Archive for the 'Doctrinal Issues' Category
On Monday evening, one of the young people asked, “Would it have been better if Jesus didn’t die? Like, if I went into a time machine, went back in time and prevented him from being killed, would that have been better?”
What a wonderful question! I responded by explaining that Jesus came to save us, not to be saved and that, by dying, he showed us the greatest love that anyone can have - selfless love even to the point of giving up one’s life. Likewise, Jesus’ death allowed God to show his power over death, through the Resurrection. There is no avoiding pain, suffering, and death. But now we know that God can overcome all - even death.
How interesting, though, to see the compassion that underlies this question. The young man who asked it is not unlike Peter who couldn’t stomach the thought of Jesus undergoing any form of suffering. Peter, like my student and like most of us, did not understand that the only way to save one’s life is to lose it. (Matthew 16:22-25)
And this question came from one of the students who has given me the hardest time all year! You never know.
I always found it interesting that society as a whole embraces the Christmas story…creche scenes abound and the story is told and sung of a child being born in humble surroundings.
For Easter, we have bunnies, jellybeans, colored eggs, and flowers!
And yet, the reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place is because it is the birth of the one who died and rose from the dead. Without Easter - the Resurrection - there would be no need for Christmas. The 2 cannot be separated.
Personally, I’ve always felt much more drawn to Easter. It is after all the celebration of what forms for us the context of our lives: death and resurrection. Here it is that we find the meaning of life - not summed up in a pithy phrase but in the complex reality of death and resurrection.
I wish you and all those you teach a very blessed Triduum. I offer one piece of advice: go into these 3 days fully aware of how the story “turns out.” We don’t celebrate Holy Thursday and Good Friday as though we are sad and then turn happy on Holy Saturday, as though we need to act surprised that Jesus is raised from the dead. Jesus IS risen! We know that already. We commemorate Jesus’ suffering and death with reverence but with the knowledge that this suffering, and ours, is transformed.
We will meet again here next week when we will joyfully proclaim: Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
As we approach Holy Week, it is not unusual to see Catholic parishes, often the religious education programs, hosting a Seder Meal - the ritual meal that Jews celebrate to mark Passover. The intention, it would seem, is to show the connection between Eucharist and Passover.
It is true that there is an intimate connection between the Eucharist and the Passover. I would venture to say that one cannot fully grasp the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist without a basic understanding of the Exodus/Passover experience. It is no accident that on Holy Thursday, when we celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the first reading is about the Exodus/Passover event. It is also no coincidence that on Holy Saturday, in the Easter Proclamation (The Exsultet), we hear the words, “THIS is our Passover feast!”
Having said all that, however, there are some serious concerns about Catholics re-enacting the Seder Meal.
First and foremost, the Seder Meal is a sacred Jewish ritual. For Catholics to re-enact this sacred ritual is disrespectful of the Jewish tradition. (imagine Jewish or Muslim children re-enacting a Catholic Mass, complete with the giggling and awkward moments that are part of any childrens’ production). The Seder Meal is a Jewish tradition that Catholics should enjoy only if we are privileged to be welcomed to a Jewish Passover table.
Second, we do not know for sure that Jesus was celebrating a Seder Meal with his disciples on the night before he died. The synoptic Gospels indicate that Jesus was celebrating Passover with his disciples, but we do not know for sure how Jews celebrated Passover in the First Century. To teach that Jesus ate a Seder Meal at the Last Supper can be misleading.
Third, hosting a Seder meal on Church property can be tricky. The Catholic Church has not approved of Seder meals as a public ritual or devotion. For a parish to host a Seder Meal may give the impression that Church approval exists for such functions where it does not.
If Catholics wish to learn more about the Seder Meal or participate in one, I recommend the following:
- Catholics can work with the Jewish community to invite speakers to come and explain the Seder Meal to a group of Catholics at the parish
- Catholics can arrange to join members of the Jewish community as they celebrate the Seder Meal.
- Since the Church has not expressly forbidden Catholic reenactments of the Seder Meal, Catholics are free to use their judgment as to whether it is appropriate to take part in a Seder Meal and, if they choose to do so, it would be more appropriate to do so in the privacy of their own homes with several families attending.
Here’s a link to what the U.S. bishops have to say on the matter: God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching (1988)
Closing thought: It is encouraging that Catholics wish to learn more about our Jewish roots and such education will continue to improve Catholic-Jewish relations. I affirm this desire in all those who have been seeking to do Seder Meals. I encourage you to move forward, however, in a manner that is most deeply respectful to our Jewish brothers and sisters.
