Back when I started this blog, I led a Young Adult Bible study group, so each week I would post my notes concerning the upcoming Mass Readings. My goal was to produce a commentary for the entirety of the Sunday Lectionary. However, this came to an end when I started attending an Eastern-Rite parish and handed the Bible Study over to another leader. The Eastern Churches have a different liturgical calendar and Lectionary, so the project came to an end.
This Wednesday I was leading a Bible study at a Roman-Rite parish, so I thought I would revive my tradition of posting my notes for today’s readings…
Yesterday’s post was rather long, so I’ll keep this one nice and short.
After the Office Christmas Party this weekend one of my coworkers, Kevin, and his girlfriend got engaged. This put me in mind of two of my favourite quotations from the Early Church Fathers on the subject of love and marriage.
As I think I’ve said before, one of the things which constantly surprises me is that, although these men lived so long ago, they have so much wisdom from which today’s world could benefit.
The first quotation comes from a priest of the late 4th Century called John. His preaching was so renowned, he acquired the name “golden mouth” or in Greek “chrysostomos”. He is most commonly referred to as St. John Chrysostom. He is one of the few to be declared a “Doctor of the Church”, a greatly deserved title.
“An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love” – St. John Chrysostom
Beautiful, isn’t it? Superb advice – you’d never guess he was a celibate priest… 😉
Last night I gave my acceptance speech for the Fiat Award at the San Diego Young Adult Christmas Gala. Here’s the text…
Greeting
Good evening everyone. I’m humbled and really privileged to receive this award, thank you.
I’m keen to get on with the rest of the evening, as I’m sure you are, and to bust out some sweet moves on that dancefloor…but Patrick said that I could speak to you for a few minutes and there is something, in particular, which I would like to share tonight. You see, even some of my close friends may not know everything about my Faith journey…
My Journey
I grew up in a good Catholic home, but it was the work of an Irish missionary (and the Holy Spirit) which brought my faith fully alive at University. There at University, I was surrounded by a vibrant community of Catholics, many of a similar age, who cared deeply about growing in the Faith and about about sharing the Gospel.
But it was after university that things started to go awry… I graduated and was hired by a company in an unfamiliar town. I naturally went to Sunday Mass assuming that I would find new friends there…but I was to leave disappointed. Nobody greeted me. There was no Young Adult community. As far as I could see, there were no ministries whatsoever. The place just seemed… dead.
To add insult to injury, the company which had brought me to that town went bankrupt in my first week there (It wasn’t anything I did, I swear!). But this left me in an unfamiliar town, without a job, with friends, without a community….
As a result of all this, on my way back from Mass, I wandered into a non-Catholic congregation. It was here, in that Protestant congregation that I found the community for which I was longing. I was given such a warm welcome (well, at least as warm a welcome as is possible for the English!). During my time there…
…I learned so much about the Christian life
…I found a group my own age
…I was invited to help out with their youth group
…I made friends…I had found a home
It would be many years before I would rediscover the truth of Catholicism and return whole-heartedly to the Church.
The state of our Communion
Now why am I sharing this story? I’m sharing it because I don’t think it’s unique. I don’t think it’s even rare. I think my story is common for many many, many Catholics…and many former Catholics. The total number of Catholics in the United States has dropped by 3 million since 2007, that’s about 20%, one-fifth of the total Catholic population in the United States.
Why do they leave? There are several important reasons, but I would suggest that a major reason is that people are looking for spiritual nourishment, seeking connection, a community,…and when they don’t find it in the Catholic Church….they look elsewhere.
This Award
I’m really grateful and feel very honoured to receive this award tonight, but I have done nothing that special.
My life, my very existence, comes from God…
…and my supernatural life comes through Christ and His sacrifice for me.
If I have any talents they are not my own, they come from Him.
I owe God everything. So given all that, what else could I do but put myself at His service and the service of His Church?
I would suggest that, if anything can be learned from my receiving this award tonight, it’s not that I have done anything that extraordinary….
