Preparing for the Unpredictable

At the moment, it feels like we are in something of an indefinite holding pattern.  We don’t know what the next few months, let alone the next few weeks or days, will look like.  I am friends with a lot of teachers at various levels of the education system, and they are feeling the uncertainty particularly strongly as we enter the months of planning and preparation for the new school year.  What will our “public life” look like in the fall?  It is impossible to say.  And yet, teachers have to prepare for all eventualities.  Whether students are back in the classroom or still learning from home, teachers will be there to support them and their parents. 

I myself find myself working through several models of how I might present faith formation for those who would like to become Catholic.  We are very fortunate to have access to online options at the moment, but it can become a poor substitute for in-person interaction.  I find myself falling back on certain strategies I learned in my special education training classes in college.  Differentiated instruction, here we come!  Find multiple ways to convey the same information.  Simplify.  Break down.  Chunk.  All of my education buzzwords.  Don’t assume one way will work for everyone, just because it works the best for you.

Who knows?  Maybe we will stumble onto something that is better than what we had before.  And if not, that’s okay too.  We will adapt, and we will carry on, and we will do the best we can with the circumstances we face.  It doesn’t do us any good to despair over the fact that we don’t know what is coming.  Even when life seems to be predictable, it really isn’t.  Life is going to throw us curveballs, and our reaction to them is what matters in the end.

Give Us A Chance

A new group of RCIA inquirers has begun meeting here at Saint Ambrose on Tuesday nights.  We call the first “stage” of RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) the inquiry stage because at this point, those who are participating in the process are checking out the Catholic Church.  They are deciding if this is a good fit for them, if this is what is right for them at this stage of their faith journey.

At this point, the inquirers are giving us a chance.  Obviously, we want to put our best foot forward.  We want to show the best side of the Catholic Church and why it is a great “place” to call “home” (even though the Church with a capital C is much more than just the physical building).  This can be tricky, especially given the events and scandals of recent months and years.  But as one of our newly baptized Catholics who received the sacraments at the Easter Vigil in April said to us at about this time last year, the Church is more than the actions of some of its priests.

Our inquirers have taken the first step.  They are giving us a chance.  And whether the average parishioner in the pew realizes it or not, the entire parish is a participant in forming each new potential member of the Catholic Church.

Help us help them give us a chance, and put our best foot forward.

Life-Changing Moments

Life is full of moments.  This is made all the more obvious to us in today’s culture.  Social media gives us myriad opportunities to share even the most mundane occurrences in our lives using “Stories” on Facebook or Instagram, or through the use of dedicated video clip apps like Snapchat and Tik Tok.  With the proliferation of these services, sometimes it can seem like even small events in our lives become big moments.

It is important for us to take a step back and realize that some events really are bigger than others.  Some are truly life-changing.  Getting a first job (or a dream job), getting married, starting a family, etc. are all bigger, potentially life-changing events. 

Working with the catechumens and candidates in RCIA this year, I have been, and will continue to be, witness to several of these moments in their lives.  This past Sunday, we celebrated the Rite of Sending.  This means that we as the faith community of Saint Ambrose are sending the catechumens and candidates to Bishop Solis to become the Elect.  As the Elect, they will be received into the full communion of the Catholic faith at the Easter Vigil.  The Rite of Election will be this Saturday at the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

For the catechumens and candidates, this Saturday is one of the bigger moments in their lives.  It is something they will remember for the rest of their lives.  We in the RCIA team are here to support them during this time, but they need the support of the entire community of Saint Ambrose.  Please pray for them this Saturday as they enter the final stages of their process of Christian initiation.

The Quest of the Heart

What are you longing for at this stage in your life?  What is the desire of your heart?  What can make your heart happy?

In the story of King Solomon, we find a very unusual desire, an extraordinary kind of longing, the desire of his heart is to gain wisdom and prudence.  Many worldly comments would say, “Oh Solomon how unwise you are, how foolish you are, you are stupid.  You could have ask for riches, treasures, fame, power, strength and greater sovereignty and not simply wisdom."  But the heart of King Solomon desires nothing else but wisdom.  What makes his heart happy is to be able to serve his people better by his wise judgments as a King.

In the story of the rich young man in the Gospel of St. Mark 10:17-30, we have a story of a rich young man who went to Jesus because he was longing for something.  He approached Jesus and asked:

“What should I do to inherit everlasting life?”

Seemingly, this rich young man’s heart desires a noble aspiration and that is eternal life.  It seems that the rich young man was like Solomon, he seeks not something material but EVERLASTING LIFE … and so Jesus said, obey the commandments.  The rich young man answered:

“I have done all these things since my Youth.”

