Evangelization & Formation – Page 4

Is Jesus too demanding?

Today’s gospel (Lk 6: 27ff) might well be the among the most challenging (difficult?) teachings of Jesus. Discipleship with Jesus is not easy for the average person; at least for the average person who doesn’t have the grace needed to live according to his command. And hearing from saints like Benedict that the sun ought not set if angry feelings persist, isn’t any consolation on some days.

The type of judging and condemning that the Evangelist Luke speaks of means, “Stop using yourself as the measure of things.” Or, “Stop determining another’s activities/agenda.” Or, “Stop acting like a pharisee,” against a fellow Christian (or family member or friend. Ok.

Not sure if you are similar, but loving an enemy is not easy for me. It is, though, the thing Jesus has commanded me to do. A Benedictine friend of mine frequently says, “Jesus told me to love that person, but I don’t have to like her.” Right, love is not understood as a sentiment; loves is having concern for another’s destiny, that is, heaven. Life as a Christian is knowing that the journey we walk is just that, a process. And, I am not finished yet.

A concrete example may be the former Yale seminarian of 35 years ago who wanted to give good example of loving an enemy when he offered a grave, next to his mother in Hamden, CT, to the Mr Tsarnaev, one of the two Boston bombers killed. His offer was roundly rejected. Loving your enemies is not socially acceptable.

Seductive philosophy will not lead to Christ

We have a vocation, we are called by the Lord, to be in His service. Some are married and others are consecrated religious, some are single and others are priests, some are professors and others are store managers and machinists and domestic engineers. Some are film makers, others write music. We all have a personal gift (a charism) for God’s service and for personal sanctification. Jesus calls all people.

In the first reading we hear today from Paul’s letter to the Colossians has this first paragraph:

As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy according to the tradition of men, according to the elemental powers of the world and not according to Christ.

Several weeks ago the readings at Mass spoke of being disciplined, that is, instructed, taught, having a solid formation, as children are (at least that’s the hope!), in the ways of Christ and the Good News He proclaimed. And for several days following there were indications in Scripture that having a solid formation, having the needed discipline in Christ would lead you to everything promised by God: the hundredfold, eternal life, peace, happiness, etc. Sadly, too often we dismiss the advice to be disciplined in the Lord.

Too much of what society gives today is competing advice: do your own thing, “do it your own way,” what matters is what you think and feel. The exclusive use of secular philosophy will not open the heart and mind to God; Kant, Descartes, Schleiermacher, Mills, Hobbes, Heidegger, and Caputo will not lead to your personal redemption. Therapeutic attitude displaces heavenly teaching. Don’t get me wrong, therapy is crucial to better health, but it never replaces God’s revelation. Saint Paul and the whole of sacred Scripture doesn’t adhere to a secular line of thinking. The Apostle to the Gentiles speaks of testing, verifying and experimenting with what’s given by God.

When we verify the Truth we meet God. When we live according to His plan we have happiness. So, the exhortation given in today’s first reading: be skeptical about what you hear from secular leaders because their teaching may not lead you to heaven. Test everything, says Paul in another place.

Good, solid, disciplined adult faith formation is crucial to our life in Jesus Christ. Beg for this in your parish community.

I think we have to ask ourselves, Do we, as the Rule of Benedict instructs, prefer nothing to the love of Christ? Do we know that Jesus, the Son of God, wants our happiness? Do we expect everything from Jesus Christ?

The gospel reading from Luke (6:12-13) tells us that Jesus “called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles….” Do you know the names of the 12? Are you aware that the 12 are a different category that the category of apostles and disciples? Do we know how to connect the dots between what happens here and the Last Supper, the foundation of the Church, and the proclamation of the Kingdom? Do you see yourself as called by the Lord? What is your particular charism for the good of the Church?

