Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Daniel and Mari De Leon on Salt & Light
Due to EWTN's coverage of Pope Francis' visit to America, Salt & Light Radio moved their show for teens called MADE FOR MORE to Thursday afternoon last week. The regular hosts, Johnny and Lorissa Horn, were away, but the guest hosts are two people you might know: Daniel Miller from OLV in Caldwell and Mari De Leon from St. Paul's in Nampa. Here's the podcast of the show: http://traffic.libsyn.com/saltandlightradio/MadeForMore_Show21_092515-PODCAST.mp3
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Essay: Pope Francis changing church's conversation
By Matthew Kelly, Special to USAToday.com
When the new pope stepped out onto the balcony on March 13, 2013, nobody could have imagined how this man in simple white vestments would capture the world’s attention. Before he proclaimed the traditional blessing on those gathered in St. Peter’s Square, he bowed his head and asked the people to pray for him.
This single gesture told the world that this Pope would not just be proclaiming the teachings of Jesus and his church. Here was a man eager to listen and ready to engage the whole world in a conversation that is both ancient and fresh.
Christianity has always been in conversation with the world. The focus and quality of this conversation has consistently influenced and often altered the direction of human history.
Over the past 50 years, an ever-increasing number of people have decided not to participate in this conversation. As they exit the conversation, they grow indifferent toward Jesus, his church and Christian principles in general. This indifference is perhaps the greatest enemy Christianity faces in today’s modern secular world.
To the casual observer, it could seem that in an age of limitless communication and constant dialogue on every topic, the Catholic Church has become the last remaining monologue.
Pope Francis is changing that. He is re-energizing the conversation between Catholicism and the world. He is open to dialogue. He is inviting people to rejoin the conversation. As a result, hundreds of millions of people are now participating in the conversation for the first time or in a new way. This is a very good thing.
This conversation is important. It matters.
Continue reading...
Monday, September 28, 2015
Nine Key Quotes from Pope Francis’ Historic Address to Congress
From ChurchPop.com
As you’ve probably heard, Pope Francis spoke to a joint session of Congress on Thursday – the first time a pontiff had ever done so.
Here’s a video of the whole occasion (his remarks are introduced at 52:36):
While you are certainly encouraged to watch or at least read the whole thing – and it’s not that long – here are 9 key quotes and themes from the historic address:
1) Congress must work together for the common good
“Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics.
“A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people.”
2) We must guard against violence, particularly religious violence, but also defend religious freedom
“Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind.
“A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms.”
3) We must respond with love to the current refugee crisis
“Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions. On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children?
“We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal.”
4) We must protect and defend human life at every stage of its development
“The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.”
5) We must abolish the death penalty
“This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.
“Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”
6) We have made progress on poverty, but we must keep working to end it
“How much progress has been made in this area in so many parts of the world! How much has been done in these first years of the third millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty! I know that you share my conviction that much more still needs to be done, and that in times of crisis and economic hardship a spirit of global solidarity must not be lost.
“At the same time I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty. They too need to be given hope. The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.”
7) He condemned the global arms trade
“Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?
“Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.”
8) He invoked four Americans as exemplars: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton
“Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God. Four representatives of the American people. […]
“A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.”
9) The family is essential, but is being threatened
“It is my wish that throughout my visit the family should be a recurrent theme. How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement!
“Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life.”
As you’ve probably heard, Pope Francis spoke to a joint session of Congress on Thursday – the first time a pontiff had ever done so.
Here’s a video of the whole occasion (his remarks are introduced at 52:36):
While you are certainly encouraged to watch or at least read the whole thing – and it’s not that long – here are 9 key quotes and themes from the historic address:
1) Congress must work together for the common good
“Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics.
“A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people.”
2) We must guard against violence, particularly religious violence, but also defend religious freedom
“Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind.
“A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms.”
3) We must respond with love to the current refugee crisis
“Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions. On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children?
“We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal.”
4) We must protect and defend human life at every stage of its development
“The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.”
5) We must abolish the death penalty
“This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.
“Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”
6) We have made progress on poverty, but we must keep working to end it
“How much progress has been made in this area in so many parts of the world! How much has been done in these first years of the third millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty! I know that you share my conviction that much more still needs to be done, and that in times of crisis and economic hardship a spirit of global solidarity must not be lost.
“At the same time I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty. They too need to be given hope. The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.”
7) He condemned the global arms trade
“Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?
“Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.”
8) He invoked four Americans as exemplars: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton
“Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God. Four representatives of the American people. […]
“A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.”
9) The family is essential, but is being threatened
“It is my wish that throughout my visit the family should be a recurrent theme. How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement!
“Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life.”
Monday, September 14, 2015
Discipleship Groups
We are going to a discipleship-based youth ministry this year. As an introduction to discipleship groups, check out this video from the excellent website discipleshipym.com.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Patron Saint Against Procrastination
Write this one down. Get a prayer card. Use often.
St. Expeditus – patron saint against procrastination
St. Expeditus was a Roman centurion who was martyred in the early 4th century. Due to his name, he came to be the patron saint of speedy solutions, navigators, and against procrastination. Pass this on to the student in your life?
St. Expeditus – patron saint against procrastination
St. Expeditus was a Roman centurion who was martyred in the early 4th century. Due to his name, he came to be the patron saint of speedy solutions, navigators, and against procrastination. Pass this on to the student in your life?
Monday, September 7, 2015
Five Benefits of Attending Church
By Victor Salami
Marapolsa.com
This article is from a secular website, but it hints at some simple reasons why attending church each week is so vital and nourishing to us as human beings.
Life doesn’t seem to slow down. Most people’s weekdays are typically crammed with school, work, extracurricular activities, cooking and chores. When the weekend hits, most of us want to unwind and have some fun.
The world is becoming more secular, and going to church isn’t as common as it used to be. Even when we consider ourselves spiritual people, religion and church sometimes fall down the list of life’s priorities.
Church provides so much. Here are just five Benefits Of Attending Church
1. Church anchors us.
Our kids are bombarded with technology, materialism and questionable media messages. In many families, religion and spirituality have taken a backseat to life’s distractions.
Setting aside a few hours each weekend to attend church provides a much-needed balance. At church, our children can grow closer to God, learn morals and standards and be strengthened spiritually. Church keeps us grounded.
2. We receive spiritual strength at church.
Some people question the point of attending church. They argue that they can visit the outdoors and feel close to God in nature. Or, maybe they feel that Sunday is strictly a stay-in-bed, relax-with-the-family day.
While these can be good pursuits, attending church gives us so much more. Singing hymns, praying, participating in Communion or sacrament service, listening to prepared lessons or sermons, and worshipping with a congregation uplifts and strengthens our spirits. The spiritual strength we receive weekly at church, as kids and adults, helps sustain us for each week ahead.
A family day is a great idea, so why not attend church as a family?
3. Church provides fellowship.
Our associations with members of our congregations are so strengthening. When life throws challenges, it’s nice to have a church network to lean on. The encouragement and love we receive through our churches truly enriches our lives.
Many church members lend a hand in times of need. They might provide meals, help with our children and listening ears. We can enjoy new friendships and fun church activities, as well.
Many churches also have youth groups that involve our kids in a wholesome environment. Our children can surround themselves with kids that have standards and values similar to their own.
4. Church presents opportunities to serve.
Jesus taught that we should bear one another’s burdens and love our neighbors as ourselves.
We often get so wrapped up in our own lives that we miss opportunities to reach out to others. Church congregations are like an extended family. We’re provided with many opportunities to serve.
We can involve our kids in helping with church activities, preparing and delivering meals to those in need, helping to clean the church building and doing whatever needs to be done for fellow church members.
Service to others teaches our kids unselfishness, compassion and how to dig in and work.
5. We get to know God
Of course, the ultimate prize in church worship is growing closer to God. Learning about him, his teachings and commandments helps us to become better people. We feel his love and this brings us happiness.
Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (KJV Matthew 18:20)
Find a church that aligns with your beliefs and values. Strengthen your children spiritually by going to church. Add peace to your family’s lives through church worship.