I had a list of topics that I’ve wanted to blog about and couldn’t decide which one to pick so I thought I’d address them all! Here goes:
- They came back! Kudos, once again to my DRE, Arlene, for making it clear that Confirmation is not the end. All of my students (save for one absentee) returned last night for their first class after Confirmation!
- Their biggest comment about Confirmation? “The bishop put SO much oil on my forehead!” I told them that this was a symbol of the abundance of the Spirit and of the outpouring of the Spirit’s gifts.
- My blog has been nominated for a Catholic Blog Award! My category is Best Individual Catholic Blog. Thanks to whomever it was that nominated me.
- Here’s some feedback about report cards in religious education from a DRE:
Dear Joe,
You asked for the results or feedback concerning the use of report cards in our program this year. In general it went well. I think the catechists liked the opportunity to use report cards for feedback. I didn’t receive negative comments from any of them.
We gave about 150 report cards. I heard of only six negative comments by parents. Only two were directed to me. They boiled down to saying there should be no report cards for religious education. One thought it puts too much pressure on children. The other wasn’t happy with one of her child’s marks.
What I hope to find out from catechists is whether or not a significant number of children begin to strive to do well and improve their weak areas. In other words, was this effort motivational.
- Lots of stories on the news about the Vatican announcing “new sins.” I find it amusing how many newscasters introduced this story with a smirk on their face as though to imply “that wacky old Church…still hung up on the idea of sin while we know better.”
- Another thought about the “new sins.” There’s a saying about heresies that goes like this: “there are no new heresies…just old ones in new packaging.” The same can be true of the “new sins” identified by the Church. They really are not new but the same old “seven deadly sins” in new packaging.
- Best quote related to the “new sins” story: “Father Antonio Pelayo, a Spanish priest and Vatican expert noted that it is time for both sinners and confessors to get over their obsession with sex and think about other ways humans hurt each other in the world in which they live.” Well said, Fr. Pelayo.
- If I have time today, I’ll watch Oprah’s second session on spirituality and offer some thoughts tomorrow or the next day.
Oprah Winfrey is hosting a 10-week course (online, free of charge) titled A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, based on the book of the same name by Eckhart Tolle. Over 700,000 people enrolled for the class with over 500,000 attempting to participate live on Monday, March 3 for the first session. Some had trouble viewing because of the overload.
Tolle describes himself as a contemporary spiritual teacher who is not aligned with any particular religion or tradition. A New Earth is Tolle’s follow-up to the 2,000,000 copy bestselling inspirational book, The Power of Now which encouraged readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived “in the now.” In A New Earth, Tolle attempts to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Oprah says this online course/Webcast is the most exciting thing she has ever done.
I viewed the first session (it is available on Oprah’s website) and have the following thoughts to share:
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I give Oprah credit for attempting to do such a positive thing, especially when TV and other media offer us so much negativity, violence, and drivel.
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Clearly there is a hunger for spirituality as evidenced by the incredible numbers of people participating in this course. The key for us as Catholics and especially as catechists is to help others recognize that Catholicism is a spiritual path. Too often, the Catholic faith is perceived as simply a set of dogmas and doctrines. And yet, Catholicism has such a rich and deep treasury of spirituality. Apparently people are not finding spirituality in the Catholic Church and so they are searching elsewhere.
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Tolle appears to be a meek and humble individual who sincerely desires to help people.
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At the heart of Tolle’s message is the invitation to find a stillness within. He invokes
Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.”
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Most of what Tolle teaches can be found within the Catholic Tradition and with much greater depth than he offers.
The Cloud of Unknowing does a much better job of teaching the type contemplation that Tolle is proposing.
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In general, Tolle does not talk about God but about “consciousness.” Oprah calls this consciousness, God. The invitation to be still is to get in touch with the greater consciousness (feel free to call it divinity) that dwells within us.
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It would seem that the underlying message in what Tolle and Oprah are teaching is that we should come to identify ourselves with the divine. This is not too different from the “you are God” message of
The Secret that Oprah was proclaiming last year.
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I find Tolle’s message to be very vapid (flavorless) – the goal is to be more in touch with “life” and with “a greater consciousness” – these concepts are very amorphous and impersonal. Spirituality is concerned with reaching beyond ourselves – transcending. The question is, what or who are you reaching out to? Catholic Tradition teaches us that we are reaching out to a personal God and entering into a relationship, not just tapping into some amorphous consciousness or force.
