A Personal Relationship With Christ?

A video from my home diocese of Sioux Falls (here) drew me to Sherry Weddell's book on promoting discipleship in the Catholic Church and also gave me the American expression which would not come to me in my previous post where I resorted to the German expression "Volkskirche". The equivalent as Sherry points out is "cultural Catholicism" and she opposes it to what she terms "intentional Catholicism", which ought better to guarantee a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ:

"If this trend does not change, in ten years it will cease to matter that we have a priest shortage. The Builders will be largely gone, the Boomers retiring, and our institutions — parishes and schools — will be emptying at an incredible rate. Sacramental practice will plummet at a rate that will make the post-Vatican II era look good, and the Church’s financial support will vanish like Bernie Madoff’s investment portfolio. So let’s be clear: In the twenty-first century, cultural Catholicism is dead as a retention strategy, because God has no grandchildren. In the twenty-first century, we have to foster intentional Catholicism rather than cultural Catholicism." [Weddell, Sherry (2012-07-05). Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus (p. 39). Our Sunday Visitor. Kindle Edition.] 

In the first chapter of her book, tagged "God has no Grandchildren", she quotes all the most reputable statistical information and seems to imply that cultural Catholicism once worked as a retention strategy... I don't know how old Sherry is, but my life experience tells me a very different story. American Catholicism has always been marked by powerful "shots-in-the-arm" through immigration and no small number of conversions from Protestantism or from the "nones" category at the time of marriage. People have always "fallen away" from the Church and in big numbers; I know how this has worked in an older generation of Catholics, all long dead, in my mother's family. American Catholicism has always been more of a "free market enterprise" than was Catholicism in the "Old Country". 

Culturally Catholic immigrants have never done well in the U.S. especially when isolated in non-Catholic areas, but even when dispersed among other good and active Catholics in parishes of different ethnic heritages. Italians, for instance, were never many in my part of the world and invariably when I was growing up an Italian family name could denote most anything but Catholic practice. The great challenge today among immigrants to the U.S. from Latin America is to offer them a cultural context within which to insert themselves. I think Sherry is sorely mistaken in contrasting cultural and intentional. There's nothing more intentional than a welcoming cultural context. Defection among Catholics stems from a sense of alienation within the community. They wander off for lack of intentional social support. My personal relationship with Christ, nourished by prayer and Divine Worship (liturgy) cannot be without an intentional/cultural context. The visible Church is the sine qua non for a relationship with Christ, the Bridegroom. My intention is not without its cultural context.

Perhaps the crisis of marriage and family today can be of help in understanding the gist of my argument. People who marry for love are no more likely to remain faithful a whole life long. Not only do the couple have to choose each other again and again, day by day, year by year, in the course of their marriage, but they really need a supportive social context to carry them through those days when personal intent or resolve seems to flag. 

Sherry wants us all to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; she wants us, like good evangelicals or pentecostals, to be able to mark that conversion experience. I think she may be seeking a greater heroism than the one of the martyrs, even greater than that of a true giant of the early Church, St. Ignatius of Antioch, would have claimed for himself in seeking the support of the Christian community of Rome on his path to martyrdom:

“I have prayed to the Lord to see your godly faces and I have persevered in prayer until I have been granted this — for I hope to greet you, as a prisoner in Christ Jesus, if only I am found worthy to reach the end of my journey. Things have begun well and all now depends on my receiving the grace to reach my goal and receive my inheritance unhindered. But I fear your love for me and I fear the harm it can do me: it is so easy for you to do what you want and so hard for me to reach God if you do not spare me your help.

  You habitually do what pleases God: do what pleases him now and not what pleases men. I shall never have a better opportunity of reaching God, and you will never have the opportunity of performing a better act than now, by keeping silence. If you remain silent, I shall become the word of God; but if your love of my physical life makes you speak, I shall be nothing but a meaningless cry.

  Grant me nothing more than this: that I should be poured out to God, while an altar is still ready for me. Form yourselves into a chorus of love and sing praise to the Father in Christ Jesus for permitting this bishop of Syria to be summoned from the place of the sun’s rising to the sunset lands. Just as the sun sets only to rise again, how good it is to set to this world, to set and then to rise in God.”