Friday, September 4, 2015
The Transgender Question
I have a friend. After high school she developed the habit of not eating food or throwing up the food she ate. Her habits have continued on and off for many years. My friend perceives that she is fat even though she has dropped to a weight of under 100 pounds. She isn't happy with her body. It never feels right. She has undergone changes psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually, and I can see a dramatic change in her personality.
Does my friend have a problem that needs to be addressed?
I hope you said yes to the last question. My friend has a problem that will lead to death if she pursues it deeply enough. In our society, this is generally accepted. We would say my friend has an eating disorder.
I don't mean to treat a difficult subject flippantly, but eating disorders offer a helpful analogy in understanding another disorder saturating our news: transgender disorder.
As the defenses of readers may be alerted at the mention of transgenderism being a disorder and the impending comparison of an eating disorder to transgenderism, let me first ask the following questions about my friend.
What does my friend need? Is her impulse to not eat or to eat and throw up a part of who she is because she thinks her body is not skinny enough? Should she be encouraged to continue her behavior? Will it help to embrace and live her identity as a bulimic or anorexic person? Or should she be encouraged to seek help and change her choices? Does her perception match reality? Would she be more fulfilled by working on her identity beyond the way she eats?
I hope you recognize the compassion needed to help a person with an eating disorder to healing, wholeness, and health. As individuals in our society, I hope each of us recognizes the need to help someone like my friend to realize healthier ways to identify with our bodies and our selves.
I hope you also begin to see the compassion needed to help a person struggling with gender or sexual identity to healing, wholeness, and health.
Back in July at the ESPYs (ESPN's sports awards show), the Arthur Ashe Courage Award was given to Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender person known for 65 years prior as Bruce Jenner. Pronouns are tricky, and I will likely offend some people just in describing the story. The award predictably elicited controversy. Now, having discussed the award with many people, I would like to comment on why I found it difficult to see Jenner honored for courage.
I do not doubt Bruce Jenner's inner struggle. As an Olympic-gold-medal-winning-Wheaties-box-spokesman, Jenner epitomized American masculinity around the time of his triumph at the 1976 Olympic Games. He said in the biographical material from the ESPYs that his gender plagued him throughout the time he trained, won, raised a family, and achieved stardom.
Now, with multiple marriages, children, and years behind him, Bruce decided to make the transition to being a woman. With a combination of pills and surgery, he transitioned and appeared on the July cover of Vanity Fair Magazine with the headline "Call Me Caitlyn."
Shortly after, Jenner received the ESPY. The acceptance speech by Jenner included a call for greater awareness of transgender people and their struggle, the extremely high suicide rate for transgender people, and the need for acceptance and respect.
I agree with Jenner on all those points. Transgender people struggle. Greater awareness is needed. The suicide and bullying rates for transgender teens are heart-achingly high. They must be lowered, with each person given the love and respect needed to live fully. Transgender people need acceptance and respect. Absolutely.
But the acceptance and respect I seek to give isn't to tell a transgender person that their identity is found in embracing something their body is not, just as I wouldn't tell my bulimic friend to pursue skinniness until she is happy. The perception does not match the reality. Surgery and pills are not the solution.
Bruce Jenner becoming Caitlyn Jenner is not a courageous choice. It's a choice by a person with financial means to get an extreme and expensive medical procedure. It's a choice by a person with celebrity to point to a gender transition as the end of a longtime struggle. It's not a choice many others can make, and it's not a solution.
I ask the same question posed earlier: Does Jenner have a problem that needs to be addressed?
Yes. He does. (And I say "he" because even though Jenner identifies as female, the biology of his body still makes him male.)
He needs to work through his woundedness. He needs support. He needs love. He needs people to surround him and help him find fulfillment. Fulfillment doesn't come from changing gender identity but from recognizing the beauty of our human condition. We are creatures capable of movement, problem solving, love, collaboration, and discernment. We are physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological beings. We are body-soul composites. We are God's beloved.
That last statement is the one that really matters. We are God's beloved.
