Formation in Evangelization - Roman Style

The Emmanuel Community sponsors several outstanding formation opportunities for budding lay apostles. For young adults (20 - 35)

1) The one year English language formation program in Rome.
(My pastor ran into students in this program conducting a remarkable outreach in the Pantheon. They invited people in to rest, listen to music, get a drink and go to confession. He talked to the students and was very impressed!)

2) A nine month French language program in France

3) A German language formation program in Austria.


And for those of us who belong to the not-under-35-anymore gang

A Master's Program in the Theology of Evangelization. One year residency in Rome and one year distance learning. Co-Sponsored by the Lateran University and the Emmanual Community.

One very small, very Roman requirement besides your undergrad degree. You need to know four languages: your native tongue, Italian, and two others. For those with no theological background, there is a summer crash course available. No age limit.

Of course, there is the new Masters/STL program in the New Evangelization at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.

Hmmmm. Rome or Detroit?


Hey, I'm thinking . . . How difficult could learning Italian be? I already know some: capuccino, lemoncello, ciao . . .

And then French. And how hard could it be to resurrect that high school German? Would a fading knowledge of Arabic grammer count . . .

National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Coming up in April. More information here. It's quite an event with Mass and reception the night before, scheduled events all day on Saturday and a tour of Catholic DC on Sunday. I presume this is to lure out-of-towners to attend.

The keynote is to be given by the new Archbishop of Washington. Speakers include Scott Hahn, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and there are some interesting workshops such as
"Catholics in Entertainment and the New Evangelization" with Raymond Arroyo of EWTN.

Have any ID readers attended a previous breakfast? Or know someone who has? Who attends and why? Is this the Republican party at prayer? Is the faith the central draw or conservative politics? Do non-conservative Catholics attend? Will some Presidential hopefuls be making appearances there?

I would appreciate any enlightenment from those who know.

Servant of God: John Paul II

Here is the website for the cause of the beatification and canonization of John Paul II with prayers in 33 languages.

There's something awe-inspiring and moving about seriously considering the canonization of someone I actually saw with my own eyes (well, my sister Rachel and I and Fr. Michael, and a couple hundred million other people). Someone who was the first Pope I was aware of; the only Pope I knew until April of 2005.

As a convert friend of mind observed the other day: I miss him.

O Blessed Trinity
We thank You for having graced the Church
with Pope John Paul II
and for allowing the tenderness of your Fatherly care,
the glory of the cross of Christ,
and the splendor of the Holy Spirit,
to shine through him.
Trusting fully in Your infinite mercy
and in the maternal intercession of Mary,
he has given us a living image of Jesus the Good Shepherd,
and has shown us that holiness
is the necessary measure of ordinary Christian life
and is the way of achieving eternal communion with you.
Grant us, by his intercession, and according to Your will,
the graces we implore,
hoping that he will soon be numbered
among your saints.
Amen.

Dave Brubeck: Catholic and All That Jazz

Writing music for the Church eventually led Dave Brubeck to enter the Church. Here is a fascinating article by Michael Sherwin, OP (a member of the Western Province, Tom!) about Brubek and the relationship between his faith and his music.

Hat Tip: Tom at the ever scintillating Disputations

The New Abolitionists and an Unlikely Alliance

For many Christians, sex slaves are now at the top of the human rights agenda according to this 2004 piece from the Seattle Weekly.

It just jumped off the pages of the newspaper." Richard Cizik, the influential vice president for government affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, is talking about how human trafficking became a cause for crusade. He remembers reading a piece about the trafficking of women in Eastern Europe, where the harsh economic realities following the collapse of Communism made many vulnerable to false promises.

"If we truly stood for human rights for all, surely the trafficking of young girls and boys for the purposes of human slavery could not go unchallenged." Cizik helped put together a coalition of groups across the religious and political spectrum to work the issue. Gloria Steinem sent a representative to meetings. So did the B'nai B'rith. The coalition succeeded in passing federal anti-trafficking legislation in 2000 that created Miller's office.

The coalition did not come about by accident. It was part of a deliberate strategy to move away from the unyielding methods of formative leaders like Jerry Falwell. "Second-generation leaders—people my age—saw the initiatives of the 1980s crash and burn and decided we had to do things differently," the 52-year-old Cizik explains. If evangelicals wanted to accomplish anything, they would have to build coalitions with people they previously considered opponents, on issues they could agree on.

Not only did they form alliances with feminists on human trafficking, Cizik says, evangelicals worked with Jews, Catholics, and Buddhists on passing the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, monitoring religious persecution around the world; with the Congressional Black Caucus on bringing about the Sudan Peace Act of 2002; with the American Civil Liberties Union on pushing through last year's Prison Rape Elimination Act; and with gay people on securing more international AIDS funding.

Speaking by phone from Washington, D.C., Cizik sounds practically giddy as he considers the victories won. He notes that some evangelicals take issue with the notice they are getting for their global activism, insisting that it is nothing new. "The difference is this," he tells them. "We have been internationally involved for 100 years, but we have never been successful before on Capitol Hill." Cizik recognizes that having a born-again Christian in the presidential office hasn't hurt.