We know that being called, that is, having been given a vocation by the Lord is not insignificant. Not to follow that vocation may very well to rejecting a gift God has given. Consider for a moment how you have, or are in the process of discovering the pathway to love God through your personal gifts? Have you discovered through prayer to God and made an offering of yourself to the people today by the witness of your life, by your preaching and by a substantial mission revealed in contemplation?

Pope Benedict XVI in a Wednesday Audience on 15 March 2006 said,

With their very own existence, the Twelve -called from different backgrounds- become an appeal for all of Israel to convert and allow herself to be gathered into the new covenant, complete and perfect fulfillment of the ancient one. The fact that he entrusted to his Apostles, during the Last Supper and before his Passion, the duty to celebrate his Pasch, demonstrates how Jesus wished to transfer to the entire community, in the person of its heads, the mandate to be a sign and instrument in history of the eschatological gathering begun by him. In a certain sense we can say that the Last Supper itself is the act of foundation of the Church, because he gives himself and thus creates a new community, a community united in communion with himself.

Strong Catholic Families: Strong Catholic Youth

We don’t keep the faith for ourselves (cf Lumen Fidei, ch 3): faith is meant to be contagious, it is meant to be lived full time, it is meant for others. As the metaphor of light indicates, light allows us to see, to encounter, to meet someone anew. That someone is Jesus Christ, and those who faithfully follow Christ. Faith is passed on in a personal way.

A new initiative I heard about today is “Strong Catholic Families: Strong Catholic Youth” is a great light, a wonderful meeting of others. Watch the video presentation.

Strong Catholic Families: Strong Catholic Youth is present in 60 dioceses as it connects parishes, schools, and families to develop a chain of solid links of faith. Catholic faith is not a private relationship of the “I” and “Thou” but a communio, a “We”, a reflection of an openness that exists among the members of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are never alone; faith is an invitation to others first given to each person that love, mercy, hope and salvation is possible; that happiness is possible today in this world.

I would hope that Benedictine monasteries can be centers for this good work of Strong Catholic Families: Strong Catholic Youth!!! I am thinking this program would greatly assist the work of the new evangelization and faith formation programs.

The origins of this new work is based on the work of a University of Notre Dame sociologist, Christian Smith. In addition to his teaching and research Smith also directs UNDs Center For the Study of Religion and Society.

Though I am an alum of UND, I don’t know Smith personally, but I am familiar with his works, especially his book Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood (Oxford University Press, 2011). Professor Smith earned his doctorate at Harvard.

More info on Strong Catholic Families: Strong Catholic Youth is found at this link.

Cardinal O’Malley highlights Pope’s tenderness and compassion for others, but the media doesn’t listen

The people in the media sometimes hear the same words as everyone else does at the same time but they just don’t seem to get the story correct. Misinformation is generated and passed as correct thus obscuring the truth. I want to believe that media professionals are not extraordinarily ideological as much as they have are unable to connect the dots and to think theologically; they have little interest in matters of religion, plus there’s a tendency to reduce what is said to a least common denominator because there is no perceived value in the story. Lack of interest breeds misinformation.

Thinking in a public way the other day, Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley spoke of Pope Francis in these terms: “his tenderness which is not the virtue of the weak but a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern and compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love.” However, what the press reported was that Pope Francis is only concerned for to love others and soft on life issues thus is changing the Church’s teaching on matters like abortion. But that’s not what the cardinal said, nor what the pope thinks and teaches us. The pope has demonstrated that his belief and teaching is in continuity with his predecessors and that he upholds each iota there is in biblical and magisterial teaching. See, for example, Francis’ various homilies and talks in recent months: June’s Evangelium Vitae Day, the Day of Life address in July, his message to the bishops of Latin America and to the Knights of Columbus.