Does Bruce Jenner know that? Does he realize God knows his deepest struggles and desires, his gender confusion, and all the choices he has made in this life? Does he know he will be endlessly and fruitlessly searching for fulfillment in this life because we are pilgrims made not for earth but for Heaven? Does he know personally the Savior longing for his love? Does he know?
God allows struggles in our lives. We are made stronger if we recognize and address the struggle. Eating disorder? Self image? Bad money management? Lying? Anger? Resentment? Pornography? Homosexual attraction? Sexual addiction? God loves us all the same, infinitely the same. God loves us too much to let us remain where we are. God loves us by encouraging us to grow.
Our healing comes when we address the struggle, not embrace it. Like Jenner, I believe the transgender community is hurting more than most people realize, but I differ with Jenner on how to bring about a change among transgender people. The solution is not in acceptance of rejecting DNA to embrace a perception of oneself but in recognizing the reality of the individual person as a child of God.
Love is the answer. Love wins. Love does not, however, blindly affirm. Love challenges. Love sacrifices. Love walks beside. Love transforms.
As Father Mike Schmitz challenges us in the video below, we need to consciously pursue the hearts of the people in our lives most in need of abiding love. We can be Christ for them. We can help them to healing.
Among the transgender question and raging issues of morality, life, and values in our culture, most people can agree there is a problem. I just wish more of us would live like we honestly, deeply believe that the only adequate tonic for the wounds within us is to drink from the living streams of God's abundant life.
If we really care to answer the transgender question, we have to know and love the people in the furnace of this growing struggle. I have failed in this respect, and I think we as a Christian people have failed to show Christ's love. So let's begin anew with the goal of treating each person with the dignity of God so that as we meet the one person that most needs that dignity--whether their struggle is with an eating disorder, gender identity, over-competitiveness, pride, or something else--we will be ready to meet their need.
Does my friend have a problem that needs to be addressed?
I hope you said yes to the last question. My friend has a problem that will lead to death if she pursues it deeply enough. In our society, this is generally accepted. We would say my friend has an eating disorder.
I don't mean to treat a difficult subject flippantly, but eating disorders offer a helpful analogy in understanding another disorder saturating our news: transgender disorder.
As the defenses of readers may be alerted at the mention of transgenderism being a disorder and the impending comparison of an eating disorder to transgenderism, let me first ask the following questions about my friend.
What does my friend need? Is her impulse to not eat or to eat and throw up a part of who she is because she thinks her body is not skinny enough? Should she be encouraged to continue her behavior? Will it help to embrace and live her identity as a bulimic or anorexic person? Or should she be encouraged to seek help and change her choices? Does her perception match reality? Would she be more fulfilled by working on her identity beyond the way she eats?
I hope you recognize the compassion needed to help a person with an eating disorder to healing, wholeness, and health. As individuals in our society, I hope each of us recognizes the need to help someone like my friend to realize healthier ways to identify with our bodies and our selves.
I hope you also begin to see the compassion needed to help a person struggling with gender or sexual identity to healing, wholeness, and health.
Back in July at the ESPYs (ESPN's sports awards show), the Arthur Ashe Courage Award was given to Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender person known for 65 years prior as Bruce Jenner. Pronouns are tricky, and I will likely offend some people just in describing the story. The award predictably elicited controversy. Now, having discussed the award with many people, I would like to comment on why I found it difficult to see Jenner honored for courage.
I do not doubt Bruce Jenner's inner struggle. As an Olympic-gold-medal-winning-Wheaties-box-spokesman, Jenner epitomized American masculinity around the time of his triumph at the 1976 Olympic Games. He said in the biographical material from the ESPYs that his gender plagued him throughout the time he trained, won, raised a family, and achieved stardom.
Now, with multiple marriages, children, and years behind him, Bruce decided to make the transition to being a woman. With a combination of pills and surgery, he transitioned and appeared on the July cover of Vanity Fair Magazine with the headline "Call Me Caitlyn."
Shortly after, Jenner received the ESPY. The acceptance speech by Jenner included a call for greater awareness of transgender people and their struggle, the extremely high suicide rate for transgender people, and the need for acceptance and respect.