If leaders like Cizik set a new alliance-building course for the evangelical movement, the topics that rose to the top of the agenda came more from the grass roots, according to Allen Hertzke, director of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of the forthcoming book Freeing God's Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights. Hertzke maintains that the dramatic growth of evangelical churches around the world has led "American evangelicals to an awareness of the plight of their brothers and sisters" in impoverished, often repressive societies."

You can't tackle a staggeringly complicated issue like global sex trafficking and only associate with those you consider ideologically pure - on either the left or the right. William Wilberforce couldn't do it in the 19th century and we certainly can't do it in the 21st.

Catholics have long known this and evangelical Christians are getting it. As one review of Freeing God's Children over at Amazon noted:

"TRUE OR FALSE?

October, 2000. In support of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, Bill Bennett gives a speech in a Senate caucus room and the next speaker reads a supportive statement from Gloria Steinem. One observer notes, "Bill Bennett and Gloria Steinem and Chuck Colson and Gloria Feldt are all saying the same thing."

Good Friday, 2001. Michael Horowitz, Republican think tank director, and Joe Madison, African American radio personality, chain themselves to a fence at the Sudanese embassy in Washington (to protest that regime's support of a growing slave trade) and are arrested, then call on Johnnie Cochran to defend Horowitz, and Ken Starr to defend Madison. Fearing publicity, prosecutors drop the charges.

Late in 2000. Pope John Paul II, U2's Bono, and Pat Robertson join the campaign to provide debt relief to impoverished third-world countries. "Tightfisted Republican Senator" Phil Gramm threatens to filibuster the legislation. Pat Robertson asks viewers of the 700 Club to contact Gramm and demand he remove his hold on the legislation. Gramm promptly does just that. "


Although the Church explicitly teaches that Catholics are to work with all people of good will in the pursuit of justice, some Catholics only want to do so with people they consider ideologically pure (and I'm sure this is true on both ends of the spectrum!).

Where is our confidence in Christ? You can't fight slavery from behind a barricade. And who knows how many, in the course of the battle, will be exposed to Christ for the first time in a meaningful way through us?

Social Justice & the Laity

Over at Evangelical Catholicism, once more, Katerina has a great post up about social justice, politics, the Church, and the role of the laity. It is, in some respects, a response to criticisms of the Catholic Worker Movement and the notion that the Church shouldn't be involved in politics.

Here's a snippet:

Some cringe at the word “social justice” perhaps because they are thinking of secular social justice, which is empty and without a true foundation that does not recognize Christ in the Eucharist. It is only by recognizing Christ in the Eucharist, and hence, in ourselves, that we can then recognize that same Christ in our neighbors and love them as we love Christ himself present in the Sacrament (Mt 25).

Without Christ, we will keep asking “who is my neighbor?” (Lk 10:29). And it was then that Christ told the parable of the Good Samaritan.Some Catholics try to make the term “social justice” so complicated and far-fetched that almost seems as something foreign or evil. To work towards a just social order or to ensure the common good is to simply care for each other, to love Christ in everyone: the sick, the prisoner, the stranger. When we take this love to a greater level in which we serve the criminal, the homeless, the immigrant, unconditionally united by a "sincere mutual love" (1 Peter 10:22) and we actively work in the political and social realm to take care of them and protect them as if they would be our own families or friends, that is when we are working towards a new social order, and this is what all Christians are called to do, to love one another intensely!

My only critique of her post is that, in attempting to make the distinction between the role of the ordained and the role of the laity, Katerina downplays the common priesthood of the baptized. This was, I'm sure, not her intent. The main thrust of her post seems to be that political action in the secular sphere is given to lay men and women to shoulder as their mission in the world.

Read the post, and do take a look at the comments. EC is a darn smart blog with lots of great things to say.

The Largest Catholic Retreat Center in the World . . .is in India!

Go here to take a look at Divine Retreat Centre of Kerala, India. Wait for the changing picture on the right side to go through its whole cycle. Yep, we are not talking Traditionalism here.

The Divine Retreat Centre is run by the Vincentian order of India which makes perfect sense since it was St. Vincent de Paul who basically invented the mission.

Since 1990, over 10 million pilgrims from all over the world have attended retreats here. Weekly retreats in 7 languages are held back-to-back non-stop every week of the year. Their basic retreat seems to be based upon the renewal of the sacraments although clearly within a charismatic understanding.

I wonder what the true impact of such a ministry is. "Come Away by Yourself to a Lonely Place and Rest Yourself" is the motto on the home page. I don't know that "lonely" and "rest" are the words that come to mind when contemplating millions of retreatants.

Obviously, with those numbers, it won't exactly be a "silent" retreat. There are so many needs in India. I imagine that many non-Christians come seeking a touch of God. May they find it there and in thousands of places through his sons and daughters!

Also a great source for those Malayalam praise and worship songs you've been looking for.

Quote of the Day - from C. S. Lewis

. . . “God,” said Pascal, “instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.” But not only prayer; whenever we act at all He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so.

. . . For He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye. He allows us to neglect what He would have us do, or to fail. Perhaps we do not fully realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to coexist with Omnipotence . . . This is how (no light matter) God makes something — indeed, makes gods — out of nothing."