What O’Malley said, in part, was the following:

Some people think that the Holy Father should talk more about abortion. I think he speaks of love and mercy to give people the context for the Church’s teaching on abortion. We oppose abortion, not because we are mean or old-fashioned, but because we love people. And that is what we must show the world. Recently I read about an American relief worker in Africa, who reported on being at a camp for a food-distribution line, it was very chaotic, even scary. He could see that they were running out of food and that these starving people were desperate. At the end of the line, the last person was a little nine-year-old girl. All that was left was one banana. They handed it to her. She peeled the banana and gave half each to her younger brother and sister. Then she licked the banana peel. The relief worker said at that moment he began to believe in God.

We must be better people; we must love all people, even those who advocate abortion. It is only if we love them that we will be able to help them discover the sacredness of the life of an unborn child. Only love and mercy will open hearts that have been hardened by the individualism of our age.

Sean Cardinal O’Mally, OFM Cap
Archbishop of Boston
Address to the Knights of Columbus Convention, excerpt
San Antonio, Texas

Whatever is said by the media about the pope these days needs to be fully scrutinized for its accuracy. You need to read the texts yourself; do your own homework; don’t let other digest what the teaching authority of the Church supposedly said, use your critical thinking skills. Secular news agencies, including some of the Catholic news agencies, count on you not doing your own work –they are happy to do the thinking for you. Some media elites are able to discredit the Church through the person of the pope as well as others because they hope you won’t notice coupled with the fact they accept what the bible and the Church teaches; if the media people don’t believe in the biblically revealed vision of life and happiness that the Church teaches as beautiful, good and true, then how could we accept at face value that they are conveying fact.

Opposition to abortion, care for the elderly, visiting the imprisoned, concern for the poor, uneducated and marginalized are some of the many ways the Church defines human dignity, love and happiness. The embrace of all human beings regardless of status in society is the Church’s way of life.

YouCat is essential reading

At the 2011 World Youth Day in Madrid, Pope Benedict unveiled what is called, YouCat, the Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church. It was his hope and intention to make the beauty of the Catholic Faith be available to many. The Pope’s foreword says the text provides a tool for all, laity and clergy, “who are looking for answers to problems” as well as “paths for personal and group reflection.”

YouCat is worldwide success with some 27 translations (and counting). It is, without a doubt, an immense success from a publishing point of view. Recent news on YouCat speaks of Taiwanese Catholics welcoming their edition (天主教青年教理). This good news comes on the heels of a report that 1.5 million copies of the YouCat were distributed for free by Aid to the Church in Need to Brazilian young people to help in WYD 2013.

It goes to show that a book can have a positive effect on faith formation, evangelization, with an emphasis on faith and reason. Just like the standard volume of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, YouCat covers doctrine, sacraments, the moral life, prayer and spirituality.

I find YouCat extraordinarily helpful and promote its use among people of all ages. It is categorically NOT only for young people. Adults of all ages benefit from an attentive use of YouCat. I used it in the RCIA and other adult faith formation forums. The authors/editors made certain that the text gives an excellent user friendly experience, its content is accessible and very handy. It has great images and several great features like definitions, cross-referencing and a good layout. I urge you to get a copy today! Follow the link above.

Pope speaks to journalists on his way home: divorced and remarried, women, and homosexuals

On his way back to the Eternal City from Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis spoke with journalists for an hour and 20 minutes. Unscripted prior to the flight and a bit provocative if you don’t know how to “read” Pope Francis viz. the Church’s teaching and his pastoral sensitivities.

The news agencies latched onto Francis’s comments in such a reductionist way. They got lost in the weeds. Even the Catholic news people could find themselves out their quagmire of silly thinking and partial reporting. Do you get tired of part-time journalists who pander to the audience? I do.

Father Tom Rosica, CSB, head of Salt+Light TV who was on flight and took note of the question and he gives the Pope’s answer in full. In English with the original Italian. Read what the Holy Father said for yourself. Father Rosica gave the Catechism’s answer on homosexuality.

Here is the video from Rome Reports.