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Within the Catholic Tradition, the concept of
contemplation is how we learn to “be still” and know that God is God. In recent times, the practice of
Centering Prayer invites us to interior silence.
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Tolle insists that the goal to discovering our life’s purpose is to get in touch with life’s purpose and to ask life what our purpose is within that greater context. I’m not sure how you “ask life” anything because I’m not sure how he defines life. What exactly is this “life” that we are talking to? A person? A force? A thing?
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The first “caller” or “
skyper” (referring to the technology used to make video calls) identified herself as a Catholic and wanted to know how to reconcile Tolle’s spirituality with her Catholicism. Tolle attempts to assure people that nothing he teaches is in conflict with their religious tradition. This is well-intentioned but it is naïve and falls into the “basically we all believe the same thing” mentality.
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Oprah and Tolle have an aversion to the word dogma. They stress that Tolle has no dogma to teach…just “pure spirituality.” The word
dogma technically means an opinion or belief (or set of opinions or beliefs) that one thinks is true and authoritative. They, and many folks today, see dogma as restrictive of individual freedom and therefore as stifling and bad. Tolle does not realize that the moment he asserts that there is a “Consciousness” that we can all tap into, he is presenting dogma: his belief that he thinks is true and, for those who want to follow his way, authoritative. Catholics believe that dogma is part of the gift of God’s revelation, entrusted to the Church, and handed down from generation to generation to guide us to live in close relationship with God and with one another.
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Oprah says that she walked away from her traditional Baptist upbringing when her preacher proclaimed that our God is a “jealous God.” (see
Exodus 20:5) She felt that this trait could not be applied to God. It’s true that we sometimes run into passages in the Bible that are difficult to interpret but that is why we, as Catholics, are so grateful for our Tradition…there is wisdom to be found to help us! This passage speaks of God’s passionate desire to be in relationship with us. Jealousy here is not indicative of envy but of deep desire and zeal.
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Oprah says that Jesus came to show us “the higher consciousness.” Jesus of course, never used that term. Rather, he tells us that he came to show us the Father…someone with whom he is in relationship . Oprah also says that Jesus came to show us the principles that we need to attain this higher consciousness. Jesus did not come to give principles but to give himself
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Tolle is right in saying that religion is a doorway to spirituality and that sometimes that door is closed, preventing us from a deeper spirituality. This can and does happen unfortunately.
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Oprah quotes from a book by Elizabeth Lesser called
The Seeker’s Guide in which Lesser describes the difference between what she calls the old spirituality and the new spirituality. Lesser says that in the old spirituality, everything was hierarchical, God was defined, and there was only one path. According to her, in the new spirituality, you are your own best authority, we listen for our own definitions of who God is, and there are many paths. In others words, “no one can tell me what to believe or what to do. I just find it out within myself as I go along because God is in me and if I pay attention, I’ll figure it all out.”
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Tolle does not speak of sin but of dysfunction and how, through our own negativity and dysfunction, we all contribute to a collective consciousness that is dysfunctional. He rightly asserts that we need to examine ourselves to see how we are contributing to this dysfunction. It would seem, however, that in the end, we “fix” ourselves and thus can “fix” the collective consciousness. I don’t perceive any notion of being saved or redeemed by a higher power.
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Tolle speaks of the “voice in my head” but does not refer to it as conscience (at least not in this program). He says this voice is simply conditioned thinking and that, when we experience an awakening, we can move beyond it. He doesn’t stress conscience formation but rather “awakening” to that place within ourselves that is untouched and where the eternal abides.
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Tolle compares this awakening to the consciousness expanding that people attain through drugs but says the difference is that, with drugs, we always fall back to where we were whereas, through his method, there is no falling back.
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I couldn’t help but think of
St. Thérèse of Lisiuex and her “
little way” when Tolle talked about accessing the power of the present moment, especially in simple things. St.
Thérèse
, the Little Flower, does a much better job of addressing this concept.
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Tolle said flat out that God is another word for consciousness. I’m not sure how he comes to this conclusion since, as far as I know, God has not revealed himself to us as consciousness.
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Tolle insists that “how spiritual you are has nothing to do with what you believe.” I find that very puzzling. Again, to be spiritual is to seek transcendence…to reach beyond oneself for that which is greater than our self. We need to know (to believe, to trust in) what or whom we are reaching out toward.