The Paradox of World's Most Catholic continent

Catholic News Service has a thought-provoking piece on the fifth general conference of the Latin American bishops' council, due to take place in May in Brazil. Pope Benedict XVI, who will travel to Brazil for a five-day visit May 9-13, will officially open the conference.

"In a meeting with papal nuncios from Latin America in Rome Feb. 17, the pope outlined some of the issues church leaders face in Latin America, including the growth of evangelical churches -- still generally referred to as "sects" in this majority-Catholic region -- and "the growing influence of postmodern hedonistic secularism."

In examining the reasons for the lure of Pentecostalism, the bishops will have to take a critical look at the Catholic Church's own practices.

Part of the attraction of other churches lies in "a failure to awaken a missionary commitment in Catholics and a lack of priests and religious," said Cardinal Javier Errazuriz Ossa of Santiago, Chile, who is president of the Latin American bishops' council, or CELAM.

"It's not that people leave the Catholic Church because they oppose it, but in seeking a relationship with God and seeking the Gospel, and having lost a livelier contact with Catholic communities, they go to other pastors who are talking about Jesus Christ," Cardinal Errazuriz said.

The conference's dual emphasis on discipleship and missionary commitment is meant to spur an awakening so that "every Catholic feels called by Jesus Christ to be a disciple and to be sent out to change the world in accordance with the Gospel," he said."

"I don't think it's just a matter of trying to get people who have left to come back or simply putting the brakes on evangelical proselytism," Bishop Ramazzini said. "The most important thing is to ensure that church communities are communities of disciples, that we live consistently with the Gospel. Everything else will follow."

Amen to that!

Repairer of Fences

I am alone in the dark, and I am thinking

what darkness would be mine if I could see

the ruin I wrought in every place I wandered

and if I could not be

aware of One who follows after me.

Whom do I love, O God, when I love Thee?

The great Undoer who has torn apart

the walls I built against a human heart,

the Mender who has sewn together the hedges

through which I broke when I went seeking ill,

the Love who follows and forgives me still.

Fumbler and fool that I am, with things around me

and of fragile make like souls, how I am blessed

and to hear behind me footsteps of a Savior!

I sing to the east; I sing to the lighted west:

God is my repairer of fences, turning my paths into rest.

based upon Isaiah 58:12 (Douay)

A poem by Jessica Powers (Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit)
from the website of her former monastery, The Carmel of the Mother of God, Pewaukee, Wisconsin.

The Slaughter of Eve

Do read this very disturbing Washington Times article by Julia Duin, which is the first part of a 4 part series.

A perfect storm of a historic disregard for girl children in certain cultures - especially India, China, and large parts of the middle east - and new technology means that 100 million girls are "missing" from the world today They have been aborted before birth.

"In a report released Dec. 12, UNICEF said India is "missing" 7,000 girls a day or 2.5 million a year. It is female genocide.

By 2020, the Chinese government estimates that men will outnumber women in China by 300 million - the fruit of the "one child" policy. If Chinese families are only going to have one child, they will make sure it is a boy.

One reason in India : "the dowry system, a Hindu marriage practice by which the groom's family demands enormous sums of money and goods from the bride's family as a condition for letting their son marry her." The custom is technically illegal but has spread to Muslim and Christian families as well. Even Indian Catholics follow the dowry system.

The wife's family also have to pay when she goes to the hospital to have a baby and sometime even for her funeral. "Medical clinics -- which Sister Mary calls "womb raiders" -- have advertised "better 500 rupees now [for an abortion] rather than 50,000 rupees later" [for a dowry]. The first amount is about $11; the second is $1,100."

As a result, a new class of wifeless men are scouring eastern India, Bangladesh and Nepal for available women. India, already a world leader in sex trafficking, is absorbing a new trade in girls kidnapped or sold from their homes and shipped across the country."

American companies like General Electric have profited hugely from the sales of ultrasound machines to India. Indian doctors who stand against female infanticide are black-balled and threatened.

Here is a situation like slavery which is deeply rooted in the historical practice and culture of a whole people.

What will it take to change? What can we do to help?

37% of US Hispanics are Evangelicals

A revolution is underway among America’s Latino population that will have profound implications for the future of American politics. Of the 41.3 million Hispanics in the United States today, 37 percent identify themselves as "born-again" or "evangelical." Just 10 years ago, the proportion that did so was about 15 percent. All told, there are now about 11 million Evangelical Protestant and 3 million Evangelical or Charismatic Catholic Latinos in the United States. In 1996, there were only 4 million.

An estimated 1 million US Hispanics become Protestant every year.

I gotta say it again.

If we don't evangelize our own, someone else will do it for us.
If we don't form our own, someone else will do it for us.

The Generation of Saints

I've spent the last 24 hours in a full-court press to gather in a meaningful way my rough notes on the Catholic revival that happened in 17th century France. I had promised them to one of our C & G teachers who is going to write an article on the history of the lay apostlate and intentional discipleship.

In many ways, the French "generation of saints" as they are sometimes called (actually there were three generations involved) reminds me of the group that gathered around Wilberforce in the early 19th century around the struggle for social change.