I want to read the rest of Sherry's book, but chapter one seems lacking in balance. Our cultural context is ineluctable; it is the fertile soil needed for yielding thirty, sixty or a hundred fold.

Giving Widowed Mothers Back Their Sons

In Year C on the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time both the 1st Reading from the first Book of Kings and the Gospel passage from Luke chapter 7 give accounts of God restoring dead sons alive to their widowed mothers. While such are not events one can hide under a bushel basket, the overall impact of this great wonder must always take a back seat to what were first and foremost in both instances demonstrations of God's boundless compassion toward these two women very much alone in their sorrow. Giving back the breath of life to their sons was intended firstly to free these women of their anguish. There is no evident further agenda behind God's choice to restore life; here we experience only immediate and boundless love at work.

In neither case would it seem that the women tempted fate by demanding the miracle of life restored to their dead sons; in both cases we see their tears and their pain before God. God's superabundant compassion is at work here. I think it more than fair to say that is the way things work in God's world. I think the only question we as baptized believers need ask ourselves this Sunday is whether our world is God's world. We need but ask, examine our consciences to see if we are living our days in the company of the Lord and Giver of Life. What else could possibly matter?

In German there is an expression "Volkskirche", which describes a popular religiosity centered on the village church or neighborhood parish; it connotes for us Catholics a straightforward practice of the sacraments: Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days, frequent Confession as a preparation for the devout and worthy reception of the Body and Blood of the Lord in Holy Communion, prayer at home and virtuous living consonant with our state in life. Lots of people dismiss the possibility of ever seeing a general revival of "Volkskirche", of what was a positive and supportive environment in which people could happily believe and be Catholic. I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that thesis. They describe a mustard seed type of witness for us without the rapid growth into a big bush or tree offering shelter to every sort of little bird. How can that be? Is not life in the catacombs but a passing trial, a step on the path to a fuller witness to the Gospel?  What else or what more or what better could we strive for in this Year of Faith? Are we not meant to be the city on the mountain top?

I think that "Volkskirche" expresses the ambience within the life of the Church which best reflects the Scriptural world in which the widows could shed their tears in their loneliness before God. How Christ moves to comfort and console is His sovereign choice, we must only not leave the flock untended.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

More to it than that, Liturgy

Not all that long ago, I discovered a great blog (called SYMPOSIUM), writing principally about the Eastern Tradition of our Church (the author hails from England, which really isn't "east" enough). He's published now on RISU and the article is captivating from my point of view. It is entitled: "THE LANGUAGE OF THE LITURGY: SPEAKING GOD’S KINGDOM". The author: Father James Siemens. The name is not typically Ukrainian and, if my sources serve me well, he would proudly profess himself to be the fruit of the evangelization efforts of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church worldwide, which he is eager to promote.

Let me lift just one quote from the article, which speaks about the Ukrainian language for liturgy and for culture:

"Indeed, as its lineage can be traced directly to Saints Wolodymyr and Olha, it is not just appropriate that it should be a language of worship, but should be considered a real gift. Yet, as Byzantine worship in the Kyivan tradition has spread across the globe, its continued use in places where the dominant language is not Ukrainian also means that, if the Ukrainian Church is to serve the people of God as an ‘Eastern lung’, she will need to do so in something other than – or at least in addition to – Ukrainian."

Other than in the case of Sts. Cyrill and Methodius, we don't usually think of the Byzantine tradition as missionary, as evangelizing beyond its borders. Father makes a good case for why we might rightly dump that stereotype and sort of breezes past the issue of inculturation, limiting his discussion to language as comprehensibility. I leave the matter of how the two "lungs" should complement each other on mission for you to judge. Our track record (Latins and Greeks) over the centuries for working harmoniously side by side on the same territory doesn't exactly read like a romance story. Sts. Cyrill and Methodius, with their disciples, were not the only ones who didn't have it particularly easy.

Personally, Father Siemens perplexes me as much as do folk within our "Latin" Tradition, for it seems to me they are thinking rather in terms of linguistic comprehension as the principal if not only vehicle in Divine Worship for carrying us to God. While people in the past have yearned and still today yearn for vernacular, our great liturgy, Byzantine or Roman, is not a book which we proclaim/read or chant from end to end; it is not so one dimensional or linear. Great worship is "layered": sometimes we are singing, while the celebrant is praying sottovoce; look again at the ancient Roman Rite as celebrated; understand the role of silence; remember that people were nourished by that liturgy for centuries.

