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May 21, 2024By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald
Jessie Bourn, 72, was born Baptist in a small Mississippi town named Georgetown, just south of Jackson.When he was 10, his family moved to New Orleans, where his mom, a midwife, and his father, a welder, were mainstay ushers at Greater St. Stephen’s Baptist Church on Simon Bolivar Avenue.
Bourn can’t really explain it, but when he attended regular Sunday services at Greater St. Stephen’s as a kid, he usually found himself on the second floor of the two-story church building with a few other kids, including the pastor’s son, rather than joining the congregation below for the service.
Even before Bourn entered the Army in 1968 and served two years in the Vietnam War, for some reason he always found himself more at home inside a Catholic church.
A welcoming priest
After returning from Vietnam – Bourn counts as a divine blessing the fact that he never was wounded – he found his way to St. Raymond Church on Paris Avenue, staffed by the Josephite priests.
“It was beautiful,” Bourn said. “My girlfriend at the time was Catholic, and we were thinking about marriage. Father gave me a beautiful blessing one day and said I was ‘full of the Holy Spirit.’ That kind of really taught me that I was in the right place.”
On May 19, Bourn’s mountaintop experience with the Catholic Church reached another pinnacle when he received the sacrament of confirmation, along with 129 other adults, at St. Louis Cathedral. Bourn walked out of the front pew with his confirmation sponsor, Angela Pepin, and told Archbishop Emeritus Alfred Hughes that he had chosen St. Martin de Porres as his confirmation saint.
Bourn left the foot of the sanctuary more convinced than ever that he was being called “to do more than I’ve ever done” for God.
By most cradle-Catholic standards, that would be quite a lot.
Bourn lost his wife Cynthia in 2007, and as a widow living alone at St. Martin Manor, he continued to inch his way toward becoming Catholic. Before the pandemic, he had talked to Josephite Father Henry Davis about the possibility.
A life-changing moment
It took a few years, but Josephite Father Kingsley Ogbuji conditionally baptized Bourn last July in the chapel at St. Martin Manor and then gave him Communion for the first time a month later.
“I felt alive and well – probably for the first time in my life,” Bourn said. “I had no idea I could ever feel like this. It was very liberating. It was like a weight had finally been lifted off my shoulders.”
Since then, Bourn has been among the spiritual leaders at St. Martin’s senior residence, participating in the Wednesday morning rosary, prayer circle and Mass.
He is working on his health. He walks three blocks every Saturday afternoon to Corpus Christi-Epiphany Church for the 4 p.m. Vigil Mass.
“They want to give me a ride, but I want to walk it,” Bourn said. “I tell them, ‘I walked here, I can walk my way back.’”
Bourn nurtures his spiritual health with another regular routine. He awakens daily at 6 a.m. for the devotion to St. Michael on EWTN, the rosary at 6:30 a.m. and then the televised Mass from 7 to 8.
“Then, I get started on my day,” he said.
Climbing Jacob’s ladder
One reason he chose to live on the fifth floor of St. Martin’s was to make sure he would always get his exercise in. Three or four times a day, Bourn walks from his fifth-floor apartment to the first floor and then back up the stairs. He’s gone from 214 pounds to 169.
“I don’t count the steps, I just count the blessings that enable me to do it,” Bourn said. “I’m just trying to focus on my health and trying to stay ahead of it and then serve God as best I can here in my own community and at Corpus Christi.”
Bourn said he treasures the spiritual friendship he has developed with Vincent Scozzari, the director of pastoral care at all of the Christopher Homes’ senior residences. Scozzari helped Bourn through all of the stages of entering the church.
“Mr. Vincent never ceases to amaze me,” Bourn said. “He’ll organize Communion services or just prayer circles, where we sit around and pray and talk to each other. We interact with each other, and that’s good.”
Health permitting, Bourn hopes to get even more involved at Corpus Christi-Epiphany. His confirmation last Sunday confirmed everything he has believed.
“It means a lot,” Bourn said. “It’s everything that I hoped for and dreamed of for the last many years, and it has become a reality. I’m thankful to God and accept his blessings, and I want to go on and increase these blessings. I’m trying to keep it going.”
