faith

A Christmas Poem: Cave of Wonder

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From the film The Nativity Story (2006), rated PG
Wrapped in secret, underground
Sleeping infant makes no sound
Bed of straw and stench of beast
Greatest born to family least
 
Rapt in secret, working man
Virgin mother, shepherd band
Wise men from a country far
Worship Him by light of star
 
Wrapped in secret, hunted one
Earthly might fears Godly son
He has come to seek and save
Born below to rise from grave
 
Rapt in secret, angels sing
Glory to the King of kings
Strength made helpless; selfless love
Here below shows God above
 
Wrapped in secret, greatest gift
By our hands of swaddling stripped
Hung upon a lifeless tree
Sacrifice for you and me
 
Rapt in secret, we the poor
Kneel in before Him evermore:
Blest be home and blest be feast
And blest are we, His servants least
 
J. Thorp
December 2015

A God-Size Space

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This morning’s thought comes courtesy of St. John of the Cross via Deacon Ralph Poyo, whom our parish staff had the pleasure of following on retreat yesterday, and who never actually mentioned St. John of the Cross by name.

Jesus tells us throughout the Scriptures that we must leave everything behind to follow him. Certain of these passages seem particularly harsh: “Let the dead bury the dead;” “No one who sets his hand to the plow and looks to what is left behind is worthy of the kingdom of God.” I have struggled with these passages over the years, but in the wee hours this morning, lying in the dark, I had a brief moment of clarity.

Dcn. Ralph reminded us that choosing to be a disciple of Christ (in particular, Christ crucified, since Jesus himself tells us that in order to be a disciple we must pick up our cross and follow) is a black-or-white, all-or-nothing choice. He asked us to imagine, on one hand, Jesus suffering on the cross, and on the other hand, a table filled with all these little icons of the people, places, and things of this passing world that matter to us: our spouse, children, family, and friends; our pets, possessions, and pastimes; our worries, anxieties, and sins.

Of the two, we are called to choose Christ—you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength—but it’s hard to embrace the cross and even harder to carry it any distance. So we are tempted to walk to the foot of the cross and break a chunk off from it, to shape that piece of the cross into another little icon representing our Christianity, and to place it on the table with the rest, our tiny God, lost in a sea of idols.

St. John of the Cross writes of the tremendous longing God has for union with us (and vice versa). He wants to live within us, but before He can enter fully, He needs a God-size space. And since our God is infinite and eternal—the source of being for everything—the only space big enough is complete emptiness. Nothing else fits where God fills.

I have thought about this before in terms of the little pieces of the world we cling to or the tiny sins we allow to continue because “they aren’t so bad.” But early this morning, it occurred to me that even clinging to the good things of this world—my wife and children, my vocation as a husband and father, my job, and the parish that I love—can push God out.

This does not mean I must give these things up, only that I let them go to make space for God. If I can empty myself completely and seek Him alone, He who is the source of all good things will fill me, and like Job, I will regain what seemed lost, and more!

God is indivisible, the ultimate All, and we cannot claim just a piece of Him—“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides” (Matthew 6:33).

Our Faith Is Not Genetic

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Last month I wrote about the power of family— in particular, parents—in keeping their children Catholic.  It’s sobering, then, to learn that the Catholic Church in the U.S. is losing members faster than it is gaining them, and that, for today’s teens, religious identity is no longer reliably inherited. In other words, Millenials aren’t likely to stay Catholic simply because their parents and grandparents were Catholic.

What does it take to keep our young people in the faith? According to a 2012 Canadian study, young adults who choose to remain Christian have four main characteristics:

  1. They have experienced God’s presence and have witnessed answered prayers.
  2. They can ask and openly discuss their real spiritual questions in their Christian community.
  3. They understand the Gospel at a deep level.
  4. And they have seen communities of faith and older adults living their faith.

Numbers 1 and 4 have to do with experiencing God, both personally and in community. Numbers 2 and 3 involve grappling with spiritual truth. Young people who have the opportunity to know and personally experience God and are encouraged to explore that knowledge and experience are more likely to choose for themselves to remain faithful to Christ and His Church.

Is that the environment we are fostering at St. Michael Catholic Church? In our homes and our schools?

Unfortunately, Catholics have a reputation—earned in many cases—for not spending much time delving into sacred Scripture and for not sharing firsthand experiences of the very real and personal God we hear about in the Bible and the Catechism. And while our Masses may be well attended, a faith that is manifested for an hour on Sunday is not the same faith that made evangelists, world travelers, and martyrs out of a dozen unknown Galileans. Their faith changed lives—their own, first and foremost. If church doesn’t change us, we’re not doing it right!

Eventually everyone makes a choice for or against Christ. So maybe it’s a good thing that we can no longer rely on birth and blood to pass our Catholicism on to the next generation.  If we acknowledge that even cradle Catholics need conversion; if we share our faith not just with those outside the Church, but with each other; if we pray for, and come to expect, God to act in our lives in personal and tangible ways, through answered prayers, spiritual gifts, vocations, and more—we will “become a people living for Christ” in every generation.