When it comes to beauty, the little bit of Byzantine Liturgy which I have experienced in English pales in comparison to Old Slavonic or Ukrainian. No doubt there are some beautiful renditions of the Lord Have Mercy or the Holy Holy or the Lamb of God out there, but how can they compare with some of the Kyries, the Sanctus' or the Agnus Deis which we have in our Gregorian chant treasury, if not amongst the wealth of polyphony at our disposal?

In St. Augustine's day the catechumens were ushered out at the end of the Liturgy of the Word; they could not stay for the celebration of the great mysteries, the Eucharist. When after baptism they finally could, all needed to be explained to them, as they had never experience it before. What drew them to baptism was not the liturgy itself but, perhaps above all, the witness of Christian lives. Granted, that exclusion holds no more and there are many famous examples of unbelievers converted by encountering the sublime of worship, either simple or festive.

The crisis of faith and culture, the estrangement from the life of the Church today, is something which in the West people tend to lay at the door of liturgical abuse and banality. The recovery of the sacred would go a long, long way toward putting things in order. I cannot but believe that more is at stake however, in terms of family life, in terms of the witness to Christ which should be the hallmark of our daily living. Action speaks louder than words, or as one of the Popes of my lifetime stated: our age requires witnesses more than preceptors. A healthy and eager, fraternal competition for the sake of saving souls might be fun and might truly edify. My only point would be that I doubt seriously if it depends on linguistic comprehensibility.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Consubstantial, Yes!

JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER (Pope Benedict XVI) 

The God of Jesus Christ 

Meditations on the Triune God 

Translated by Brian McNeil 

IGNATIUS PRESS     SAN FRANCISCO (Kindle Edition)

It's a good thing my annual vacation time is limited and I don't really have to spend much time reining in my propensity to impulse buying. The other day I saw a blurb from Ignatius Press suggesting this book would be good reading for Pentecost... and so I bought and read it. Not a mistake (as I have never found a book or article by our beloved Pope Emeritus to be a waste of time) but rather another find with countless insights to be gained of which I want only to share one from his discussion of the article of the Creed "consubstantial with the Father".

The quote is long, but more readable than my ramblings:

"But why did Arius’ answer seem so very obvious to the people of his age? Why did he succeed in winning over the public opinion of the entire educated world in so short a time? His success was due to the same reason that leads public opinion today to write off the Council of Nicaea: Arius wanted to preserve the purity of the concept of God. He did not want to ascribe to God anything as naive as an incarnation. He was convinced that in the final analysis, the concept of God and God himself must be completely excluded from human history. He was convinced that, ultimately, the world itself must regulate its own affairs; that it cannot gain access to God; and that of course God himself is so great that he cannot touch the world. The Fathers regarded this as atheism, and their judgment was correct, since a God to whom man has no access whatsoever, a God who in reality cannot play any role in the world, is no God. But have we not long since quietly returned to this kind of atheism? Do we, too, not find it intolerable to make God descend into human existence? Do we, too, not find it impossible that man could have a genuine relationship with God in the world? Is this not the reason why we have retreated with such passion to “the man Jesus”? But does this not mean that we have ended up in a world view of despair? For if only we ourselves have power over the world, since God has no such power, what else remains but despair (even if it is screened by big words)?" (Highlight Loc. 920-30)

These days here at home and in conversation with good folk have brought lots of questions and issues to the surface concerning the needs of our day and time. Yesterday I enjoyed being interviewed by the local Catholic Radio, still struggling for access to the airwaves here in South Dakota (anti-Catholic bias?). The interview was to a great extent biographical and a central theme was that of asking what was different about the faith environment which nurtured me, who if anyone inspired me or played a key role in my life, who helped bring out my vocation to priesthood, etc. Reasonable questions, yes, which must always stand against the backdrop of whatever it is that is going on in home, parish and Church today, no? The other usual query, which also came up during the interview, posits some sort of vocational struggle or wrestling with God before surrendering to His call.

