brings people together from the other parishes in town.”
“I think Liz is so vibrant,” said Pat Heintzelman, a 20-year member. “Her love of God radiates in everything she says. It’s in her eyes and her smile, and she does it with such joy.”
Joy, faith and Church help define Cajun culture. The original Cajuns were French Catholics who migrated to Louisiana from Acadia, Nova Scotia, after the British took control of Canada in the 1700s. Hanks’ family came to Louisiana directly from France a century later.
“Almost everyone in Louisiana, during the time I was growing up, had Cajun heritage,” Hanks said. Her hometown, which had a population of approximately 6,500, was 98 percent Catholic.
Her mother’s family knew many hardships. Two of her mother’s sisters died in the 1913 diphtheria pandemic, a brother died of lockjaw and another brother suffered mental retardation from spinal meningitis.
Despite all that, her mother was happy and giving. Her example “prepared me for taking life and death as it comes,” Hanks said, “knowing that every family has its own affliction at some time.”
“Mother always let us know that God was with her and that she wasn’t alone. Because of that, I have that faith that I am not alone,” she said.
The inner strength that she inherited from her mother helped her deal with health problems faced by a brother and a sister.
When she was 12, she learned that they shared a crippling genetic disease called neurodystrophy. Her eldest sister died at 24; her brother died 10 years later at 28.
“They had short, but happy lives,” Hanks said. “That was hard, but not tragic. We did have a very strong family ... and we remained close. I think it prepared me to be especially sensitive to disabled people.”
In high school, she discovered theater and took part in many plays. While studying speech and theater at the University of Southwest Louisiana, she met and fell in love with a fellow student named George Hanks. They married in 1963.
George had enlisted in the Air Force, and in 1964 the newlyweds left Louisiana. Liz Hanks earned a teaching degree in speech and theater from the University of Massachusetts in 1969.
In 1970, George left military service and the family moved to Kentucky where he earned a doctorate in accounting. During the three years there, Liz gave birth to two children, Lydia and Christopher.
In 1974, George joined the faculty at Ball State University in Muncie. The family joined St. Francis of Assisi Parish and adopted two children, Dennis and Carrie.
At St. Francis and later St. Mary, Liz Hanks contributed much to parish life. She served as a catechist for eight years at St. Francis. She took every adult formation class presented by then- pastor Father James Bates.
When the two younger children attended St. Mary School, she served for 10 years in the adult religious education ministry at St. Mary Parish.
“It was during the years at St. Mary’s that I reconnected with the traditional devotion of my mother and I felt her presence,” she said. “That was wonderful. ... (Then-pastor) Father William Grady had a great influence on me.
“During all those years, at St. Francis and St. Mary’s, my favorite way of teaching was, somehow, to dramatize,” she said.
Often she would dress in period clothes and provide costumes for the children to act out Scripture stories, such as baby Moses in the basket and the parable of the lost sheep. Her goal was to make the lesson more real for them by giving them the experience of living it a little, she said.
Her Becomers Bible Study Group, with 20 members, meets for two hours on Wednesdays in the St. Francis Newman House.
Recently the group studied St. Teresa of Avila, Hanks’ favorite saint.
“I feel like we are sisters,” she said. “Our natures are very much alike. She was a very dramatic person, a very social person. She interacted with lots of people. ... I feel akin to her.
“I love her writing,” she said. “I love her imagery. ... The most beautiful thing I have gotten from Teresa is her description of watering the garden.”
In that analogy, watering is the development of prayer and the blooming garden is the soul brought to perfection.
“What I learned from reading Teresa is that we are all brothers and sisters in God’s family,” Hanks said.
Pat Heintzelman, the 20-year member of the Becomers Bible Study Group, recalled one of her favorite studies, which was based on Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen and an analysis of Rembrandt’s painting of that parable.
The painting, Heintzelman said, brought the parable to life, and she “felt compassion for each of (the characters).”
Margarita Baer joined the group six years ago, when she came to Muncie.
“My knowledge of the Bible was very limited when I (moved) here,” she said. “And Liz has really expanded my (understanding) and with that also my faith has increased.”
Ruth and Bill Clock have been coming to Hanks’ classes for more than 20 years.
“Liz is so knowledgeable,” Ruth Clock said.
“Liz is such a good teacher,” her husband said, “... and she uses layman’s terms. ... She gets us all fired up till the next week.”
Hanks said that because her sister and brother were handicapped, she remains “especially sensitive to disabled people.” It once opened an unexpected door.
“One day at daily Mass at St. Francis, I met a young man, a Ball State graduate student with cerebral palsy, and I offered him a ride home,” she said. “He became a lifelong friend. ... (At that time) he was writing a master’s thesis, so I offered to type it for him. I became important in his life and he became important in mine.”
After he earned his degree, he moved to Michigan. In the mail, he had received information about Access to the Land of the Bible, a unique program of travel and study in the Holy Land, designed especially for people with physical disabilities.
Hanks recalled the day in 1994 when he phoned her and said, “If I can raise the money, I want to go to the Holy Land. Will you go as my companion?” She immediately said, “Yes.” Each disabled person making the trip was required to have his own personal care attendant.
“The whole purpose of the program is to (live out) the Scripture passage, ‘They went about the countryside and brought to him the blind and the lame,’” Hanks said.
That is what she and the other companions did, she said. They gathered the disabled from California to New York and brought them to Jesus.
Hanks said that the highlight for her was sailing on the Sea of Galilee. The guides on the boat demonstrated how the apostles, in the time of Jesus, cast their nets into the sea. The pilgrims read the Scriptures aloud, then sat in silence for 30 minutes. As they listened to the lapping waves, they felt the Master’s presence, she said.
That evening, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, as the sun was setting, the pilgrims participated in Mass, celebrated by chaplain and New Testament scholar Father Donald Senior, CP.
Grateful for the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, Hanks returned home with a challenge: “to make this holy ground in Muncie, Ind.,” she said, “so that wherever I walk is holy because I walk with him.”
Louisa J. Reese is a correspondent for The Catholic Moment based in Muncie.