Blogger’s Note: This article appears in the Sunday, Nov. 15, parish bulletin.

We’re Not Meant to Go It Alone

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On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
– John 20:19
Imagine yourself as a follower of Jesus before His crucifixion. Imagine the excitement of coming to know the Messiah intimately and waking up each morning in his company, anticipating the day and wondering what profound teaching or miraculous sign awaits.
Now imagine that this man, whom you loved and believed to be the savior of your people, ripped from your midst and publicly tried, punished, tortured, humiliated, and put to death like a common criminal. Imagine the fear: if the Roman authorities and Jewish religious leaders could do this to such a man as Jesus, what could they do to me, a poor sinner?
What would you do?

The disciples chose, as many of us would, to keep a low profile—to remain out of sight behind locked doors. But they remained together. That’s curious.  Certainly a group of Galileans and the executed man’s mother all gathered together in one place did not escape the notice of their neighbors. Wouldn’t it have been sensible to disperse until the scandal blows over – to each return home, if only for a little while?
We are not meant to go it alone. We follow Christ to whatever end awaits us in communion with all believers, and we are meant to grow in faith, hope, and love; to face joy and suffering; to live and die; together as members of the Body of Christ here on earth. Only with the support of like-minded Christians can we find the courage and perseverance to pour out our blood, sweat, and tears for those who do not yet know God or His Church. This is yet another reason why our approach to faith formation and the sacraments here at St. Michael is family- and community-based.
In her book Forming Intentional Disciples, Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute identifies five “thresholds” that people pass through on their way to full-fledged Christian discipleship. The first of these thresholds is trust. Put simply, the first step toward conversion is finding a disciple with whom you can relate: a “known Catholic” whom you can talk to, relate to, or admire – or even just a Catholic who seems normal. Believe it or not, you begin to evangelize just by being Catholic and available to the people around you!
And while many people have said that once you leave the church, you’re in mission territory, I would argue that we’re in mission territory even in the pews! So many of your friends, neighbors, and family members – including me – fall short of intentional discipleship and need help. To that end, LIFT this year will include ice-breaker activities and some less-structured small-group time in order to help parish families get to know each other better. 

This social time is just as important as the more structured classroom time, because these are the interactions that shape how we follow Christ, individually and as a community. As we get to know each other, we begin to ask about each other’s families, share each other’s concerns, and pray for each other’s needs—and Christ Himself passes through our midst, filling us with grace and the Holy Spirit, and sharing with us His peace.

Blogger’s Note: This article appears in the Sunday, Sept. 27, parish bulletin.

Book Break: In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall

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One of the many things I meant to do in the past year was to explore and review several books on the Catholic view of creation and evolution, in order to help parish parents and grandparents answer their questions on the topic and those of their children. My hope was to find a book or two that might be helpful to inquiring minds of all ages.

As usual, I bit off more than I could possibly chew and have completed only one such book. On a positive note, it was excellent.

‘In the Beginning…’ A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall is an edited compilation of four Lenten homilies given by Pope Benedict XVI in 1981, when he was still Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich and Freising. His goal was to develop a catechesis of Creation for adults. The four homilies build, one upon the other, to present a clear case for what the Genesis accounts of Creation and the Fall mean and why they continue to matter:

  • The first homily, “God the Creator,” lays out the so-called conflict between the Creation account(s) and science, and discusses how and why we interpret scripture the way we do: in the context of Jesus, to whom the entirety of scripture, written over the course of centuries, points.
  • The second homily, “The Meaning of the Biblical Creation Accounts,” addresses the Creation story specifically, the reasonableness of belief in Creation, the ways in which science points to Creation, the sabbath structure and rhythm of Creation — and the emergence of the view that humanity is at conflict with nature.
  • In the third homily, “The Creation of the Human Being,” Pope Benedict focuses on the heart of the matter for many modern Catholics: where humans come from. He explains that Genesis has more to do with who we are (imago Dei, or image of God) than how we got here, then tackles evolutionary theory directly — what it can explain about our existence, and what it can’t.
  • In the fourth homily, “Sin and Salvation,” Pope Benedict discusses the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the plan for salvation, with Christ as the new Adam. In perhaps the most profound explanation for me personally, he clearly lays out why, because we are creatures created by God, obedience to God’s law is not a restriction of freedom (like we often perceive it) — we are made for this, and thrive under God’s law because it’s in our nature!
The entire book is exactly 100 pages, including the Appendix, entitled “The Consequences of Faith in Creation, which reads like a fifth homily on how we got to the point that, since the Renaissance, understanding of and belief in Creation theology has diminished to the point that it is rarely spoken of in modern Catholicism, and why our fundamental “creatureliness” is essential to our future. Pope Benedict’s style is straightforward and clear; he is obviously well-read and -researched on this topic, but makes it accessible to (though not always easy for) the patient reader. The book is less specifically about evolution that I imagined, but rewarding and worth the time. It’s fun to imagine these as homilies, sitting in the pews, wishing someone was writing all this down.