I agree with Jenner on all those points. Transgender people struggle. Greater awareness is needed. The suicide and bullying rates for transgender teens are heart-achingly high. They must be lowered, with each person given the love and respect needed to live fully. Transgender people need acceptance and respect. Absolutely.
But the acceptance and respect I seek to give isn't to tell a transgender person that their identity is found in embracing something their body is not, just as I wouldn't tell my bulimic friend to pursue skinniness until she is happy. The perception does not match the reality. Surgery and pills are not the solution.
Bruce Jenner becoming Caitlyn Jenner is not a courageous choice. It's a choice by a person with financial means to get an extreme and expensive medical procedure. It's a choice by a person with celebrity to point to a gender transition as the end of a longtime struggle. It's not a choice many others can make, and it's not a solution.
I ask the same question posed earlier: Does Jenner have a problem that needs to be addressed?
Yes. He does. (And I say "he" because even though Jenner identifies as female, the biology of his body still makes him male.)
He needs to work through his woundedness. He needs support. He needs love. He needs people to surround him and help him find fulfillment. Fulfillment doesn't come from changing gender identity but from recognizing the beauty of our human condition. We are creatures capable of movement, problem solving, love, collaboration, and discernment. We are physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological beings. We are body-soul composites. We are God's beloved.
That last statement is the one that really matters. We are God's beloved.
Does Bruce Jenner know that? Does he realize God knows his deepest struggles and desires, his gender confusion, and all the choices he has made in this life? Does he know he will be endlessly and fruitlessly searching for fulfillment in this life because we are pilgrims made not for earth but for Heaven? Does he know personally the Savior longing for his love? Does he know?
God allows struggles in our lives. We are made stronger if we recognize and address the struggle. Eating disorder? Self image? Bad money management? Lying? Anger? Resentment? Pornography? Homosexual attraction? Sexual addiction? God loves us all the same, infinitely the same. God loves us too much to let us remain where we are. God loves us by encouraging us to grow.
Our healing comes when we address the struggle, not embrace it. Like Jenner, I believe the transgender community is hurting more than most people realize, but I differ with Jenner on how to bring about a change among transgender people. The solution is not in acceptance of rejecting DNA to embrace a perception of oneself but in recognizing the reality of the individual person as a child of God.
Love is the answer. Love wins. Love does not, however, blindly affirm. Love challenges. Love sacrifices. Love walks beside. Love transforms.
As Father Mike Schmitz challenges us in the video below, we need to consciously pursue the hearts of the people in our lives most in need of abiding love. We can be Christ for them. We can help them to healing.
Among the transgender question and raging issues of morality, life, and values in our culture, most people can agree there is a problem. I just wish more of us would live like we honestly, deeply believe that the only adequate tonic for the wounds within us is to drink from the living streams of God's abundant life.
If we really care to answer the transgender question, we have to know and love the people in the furnace of this growing struggle. I have failed in this respect, and I think we as a Christian people have failed to show Christ's love. So let's begin anew with the goal of treating each person with the dignity of God so that as we meet the one person that most needs that dignity--whether their struggle is with an eating disorder, gender identity, over-competitiveness, pride, or something else--we will be ready to meet their need.
For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope. When you call me, and come and pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me.
Jeremiah 29:11-14
Monday, August 31, 2015
Why I Left My Parish: A Cautionary Tale
By Albert Little
ChurchPop.com
Originally posted on The Cordial Catholic
When I decided to get serious about becoming a Catholic I phoned up the Catholic church closest to my house.
I made the cardinal mistake of thinking they were all the same.
After all, at that point in my faith journey I’d already been intellectually converted to the truth of the Catholic faith without ever having actually been to a Mass (at least, not since understanding what was actually taking place).
Disappointment After Disappointment
So, I rang up my local parish, and a few days later was meeting the religious sister who ran the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA).
When RCIA began, a Tuesday night some weeks later, I was almost instantly disappointed. The Catholicism being presented was the kind of watered-down, post-Vatican II stuff that I’d heard about. It was genuine, to a point, but disappointingly free from any serious vigor.