The 66 years between 1594 (when a young Francis de Sales embarked upon his one man crusade to re-convert the Chablis, an area of Alpine France that had been Calvinist for 60 years) to 1660 (when Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marrillac died) was a time of extraordinary spiritual creativity and fruitfulness for French Catholics.

It seems to have been made possible by a confluence of things

• Relative peace and tolerance after years of brutal religious wars between Protestants and Catholics,
• The reforms mandated by the Council of Trent,
• Active support from the Kings and Queens of France and other wealthy and influential patrons,
• Being able to import and build upon innovations from other parts of the Catholic world such as the Carmel of Teresa of Avila in Spain, the Oratory of Phillip Neri in Rome, and the Confraternity of Catholic Doctrine in Milan
• A series of remarkably creative Catholic apostles who knew, influenced, mentored, and collaborated with one another.

The revival in 17th century France saw Catholics rise to meet the challenge of the Reformation and the needs of their time through, among other things:

The implementation of the decrees of Trent re: the establishment of seminaries and the universal formation of the clergy. Several men's communities were founded to form and support diocesan clergy.

The emergence of a truly lay spirituality and a new respect for and openness to collaborating in mission with the laity. The development of missions and retreats for lay people and country parishes. A new emphasis on universal catechesis. The emergence of lay missionaries and missionary initiatives such as the founding of Montreal as a missionary base. The prominent role of married and widowed women in starting and collaborating in many of these new initiatives.

Mission- mindedness. The foundation of a number of new, apostolicly-minded religious orders that were not enclosed and dedicated to work with the poor, the sick, or in education.

A new, systematic, parish-based approach to ministry to the poor

A strong evangelical outreach to Protestants which was a big departure from the usual method of simply enforcing the religion of the ruler upon the people. (In the words of Francis de Sales, "let us see what love will do.")

I wish I had time to share in more detail about some of the incredible people involved and the things that happened in France during this era. But one thing I came away with was the conviction that their time is not unlike our own.

We too are one generation removed from a Council that marks a real change of direction in the Church. We too can build upon many initiatives that have gone before us.

Will someday, scholars write about the apostolic revival of Catholicism in the United States in the early 21^st century?

Jesus Kerfuffle

Over at Evangelical Catholicism they have an interesting post on the "proof" offered by some documentarian (backed by producer James Cameron, of Titanic fame) regarding the burial Ossuary of Jesus and his son, Judah.

Most of you will probably remember that this "find" is not new news, but something that has been resurrected (sorry for the pun) from the recent past.

Take a look at the post and judge with your own eyes.

Is this really the tomb of Jesus?

Reflections on The Church Mediocre

Over at Fr. Dwight's Standing on My Head, he has a nice reflection on what it is often like for converts who enter the Church. Here's a snippet:

Among converts and those thinking of converting and those who are thinking of converting but denying it, there is a lot of talk about how awful the Catholic Church is when you actually stop reading books of apologetics and visit the local branch. Here you thought it was the Church Militant and it seems like the Church Mediocre.

It has what Fr. Newman calls, 'living room liturgy' a goofy left wing priest wanders around in sandals, and tone deaf children sing kumbayah and stand around the altar with father to say the Lord's Prayer...(Awww, aren't they cute?) Added to this are the pedophile scandals, priests dipping into the funds and what seems an epidemic of ignorance, complacency and idiocy in the pews.

Sometimes it can be hard, even for cradle Catholics who strive to live their faith intentionally and with fervor, to see the supernatural reality of the Church through the incarnated temporal reality of the Church. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, however. For every Parish Council fraught with agendas and in-fighting, for every committee plagued by endless sniping and the personal failings of its members, there is Christ, calling us all to repentence, conversion, and a deeper living out of what it means to actually be the Body of Christ in the world.

Fr. Dwight sees this as well. He continues his reflection:

Mark Shea has a good post about the church mediocre. He says it better than I can: it's down to this--don't join the Catholic Church because you are against gays or women priests. Don't join the Catholic Church because you don't like Baptists or Anglicans. Certainly don't join the Catholic Church because you think you'll find fine liturgy, excellent preaching and enthusiastic congregations (with certain notable exceptions of course) Join the Catholic Church because you are convinced that it is the Church Jesus Christ really did establish on his friend Peter.If you're there, come and join us. We can always make room for one more sinner in the boat. If you're not, maybe you'd better put up with what you've got.

It's an important reflection because all too often, the only gospel that other people read is the one written with our life.

Post-Retreat Haze

I'm coming off of leading two retreats this past weekend, and as always, my body and spirit are in a bit of a haze. I like to think of it as remnants of the grace of God still washing over me. During one talk I gave, about how our identity and dignity is rooted in Christ, I asked each small group to rewrite a section of two psalms (highlighting the dignity and beauty of our created humanity) in their own words.

They initially thought the exercise would be beyond them, but as they engaged in the activity, something wonderful happened. They began to break open the Word of God and, in turn, break open their own lives, the personal history of God's grace incarnated in their experience.

The most gratifying comment came from one small group who said that they had heard that Psalm before (139), but that they never really understood that the words of the psalm applied to them, that they were treasured by God, until now.