When you take things out of context, or don’t have a full grasp of the teaching of the Church, even the willingness to dig deeply into what is taught, the result you get is a reduction. AND we don’t live in reductions very well. As Rosica says, “His [the Pope’s] comments on the plane, particularly about the divorced and remarried, women, and homosexuals must be read and understood through the lenses of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the outreach and concern of the Church for those on the fringes, and the mercy, tenderness and forgiveness of a pastor who walks among his people.”

Remember mercy is still a hallmark of our Christian faith!!!!

A New Apologetics project

In the years since Blessed John Paul introduced his desire to have new work on knowing, living, and sharing the truth of the Catholic Faith, there’s been a lot of good energy for the new evangelization. You can think of the Tear of Faith, the encyclicals of the recent popes, and most crucial has been Benedict XVI’s establishment of a Vatican office to spearhead evangelization efforts.

Getting to the heart of what the new evangelization means, how it’s supposed to “look” and why it needs our attention is slowing being revealed. I have to say that too many use the word evangelization without precision and without real content and experience. Nevertheless, since John Paul and Benedict, now with Pope Francis we have a new awareness of evangelization’s aim: and affection for Christ and to offer a reasonable proposal for faith in a comprehensive way.

I happen to think the Holy Spirit is working diligently and effectively in having us slowly develop the needed resources with regard to persons and materials. Rushing into such work would not be reasonable since it does take time to do the hard work in truly knowing the need in a time of limited resources. The immediate past Pontiff set the Church’s face on this renewed manner of living focusing us on the personal relationship with the Lord,, bridging the gap between faith and reason, and by asking us to intimately know Scripture, the Liturgy and the Magisterium (I don’t want to call the new evangelization a ‘project’ because it is about our heart and mind).

A Cambridge, Massachusetts group of faithful Catholics have responded to Church’s call for a “New Apologetics,” a new way of proposing Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

“New Apologetics” is a contemporary way of engaging the questions which need to be addressed; those tough issues are often inadequately answered, or worse, dismissed as unimportant. This is a serious, beautiful adventure.

The New Apologetics is group qualified persons working to share the beauty of the truth of the Church today, in the language of today.

The New Apologetics website is www.NewApologetics.com

May Saint Thérèse of Lisieux guide this new work.

Christian freedom means talking about God, listening to God –to be truly free

Jesus is oriented toward the Father. His face is set on God. As Saint Luke says, “Jesus steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Today’s Angelus text given by Pope Francis is a marvelous for study and prayer. “If a Christian does not know how to talk with God, does not know how to listen to God, in his own conscience, then he is not free – he is not free.”

AND

“So we also must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us. That is not conscience. Conscience is the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God. It is the inner place of our relationship with Him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful.”

Pope Francis presents Pope Benedict XVI as an example of this discernment. I recommend that you consider reading the Pope’s Angelus text here.

Pope Francis tells La Civilta Cattolica to be concerned with dialogue, discernment, and frontier

It is usual with a new Roman Pontiff that a meeting happens with the Jesuits who publish the journal La Civiltà Cattolica; Pope Francis met on June 14, 2013 with the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Father Adolfo Nicolás and the editor, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, and their respective staff members. The bi-weekly journal is a highly regarded publication that has a unique relationship with the Holy See since 6 April 1850 in Naples.

La Civiltà Cattolica is Italy’s oldest journal; the articles communicate the Holy See’s point of view and is reviewed by the Vatican Secretary of State before they are published. The editorial policy works to confront significant problems of humanity, society and the Church, to publish articles on human, theological, philosophical, moral, social, cultural, political and literary formation, and they try to offer a chart important events related to Church life plus events concerning Italy and other nations.

Three controlling ideas that will direct La Civilta Cattolica: dialogue, discernment, and frontier.