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Finally, Oprah invited people to return for the next session to participate in this process of getting closer to who you really are and honoring your life’s calling and purpose. Those are nice sounding words but the only problem is that it is all so me-centered. It’s all about me. And this discovery all takes place in a vacuum…God is (or may be) involved but only in the sense that it is the God that I discover within myself. I heard nothing about recognizing one’s responsibility to fellow human beings. You may be called to that, but only if the God within you reveals it to you. No one or nothing outside of yourself can tell you what to do because then, we’re in to dogma and that, apparently is bad.
How often do we hear kids say, either about Mass or about religious education class, “It’s boring”? Too often, I’m sure.
Kids (and most of us in general) are engaged when there is drama involved. That’s why sports is so big…we don’t know how the game is going to turn out and so we are engaged. Movies and video games are big because we don’t know how they will end.
One of the challenges we face as catechists is to present the drama of the Christian story. This can be particularly challenging because, on the surface, we know how the story ends. During Holy Week, we enter into the dramatic events of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. And yet, we know “how the story ends.” Where’s the drama?
The drama is, in fact, discovered in how the death and resurrection of Christ intersects with our own lives.WE DO NOT KNOW HOW OUR OWN PERSONAL STORY “ENDS.” We do not know how the Paschal Mystery will “play out” in our own lives.
The only way that the Christian story, and Mass, and religious education can be perceived as boring is if we in general find life to be boring. Granted, we do experience redundancy in our lives, but there is nothing boring about the human experience. Our challenge is to tap into the drama of the human experience and show our young people how the death and resurrection of Jesus is found in that experience and how the paschal mystery of Jesus can transform our experience.
One way we can bring our young people to this realization is to be sure that we are always addressing the profound issues of life going on around us. We need to invite our young people to pray for and keep in mind those people who are sick, suffering, oppressed, enduring hardships, experiencing the loss of a loved one, or a relationship, or of a job, and so on. We need to invite the young people to share prayers for people in their own lives who are experiencing these things, as well as the great joys of life…births, accomplishments, victories, vacations, engagements and marriages, and so on.
Life is not boring. It is full of turns and twists that can make our heads spin. We need to invite our young people to plunge headlong into the mystery of life and help them to see how God is found in the midst of it. We do our young people no favors by suggesting that following Jesus is fun or that it will take away all of our problems. The biggest favor we can offer our young people is to recognize the profound complexities of life within the context of the death and Resurrection of Jesus.
My thanks to Fr. J. Glenn Murray, S.J. for touching on this topic in his workshop at the L.A. Congress this past weekend. It obviously made me think!
I hear that Oprah Winfrey is boasting that nearly 3/4 of a million people are signed up for a free online course that she is offering on “spirituality.”
It’s titled A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (based on a book of the same name by Eckhart Tolle). It invites participants to “connect with others who are seeking to become more aware of themselves-and the world around them.”
750,000 participants is nothing to sneeze at and I am not making light of what Oprah is offering. I think she genuinely and sincerely wants to help people. I put quotations marks around the word “spirituality” because I’m not exactly sure how she defines that and my guess is that it is not necessarily how we would define spirituality in the Catholic Tradition.
I suggest that we pay attention to Oprah’s online course, look into it, and see exactly how the Catholic Tradition can and does offer us opportunities to “awaken to our life’s purpose.”
If any folks, especially catechists, are participating in Oprah’s course, I invite you to share your thoughts, insights, comments, reflections, and questions here. I am not about to hold Oprah’s efforts up to ridicule. My goal is to explore what it is in her message and method that is attracting so many people and to see how we as Catholics, and especially as catechists, can develop more effective strategies for inviting people to consider the spiritual path given to us by Jesus and his Church.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting to about 150 high school teens and their group leaders at St. Francis Xavier in LaGrange. Our topic was Living the Mass and we had a very engaging experience together.
One of the parts I most enjoyed was speaking about the Lord’s Prayer. Here’s what I did:
- I recently purchased a replica of the Declaration of Independence (it’s poster size and only cost $9.95 from American Family Traditions Store).
- I asked how many had seen the movie National Treasure (2004, Nicholas Cage) and probably two-thirds raised their hands.
- I mentioned that in that movie, Cage has to “steal” the Declaration of Independence to save it from others who intend to do likewise but for the wrong reasons.
- I then unfurled my replica and told them that I beat Nicholas Cage to the punch!