… The lesson is rather that, ministry is not simply the domain of ordained clergy or salaried parish employees, ministry is the role and calling of every…baptized…Catholic.
Rachel
At the beginning of this year, I nominated my friend, Rachel, to receive this very award. You see, when Rachel became Catholic, she immediately set about galvanizing the Immaculata Young Adults and approached her pastor asking to start a Bible Study.
It was for this reason that I nominated her for the award. She didn’t wait for someone else in the parish to do it. She saw a need and stepped up, putting her time and her talents at the service of her parish.
Dream a little dream with me
My friends, our Diocese is often praised in other parts of the country for its Young Adult Ministry (and rightly so)… but imagine with me for a moment if you will, what this Diocese would look like if every Catholic in this Diocese imitated my friend Rachel. I promise you, our Diocese would be un-recog-nizable…
There would be activities every night of the week, every weekend. There would be opportunities to socialize, to grow in the Faith, to serve the wider community. And most importantly, the people who came to the Church seeking nourishment and community… they’d find it…and in so doing, encounter Jesus.
Objections
But there’s a problem. As soon as I spoke about each one of us finding a place to serve, a voice at the back of your head probably started coming up with a long list of objections:
“What, me? Doing ministry?! I don’t know how to do that…”
“I can’t organize big events!” “I’m not a theologian. I’m sure someoneelse better qualified will do something!”
Am I right?
Small things with great love
In case you misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that each of you should head-up some grand catechesis programme in your parish, and devote all your time, every evening and weekend to that work. No, I’m simply inviting you to think about your passions and skills and consider where there is a need in the Church, because, as Frederick Buechner said:
“The place God calls you to [your vocation] is the place where your deep gladness [all those things you really love and care about] and the world’s deep hunger [and the unmet needs in the Church] meet [where they meet]”
My ministries
As for myself…
I like going to the theatre and the symphony. I therefore inaugurated “The Finer Things Club” and invited others to join me on my cultural adventures.
My housemate and I agreed that we wanted to have better accountability, so we formed a Men’s Huddle, inviting a few other guys to meet together a couple of times a month to share a beer and talk about our lives.
My friend Teresa wanted to sing Taize songs, so we picked a date and invited people over to the house for an evening of candle-lit Taize prayer and song. We now do this once a month if you’d like to join us.
I’ve always loved the writings of C.S. Lewis, so I arranged to meet up with my friend Matt at a coffee shop, to talk about one of his books. I let other people know about it on Facebook, and a meeting of two C.S. Lewis nerds grew into a regular group and we’ve now read six of Lewis’ books.
Because of interest in this group from outside of San Diego, Matt and I then launched a podcast, where we discuss the works of C.S. Lewis chapter-by-chapter each week.
This then grew into a website, PintsWithJack.com, to host a video series which was launched this week.
My point here is that all these things began simply by doing what I love…and then inviting others to join me.
Have a little help from my friends
And I know I’m not the only one. I don’t have to look hard to find other examples from among my friends…
Joseph, having discovered Our Lady, committed to praying the rosary at the beach each week, and invited others to join him.
Kareen was troubled by the homelessness in Downtown San Diego, so with a few friends she set about making food and handing it out. Others joined her.
My friend Joe really likes scotch, so he decided to get together some friends and introduce them to the finer points of whiskey-tasting.
All of these activities build community, help deepen spirituality and make a positive change in the world (especially the scotch!).
The invitation
So what about you? What are the things you enjoy? Where do you see an unmet need in the Church? Where do you feel the tug of the Holy Spirit?
Again, it doesn’t have to be complicated…Maybe you like volleyball. You could assemble some friends to have a casual game one weekend, or purchase host a monthly movie night at your house, inviting some new parishioners you met at Mass.
Never Alone
But even with these simple suggestions, it may all seem too intimidating. But the good news is that you don’t have to do this alone.
Reach out to your pastor – he’s there to help!
Reach out to Patrick and Pam – the purpose of their office is to support you…to help you… as you help build the Kingdom.
My time is now just about up, so I would like to thank you all for your indulgence for the past ten minutes. But I’d like to end with a prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman:
“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission… I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good. I shall do His work.”
A friend of mine recently referred to the book “Good Church, Bad Church” by Tom Kane, a former Catholic priest. I read the synopsis on Amazon and read the extract on the author’s website. In the extract, a couple came to Kane while he was still a Catholic priest and he counseled them to have an abortion, calling upon St. Thomas Aquinas as justification:
“The great Catholic theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose theological reasoning is the foundation of Catholic morality, said that a fetus does not contain a soul until several months because there is not enough development yet to hold a soul, so the fetus, Thomas says, is not a person,” I said. “Yet the Vatican and the Vaticans of Protestantism would sacrifice an endless number of lives for a miniscule embryo that resembles an amoeba.”
“But the fetus has life,” he said.
“Yes, but what kind of life? Plant life? Animal life?” I said. “A fetus has a very primitive form of life—not yet a human life.”
This morning I went to Mass. Until very recently, we would have celebrated the Feast of the Ascension, but in recent years the Feast has been moved from this Thursday to the nearest Sunday. I’m not such a fan of this change since it obscures the origin of the “novena”, the Catholic practice of nine days of prayer for a particular intention.
Novenas are associated with the period of time between the Ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost:
[Jesus said] “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samar′ia and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight…
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet…and when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying…All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren…
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
– Acts 1:8-9,12-14;2:1-4
If you’re looking for a novena to pray between now and Pentecost, my new favourite is the novena to one of my favourites, Pier Giorgio Frassati. What’s you’re favourite Novena?
One of my recently-discovered TV shows is Person of Interest starring Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson. It was introduced to me by my housemate, Aaron, so thanks to him I’ve been binge-watching the last four seasons on Netflix.
I don’t want to give too much away, but the basic gist of the show’s storyline is that a man named Harold has built an extremely advanced artificial intelligence which he simply refers to as “The Machine”.
One of my favourite scenes from Season 4 was a flashback in episode 11 (“If-then-else”) where we see Harold teaching The Machine to play chess. The Machine is taking a very long time to make its opening moves because it is checking all the possible moves and permutations. The Machine is effectively stuck in what is commonly known as “Analysis Paralysis”, so Harold speaks to the machine…
Harold’s dialogue in the show is typically very profound, but I found what he says in this scene particularly striking:
Each possible move [in chess] represents a different game… By the second move, there are 72,084 possible games. By the third, 9 million. By the fourth there are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe. No one could possibly predict them all, even you.
Which means that that first move can be terrifying. It’s the furthest point from the end of the game, there’s a virtually infinite sea of possibilities between you and the other side…
…But it also means that if you make a mistake, there’s a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax and play.
Harold Finch, Person of Interest
My personality type certainly predisposes me towards Analysis Paralysis. Like The Machine, I’m often afraid of making a mistake, so much so that I spend protracted periods of time considering all the options and possible consequences. Now while prudence is a good thing, this kind of analysis can be debilitating. It’s a problem when you’re so risk averse that you never actually take a course of action.
It is here that I find Harold’s words comforting. In life, much like in a game a chess, it’s virtually impossible to check every possible scenario and say for absolute certain what will happen, but the sooner you start, the sooner you can make adjustments. So, “…simply relax and play”.
Facebook continues to buzz with threads discussing the SCOTUS decision concerning same-sex marriage. I have engaged in some of these online discussions but I’ve continued to find them disappointing. As I pointed out in my earlier post, I’ve found the level of argumentation displayed in these exchanges typically to be rather low. I’ve found that even to call into question the soundness of the SCOTUS decision is to simply invite a tirade of abuse and name-calling.
There have, however, been a few occasions where the exchanges have more closely resembled a dialogue. As I’ve previously written, when involved in apologetics, I try to be socratic in my approach, mainly restricting myself to asking questions. Today’s post is simply to share the kinds of questions I typically ask when discussing the subject of same-sex marriage…
Yesterday’s post was rather long, so I’ll keep this one nice and short.