What I imagine a knitting circle might be like—though that might give a bad name to knitting circles.
At any rate, it was plodding.
I’d come home, nearly every Tuesday, not feeling excited at becoming a Catholic—a decision which had been nearly a decade in the making—but rather feeling depressed at what life as a Catholic looked like.
Is this really what I’m in for?
Sunday Mass was no better.
The elderly priest—at seventy-nine years old—was earnest but, well, old. And while I can’t speculate on what kept him at it, his witness at the altar, to me, as an excited prospective Catholic, was disappointing. When one of the RCIA sponsors, a few Tuesdays later, remarked that Father was one of the best homilists he’d ever heard I nearly slunk right out of my plastic folding chair.
The worst pastors I’d ever heard preach as an Evangelical would’ve left Father’s homilies in the dust.
What this really what I was to expect?
So… Where’s the Community?
Finally, on our last night of RCIA, a couple of weeks after Easter, we were introduced to the various ministries and programs the parish had to offer.
As a confirmed Catholic, I was excited to get involved in my new parish but my heart sank when I saw the little pamphlet that Sister produced from her binder.
“It was the only copy I could find,” she explained, “it was made about 12 years back for the parish’s 100th anniversary.”
I was flummoxed.
Sadly, the small pamphlet offered next to nothing in the way of parish life.
As an Evangelical, I was excited to get connected with a new, vibrant community of Catholics. This is what we did as Christians: we plugged in and supported one another. We gave our time, talents, and energy to the Church. We journeyed together.
In the Evangelical churches I belonged to I was kept busy, and I loved it. At various intervals I helped in Sunday School, volunteered in the soup kitchen, volunteered as a youth leader, worked with the audio/visual equipment, ran a small group, sat on the Mission’s Committee, ran the website, and organized a monthly married couples’ meeting with my wife.
I was a joiner, and a doer, and my new parish offered three stark choices: I could be a lector, join the choir, or help wrangle kids in the curriculum-less Children’s Liturgy which ran infrequently.
This was a parish of 2,000 Catholics.
So I left.
I left and began a search for a parish that had more to offer and I did, eventually, find one.
The parish we now call home is vibrant—growing, in fact—and has a lot going for it. Not only have they made the Eucharist the center of the community—and offer a 24-hour Adoration Chapel—but they’ve created space for Catholics to grow, fellowship, and worship together. There are groups for all ages, a constant rotation of solid Catholic formation programs running, a well-organized Children’s Ministry, and they even recently hired a youth pastor.
A stark contrast to the parish I became a Catholic in.
Night and day.
But I’ve learned a lot along the way, and have made a couple of poignant realizations. Call it a cautionary tale.
Maybe I Should Have Stayed, But…
First, I probably could’ve stayed in the parish where I was confirmed. Maybe I should’ve stayed.
A few months later the elderly pastor did retire and was replaced by a younger, more enthusiastic priest who immediately began to shake things up. He instituted, radically, a homily at the Daily Mass. Something which the outgoing priest had simply been too tired to offer.
I could’ve stayed, in hindsight, and started some of programs and ministries that I felt were lacking in the church. I could’ve been the catalyst and, maybe, should’ve been the catalyst.
Sometimes it’s us that God is asking to take a risk.
My second takeaway from this whole experience is this: That we, as Catholics, need to take our communities seriously.
It was a Sunday following Mass, about a month after becoming a Catholic, that the elderly Father stopped me as I left the nave. “You know,” he said, “It’s commendable that you’re here every Sunday. A lot of the folks who go through RCIA fall off the radar pretty quickly, I can see you’re committed.”
I smiled, but the thought that crossed my mind was, “Well of course, what do you offer them once they’ve joined?”
The Mass is not enough.
Controversial, I know, but bear with me a moment longer.
While the Mass—and the Eucharist at its center—needs to be what binds our communities together this can’t be the only thing we offer in our parishes.
Around the orbit of the Mass we need opportunities for fellowship, catechesis (for young and old), and outreach to our broader neighbors.