Our God is so amazing!

The Threshold Choir

From the San Diego Union Tribune comes the tale of a wonderful, wonderful ministry:

"An ardent band of women in the seaside city of Santa Cruz is on a heavenly mission – they sing for the dying.

They call themselves the Threshold Choir, and they perform at the bedsides of the terminally ill, singing in intimate tones, like a mother soothing a newborn."

At Called & Gifted workshops, we often tell stories about individuals who perform this ministry but this is the first choir I have heard of.

"Laura Devine joined the Santa Cruz choir in June, when her mother was in the hospital. Learning that doctors didn't expect her mother to live, Devine rushed to her mother's bedside, badly shaken. She sang a slow gospel-inspired song she had just learned in the choir:

“I'm gonna lift my mother up

She is not heavy

If I don't lift her up

I will fall down.”

Devine, 50, believes her singing played a role in her mother's unexpected recovery – she was home within a week – saying the incident taught her “the power of the voice.”

Only the power of the voice?

My only complaint about this article was that the impact of music was described in purely therapeutic terms when clearly the impact was profoundly spiritual. It is fascinating that we use songs riddled with the language of the Gospel at moments like that but then pretend that we really aren't singing about, well, God and heaven and redemption and forgiveness and stuff. And that we aren't asking God to act at that moment. No, its just the power of the human voice.

Imagine the power of a small band of singers (some with the charism of music?) proclaiming the hope of the gospel to the dying and chronically ill and their families and friends at such a moment.

Especially if the singers and others were praying that the listeners would encounter the healing presence and love of Christ through the music in a way that would invoke their personal assent to grace. In whatever way they could assent at that moment.

The ultimate healing from which all other healings flow.

The Language of Grace - Again

I'm beginning to ponder the question: how many of us can even think about things that we have never heard anyone else talk about (or write or blog or . . .)?

(At this point, certain persons will observe with a lift of the eyebrow that I apparently can't do so. This is such an extrovert's issue . . .)

Is it? How much of our time is spent truly thinking original thoughts in categories and language that we have not gleaned from others around us? Isn't that why we spend years sending our children to school or home-schooling them? We don't expect them to simply pick it up out of the ozone. How many geniuses do we have among us?

I ask because I am beginning to wonder if our "don't ask, don't tell" Catholic culture makes it difficult for many lay Catholics to think, even privately, about discipleship. Makes it difficult to even have an imaginative category for the subject.

Especially if they don't read Scripture (as most don't). Of course, they could pick the idea up at Mass - if we talked about it there. Perhaps the Scriptural readings and language of the liturgy would do it if they are present and listening intently. Or at home - if someone in their family was an intentional disciple and willing to talk about it.

Or from the media. And who would be talking incessantly about discipleship in the media? Evangelicals. No wonder I run into so many Catholics who think about discipleship in evangelical terms.

Of course, the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts and many of us are responding. But do any of us believe that silent, interior wordless assent is enough to root your entire life? (If it is, may I respectfully suggest that we all become Quakers now - and even they are a notably mouthy lot and write and preach as though words were important).

In any other area of life - relationships, work, education, health care, public life - do we act as though words, as though talking about things of significance, is not important?

Does our "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" culture make it difficult for us to even think about discipleship?

The Language of Grace

This is from a mainline Protestant pastor in the LA area, but so much of it rings true to Catholic experience:

"But as followers of Christ, we are called to share the good news of what God has done—and continues to do—through Jesus Christ. If that calling makes you nervous, you're not alone. We live in a culture that is saturated with negative images of evangelists. Though many people—Christians and non Christians alike— have deep respect for Billy Graham, the same cannot be said for his colleagues. Whether or not the perception is true, evangelists are often seen as judgmental and pushy.

Now, I'm going to share a statistic with you. I've been waffling all week about whether or not I should include this statistic in the message today, because it's a humdinger. A study published this month contended that one half of one percent of mainline congregations are practicing effective evangelism. Ouch. (Sherry's note: these are Protestant congregations. I wonder if such a study exists for Catholics?)

I don't share this statistic to make us feel badly. I think it helps to know that we aren't the only ones struggling to share our faith. But I also think it helps to get a wake-up call from time to time. I once heard someone say that mainline churches . . .are greatest commandment churches. We do a good job of loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbors as ourselves. But the other part of the observation was the criticism that mainline congregations tend not to be great commission churches. We get to the end of the book of Matthew, where Jesus tells the eleven to make disciples of all nations, and we quickly turn the page and change the subject. Forty or fifty years ago, mainline churches could get away with that. Churches certainly engaged in intentional practices of evangelism, but simply opening the doors on a Sunday morning meant that people would come.

The pastor and writer Brian McClaren suggests this vision of responding to the Great Commission. “Good evangelists… are people who engage others in good conversation about important and profound topics such as faith, values, hope, meaning, purpose, goodness, beauty, truth, life after death, life before death, and God. They do this not because they like to be experts and impose their views on others, but because they feel they are in fact sent by God to do so… Evangelists are people with a mission from God and a passion to love and serve their neighbors.” The portrait of an evangelist, according to Pastor McClaren, is less like a used-car salesman and more like a humble and loving spiritual friend.