The Pope’s address:

I am happy to meet with you, writers, your whole community, the Sisters and the staff of the administration of the House. Since 1850, the Jesuits of the Civiltà Cattolica have been engaged in a work that has a particular link with the Pope and the Apostolic See. My predecessors, meeting with you in audience, acknowledged many times how this link is an essential feature of your review. Today I would like to suggest three words to you that might help you in your endeavor.

The first is dialogue. You carry out an important cultural service. Initially the attitude and Civiltà Cattolica was combative and often, also, harshly combative, in tune with the general atmosphere of the time. Reviewing the 163 years of the review, one gathers a rich variety of positions, due be it to the changing of the historical circumstances, be it to the personality of the individual writers. Your fidelity to the Church still requires that you be hard against hypocrisies, fruit of a closed, sick heart, hard against this sickness. However, your main task is not to build walls but bridges; it is to establish a dialogue with all men, also with those who do not share the Christian faith, but “have the veneration of high human values,” and even “with those who oppose the Church and persecute her in various ways” (Gaudium et spes, 92).

There are so many human questions to discuss and share and it is always possible to approach the truth in dialogue, which is a gift of God, and to enrich ourselves mutually. To dialogue means to be convinced that the other has something good to say, to make room for his point of view, for his opinion, for his proposals without falling, obviously, into relativism. And to dialogue it is necessary to lower one’s defenses and to open the doors. Continue your dialogue with the cultural, social and political institutions, also to offer your contribution to the formation of citizens who have at heart the good of all and work for the common good. The “Civilta cattolica” is the civilization of love, of mercy and of faith.

The second word is discernment. Your task is to gather and express the expectations, the desires, the joys and the dramas of our time, and to offer the elements for a reading of the reality in the light of the Gospel. The great spiritual questions are more alive today than ever, but there is need of someone to interpret them and to understand them. With humble and open intelligence, “seek and find God in all things,” as Saint Ignatius wrote. God is at work in the life of every man and in the culture: the Spirit blows where it will. Seek to discover what God has operated and how His work will proceed. A treasure of the Jesuits is in fact spiritual discernment, which seeks to recognize the presence of the Spirit of God in the human and cultural reality, the seed of His presence already planted in the events, in the sensibilities, in the desires, in the profound tensions of hearts and of the social, cultural and spiritual contexts. I recall something that Rahner said: the Jesuit is a specialist of discernment in the field of God and also in the field of the devil. One must not be afraid to continue in discernment to find the truth. When I read these observations of Rahner, they really struck me.

And to seek God in all things, in all fields of knowledge, of art, of science, of political, social and economic life, studies, sensibility and experience are necessary. Some of the subjects you address might not have an explicit relation with a Christian perspective, but they are important to appreciate the way that persons understand themselves and the world that surrounds them. Your informative observation must be broad, objective and timely. It is also necessary to give particular attention into the truth, goodness and beauty of God, which are always considered together, and are precious allies in the commitment to defend the dignity of man, in the building of peaceful coexistence and in protecting creation carefully. From this attention stems serene, sincere and strong judgment about events, illuminated by Christ. Great figures such as Matteo Ricci are a model of this. All this requires keeping the heart and mind open, avoiding the spiritual sickness of self-reference. Even the Church, when she becomes self-referencing, gets sick, grows old. May our sight, well fixed on Christ, be prophetic and dynamic towards the future: in this way, you will always be young and audacious in the reading of events!