- I asked them who it was that we declared our independence from (England/Great Britain) and who it was that was the ruler of England (King George III)
- I explained that our country is founded on the notion that we are politically, economically, and socially independent from the King of England who once reigned over us.
- I then explained that everytime we pray the Our Father, we, in essence, are making a Declaration of DEpendence on another King: our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
- I emphasize the words “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven,” drawing attention to the fact that Jesus used the word kingdom to describe God’s reign.
- I then talked a little bit about how traditionally, a kingdom is a geographical area (with boundaries) over which a king reigns and within which that king’s will reigns supreme. Likewise, the role of the king is to protect his people, especially those who are vulnerable.
- In Jesus, of course, we have a King whose kingdom has no boundaries and whose reign is not located in a geographical area but within us. In the Lord’s Prayer, then, we declare our dependence upon Christ the King, praying that his will be done in our lives and everywhere as it is in heaven.
- The Lord’s Prayer, then, is in fact our Declaration of DEpendence!
I like to use props when I teach because I think that they engage the imagination of kids. I realize that catechists can run up costs, at times, purchasing materials for their lessons. Some materials can be reimbursed by the DRE however, I like to keep a lot of my “props” for other presentations, so I tend to pay for them myself. I consider these purchases part of my stewardship.
Anyway, another aspect of bringing in something like the Declaration of Independence is that it makes for interdisciplinary learning (there’s a mouthful!). That simply means that the lesson makes connections between the various “disicplines” or subject areas - in this case, between religion and American history/social studies. It never hurts to think about subjects that kids are learning about in school and then see how you can make a connection to the practice of our faith. The more connections they make, the better the chance of them retaining the information.
Saint Patrick’s Day will fall during Holy Week this year for the first time since 1940. This means that there will be no Mass in honor of St. Patrick on March 17 which is the Monday of Holy Week (according to the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship).
Many Catholic bishops are asking for even more sensitivity to this overlap by urging parades and festivities to be scheduled outside of Holy Week. Many cities and organizations are doing just that. However, in Columbus, Ohio, the Shamrock Club is going ahead with its March 17 parade. The president of the club cites the following:
“It’s not a sin to celebrate your Irish culture.”
and
“Actually, you’re born Irish first and then you’re baptized.”
In both cases, he is technically correct but spiritually wrong. It is not a sin to celebrate your culture. It’s a matter of timing and of priorities. The word “holy” means to be “set apart for God’s purposes.” Holy Week is thus a time that we set aside from our usual practices to enter more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of Christ. To insist on celebrating Irish heritage during this week is to miss the profundity of the Paschal Mystery in our lives.
Likewise, when we place anything, including our cultural heritage, in a position of more prominence than our relationship with God, we are skewing our relationship with God. What is sin other than the skewing of our relationship with God and others?
Most importantly, the idea that we are born Irish (or Polish, or African-American, or Puerto-Rican, etc.) first and then baptized is chronologically correct. However, it misses the entire point of baptism. In baptism, we are born again, recognizing that our true heritage is as children of God. This is why St. Paul said,
“for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Galatians 3:26-28)
As in many cases, this is not a case of the Church asking us to say “No” to something as it is asking us to remember what it is that we have said (and must continue to say) a greater “YES!” to.
Being Irish (or any other ethnic background) is nice, but it’s not our source of salvation.
Catechists, let’s be sure to plan any recognition of St. Patrick’s Day with our students BEFORE Holy Week so that Holy Week is truly holy: set apart for God’s purposes.
It is with great sadness that I provide a link to my 4/16/07 post that followed the Virginia Tech shootings. In that post, I offered some strategies for helping children to cope with disaster. In light of the shootings at Northern Illinois University yesterday, I’m aware of the fact that some of us catechists may find ourselves in a situation where it would be prudent for us to speak about the incident.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the Northern Illinois University community and to the families of all who have been affected by this enormous tragedy.
I offer a few thoughts from a book by Fr. Richard Hauser, S.J., titled Finding God in Troubled Times:
Where is our God in suffering? We Christians do not have a fully satisfying explanation for why the world contains so much suffering. But we have something better: we have the power to deal with the suffering. We know where our God is during suffering. Our God is with us - in all the senseless accidents and ruptured relationships and interior brokenness of our lives. And we cannot claim to be living a fully Christian life until we believe and live this dimension of the gospel, trusting God’s presence and power working through our own “thorns in the flesh,” Gethsemanes, and Calvarys.
Click here to watch an interview with Fr. Hauser about the topic of finding God in troubled times.