Recently I was listening to NPR in the late afternoon . . .For the next three minutes, I listened to a woman explain that she is the designated celebrator in her family, the one who makes sure everyone gets together for the holidays. She said, “I believe that in this world there is and always has been so much sadness and sorrow, so much uncertainty, that if we didn't set aside time for merriment, gifts, music and laughter with family and friends, we might just forget to celebrate all together. We'd just plod along in life.”

As the woman explain her beliefs, I realized something I believe: We’d just plod along in life if all we talk about is work and weather. We need the language of grace. We need the language of confession. We need the language of discipleship, where our lives are shaped not by small talk but by the Word of God.

Evangelism can be scary and unpopular and impolite. But it can also be joyful and exciting and authentic. When we reveal our experience of God, sharing generously with our words and actions the grace that has been poured into our lives through Jesus Christ, we are a blessing. When we have the courage to start conversations with humility and respect, we are a blessing. When we provide the challenge and the care to assist the Holy Spirit in making disciples of all nations, we are a blessing.

As the Catholic monk Thomas Merton says, “All the good you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used by God’s love.” May it be so. Amen."

Evangelical Abolitionists Influence Catholic Social Teaching?

Amy Welborn notes today that all but one of William Wilberforce’s sons converted to Catholicism as adults. They were influenced, as many thoughtful Christians were, by the rise of the Oxford Movement within Anglicanism in the 1830’s. The abolition of slavery had been the work of an earlier generation. But the influencing did not move only in one direction.

Cardinal Manning had once been a married Anglican pastor before converting to Catholicism in 1850. Two of his wife’s sisters had married sons of William Wilberforce. The strong social justice influence of Manning’s evangelical Anglican background seems to have marked his whole life.

Beside his zeal in the cause of elementary religious education, Cardinal Manning spent a good deal of his later years working on behalf of the poor and outcast. Florence Nightingale, the great Anglican health care reformer, was a life-long friend. He was invited to join the commission for the better housing of the working classes, he founded his League of the Cross for the promotion of temperance, and the "Cardinal's Peace" recalls the success of his efforts at mediation between the strikers and their employers at the time of the great London Dock Strike in 1889.

Cardinal Manning was very influential in setting the direction of the modern Roman Catholic Church. His warm relations with Pope Leo XIII and his ultramontane views gained him the trust of the Vatican. Manning used this goodwill to promote a modern Roman Catholic view of social justice. These views are reflected in the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum issued by Leo XIII. Pope Leo's encyclical "On the condition of labour", to use the words of Bishop Hedley, "owes something to the counsels of Cardinal Manning."

So the views and experiences of William Wilberforce and his friends in the abolition movements may well have directly affected the development of Catholic social teaching.

An Inspiring Tale of Pioneers in Lay Formation - from Malta

Fr. George Preca is due to be canonized in June. Dockworker Eugenio Borg's cause for beatification is underway. All because they dedicated their whole lives to the formation of lay Catholics and the equipping of those who would form others.

The situation for lay Catholics in Malta in the first decade of the 20th century is hard for us to conceive. 75% of the population of this ancient, once Muslim, but now Catholic nation was illiterate even after a century of British rule.

Fr. George Preca was ordained in 1906 but seemed to have been thinking of the problem of evangelisation for a long time. He had realised that although Malta was virtually completely Catholic and all the population was church-going, most Maltese Catholics knew very little about the truths of Christianity. In general religion was based on the practice of popular devotions and little else.

He befriended a young dock work, Eugenio Borg. Fr. George would invite Eugenio for a picnic and country walk on Sunday but told him to bring his Bible. (Eugenio promptly bought his first Bible - in English - because the Bible wasn't available in Maltese. Maltese Catholics simply didn't read the Bible). During those afternoons, Fr. George formed Eugenio into a fellow apostle.

Together they founded the Society of Christian Doctrine (known in Malta as M.U.S.E.U.M.) in 1907. The SDC centres are open every evening of the week for catechetical classes for children and adults taught by lay members who do so after their ordinary work day is over. Today it consists of about 110 Centres and 1100 members. They teach about 20,000 boys and girls in the Maltese islands, in Australia, Peru, the Sudan, United Kingdom, Kenya and Albania.

A century later, the situation in Malta is very different. Malta is now independent. 99.6% of all children 15 and under are literate. The Bible is available in Maltese (published by the SCD) And Malta is a small powerhouse of the lay apostlate.

The charismatic renewal reached Malta in 1975 and quickly spread to every parish on the island. Out of the renewal came ICPE, the Institute for World Evangelization which is formally recognized by the Vatican and now has centres in 10 countries. I have visited St. Gerard's Monastery, the ICPE house in New Zealand. ICPE is currently building a hospital in Ghana and sending missionaries to Albania.

As we have discovered, when you call ordinary people to become intentional disciples and give them solid, personalized formation, they start doing extraordinary things. The Holy Spirit calls them to be and to do that which they could never have imagined for themselves - or for the world.