As always, I guess, I must say that I disappoint my questioners by stating that my parents at home, both of them in their own unique way and together complementing each other, communicated a sense of the presence of God, which has stood me and all my siblings in good stead over the years. Catholic school supported that and offered additional content. For me there was no struggle, no wrestling with the will of God for me; believing folk around me shared with Mom and Dad what they discerned as the seeds of a vocation in a little boy and what I perceived at first in a childish way grew apace with my own maturation process over the course of time, marked by a boy's prayers, the balance of a minor seminary experience, university and major seminary, never stopping with ordination, but continuing in the school of life right up until today. Never forget that it is the Church that concretizes the call to Holy Orders, which comes from God! 

Where did Benedict and "consubstantial" go, you ask? Well, even though most of what is written in this book was thought out and set to paper decades ago, it reflects on a practical atheism abroad in our world which in my childhood and youth I was somehow spared. Certainly, we can fault decades of poor pedagogy which kept children (some now grandparents) from learning their catechism, but then the general and enveloping climate had changed as well, undermining what was really a Catholic culture, a nurturing environment. 

I think that Benedict is right in saying that the atheism of our day has crept into the Church just like the Arianism which the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea had to struggle against. The sense of the Year of Faith, which he proclaimed, is all too evident to me.

Other than recommending this book, may I suggest one small exercise and namely taking time to reflect that when we proclaim "Jesus is Lord" we are acknowledging the Son of the Eternal Father as God. Ponder the words of the Creed and let them change your outlook, your approach to every day. Reclaim or seek for the very first time that natural (for us the baptized) sense of the power and presence of God in Jesus Christ in our daily lives.

PROERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

It Doesn't Get Much Better

A School of Prayer

Pope Benedict XVI

Sceptre Publishers, Inc. 2012 (Kindle Edition)

“Constant and unanimous prayer is a precious tool to overcome any trial that may arise on life’s journey, because it is being deeply united to God that allows us also to be united to others.” (Highlight Loc. 2253-54)

No doubt there are those who would question as to whether I am all that in touch with the world around me, but for all my sustainers, who respect my judgment, I must tell you I couldn't be more enthusiastic about a book. Some may have enjoyed singly these Wednesday General Audience talks from our Pope Emeritus, but gathered under one cover they take on new life and never fail to impress as you allow yourself to be surprised, touched and convinced by the leitmotifs woven in.

This volume is indeed for everyone and can educate the smartest among us while edifying and responding to the needs of some of the simplest and most honest among us believers. It really helps understand what prayer of petition is all about and how we ask of God and experience an answer to our prayers.

"Before reflecting on this beautiful prayer, let us take note of an important basic attitude: when the first Christian community is confronted by dangers, difficulties, and threats, it does not attempt to work out how to react, find strategies, defend itself, or decide what measures to adopt; rather, when it is put to the test, the community starts to pray and makes contact with God." (Highlight Loc. 2001-4)

The Holy Father couldn't be clearer on the importance of unity and perseverance in prayer. He never judges, but it is all too clear that we as a Church would do better if we were of one mind and heart and constant in our prayer.

"Dear brothers and sisters, Peter’s liberation as recounted by Luke tells us that the Church (i.e., each of us) goes through the night of trial, but it is unceasing vigilance in prayer that sustains us. I too, from the first moment of my election as the successor of St. Peter, have always felt supported by your prayers, by the prayers of the Church, especially in moments of great difficulty. My heartfelt thanks! With constant and faithful prayer, the Lord releases us from our chains; he guides us through every night of imprisonment that can gnaw at our hearts. He gives us the peace of heart to face the difficulties of life, persecution, opposition, and even rejection. Peter’s experience shows us the power of prayer." (Highlight Loc. 2247-52)

People's enthusiasm for Pope Francis and the big crowds present in St. Peter's Square are truly a feast for the eyes and a joy to the heart. Beyond the hurrahs and the hosannahs, all of us worldwide in unanimity owe him the prayerful support which the Church has always given and without reserve to St. Peter and his Successors. 

Start with his monthly intentions in the Apostleship of Prayer and go on from there in union with the whole Church. Peter slept easy in chains, confident in God's power to save and in the prayer of the Church.