The third word is frontier. The mission of a review of culture such as La Civilta Cattolica enters the contemporary cultural debate and proposes, in a serious and at the same time accessible way, the vision that comes from the Christian faith. The break between Gospel and culture is undoubtedly a tragedy (cf. Evangelii nuntiandi, 20). You are called to give your contribution to heal this break, which passes also through the heart of each one of you and of your readers. This ministry is typical of the mission of the Society of Jesus. With your reflections and your deeper, support the cultural and social processes, and all those going through difficult transitions, taking account also of the conflicts. Your proper place is the frontiers. This is the place of Jesuits. That which Paul VI, taken up by Benedict XVI, said of the Society of Jesus, is true for you also in a particular way today: “Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and acute fields, in the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches, there was and is the confrontation between the burning exigencies of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, the Jesuits have been and are there.” Please, be men of the frontier, with that capacity that comes from God (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:6). But do not fall into the temptation of taming the frontiers: you must go to the frontiers and not bring the frontiers home to varnish them a bit and tame them. In today’s world, subject to rapid changes and agitated by questions of great relevance for the life of the faith, a courageous commitment is urgent to educate to a faith of conviction and maturity, capable of giving meaning to life and of offering convincing answers to all those seeking God. It is a question of supporting the action of the Church in all fields of her mission. This year La Civilta Cattolica has been renewed: it has assumed a new graphic appearance, it can also be read in a digital version and it brings its readers together also in the social networks. These are also frontiers in which you are called to operate. Continue on this path!

Dear Fathers, I see young, less young and elderly among you. Yours is a unique review of its kind, which is born from a community of life and of studies; as in a harmonious choir, each one must have his voice and harmonize it with that of others. Strength, dear brothers! I am sure I can count on you. While I entrust you to the Madonna della Strada, I impart to you, writers, collaborators and Sisters, as well as to all readers of the review, my Blessing.

“The food we throw away is as if stolen from the table of the poor,” the Pope teaches

The are several great things we have to attend to with the Pope’s address today in Rome. Two quick ones: “losing the attitude of wonder, contemplation, listening to creation; thus we are no longer able to read what Benedict XVI calls “the rhythm of the love story of God and man.” WOW! Bingo!

We live in an era where disposability and waste is routine: shoes, cars, pencils, clothes, human life, etc. Don’t like it, not the “right color”, it is not right for me: all these sentiments are clear indications that you and I are careful on how and why we use our material and human resources. The Pope in his weekly Wednesday audience today drew our attention to the reality of waste. During the pontificate of John Paul II we Catholics were introduced to the concept of solidarity. But we were also introduced dramatically to the concept of encounter with the Lord, and with one another. The examination of conscience we will do today ought elicit some painful realizations that I hope will encourage meaningful and concrete change in how we relate to God, the other person, and to creation. Call what Francis did many things: naming the culture of death, pointing to a mentality of waste, singling a need to change our behavior so that the poor may eat. Francis’ teaching is not new –it re-proposes the beauty of our Catholic teaching. Pope Francis exposes a deep wound in our relationships that needs healing.

What is our response? What response can we find with the help of the Benedictines, the Dominicans, the Franciscans? What can the laity do with the clergy to be more attentive to these rhythms of God’s love story???

Pope Francis….

Today I want to focus on the issue of the environment, which I have already spoken of on several occasions. Today we also mark World Environment Day, sponsored by the United Nations, which sends a strong reminder of the need to eliminate the waste and disposal of food.

When we talk about the environment, about creation, my thoughts turn to the first pages of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, which states that God placed man and woman on earth to cultivate and care for it (cf. 2:15). And the question comes to my mind: What does cultivating and caring for the earth mean? Are we truly cultivating and caring for creation? Or are we exploiting and neglecting it? The verb “to cultivate” reminds me of the care that the farmer has for his land so that it bear fruit, and it is shared: how much attention, passion and dedication! Cultivating and caring for creation is God’s indication given to each one of us not only at the beginning of history; it is part of His project; it means nurturing the world with responsibility and transforming it into a garden, a habitable place for everyone. Benedict XVI recalled several times that this task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not “care” for it, we do not respect it, we do not consider it as a free gift that we must care for. We are losing the attitude of wonder, contemplation, listening to creation; thus we are no longer able to read what Benedict XVI calls “the rhythm of the love story of God and man.” Why does this happen? Why do we think and live in a horizontal manner, we have moved away from God, we no longer read His signs.

Continue reading “The food we throw away is as if stolen from the table of the poor,” the Pope teaches