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

I just returned from seeing the film Amazing Grace about the life of William Wilberforce. It is not exactly brilliant movie making but it is very solid with good performances, a very careful period look, and a compelling story. Well worth a trip to the movies. I could do without the bagpipe version of Amazing Grace at the end - but oh well.

But the story of the impact that a small group of highly committed lay Christians at the end of the 18th and first decades of the 19th century had upon their time is deeply inspiring. At the center of this movement was a gathering of like minded Anglicans, Quakers, and evangelicals whose primary goal was the abolition of slavery in the British empire.



















(The picture is that of the famous ceramic Wedgewood anti-slavery badge "Am I not a Man and a Brother?")

In their spare time, they tackled bull fighting and bear baiting, prison reform, the abolition of the death penalty, factory working condition, amd educational reform. They founded schools, mission societies, the Foreign Bible society and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Wilberforce supported the end of anti-Catholic penalties, the so-called "Catholic Emancipation" in 1829.

And eventually in 1833, they did suceed in ending slavery throughout the British empire. Slavery would be abolished, but the planters would be heavily compensated. "Thank God', said Wilberforce, 'that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the Abolition of Slavery". Three days later, on 29 July 1833, he died. Wilberforce had been fighting slavery for 46 years. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Christian History Institute has an interesting brochure on the "Clapham Sect" to which Wilberforce belonged. At the end, the author lists a dozen characteristics of the approach of the Clapham group to achieving significant societal change as disciples.

1. Set clear and specific goals
2. Researched carefully to produce reliable and irrefutable evidence
3. Built a committed support community. The battle could not be carried on alone.
4. Refused to accept setbacks as final defeats
5. Committed to the struggle for the long haul, even if it took decades.
6. Focused on issues, not allowing opponents' vicious attacks on their person to distract them, or provoke them into similar response.
7. Empathized with opponents' position so that meaningful interaction could take place.
8. Accepted incremental gains when everything could not be achieved at once.
9. Cultivated grassroots support when rebuffed by those in power.
10. Transcended a single issue mentality by addressing issues as part of overall moral climate.
11. Worked through recognized channels without resort to dirty tactics or violence.
12. Proceeded with a sense of mission and conviction that God would providentially guide if they were truly acting in his service.

I find several of these characteristics particularly compelling in light of our work at the Institute.

What do you think?

Catholic Quote of the Day . . .by an Anglican

“Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest thing you will ever encounter with your senses. . . if he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also, Christ . . . Glory himself, is truly hidden.”

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

The Person Who Creates a Web Intro Like This For Me . . .Dies

And that means you, Fr. Mike! I'm just letting you know now.

Watch it. But don't do it while drinking something hot. You will not go away unmoved.

The Disciplines of Hope

From an article on The Disciplines of Hope that I wrote for our old dead tree Siena Scribe in June of 2003 just as the war in Iraq began. I'd like to share excerpts from the article as it seems to fit a Lenten theme.

"How then can we, as lay Christians, nourish and sustain our confidence in the ultimate triumph of Christ and his redemption in our lives and our world? We take the time to cultivate the disciplines of hope. We can lay the foundation for growth in supernatural hope by the disciplined development of two human virtues: magnanimity and humility. Josef Pieper writes that “magnanimity and humility are the most essential prerequisites for the preservation and unfolding of supernatural hope—insofar as it depends on man. Together they represent the most complete preparedness of the natural man.…The culpable loss of supernatural hope has its roots in two principal sources: lack of magnanimity and lack of humility” (Faith, Hope, and Love, p. 102–03).

I would like to share with you five spiritual disciplines that I have found most helpful in nurturing hope.

1. Root yourself in the Church’s teaching about the transforming power of the virtues through study and prayer.

In addition to Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, or the writings of Pope John Paul II, great contemporary Christian authors have written about the virtues. In this area, an indispensable guide is Josef Pieper, a wonderful lay Thomist philosopher. Several years ago, I hosted a dozen adults in studying Pieper’s remarkable book, Faith, Hope, and Love. I was astonished to see introverted computer geeks moved to tears by the Church’s teaching on the virtues. Also, Pieper’s classic work, The Four Cardinal Virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance), is the perfect companion book.

Those of you who have attended a Called & Gifted Workshop may have already heard me talk about C. S. Lewis’s magnificent text, The Weight of Glory. Preached as a sermon at Oxford in June 1941 in the midst of World War II’s tragedy, The Weight of Glory contains some of the most moving meditations on Christian hope ever penned. Over the years, I have read it so often that I have almost memorized it. Lewis’ words have been a continually bracing and encouraging reminder of the eternal issues at stake in my daily decisions.

2. At the end of each day, release the fruit of your work to God and turn your attention back to the present moment.

In my early days of teaching, I would find myself reliving a workshop for days trying to determine if I had been a “success” or a “failure”. Today, whether the event seemed to go well or poorly, my discipline at the end is the same: after the last person has left, I prayerfully release the whole event and all that transpired into the hands of God, asking that He make it fruitful for his purposes. I then resolutely turn my attention to the next thing in front of me. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis writes that God’s “ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.”