We need to genuinely engage our community to care and understand the Eucharist and then, in the next breath, care and understand each other. One should, naturally, lead to the next.
A New Beginning?
Admittedly, I’ve returned to the parish I left and I’ve been back there, sometimes daily, for Mass. It’s close to our house and convenient on the way to work. And Daily Mass is such a blessing.
And you know what I’ve found? Something astounding. Amongst the hundred of us who attend the Daily Mass regularly there’s a real sense of fellowship and community. We’re a tight-knit little group. And maybe that’s where a parish needs begin to build up from.
The new pastor, as well, has made some sweeping changes and continues to. There’s some steam building.
After all, it’s not like God abandoned the place just because I did. He works, always, and through everything. And, actually, I recently bumped into a guy from the parish at a local coffee shop.
“I’m starting a new ministry at the parish,” he said. “I’ve seen a real lack of outreach to new parishioners. So, I’m calling each new person that comes to our church, and helping them to connect more deeply.”
That guy, I thought, is taking that risk. God is good.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Four Questions to Ask in an Interfaith Relationship
By Michelle Fleming
BustedHalo.com
Question: My boyfriend and I are beginning to have serious conversations about marriage. He is a shamanist, and I am a Catholic. He has attended Mass with me on multiple occasions, has prayed with me, and is open to conversations about marrying in the Church and raising our kids Catholic.
It’s not that he’s thinking of converting, and that’s not what I expect of him either. I just know that interfaith marriages can be very challenging. What would be your advice for conversations we should have before deciding on marriage and also advice for our lives together as partners and potentially parents?
Answer: I want to commend you for considering this question now. When couples get engaged first and then start thinking about working through their differences, it can be difficult to discuss potential conflicts because of the pressure to move forward with wedding plans.
So, the conversations to have before getting married are the same conversations as for people of the same faith tradition. Here’s a link to some discussion topics.
Specific to your question: Yes, there are many conflicts that can occur with couples of different faiths. To work toward resolving those, I would start with answering this question:
What does “faith” mean to each of you?
Talk about your beliefs (from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to the Eucharist, the sacrament of marriage and the virgin birth, etc.) and how they impact your life. What has happened on your faith journey? Share how your faith influences your relationships. Does your faith extend into ministry or social justice? Are religion and spirituality the same to you, or do you see some differences?
And the same questions are for your boyfriend. How did he come to his beliefs? What does he believe and how does it impact his life? What does he value about his faith? Does he see potential problems for your future relationship because of your difference in faith traditions?
Which leads us to the next question:
What do you expect from him?
BustedHalo.com
Question: My boyfriend and I are beginning to have serious conversations about marriage. He is a shamanist, and I am a Catholic. He has attended Mass with me on multiple occasions, has prayed with me, and is open to conversations about marrying in the Church and raising our kids Catholic.
It’s not that he’s thinking of converting, and that’s not what I expect of him either. I just know that interfaith marriages can be very challenging. What would be your advice for conversations we should have before deciding on marriage and also advice for our lives together as partners and potentially parents?
Answer: I want to commend you for considering this question now. When couples get engaged first and then start thinking about working through their differences, it can be difficult to discuss potential conflicts because of the pressure to move forward with wedding plans.
So, the conversations to have before getting married are the same conversations as for people of the same faith tradition. Here’s a link to some discussion topics.
Specific to your question: Yes, there are many conflicts that can occur with couples of different faiths. To work toward resolving those, I would start with answering this question:
What does “faith” mean to each of you?
Talk about your beliefs (from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to the Eucharist, the sacrament of marriage and the virgin birth, etc.) and how they impact your life. What has happened on your faith journey? Share how your faith influences your relationships. Does your faith extend into ministry or social justice? Are religion and spirituality the same to you, or do you see some differences?
And the same questions are for your boyfriend. How did he come to his beliefs? What does he believe and how does it impact his life? What does he value about his faith? Does he see potential problems for your future relationship because of your difference in faith traditions?
Which leads us to the next question:
What do you expect from him?
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