We see here again that the man seems to be aware of the word of God, aware of the commandments, perhaps he allowed the word of God to take root in his life.  It seems that he allowed the word of God to form him.  But Jesus wanted to truly purify his heart and said:

“There is one thing more, go and sell what you have, give it to the poor and follow me.”

And with those words, the rich young man’s heart was exposed,.  He was not ready to consider EVERLASTING LIFE as more precious than all his material possessions and wealth.  His face fell and with a heavy heart, he turned his back to the true joy of the heart which is EVERLASTING LIFE.  Jesus here issues a warning to all of us, If our hearts are not pure and determined like Solomon, if our hearts are not fully purified and tested by the Word of God , a great test might come to us and we might choose to turn away from God as well.

If our hearts are not pure and determined, a test over the grief of the death of a loved one might make us abandon God.  If our hearts are not pure and determined, a test of losing a job might make us abandon God.  If our hearts are not pure and determined, a test of sickness might make us abandon God.

St. Augustine once said:  “My heart is restless until it rests in God”  Let us find our happiness in God, let us desire nothing else but everlasting life with God.  In every decision we make concerning our desires, let us be enlightened by the grace of God.  In every longing that we face each day, let us beg the Lord to direct our hearts to the right way.  May we find our hearts one day resting in the heart of God.

Urgency vs. Patience

My mom often says to me, “Have a sense of urgency.”  Hurry up.  Things won’t get done on time if you sit around lollygagging your time away.  In a way, this is an extension of what my grandmother would tell her:  “Induljatok!” – Hungarian for “Get going!”

I have struggled with having this sense of urgency my whole life.  Part of it is probably genetic from both sides.  In my family, we do things very deliberately, and very accurately.  There’s probably a measure of OCD thrown into the mix.  My parents had to be very precise in their work, so it was a habit that both my brother and I picked up quite easily.

When we went to New England over Labor Day weekend, our tour director advised us that in one town, they had no sense of urgency, so ask for your lunch check right when you receive your food.  I told my mom, this is the town for me.

There are times when it is good to have a sense of urgency:  when you are facing a deadline, when you have an important appointment, or when there is some sort of an emergency.  There are also times when it is more advisable to take your time.  Journeys of faith usually fall into the latter category.  I make sure to mention to people who want to go through the RCIA program that this is their journey.  It goes at each person’s own pace.  The important thing is to discern how God is impacting their life at this point in their life.  What is He calling them to do at this moment?  What is His will for them where they are right now?

Perhaps during hectic times of our lives, it would be beneficial to slow down, even stop for a moment, and ask ourselves, what does God want of me at this moment?  How would He want me to act or react in this situation?  What would Jesus do in this situation?  And, at times when things are not moving along as quickly as we might like, we can remember that patience is a skill that perhaps we need to develop further.

Advice for Converts

As a recent (2007) convert myself, I think the article Submerged in the Ocean is very useful. Here's an extract:

The Church’s very oceanic vastness means that even inside one can be tempted to look at only one small corner of it and label it “Catholicism.” Some converts become obsessed with Church architecture or a particular spin on Catholic social teaching or a Marian devotion or a particular aspect of the liturgy. One of the convert clergymen at Newman’s Birmingham Oratory was so enamored of the Church’s music of choice that he wrote a book on it. Upon reading the manuscript Newman protested that Father Formby seemed to say Christ died on the Cross for Gregorian chant. Newman observed that this was not theologically accurate.

My obsession was apologetics itself. When I first came into the Church I consumed Catholic apologetic literature in great chunks—most of it geared toward answering Protestant objections to the faith. I don’t regret that. As I said, I still read it and now I even write some of it. But not nearly as much anymore. At a certain point I realized that my own view of Catholicism had a tendency to be restricted by the types of questions that I used to ask. If I were not to be stuck in a kind of intellectual and spiritual bubble I would have to continue looking at Christ from different perspectives. I would have to learn my Creed not just from the negative point of view.

Looking more deeply from other perspectives allowed me also to see and appreciate other believers—and even non-believers—in a different light. When you come into the Church from somewhere else, particularly if friends and family from somewhere else have given you trouble about it, it is easy to become harsh and impatient about others’ not seeing what you see. It is altogether too easy to become wrapped up in what non-Catholics haven’t got and not be thankful for what they do have. This doesn’t mean squishy ecumenism, but a generosity of the sort Newman demonstrated in a letter to an Evangelical Anglican:

I believe what you do—but I believe more. I rejoice to think that you with all your heart and soul believe our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world, and of every soul who comes to him for salvation; and the sole Saviour. I wish you believed the whole counsel of God. But in this bad time, when there are so many unbelievers, I rejoice to think that you are not one of them. 

I have learned too often that, as Renaissance writer Thomas Browne put it, “The cause of truth may suffer in the weakness of my patronage.”