If a presentation was unusually energizing or especially difficult for me, I may have to release it several times. But, with time, this discipline has become easier and helps keep me grounded in the present moment where, as Lewis notes, “all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell.” Besides short-circuiting endless navel-gazing and my need to control, letting go is an act of intentional faith and humility: it reminds me that all eternal fruitfulness comes from God.

3. Immerse yourself in natural beauty regularly.

For many of us, natural beauty is a school of hope. Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins observes in “God’s Grandeur” that “…nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” Long walks through gardens or fields at dawn are an essential source of personal and spiritual nourishment for me. The freshness of a wildflower field or the dazzling gold of autumn aspen can awaken not only gratitude for what surrounds us but hope for the eternal and even greater beauty for which God has created us. Lewis remarks:

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in” (The Weight of Glory).

4. Create something.

Whether it’s baking a loaf of bread, tending a garden, or bringing a new life into the world, striving to make something new and beautiful places us squarely in the divine mysteries of creation and redemption. Much discouragement stems from the apparent insolubility of so many secular dilemmas with which we wrestle. Part of the artist’s vocation is to remind us that many of these unsolvable problems can still serve as a medium for some new creation—something to serve as an instrument through which the Holy Spirit transforms our earthly situation in totally unanticipated ways.

One of the most fascinating characteristics of the saints is their originality. They routinely see and respond to realities seemingly invisible to the conventional minds of their time and place. When we seek to create something new, we are developing habits of mind that nurture magnanimity and prepare us to cooperate with supernatural grace. As A. D. Lindsay wrote in his essay “The Two Moralities”:

“The difference between ordinary people and saints is not that saints fulfill the plain duties that ordinary men neglect. The things saints do have not usually occurred to ordinary people at all…Gracious conduct is somehow like the work of an artist. It needs imagination and spontaneity. It is not a choice between presented alternatives but the creation of something new.”

5. Seek out, rejoice in, and share with others the veiled or obscured signs of God’s grace at work.

God’s grace is at work in ways that often remain obscure or unrecognizable. Grace-filled events are not often covered by CNN. Only prayerful minds and hearts filled with hope can identify such signs and recognize their significance. In the course of doing gifts interviews, we routinely hear amazing stories of God’s grace at work in the lives of lay Catholics. These same people, however, have often never told their experience to anyone before. But humility notwithstanding, we have a prophetic responsibility for spreading the word about the wonderful work of God that is occurring in our generation.

What other disciplines have nurtured the virtue of hope in your life?

I Was in Prison and Condemned to Death . . .

Read the whole story of a remarkable husband and wife team, Dale and Susan Recinella of Macclenny, who are sensitive but passionate advocates against the death penalty.

Together, the husband and wife team have taken on the responsibilty of ministering to the spiritual and psychological needs of Death Row inmates and the family members of both the incarcerated and the victim.

The Recinellas are devout Christians and members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Macclenny. St. Mary’s is responsible for Catholic ministry to Death Row inmates in Union Correctional Institution in Raiford and Florida State Prison in Starke. Mr. Recinella has served as lay minister to both institutions since 1998.

When inmates make the request, he will serve, one on one, as their spiritual advisor and counselor. He also administers Holy Communion. Mrs. Recinella, a psychologist at Northeast Florida State Hospital, is committed to assisting the family members.

Florida law does not allow an inmate’s family to be present at executions or even be on prison property during the six hours preceding the event. Mr. Recinella may spend the last six hours of the inmate’s life with him at the prison and attend as a witness to his execution while Mrs. Recinella stays with the family.

Read the whole thing. Sobering and inspiring all at once. A good read for a Friday in Lent.

Thoughts on humility

Something I enjoy doing when I have the chance is interviewing people who are beginning (or continuing) the process of discerning their charisms. I get to hear all sorts of wonderful stories about how God works through ordinary people.

I had an interview this afternoon with a lovely woman who has actively served God and His Church for many years in a variety of capacities. An issue came up in the course of our conversation that I have encountered many times in the 200-plus times I’ve done this.

Often folks are reluctant to acknowledge fully the worth of things they do. They minimize, or even barely recognize, the effects of their efforts – even though those effects may be very clear to me, an outside observer “listening in” on a slice of their life. They don’t want to brag or imply that there is anything extraordinary about themselves. But this reluctance can be an obstacle to discernment.

To discern our gifts, we have to be able to look reality in the eye – which involves seeing and acknowledging what happens (or doesn’t happen) when we act. Humility is not thinking of ourselves or our efforts as worthless; it is seeing ourselves truly. Warts, virtues, deficits and gifts together. Erring on either side – either under- or over-estimating ourselves – is a failure of humility. Failing to acknowledge what God does through us can be both a stumbling block in the discernment process and a sort of inside-out pride, cheating God of His due.

This Lent, I ask God for a big dose of true humility – and the repentance that should also come with that.

Of course, my first instinct after typing that is to brace myself, or DUCK – who knows what God will consider it necessary to hit me with to drive that lesson home! :) But bring it on, Lord; You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Lead me home to the Father.

Heroes

Before I gave up television for Lent, I was in the habit of watching, when I could, a new program on NBC called Heroes. Here is a brief synopsis: A group of young people discover that they have cert