In Him we live and move and have our being:

“Actiones nostras, quæsumus, Domine, aspirando præveni et adiuvando prosequere, ut cuncta nostra oratio et operatio a te semper incipiat, et per te coepta finiatur”—that is, “Inspire our actions, Lord, and accompany them with your help, so that our every word and action may always begin and end in you.” Every step in our life, every action—of the Church too—must be taken before God, in the light of his word." 

(Highlight Loc. 2111-15)

A Love Story against the Backdrop of War

PAUL GLYNN 

A Song for Nagasaki 

The Story of Takashi Nagai Scientist, 

Convert and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb 

Foreword by Shusaku Endo 

Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition (2009). 

A dear friend recommended this book to me and I gladly do the same for one and all. It is beautifully written and offers much material for personal reflection.

For me, the most touching part of the book is the description of his conversion and the part played by Nagasaki's Catholic community in leading him to the fullness of life and faith within the communion of the Church.

The virtues of filial piety and married love are well described in the book. Maybe you have to have lived your life to comprehend the beauty of such virtue, but I'd risk exposing young people to this book as a way of preparing them for chaste, married love.

I'm sure the author would complain that such a review as mine sells short his message about the true meaning of just and lasting peace. I'm sorry, but he did too good of a job on describing marriage and family as I would wish them lived within the Church and for the sake of our world. I'll hold on to the treasure I found without denying others what marvels they might find.

Takashi and Midori Nagai are another one of those Catholic couples who should be raised to the altars for the sake of the inspiration to be gained from their heroic witness to Christ.  

Preparing for Pentecost

“So this heavenly spouse when he thought good to begin the promulgation of his law, cast down upon the assembly of those disciples whom he had deputed for this work a shower of fiery tongues, sufficiently intimating thereby that the preaching of the gospel was wholly designed for the inflaming of hearts.” (Treatise on the Love of God - Enhanced Version (St. Francis de Sales) - Highlight Loc. 1096-98 – Kindle Edition)

This is the quote which will carry me now to Pentecost this year. It may just become a sort of watchword for me as well. We'll just see.

Not so much by confession or admission as by observation, I'd have to say that the first five months of this year (despite all of the excitement: HABEMUS PAPAM!) has been an experience of a post-pentecost community rather ponderous in every aspect, not much inflaming of hearts being perceived in the order of our day as Church (as much anyway as I can see or sense). It would be neither fair nor altogether right to say that I felt myself confronted and challenged by a Bride weighted down by sin, but the sluggishness or ineffectiveness with which I sensed myself confronted was or is indeed oppressive. I know that Christ, this heavenly spouse, cannot or does not ever feel this way, but as far as my share in the spousing (as His priest) goes, such a feeling comes as no surprise. Were I all afire like Him that would not be the case.

The remedy, of course, is for me here and now to embrace that burning bush, that fire, and enter into Him, to set my heart unfailingly and again on the life of the world to come, never turning back:

“Thus, Jesus tells us that it is only by conforming our own will to the divine one that human beings attain their true height, that they become “divine”; only by coming out of ourselves, only in the “yes” to God, is Adam’s desire—and the desire of us all—to be completely free. It is what Jesus brings about at Gethsemane: in transferring the human will into the divine will the true man is born and we are redeemed.” (A School of Prayer (Pope Benedict XVI) - Highlight Loc. 1659-62 – Kindle Edition)

The tough part in all this is that it is not simply a question of beauty being in the eye of the beholder: I can be an enthusiastic bridegroom like St. Francis of Assisi, whose love is sufficient for the Bride and draws the best out of her. Even so, I wish something of the Bride herself, something which in turn could sustain me as that every man, in search of that community which is to lead me to everlasting life and love.

The Church (with me) is to be about the business of its mission bestowed in the upper room on the day of Pentecost: "sufficiently intimating thereby that the preaching of the gospel was wholly designed for the inflaming of hearts.”

My hope then and prayer for Pentecost this year would be for me certainly, that I might be that more effective instrument, but also that the Church, the Bride of Christ, might indeed better reveal herself as that woman clothed with the sun. May the spotless Bride of the Lamb better inflame hearts and bring them to Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI