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An invitation from Pope Francis: a Sunday given over entirely to the word of God

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by mcummins2172 in Pope Francis, Uncategorized

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Bible, Catholic Church, Catholic faith, Christianity, Misericordia et Misera, Pope Francis, Sacred Scripture

Pope Francis raises Book of Gospels as he celebrates Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica at VaticanBoth of my parents were converts.  My father grew up in the Presbyterian Church and my mother grew up as a Southern Baptist.  There is a story told in my family that once, not long after my father’s conversion, my two great aunts from Mississippi (both spinsters and staunch Presbyterians to boot) visited my grandfather.  Noticing some dust on the cover of the family bible, one great aunt is said to have remarked, “I guess if this Bible cover was not so dusty Jack would never have converted.”  I am not sure how my grandfather and grandmother replied although I would wager that a bit of a chill went through the room.

I, for one, am very grateful for my parents’ conversions and acknowledging that my views would differ from my great aunt’s in this regard (i.e. seeing my father’s conversion to Catholicism as a fulfilling of his faith journey and not a loss); I do believe her remark about the family Bible carries an intuition of truth.  There is a power and a grace to be found in Sacred Scripture.  The Bible is God’s holy word and within it we encounter our risen Lord.

In his Apostolic Letter, Misericordia et Misera given at the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis brings to summation the Holy Year and puts forward his hope that the work of mercy will continue and be ever-strengthened in the Church.

(The Holy Year) must continue to be celebrated and lived out in our communities. Mercy cannot become a mere parenthesis in the life of the Church; it constitutes her very existence, through which the profound truths of the Gospel are made manifest and tangible. Everything is revealed in mercy; everything is resolved in the merciful love of the Father. (MM, 1)

The Holy Father reflects on how best to continue the work of mercy and he puts forward some specific thoughts for discernment by the Church – mercy should be celebrated and at the heart of every Eucharistic celebration and every homily, every encounter involving the sacrament of anointing should be guided by mercy and certainly mercy should be found in abundance within the sacrament of reconciliation.  Here the Holy Father grants the authority for every priest to forgive the sin of a procured abortion.  This permission given even gained the attention of the secular media for at least a day or two.

What did not garner as much attention though is an invitation that the Holy Father extended to the Church in his apostolic letter.  It is an invitation worthy of consideration and it is why I began this article by sharing the story of my two great aunts.  The Holy Father invites the Church to consider a Sunday, “given over entirely to the word of God”.

Why not just mandate such a thing?  Certainly the pope has the authority.  Here, I believe, Pope Francis is demonstrating a pastor’s wisdom.  Some things within the Church – especially those liturgical and devotional – are best established and encouraged from the foundation up rather than the top-down.  Pope Francis is inviting the Church into a dialogue regarding this possibility and he is giving his permission as the successor of Peter for this dialogue, this possibility, to occur and to even grow organically from within the life of the Church.  He is encouraging an idea to grow.

It is an idea already present within the full life of our faith and specifically rooted and expressed for our time in the document Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council.  Here are three quotes from the final chapter of that document which demonstrate this.  “It follows that all the preaching of the Church, as indeed the entire Christian religion, should be nourished and ruled by sacred Scripture.” (DV, 21)  “Access to sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful.” (DV, 22)  “Just as from constant attendance at the Eucharistic mystery the life of the Church draws increase, so a new impulse of spiritual life may be expected from increased veneration of the Word of God, which ‘stands forever’.” (DV, 26)

Below are the two paragraphs of Misericordia et Misera specifically devoted to this invitation.  The first paragraph can be viewed as a summation of Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, the second is the invitation given by the Holy Father to the Church universal.

The Bible is the great story of the marvels of God’s mercy. Every one of its pages is steeped in the love of the Father who from the moment of creation wished to impress the signs of his love on the universe. Through the words of the prophets and the wisdom writings, the Holy Spirit shaped the history of Israel as a recognition of God’s tenderness and closeness, despite the people’s infidelity. Jesus’ life and preaching decisively marked the history of the Christian community, which has viewed its mission in terms of Christ’s command to be a permanent instrument of his mercy and forgiveness (cf. Jn 20:23). Through Sacred Scripture, kept alive by the faith of the Church, the Lord continues to speak to his Bride, showing her the path she must take to enable the Gospel of salvation to reach everyone. I greatly desire that God’s word be increasingly celebrated, known and disseminated, so that the mystery of love streaming from this font of mercy may be ever better understood. As the Apostle tells us clearly: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16).

It would be beneficial if every Christian community, on one Sunday of the liturgical year, could renew its efforts to make the Sacred Scriptures better known and more widely diffused. It would be a Sunday given over entirely to the word of God, so as to appreciate the inexhaustible riches contained in that constant dialogue between the Lord and his people. Creative initiatives can help make this an opportunity for the faithful to become living vessels for the transmission of God’s word. Initiatives of this sort would certainly include the practice of lectio divina , so that the prayerful reading of the sacred text will help support and strengthen the spiritual life. Such a reading, centered on themes relating to mercy, will enable a personal experience of the great fruitfulness of the biblical text – read in the light of the Church’s spiritual tradition – and thus give rise to concrete gestures and works of charity.(MM, #7)

Could this be the beginnings of a liturgical feast for the Bible?  What would it look like?  I am not sure and I do not know if even the Holy Father knows but he is inviting the Church to the possibility and even encouraging a faith-filled creativity.  As both a Christian disciple and a pastor of a parish in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt – where there is such a strong emphasis on Scripture in the surrounding churches – I find this invitation of Pope Francis to creatively dream of such a day to be both exciting and necessary!  One of the great gifts of the Second Vatican Council was in reminding us that the Bible belongs to every member of the Church, that it should be picked up and read and that within Sacred Scripture we encounter Christ.  The Bible is much more than just proof texts for the sacraments and devotions.  A day given over entirely to the Bible would not lessen our sacramental identity as Catholics but would rather root our identity deeper in an awareness that we are a people of both Word and Sacrament!

A day devoted to the Bible would also be a strength and support for the ongoing work of mercy.  “I greatly desire that God’s word be increasingly celebrated, known and disseminated, so that the mystery of love streaming from this font of mercy may be ever better understood,” writes the Holy Father.  God’s word is a “font of mercy” which opens our minds in greater awareness, our imaginations in new possibilities and our hearts in greater charity.  Or, as expressed in Dei Verbum, “This nourishment (of Scripture) enlightens the mind, strengthens the will and fires the hearts of men with the love of God.” (DV, 23) 

Pope Francis, through his life as a Jesuit and priest is someone steeped in the Ignatian spiritual tradition of entering Scripture.  The Holy Father speaks from experience when he refers to Scripture as a “font of mercy” and he is here inviting the whole church to continually turn to this font.

It is a simple and beautiful invitation that the Holy Father puts forward in his letter – a day given over entirely to the Word of God – and within this invitation is found the possibility of innumerable graces and blessings.  I am praying how the parish I serve might answer this invitation of our Holy Father.  I would encourage all members of the Church to take to heart this simple and beautiful invitation of our Holy Father.

The Preacher as Servant of Dialogue

28 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in dialogue, Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis, preaching

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Dialogue, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis, Preaching, Servant

christ_preachingRecently, I re-read Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and I was brought to the realization that the Holy Father is proposing, in his section on preaching, the role of “servant to dialogue” as the primary role of the preacher.

Let us renew our confidence in preaching, based on the conviction that it is God who seeks to reach out to others through the preacher, and that he displays his power through human words. (EG, 136)

In the exhortation, Pope Francis begins by calling preachers of the Word to a sacred remembering of the power of preaching.  Throughout Scripture we find God choosing to work with human beings in all of their limits to proclaim his plan and his grace.  From Moses with his stutter through the Old Testament prophets and all their tribulations to John the Baptist to the apostles in their weaknesses and misunderstandings to the great missionary Paul, even though he persecuted the Church – the Word of God is proclaimed. The Word of God needs to be proclaimed in our day also!  People need to encounter the Word of God in all its richness and all of its challenging beauty and the preacher is entrusted with this sacred task!

I find it interesting then, that after making this bold and challenging proclamation, Pope Francis moves to the almost seemingly mundane character of dialogue and conversation as the foundation of preaching.

It is worth remembering that “the liturgical proclamation of the word of God, especially in the Eucharistic assembly, is not so much a time for meditation and catechesis as a dialogue between God and his people, a dialogue in which the great deeds of salvation are proclaimed and the demands of the covenant are continually restated”.   The homily has special importance due to its Eucharistic context: it surpasses all forms of catechesis as the supreme moment in the dialogue between God and his people which lead up to sacramental communion. The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. The preacher must know the heart of his community, in order to realize where its desire for God is alive and ardent, as well as where that dialogue, once loving, has been thwarted and is now barren. (EG, 137)

To help explore this move toward dialogue and conversation I would like to quote in length a section out of Fr. Robert Barron’s book, The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism.

At one point in his book, Fr. Barron reflects on intersubjectivity as a component of true knowledge.

For the Christian, authentic knowledge comes not through isolation or objectification but rather through something like love.  Therefore it should not be surprising that the fullness of knowing would occur through an intersubjective process, with knowers, as it were, participating in one another as each participates in the thing to be known.  If, as the Johannine prologue implies, the ground of being is a conversation between two divine speakers, it seems only reasonable that the search for intelligibility here below takes place in the context of steady and loving conversation.  

In a lyrical and compelling section of “Truth and Method,” Hans-Georg Gadamer reminds us that a healthy conversation is something like a game.  As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are carried away beyond themselves in such a way that the game is playing them much more than they are playing it.  In a similar way, when two or more interlocutors enter into the rhythm of an intellectual exchange, respectful of its rules and of one another, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  The fundamental requirement for this sort of shared self-transcendence is a moral one: each conversationalist has to surrender her need to dominate the play for her purposes; each must efface herself, not only before the others but, more importantly, before the transcendent goal that they all seek.  To have a conversation is humbly to accept the possibility that one’s take on things might be challenged or corrected, that the other’s perspective might be more relatively right than one’s own.  

Holding these thoughts with those of Pope Francis we can see that preaching has as its true basis and foundation the very common and universal reality of honest conversation and dialogue more so than any latest and trendy fad, philosophy or method regarding public speaking and debate.  Rather than belittling the preaching task these depth explorations of conversation and dialogue show forth the true richness of understanding afforded this important and critical task!

The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. The preacher of the Word, along with the people of God, is himself caught up in this ongoing conversation between the Lord and his people yet he has a truly unique and important role to play.  The preacher must allow himself to be caught up in the game and therefore overcome the constant and often subtle temptation to dominate the play for his purposes.  This is a renunciation and an asceticism that every preacher must develop in his life.  If a homily is too self-referential then it has missed the mark and probably most of the people of God have already tuned out.  To make use of the above analogy – a person cannot play a good and rousing game of tennis if he is more concerned about how he looks rather than the game!  To preach is to enter into the great game of the dialogue between our risen Lord and his people!

The proper progress of the dialogue though is dependent upon respect of the rules given.  The homilist is to be the servant to dialogue.

The dialogue is Christ’s and not the preacher’s.  If preaching is to mean anything then somehow Christ must speak through the preacher’s words to the heart of those who are gathered.  This means that the preacher must learn how to get out of the way and not try to dominate the play for his own agenda or emotional needs.  Any person acquainted with the task of preaching will know that this is not as easy to do as one might think but it is essential.

For preaching to be effective, the preacher must be in dialogue with Christ and in dialogue with the community of the Church.  The preacher must know Christ and allow himself to be known by Christ fully.   The preacher must know the heart of his community, in order to realize where its desire for God is alive and ardent, as well as where that dialogue, once loving, has been thwarted and is now barren.  In order to know his community, the preacher must be with his community.  He must have the “smell of his sheep” on him as Pope Francis has famously said.  When the community is not known there is always the danger of preaching at people rather than assisting the great dialogue that the Lord has begun.  Would it not be an extremely sad thing for a preacher to come before the gates of heaven only to there be given the realization that his preaching was more of an interruption to our Lord’s great dialogue with his people rather than an assistance?

If authentic preaching has as part of its basis knowledge of the community then homily preparation is just as much about visiting the homebound, celebrating with families, serving the poor and weeping with those who mourn as it is about studying the Scriptures and reflecting on Biblical commentaries.  The preacher who shuts himself away in a rectory or a parish office is stunting his preaching potential and doing a great disservice to his community.  Christ dwells in the midst of his people, especially the poor.  Whenever and wherever Christ is encountered deeper understanding of Sacred Scripture is gained. In order to be a servant of dialogue, the preacher must go out into his community.

A little later in his Exhortation, Pope Francis offers these words that again situate the preaching task squarely in the life of the community with some profound implications: The Lord and his people speak to one another in a thousand ways directly, without intermediaries. But in the homily they want someone to serve as an instrument and to express their feelings in such a way that afterwards, each one may choose how he or she will continue the conversation. (EG, 143) Believe it or not, preacher, it is not your gifted eloquence, flourishing rhetoric or funny jokes that unite heaven and earth! Christ and his people are already united; they are already in dialogue in a thousand ways directly. Daily (in prayer, in struggle, in joy, in temptations, in uncertainty, in gratitude, in the depth of the human heart) Christ and his people are conversing, recognized or not on our part. The preacher does not have the task of scaling the heavens in order to unite heaven and earth (and honestly I don’t believe the people are looking for this). The preacher, as servant of dialogue, does have the task of being open to being led by the Spirit to speak the words that help the people catch a glimpse of how heaven and earth are already united and interacting in their lives! (The Holy Father offers three practical resources to aid in this: appeal to imagery, cultivate simplicity in ones words and be positive.) Upon catching this glimpse, the people will then continue the conversation with the Lord in their own way. As a servant of dialogue the homilist is to listen, to seek to be an instrument and then to let go … then repeat.      

Finally, the preacher himself must both allow the dialogue to carry him as well as call forth sacrifice in his life. As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  In humble prayer, the preacher must first encounter the Word and let the Word speak to him, once something sparks then the preacher must let the Word carry him to where it wants him to go.  We need to trust that the Word of God is indeed active and alive and we need to trust that the Word will take us to what the community needs to hear.  Within this trust, the preacher must even sacrifice of bit of self for this to happen. To illustrate this dynamic of service to dialogue here are two images given by the author Annie Dillard in her book, The Writing Life:

To find a honey tree, first catch a bee. Catch a bee when its legs are heavy with pollen; then it is ready for home … Carry the bee to a nearby open spot – best an elevated one – release it, and watch where it goes. Keep your eyes on it as long as you can see it, and hie you to that last known place. Wait there until you see another bee; catch it, release it, and watch. Bee after bee will lead toward the honey tree, until you see the final bee enter the tree. Thoreau describes this process in his journals. So a book leads its writer.

You may wonder how you start, how you catch the first one. What do you use for bait?

You have no choice. One bad winter in the Arctic, and not too long ago, an Algonquin woman and her baby were left alone after everyone else in their winter camp had starved … The woman walked from the camp where everyone had died, and found at a lake a cache. The cache contained one small fishhook. It was simple to rig a line, but she had no bait, and no hope of bait. The baby cried. She took a knife and cut a strip from her own thigh. She fished with the worm of her own flesh and caught a jackfish; she fed the child and herself. Of course she saved the fish gut for bait. She lived alone at the lake, on fish, until spring, when she walked out again and found people…

Might it be possible that the New Evangelization is calling forth a new approach to preaching? I believe that Pope Francis is sharing some profound thoughts in this regard for our consideration – the preacher as servant to dialogue.

New Year’s Resolution, Pope Francis and the Illusion of Immortality and a Dislocated Shoulder

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in gift of time, Illusion of Immortality, New Year, New Year's resolution, Pope Francis

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The end of one year and the beginning of another is always a good time to reflect on the gift of “time” that we have been given.  We take stock of the preceding year.  What were the good moments and blessings?  What were my mistakes, missed opportunities and struggles?  We make resolutions for the coming year.  “This year I resolve to … (fill in the blank).”  In both taking stock on what has occurred and looking to the future is the realization that time is a gift and not necessarily a given (although we can easily think so) and how we make use of this gift does matter both for ourselves and for others. 
In my own “New Year reflecting” I have gained some good perspective both by an insight given by Pope Francis and by a recent personal experience.  The insight being the first of the fifteen spiritual diseases the Holy Father made mention of in his speech to the Curia: the illusion of immortality.  The personal experience being my recent dislocated shoulder acquired on a ski trip to Utah.
The media has certainly picked up on Pope Francis’ Christmas address to the Curia and, as often seems to be the case, many outlets are demonstrating more their own particular slant on things than are offering good reporting.  In the Catholic Church we are used the spiritual practice of the examination of conscience.  It is a helpful and fruitful discipline in the spiritual life.  As I read the address given by the Holy Father to the Curia, I heard a pastor leading his community in an examination of conscience in order that the community might advance on the way of discipleship.  Are these maladies present in the Curia and its work?  Probably, more or less, but neither are these maladies limited to ecclesial circles alone.  Any institution (corporate, media, government, educational) would do well to undertake such a thorough examination.  Something tells me not to hold my breath on this possibility though.  To those media and secular institutions chuckling about the Pope’s remarks, I would remind them that Jesus said something about focusing on the speck in your neighbor’s eye while ignoring the plank in your own.
Here is what the Holy Father said about the first malady.  The first is “the sickness of considering oneself ‘immortal’, ‘immune’ or ‘indispensable’, neglecting the necessary and habitual controls. A Curia that is not self-critical, that does not stay up-to-date, that does not seek to better itself, is an ailing body. … It is the sickness of the rich fool who thinks he will live for all eternity, and of those who transform themselves into masters and believe themselves superior to others, rather than at their service”. 
The Community of Sant’Egidio has a saying, “Each one of us is given only so many Easters.”  Only so many Easters to come to know the risen Lord, only so many Easters to let the truth of the resurrection and the gospel settle into our hearts and our very living.  In other words, no one is immortal.  We each have only so many years given us yet it is so easy to fall into the illusion of immortality.  I can easily think “I can do that tomorrow” but I might not have a tomorrow.  This is the “sickness of the rich fool” and it is very easy to catch, individually and even institutionally!  The humility of knowing that I am not immortal, immune nor indispensable leads me to value each day, each setting and each encounter.  It also allows me to cultivate empathy in my heart.  “There but for the grace of God go I,” is a prized awareness gained by the person who knows that he or she is also not immune.  An awareness of my mortality also leads me to better claim the possibilities each day offers.  A body in motion tends to stay in motion.  This is a dictate of good health and the Holy Father is applying it to the spiritual life both of the individual Christian and to the life of the whole Church.  The Church must remain healthy!  Striving for health enables health!  The illusion of immortality does not enable good health because it leads one into the fallacy of thinking that what is necessary and habitual applies neither to me nor to the institution of which I am a part. 
It is a humbling thing to wipe out on a ski slope and dislocate ones shoulder but humbling moments can lead to wisdom if they are approached correctly.  Five days ago on a trip visiting my brother and his family in Utah I did just this yet, while certainly humbling, I am already learning from this experience.  A body in pain will quickly cut through the illusion of immortality.  This is one learning gained. As I ever so slowly made my way down the remainder of the slope after my fall, not able to put the slightest pressure on my right arm, and once I saw in the clinic my shoulder blade about an inch lower on my arm than where it should be I was under no illusion regarding my mortality!  But there have been other learnings gained.  My brother Tony, with whom I was skiing, is an avid skier as well as being a former Army Airborne Ranger.  The skillset he brings to skiing is at a much higher and advanced level than mine.  Maybe there was a brotherly sense of needing to prove something at work but I should have taken things slower and more elementary.  There is an important value in the mundane work of developing the necessary skillset required rather than jumping right into something.  There is also an important value in acknowledging the correct level at which ones skillset is!  Another lesson learned (again, from my brother) was how I saw him staying aware of the risks involved and planning accordingly.  (I think this also might harken back to his Ranger training.)  He stays updated on the avalanche possibilities, he checks the weather, he takes the time to pack the needed gear before he and his family head out on an outdoor adventure, even when this causes his wife and son a little frustration.  But the extra time given at the outset can prove critical later. 
We are not immortal, the time we are given is a gift and we are called to be good stewards of the time we have been allotted.  In our lives of faith we need to do the mundane work of developing the skillset that is needed and we must not be naïve regarding the situation and times we find ourselves in as Christians.  Our Lord calls us to daily prayer, to the daily work of community and service and he calls us to be as cunning as serpents regarding the world in which we live.  We need to know that the extra time given at the outset can prove critical later.  
Not to boast but hopefully to acknowledge; one skillset I did bring to the table the day of my wipeout on the ski slope was a relaxed and calm approach to the event gained through the discipline of prayer.  The doctor and clinic staff remarked how popping my shoulder back into place was one of the easiest they had ever done.  “Most patients,” they said, “especially those with some muscle mass tend to tense up and this is what leads to a painful experience.  You, on the other hand, were so relaxed and calm that the shoulder easily popped back into place!”  When the staff gathered around me to begin the procedure and the nurse encouraged me to slowly breathe in and out and focus on my breathing I easily slipped into the Jesus Prayer in my thoughts.  A prayer I strive to live with every day.  (Breathe in) Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, (breathe out) have mercy on me, a sinner.
Each one of us is given only so many Easters.  How might I make best use of the time I have been allotted?  As we make our New Year resolutions it might be worthwhile to reflect on this question.  It might also be worthwhile to be open to insights coming from the most unexpected of places in our lives and experiences (i.e. the insight of a Pope as well as insights gained from dislocating ones shoulder).  

The danger of narrowcasting in the Church

13 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by mcummins2172 in Catholic Church, dialogue, Media, Pope Francis

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Christianity, Church, Dialogue, faith, narrowcasting, social media

studio-broadcasting-camps-2There has been a trend developing in our national news media and you have probably noticed it.  It is the move from “broad-casting” to “narrow-casting”.  Charles Seife, in his book, Virtual Unreality: Just Because the Internet Told You So, How Do You Know It’s True?, lays it out quite clearly.
Back when the Big Three ruled the airwaves, the nightly news had to perform a delicate balancing act.  A news program had to try to appeal to the entire television audience – it had to be, quite literally, a broad cast – if it was to compete with the other two networks that were taking the same strategy.  This meant that the networks couldn’t become too partisan or take an extreme position on anything, for fear of alienating its potential audience…
Then cable and the internet increased our choices.  The Big Three kept trying to capture as big a slice of America as possible by staying centrist, but a couple of upstarts – particularly Fox News and MSNBC – realized that there was another possible strategy.  Instead of trying to go after the entire American population with a broadly targeted program that appealed to everyone, you could go with a narrowly targeted program that appealed to only a subgroup of the population.  Throw in your lot with, say, die-hard Republicans and give them coverage that makes them happy; you alienate Democrats and won’t get them as viewers, but you can more than make up for that loss by gaining a devoted Republican fan base …  MSNBC did exactly the reverse … 
“So, what’s the big deal?” one might wonder.  Let the conservatives have their Fox News and the liberals their MSNBC then everyone gets what they want.  As Charles Seife argues in his book though we need challenges to our assumptions in order for our ideas and understanding to grow and evolve.  True information can only be gained through this sometimes difficult but essential process.  If all we get when we switch on the news is a presentation that is catered to our particular slant on the world then we get stuck in our own assumptions and we even become more radicalized.  We do not get true information.
With news and data that is tailored to our prejudices, we deprive ourselves of true information.  We wind up wallowing in our own false ideas, reflected back to us by the media.  The news is ceasing to be a window unto the world; it is becoming a mirror that allows us to gaze only upon our own beliefs. 
Couple this dynamic with the microsociety-building power of the hyper-interconnected internet and you’ve got two major forces that are radicalizing us.  Not only does the media fail to challenge our preconceptions – instead reinforcing them as media outlets try to cater to smaller audiences – but we all are able to find small groups of people who share and fortify the beliefs we have, no matter how quirky or outright wrong they might be.  Ironically, all this interconnection is isolating us… 
Lack of true information, radicalization and isolation – this is a disturbing and dangerous mix that, I would argue, we are witnessing the affects of throughout our world today.  That is a larger discussion but my purpose for this reflection is to wonder how much this trend of “narrow-casting” has moved into the life of the Church.  I would point to the wide-ranging reactions to the recent preparatory meeting of the upcoming Synod on the Family in Rome as a prime example.  The way I read them, reactions posted in journals, on the internet and the blogosphere were often extreme and catered to a particular slant.  There was a lot (and continues to be a lot) of noise regarding the preparatory meeting in these pieces but not much true information … at least from my reading.
Call me crazy but I have a hunch that Pope Francis knows what he is doing and that the Holy Spirit is in the midst of the Church.  Maybe our United States “American” (I say this because this is the only cultural context I can speak to) tendency to interpret an event (i.e. the Synod on the Family) only by catering to a particular viewpoint is more of a reflection of a deficiency in our culture than a reflection of what actually transpired in Rome?  Maybe we have become more conditioned by narrow-casting than we realize?
Pope Francis is not a product of United States “American” culture.  I do not think that he has been conditioned by narrow-casting.  I think he asked the participants at the meeting in Rome to speak boldly from their hearts because he knows what Charles Seife knows.  True information is only gained through the difficult process of having assumptions challenged – if the assumptions are true then they will only grow stronger through this process, if not then they will fall by the wayside.  Pope Francis values true discussion because he values true information.  Isn’t true information what we want any leader (particular the Pope) to have?
Catholic means “universal”.  I do not believe that there is space for narrow-casting in the Church.  In fact, I wonder if it might even be a sin against the unity of the Church.  Seife lays out the fruits of narrow-casting: lack of true information, radicalization and isolation.  All of these harm the Body of Christ.
Come, Holy Spirit and enkindle within us the fire of your love and strengthen your Church that she might be a humble and authentic witness of the gospel!

The Eucharist and the Burning Bush of Exodus: Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

21 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by mcummins2172 in Body and Blood of Christ, burning bush, Eucharist, Moses, Pope Francis

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Recently, Pope Francis offered these words during his Sunday Angelus address. 
Every Sunday we go to Mass, we celebrate the Eucharist together and the Eucharist is like the ‘burning bush’ in which the Trinity humbly dwells and communicates itself: this is why the Church has placed the feast of the Body of the Lord after that of the Trinity.

The Holy Father has given us some wonderful images to reflect upon on this Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (traditionally known as Corpus Christi). 
If we look to the third chapter of Exodus (verses 1-6) we read of Moses’ encounter with God revealed in the burning bush.
Meanwhile Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock beyond the wilderness, he came to the mountain of God, Horeb.   There the angel of the Lord appeared to him as fire flaming out of a bush.   When he looked, although the bush was on fire, it was not being consumed. So Moses decided, “I must turn aside to look at this remarkable sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called out to him from the bush; “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.” God said: “Do not come near! Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground!”   “I am the God of your father,” he continued, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 
We are told that Moses wonders why the bush is not consumed and only after he decides to “turn aside and look” does God speak to him.  God waits for the moment when we are ready for him to speak to us.  We, for our part, must learn how to “turn aside” from all that distracts us, from the illusions, sad logic and passing fancies of our world in order to then be ready to encounter God.  God is present and is waiting to reveal himself if we just turn aside to look.  In the Eucharist – celebrated on the altar, reserved in the tabernacle – the fullness of Christ is present.  On every altar during the celebration of the Eucharist and in every tabernacle we can say that the burning bush is present waiting for us to just turn aside and look. 
The bush was not consumed.  God is not opposed to creation nor limited as creation is limited.  The presence of God does not negate my freedom nor does it negate my possibility.  God is not simply another actor within creation whose very presence necessarily limits my own space.  God is rather the source of all creation, the one who is pure love and who is non-competitive with his creation.  Christ is fully present within the Eucharist.  The bread and wine truly becomes the body and blood of Christ yet it is neither consumed nor lost.  When we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we also are neither consumed nor lost nor oppressed; rather we are transformed into the very thing which we consume.  Through the presence of God, we are fulfilled. 
“Remove your sandals from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy ground!”  The Eucharist is holy.  This is why we reverence it, adore it, place it in a special place of reservation and come before it in prayer.  Our sandals are what carry us through our day-in and day-out lives.  Our sandals are the mundane and profane trappings of life (profane not in the sense of “anti-sacred” but rather in the sense of common and ordinary).  We are meant to remove our sandals, we are meant for more than just the ordinary!  We are meant for relationship with God!  In the Eucharist we meet Christ, we know him and we receive him.  The fullest form of friendship and communion is given to us in the Eucharist.
“I am the God of your father,” he continued, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  Just as we receive Christ in the Eucharist so do we regain ourselves.  Moses had forgotten who he was, God remembered for him.  “I am the God of your father…”  Life can wear down, confuse and distract.  We need food for the journey.  We need help remembering who we are.  In receiving the Eucharist we are reminded again of who we are – a child of God, beloved of the Father, brother and sister to Christ our Lord!  And once we encounter God and remember who we are then we are ready for mission in our world.  Moses needed to know who he was before he could ever go before Pharaoh.  The same is true for us.  Before the pharaohs of our world (violence, sin, greed and all the sad logics that seek to divide and oppress life) we need to be constantly reminded of who we are, who our brothers and sisters are and who our Father is. 
Jesus said to the crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” (Jn. 6:51)
“…the Eucharist is like the ‘burning bush’ in which the Trinity humbly dwells and communicates itself.” 

Francis: Pope of the Periphery

30 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by mcummins2172 in Church, Community of Sant'Egidio, periphery, poor, Pope Francis

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Pope Francis is on the cover of “Rolling Stone”.  I guess this is a good thing.  He has certainly caught the imagination of many people.  
For the record, I am a Pope Francis fan – just as I have been a Pope Emeritus Benedict fan and Bl. John Paul II fan – the popes during my lifetime.  I am a fan of the papacy and how each man, weak and limited in his own humanity as he is, brings his own gifts and personality to this institution and it is amazing to see how the Holy Spirit works through each one.  It does no good and, in fact, is a disservice to the Church to fall into a “red state”/”blue state” mentality when it comes to the papacy and the current inhabitant of the office.  The papacy transcends such misguided and ultimately dull attempts at division. 
Recently I was at a church meeting and much was being said about Pope Francis – specifically his simplicity and his call to help the poor.  I agree the Pope Francis has certainly highlighted the poor in his pontificate but I think his challenge goes further and I wonder if this is being picked up on or glossed over and, if so, why?  
Through words and deeds (many of the latter going viral in the visual world of social media), Pope Francis is preaching not just help for the poor but the willingness to go to the poor.  Picture his embrace of the disfigured man in St. Peter’s square.  This, I think, is a key element to his appeal.  Pope Francis is certainly not opposed to the important work of the parish or Church relief and charitable agencies but neither does he want these to become an end or a wall of separation.  I do not think that the Pope would be satisfied if he heard the following statement, “Yes, I support the poor.  I give to my parish and Catholic Charities and they help the poor.”  I think our Pope would respond by saying, “Yes, that is good but you also go to the poor.”  It seems that our current pope does not like any form of “middle-men”; whether they be social, organizational or ecclesial.  
Choices and even success have unintended consequences.  This being understood, might an unintended consequence of the success of the Church’s relief and charitable organizations be that they can help bolster the illusion (maybe even desire) of being a step removed from the poor and needy?   “I can give to the poor yet remain comfortable in my own bubble.”  “Yes, there are poor people but there are people whose work it is to see to their needs.”
I find it helpful to apply a term to the pope that I recently heard Prof. Andrea Riccardi (founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio) use; that term is periphery.  Pope Francis is a pope of the periphery.  This should come as no surprise.  The pope himself made allusion to this when he first walked out on the balcony of St. Peter’s to tell the whole Church that the cardinals of the conclave went to the far corners of the world to find the next bishop of Rome!  They went to the periphery.
Every city, every town, every society has a periphery.  It is where the poor live.  It is where people are marginalized and de-humanized.  It is the place often overlooked and forgotten and also where people fear to go.  Pope Francis is inviting the Church to a gospel awareness that it is just not enough to send money or aid or prayers or good intentions to the periphery.  We must go there ourselves!  Why?  Because Christ is there and wherever Christ is the disciple must follow. 
It has been my experience – limited as it is – that the periphery provides (when encountered consistently and authentically) a spiritual antidote to the stultifying effects of worldviews and ideologies turned in on themselves – which are multitude in our day and age.  The periphery can awaken one to the wonder of the Kingdom of God rather than the merely comfortable!  Again, to paraphrase some insights by Prof. Riccardi, in the periphery we learn that contrary to the dictates of the economy we do not have to substitute competition and rivalry for living together in friendship.  In the periphery we realize that the true history of the world often runs hidden and deep rather than in the illusion of the stages of the rich and powerful.  In the periphery hope can be found, take root and grow.  
The Church must allow herself to be evangelized by the periphery and the poor.  They know the suffering Christ.  
Last night, in the midst of the latest winter storm to hit the eastern U.S., members of the Community of Sant’Egidio in New York City took a warm meal and friendship to their homeless friends on the streets.  These men and women are not spiritual elites, they are not heroes.  They are simply disciples seeking to live their faith honestly and joyfully in friendship.  Wherever Christ is, there is life and wherever Christ is, the disciple must follow.  Pope Francis, as successor to Peter, knows this and he is pointing it out to the whole Church.  Hopefully, we will listen and respond to his invitation to the periphery.                                

Notes on Preaching, #3 "The Joy of the Gospel"

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by mcummins2172 in constancy, courage, Joy of the Gospel, measured, Pope Francis, preaching

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The homily cannot be a form of enter­tainment like those presented by the media, yet it does need to give life and meaning to the celebra­tion. It is a distinctive genre, since it is preach­ing situated within the framework of a liturgical celebration; hence it should be brief and avoid taking on the semblance of a speech or a lecture. A preacher may be able to hold the attention of his listeners for a whole hour, but in this case his words become more important than the celebra­tion of faith. If the homily goes on too long, it will affect two characteristic elements of the liturgical celebration: its balance and its rhythm. When preaching takes place within the context of the liturgy, it is part of the offering made to the Father and a mediation of the grace which Christ pours out during the celebration. This context demands that preaching should guide the assembly, and the preacher, to a life-changing communion with Christ in the Eucharist. This means that the words of the preacher must be measured, so that the Lord, more than his minis­ter, will be the centre of attention.  (EG, 138)

I once heard a Benedictine monk compare good liturgy to a beautiful and precise dance.  Pope Francis is displaying this same sensibility in his reflection on preaching.  Liturgy has a specific rhythm and movement and the preached word is part of this greater whole.  If the sermon takes on too much emphasis, if it only becomes about entertaining, if the true focus of Christ’s continuing dialogue with his people is denied then the rhythm of the whole liturgy is thrown off-kilter if not entirely lost.  The balance and rhythm of the whole liturgy must be kept in mind and maintained during the crafting of a sermon.  Preaching is part of the offering made to the Father and a mediation of the grace which Christ pours out during the (entire) celebration.  (One internal way that I check to see if my homily maintained the rhythm of the liturgical celebration is if it corresponds with the music chosen for the liturgy – chosen separately by the music minister and, more often than not, not discussed or planned beforehand.)  
Pope Francis is making news for his “off-script” remarks but it has also been noted that his sermons are on the shorter side.  It seems that he practices what he preaches.  The homily is a distinctive genre, since it is preach­ing situated within the framework of a liturgical celebration; hence it should be brief and avoid taking on the semblance of a speech or a lecture.  It takes more effort to be brief, concise and measured in what one has to say.  This also requires a true knowledge of the distinctive genre that the sermon is and its scope and purpose.  Pope Francis, through his exhortation and his very own practice, is demonstrating that he knows both what a sermon is and what it is not.  The sermon is not a speech nor a lecture nor a moment to entertain.  (Maybe a worthy exercise for any preacher is to reflect on these three genres determining their purpose and method and then, by process of negation, try to then move toward and determine what is distinctive about the genre of the homily.) 
One word that comes to my mind regarding the distinctiveness of the homily, and it is a word used by the Holy Father himself, is measured.  The homily strives to be measured both within itself (in technique, in focus, in use of imagery, etc.), within the larger context of the whole liturgical celebration (again it is part of the offering made to the Father) and, I would say, in regard to the entire and ongoing dialogue between Christ and his Church (as a preacher it is essential to know that any particular sermon is a small part of something much bigger – this allows the preacher to be rooted in the true and abiding source of inspiration as well as freeing the preacher from the illusion that it is all on him, an unrealistic weight to bear).
In the section “Cross and Mission” in the book Open Mind, Faithful Heart, then Cardinal Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) reflects on the essential value of apostolic courage and constancy in regards to the mission of discipleship.  I would contend that these are two essential virtues necessary to the ability to be measured in the full act (as laid out above) of preaching.  
I want to mention now two attitudes that clearly reveal that a person has assumed the Lord’s mission on the cross.  The two attitudes are apostolic courage and constancy, and they go together.  They characterize the person who, having received the mission, seeks to have the same sentiments as the Lord who gives the mission.  The defects opposed to these attitudes are presumption and fear.  One woman devoted to the Church spoke thus: “Fearful people will never make great progress in virtue, nor will they ever accomplish anything great; those who are presumptuous will not persevere till the end.” Both attitudes, courage and constancy … go together and reinforce one another…  Cowardice means shrinking back toward perdition.  When we lack constancy and patience, the very first challenge makes us want to come down from the cross in order to fight our own battle and not the Lord’s.  Courage supposes constancy; it makes us persons who strive after an ideal.  To embrace the cross, we need courage, and, to remain on it, we need constancy.
Good preaching demands constancy and courage; it demands the lived asceticism that the homily is another instance of the continuing dialogue between Christ and his people and the awareness­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­that the desire the preacher may face to either fight any of his own battles through the sermon or avoid the full demand of the gospel is, in fact, the temptation to abandon the cross. 
A life of faith, lived in constancy and courage, produces the wisdom necessary to know how to be measured in the proclamation of Christ’s gospel. 

Notes on Preaching, #2 "The Joy of the Gospel"

08 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by mcummins2172 in homily, Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis, preaching

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Let us renew our confidence in preaching, based on the conviction that it is God who seeks to reach out to others through the preacher, and that he displays his power through human words. (EG, 136)

Pope Francis calls preachers of the Word to a sacred remembering of the power of preaching.  Throughout Scripture we find, time and time again, God choosing to work with human beings in all of our limits to proclaim his plan and his grace.  From Moses through the Old Testament prophets to John the Baptist to the apostles and to the great missionary Paul – there is a need that the Word of God be proclaimed and the need continues in our day!  People need to encounter the Word of God in all its richness and challenging beauty!  
I find it interesting that Pope Francis, after making this bold and challenging proclamation, then moves to the almost seemingly mundane character of dialogue and conversation as the foundation of preaching. 
It is worth remembering that “the liturgical proclamation of the word of God, especially in the eucharistic assembly, is not so much a time for meditation and catechesis as a dialogue between God and his people, a dialogue in which the great deeds of salvation are proclaimed and the demands of the covenant are continually restated”.   The homily has special importance due to its eucharistic context: it surpasses all forms of catechesis as the supreme moment in the dialogue between God and his people which lead up to sacramental communion. The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. The preacher must know the heart of his community, in order to realize where its desire for God is alive and ardent, as well as where that dialogue, once loving, has been thwarted and is now barren. (EG, 137)
To help unpack this move toward dialogue and conversation I would like to quote in length a section out of Fr. Robert Barron’s book, The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism.  
At one point in his book, Fr. Barron is exploring intersubjectivity as a component of true knowledge. 
For the Christian, authentic knowledge comes not through isolation or objectification but rather through something like love.  Therefore it should not be surprising that the fullness of knowing would occur through an intersubjective process, with knowers, as it were, participating in one another as each participates in the thing to be known.  If, as the Johannine prologue implies, the ground of being is a conversation between two divine speakers, it seems only reasonable that the search for intelligibility here below takes place in the context of steady and loving conversation.  
In a lyrical and compelling section of “Truth and Method,” Hans-Georg Gadamer reminds us that a healthy conversation is something like a game.  As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are carried away beyond themselves in such a way that the game is playing them much more than they are playing it.  In a similar way, when two or more interlocutors enter into the rhythm of an intellectual exchange, respectful of its rules and of one another, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  The fundamental requirement for this sort of shared self-transcendence is a moral one: each conversationalist has to surrender her need to dominate the play for her purposes; each must efface herself, not only before the others but, more importantly, before the transcendent goal that they all seek.  To have a conversation is humbly to accept the possibility that one’s take on things might be challenged or corrected, that the other’s perspective might be more relatively right than one’s own.  
Holding these thoughts with those of Pope Francis we can see that preaching has as its true basis the very common and universal reality of honest conversation and dialogue rather than the latest and currently trendy fad, philosophy or method.  Rather than belittling the preaching task these depth explorations of conversation and dialogue show forth the true richness of understanding afforded this important and critical task!
The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. The preacher of the Word, along with the people of God, is himself caught up in this ongoing conversation between the Lord and his people yet he has a truly unique and important role to play.  The preacher must allow himself to be caught up in the game and must constantly fight against the temptation to dominate the play for his purposes.  This is a renunciation and an asceticism that every preacher must develop in his life.  If a homily is too self-referential then it has missed the mark and probably most of the people of God have already tuned out.  To make use of the above analogy – a person cannot play a good and rousing game of tennis if he is more concerned about how he looks rather than the game!  To preach is to enter into the great game of the dialogue between our risen Lord and his people! 
The proper progress of the dialogue though is dependent upon respect of the rules given.  Here are a few that I find present and have sparked for me in the thoughts quoted above.  
Fundamentally, the dialogue is Christ’s and not my own.  If my preaching is to mean anything then somehow Christ must speak through my words to the heart of those who are gathered.  This means that I must learn how to get out of the way and not try to dominate the play for my own agenda or emotional needs.  My experience has taught me that this is not as easy to do as one might think but it is essential.
For my preaching to be effective I must be in dialogue with Christ myself and I must be in dialogue with the community of the Church.  The preacher must know Christ and allow himself to be known by Christ fully.   The preacher must know the heart of his community, in order to realize where its desire for God is alive and ardent, as well as where that dialogue, once loving, has been thwarted and is now barren.  In order to know his community, the preacher must be with his community.  He must have the “smell of his sheep” on him as Pope Francis has famously said.  When the community is not known there is always the danger of preaching at people rather than continuing the great dialogue that the Lord has begun.  Would it not be an extremely sad thing for a preacher to come before the gates of heaven only to there be brought to the realization that his preaching was more of an interruption and distraction to our Lord’s great dialogue with his people rather than an assistance?
If authentic preaching has as part of its basis knowledge of the community then homily preparation is just as much about visiting the homebound, celebrating with families, serving the poor and weeping with those who mourn as it is about studying the Scriptures and reflecting on Biblical commentaries.  The preacher who shuts himself away in a rectory or a parish office is stunting his preaching potential and doing a great disservice to his community.  Christ dwells in the midst of his people, especially the poor.  Whenever and wherever Christ is encountered deeper understanding of Sacred Scripture is gained.     
The homily is the ultimate moment of catechesis but it is not just catechesis.  Scriptural studies and commentaries can provide good and worthy insights for preaching but preaching should not just become a lecture on Scripture or the faith.  There are appropriate moments for that (i.e. Bible Studies or Faith formation) but it is not the homily.  The homily is not meant to give facts about Jesus or his time or a period in Israel’s history; the homily is meant to help people encounter Christ, right now in their lives!    
Another rule – the preacher must learn how to allow the dialogue to carry him!  As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  In humble prayer, the preacher must first encounter the Word and let the Word speak to him, once something sparks then the preacher must let the Word carry him to where it wants him to go.  Again, this gets into not trying to dominate the conversation.  We need to trust that the Word of God is indeed active and alive and we need to trust that the Word will take us to what the community needs to hear.  I believe that it is the author Annie Dillard who once reflected that if you want to learn where a bee hive is (and hence find the honey) then you must first learn how to follow bees.  The preacher must learn how to be guided by what sparks for him from God’s holy Word.  The preacher must learn how to follow bees.
Some thoughts for consideration as this ongoing reflection on the importance of preaching to the great task of evangelization continues…                        

Notes on Preaching, #1 "The Joy of the Gospel"

30 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by mcummins2172 in ever newness of Christ, Joy of the Gospel, memory, New Evangelization, Pope Francis, preaching, sermon

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I have been told that I am a good preacher.  I am appreciative of this and take it both as a compliment and a responsibility to continually strive for but I have to admit that I sometimes wonder if people heard the same homily that I did when I preached at a Mass!  Fr. Mike Creson, a friend and priest in my diocese, once joked about given the same Sunday homily at a multitude of Masses (which can often be the case in my diocese), “The first time preached the homily is new and you stumble a little.  The second time you are more comfortable and it comes better.  The third time is good and you got it down although it is getting a little wearisome.  By the time of the fourth Mass, well … you wonder if even you believe it!” 

There are many factors that can affect the “effectiveness” of preaching (however one chooses to define that).  A number of which are out of the preacher’s control – factors going on in a parishioner’s life and in the life of a community, the attitude a person brings to church, the crying of a baby in a congregation and other distractions that can occur during Mass, duties and emergencies that can come up that limit homily preparation time and even just the temperature setting in a Church.  The list can go on and on.  All this being said though, the bishop, priest and deacon have a solemn duty to proclaim God’s Word faithfully to God’s people.  This is truly an important task and one every minister of the Word should give the utmost care and attention to; not least of all because we promised to do so at our ordinations!  
In his first Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel” Pope Francis spends a good bit of time reflecting on the value and importance of preaching in the overall mission of the Church with its mandate to evangelize.  Using our Holy Father’s exhortation as a touchstone and guide, I would like to offer some thoughts on preaching.  I do not know how many posts I will devote to this topic nor do I claim that every post here on out will focus exclusively on preaching without interruption until completed but I want to spend some time reflecting on this invitation of our Holy Father because, I believe, preaching is truly important in the Christian life and frankly, when preaching is minimized, community suffers.  
I know not every bishop, priest or deacon will be a Bishop Fulton Sheen or a St. John Chrysostom and I believe that Pope Francis is aware of this also.  But, when ministers of the Word continually strive to be faithful and authentic to the call to preach the Good News (whether we be the most dynamic speaker or not) something important happens in people’s lives because it is not only us at work, the Spirit of God moves through us – often very poor vessels that we are.  We need to trust in this and truly recognize that just a God works through us in the sacraments of baptism, matrimony, reconciliation and Eucharist so also is God working through us in our sharing and breaking open of His word which is an essential part of every celebration of the Eucharist.
It is worthy to note where Pope Francis grounds his understanding of preaching as expressed in the the first chapters of “The Joy of the Gospel” – the ever-newness of Christ (chp. 11) and memory (chp. 13).
Christ is the “eternal Gospel” (Rev 14:6); he “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8), yet his riches and beauty are inexhaustible. He is for ever young and a constant source of newness. The Church never fails to be amazed at “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom 11:33). 
Later in his Exhortation the Holy Father will reflect on every sermon as a continuation of the original dialogue begun by Christ with his disciples.  (The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. #137)  This is a wonderful understanding of the sermon and one I will reflect on in more detail in a later post but for our purposes here it is good to remind ourselves that we and our preaching are part of something much bigger.  Our preaching is not something separate from, nor just an add-on to the coming of the Kingdom of God; our preaching is part and parcel of this ongoing and ever new dialogue between Christ and his disciples!  For preaching to be truly effective and efficacious then the preacher himself must be ever immersed in an ongoing encounter and dialogue with Christ in his own heart.  The efficacious sermon will “tap into” this ever new and ongoing dialogue between Christ and his disciples. 
… as Saint Irenaeus writes: “By his coming, Christ brought with him all newness”.   With this newness he is always able to renew our lives and our com­munities, and even if the Christian message has known periods of darkness and ecclesial weak­ness, it will never grow old. Jesus can also break through the dull categories with which we would enclose him and he constantly amazes us by his divine creativity. Whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world. Every form of authentic evangelization is always “new”.
Yet the Holy Father goes on to caution that the “ever newness” of the Gospel does not negate memory rather, in the Gospel, memory is fulfilled and memory itself becomes a means of encountering the newness of Christ.  The apostles never forgot the moment when Jesus touched their hearts: “It was about four o’clock in the afternoon” (Jn 1:39).  A primary duty of the preacher is to call the community back to memory not in a sense of a mistaken nostalgia (“Things were so much better way back when…”) but in the depth of a sacramental sense.  When we remember, individually and communally, how Jesus has touched our hearts then we encounter Christ anew!  The preacher must preserve this deep sense of memory!  We live in a world that thrives on distraction and a glut of superficial information.  People are yearning for a depth to memory.  A sermon that just skims the surface of the superficial does no one any good! 
The believer is essentially “one who remembers”.    
Every sermon should call people back to this sense of memory and therefore to a new encounter with Christ.  People are starving for this!  They are not starving for the priest’s latest travelogue or the newest internet joke – that is the superficial they are fed every day of the week.  The Church truly nourishes and she does so through Word and Sacrament!  My spiritual director in seminary, Fr. Lou Cameli, once gave me a treasured piece of advice about preaching: “Just say something that invites people to prayer.”  It is about memory and the ever new encounter with Christ. 
Every Monday, I begin to pray over the readings for the upcoming Sunday and part of my prayer is a simple request to the Lord, “Jesus, let me know what you would have me say to your people.”    

 

Pope Francis and non-defensive Christianity

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by mcummins2172 in non-defensive Christianity, Pope Francis, young people

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My friends in Rome tell me that Pope Francis is drawing about four times as many people to the Vatican as did both Pope Emeritus Benedict and Bl. John Paul II.  Pope Francis has certainly caught the world’s attention and whether he is being quoted correctly or not people are showing up to listen.  

My own hunch is that many of the people are ones who have not felt connected to the Church in a while.  Why?  I think that the Holy Father is witnessing a non-defensive Christianity and that people find this extremely appealing and attractive, especially younger people.  Whether through his pastoral phone-calls, his choice not to reside in the papal apartments, forswearing security measures and wading into crowds or sitting down with a prominent atheist for a newspaper interview; Pope Francis is demonstrating a Christianity secure in itself and comfortable both in its own skin and in the world.  He is authentic and authenticity attracts.   
The pope has himself said that he is a, “son of the Church”.  He has not changed doctrine.  He thinks with the mind of the Church but he also demonstrates that he is not afraid to encounter the world, he is not afraid to be creative and that he recognizes the beauty of the world and of people while also not being naïve to sin and human weakness. 
The authenticity of Pope Francis can only be born of faith, humility and contact with the poor.  When asked how he would define himself, Pope Francis responded with, “I am a sinner … a sinner upon whom the gaze of Christ has fallen.”  What beautiful words!  And words that immediately connected the pope with every other single person on the face of the earth!  We are all sinners upon whom the gaze and mercy of God has fallen.  
A telling picture I have seen of then Cardinal Bergoglio was a random photo taken of him sitting, obviously tired and weary, on either a bus or train.  The story has been told of how he would take public transportation whenever possible during his time in Argentina – demonstrating both his chosen simplicity of life and his need for being with ordinary people.  If other popes have spoken of the “school of prayer” or the “school of the family”, Pope Francis has truly learned and knows the lessons and wisdom that can only be acquired from the “school of the poor”.  Wisdom acquired from the school of the poor cannot be faked nor pretended.  It is authentic and it speaks directly to people’s hearts.  
I think that it is also of import that Pope Francis is of an older generation and living a non-defensive Christianity.  This should not be underestimated.  I think Pope Emeritus Benedict also lived a non-defensive Christianity but, honestly, too many factors and false perceptions negated against this message getting out.  I think that time and history will demonstrate this component of Pope Benedict’s papacy.  Certainly, Bl. John Paul II proclaimed the goodness of God and the world but for most young people of today their first memory of him is rooted not in the athletic hiker and skier pope but in the time of his physical decline and ill health. 
Pope Francis is the first pope of our era who was not present at the Second Vatican Council. 
I have spent my priesthood working with young people and one thing I have found that truly turns young people off and shuts their ears is when older generations speak as if theirs was the greatest generation or when older generations (because the world may be changing in ways they did not expect) act as if the world is coming to an end!  Neither perspective being true and both demonstrating an inherent narcissism.  By living a non-defensive Christianity, Pope Francis (a man in his later seventies) is doing neither and I think that young people are picking up on it.  
Might a fair question of why young adults are not present in our churches be partly because these two forms of our own narcissism leave them no room in our church pews?  Honestly, why would a young person want to go to a place where either he or she is reminded that his/her generation does not measure up or that there is no future and that everything is coming to an end?  Both are denials of the possibility of youth and are ways of telling younger generations (in subtle and not so subtle ways), “you don’t really matter”.  
Pope Francis is not saying that.  He is saying quite the opposite.  He is saying, “You do matter.”  By living a non-defensive Christianity, Pope Francis is demonstrating a Christianity of hope and a faith that is certainly aware of the beauty and gift of the past but also open to the possibility of the future and he is demonstrating a profound recognition of the dignity and gift of all generations.  
People are showing up to listen for a reason.                   
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