Monday, August 5, 2019

Encounter, Witness, Pilgrimage: Part 3 (Theology on Tap 2019)

by Dan Masterton

 Click back to Part 1 here | Click back to Part 2 here | Read Part 3 below:

Finally, let’s talk about pilgrimage. Most specifically, a pilgrimage is a physical trip one makes to a particular location of spiritual relevance, inviting special reflection as part of the journey. More broadly, though, pilgrimage is a mindset we can carry with us in daily life. This mindset embraces life as a winding path of discernment with various calls from God and special moments of grace unfolding on this journey toward our fullness in salvation with God. It helps ground our thoughts and decisions in everyday life in a way that helps us better remember that we are made from Love, in Love, and to love, and, ultimately, to return to Love.


Let’s think about this first with respect to travel. When we are coming up with ideas for travel plans, we’re often looking for what’s most exciting, most sought-after, most photogenic. And this can often lead to crowded itineraries with lots of extra travel time, jam-packed scheduling, extra costs, and perhaps a vacation that barely gives us any chance to relax and recharge. I know when I finished my year of service abroad and my best friend came to visit and travel with me, we were way too overzealous about jam-packing our schedule. We traveled multiple hours almost every day and almost never spent two straight nights in the same place over a ten-day trip. We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of unique things in a lot of new places, but it certainly would not qualify as a relaxing and recharging sort of trip. Now I’m not saying that you can’t travel with ambitious plans and a desire to see and learn about new places; in fact, some travel hopes just require a bit of ragged journeying and tight scheduling to get where you’re dying to go. Let’s focus on the mindset.

On the one hand, we can approach travel by sort of demanding that people, places, and things show us something we’re insisting upon -- I am going to go to Paris, and Paris is going to show me the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, and Arc d’Triumph. Are those even that cool of things? Do they warrant more than a brief pause to look on, admire them briefly, and leave space for other things? Maybe. On the other hand, we could instead approach travel by choosing a destination and inviting those people, places, and things to teach and show us something, with an open mind and humble heart. My brother once told me, “A tourist demands; a pilgrim receives.” It can be hard to let go of list-making and box-checking, especially when you go somewhere far away that you might not get to see again soon. However, it helped me feel more at ease when traveling to make that list, shorten it significantly, and do about half as much as I might have originally have intended, leaving greater space for the people and place to impact me.

I credit my best friend, Kurt, with setting me straight on this one. Kurt’s travels are almost exclusively motivated by relationship. Rather than choosing places to sight-see, Kurt chooses places where he can people-see. Most of his travels are trips made to see friends and family, stay with them in their homes, and see their local world. Then, if there’s a bit of sight-seeing to be done, it’s done in the company of family and friends and shared with them in a way they can host and curate as the locals. The whole attitude is one of humility, receptiveness, and gift. When the focus of your travels is seeing people and catching up with them, the whole equation is reset to get away from demands and toward open reception. This is a good mindset to remix your travel intentions, but it can also help us in daily life. Are we too frequently obsessing over making lists and checking boxes? Are we putting productivity and multi-tasking on a pedestal? Are we so obsessed with going out to trendy or photogenic places that we aren’t attentive to our friends and relationships? Maybe. The intention isn’t to discard your whole social attitude but to reflavor it with an attitude of pilgrimage.

To help illustrate the point, I’d like to talk about one of the most well-known pilgrimages in the world, El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I’ve gotten to do the five-day version twice, and the lessons of this pilgrimage have stuck with me. Quick facts on the Camino: it’s a system of trails through towns, woods, and countryside that winds through forests, along roads, and right through cities; the traditional Camino is about 35-40 days and 800km of walking, starting just over the Pyrenees in France, but many pilgrims start in Sarria in the northwest of Spain and hike just the final 110km; the route concludes in a medieval plaza in Santiago de Compostela, where a 1000-year-old cathedral sits on the tomb of St. James the Apostle and his companions; pilgrims carry a pilgrim’s passport that needs stamps along the path, ensures you discounted lodging in pilgrims’ hostels, and earns you the compostela certificate in Santiago.

So, along the way, you are living out of the pack on your back, relying on simple means, simple clothing, and simple meals and lodging. This typically means walking 20-30km a day, usually from dawn until late afternoon, eating a bocadillo for lunch, and finding some grocery staples to cook a simple dinner at your hostel kitchen. This means having lowered, basic expectations of the food you’ll happen upon along your way, being less picky and more patient, and waiting your turn to cook and eat at your hostel kitchen. It also means you may be able to offer extra portions to fellow pilgrims or be the beneficiary of others’ generosity if they prepare extra that they wish to share with you. One morning, my friend was making tea with some Irish teabags he had packed, and a French man saw and asked if he could share. My friend gave him some tea, and the man shared his French jelly with my friend in kind. This exchange happened because our hostel that night was a simple 12-bed room with a small yard, a kitchenette, and a simple common living space. Our close proximity fostered respectful treatment and natural sharing.

You might ask, “How do you travel hundreds of kilometers and know the right path?” Well, the Camino is marked with a seemingly endless string of yellow arrows. At times, they are carefully done on official road signs or displayed in intricate stone mosaics or carved markers; other times, they are just spray painted on to lightposts, slathered on to the walls of buildings, or tucked on to the bottom of a signpost. First, this invites trust. You have to simply accept the premise the a haphazard series of yellow arrows can guide you all that way to your intended destination and accept that the path they lay out for you is the right one. It can be a real test of faith, as you’re already roughing it in a foreign country and may find some frustrations as you go. Moreover, it’s a test of attentiveness. Are you keeping an eye out for the signs that you’re on the right path? In an age when we frequently eschew looking up directions ahead of time or even taking directions from friends or family -- in lieu of our phones’ ability to navigate for us -- the Camino invites you to walk with heads up and eyes open to ensure you see the signs placed there to help you. The call to trust and attentiveness helps sustain a pilgrim attitude as you journey westward and endeavor to reach St. James.

Finally, the dialogue on the way is simple. Spain is where Spanish came from, but for those of us who learned Spanish primarily from Mexican or Central American teachers, you may find some serious differences. While there’s Spanish Spanish across the country, there’s also dialects that differ by region of Spain, perhaps most famously the French-influenced catalan of Barcelona and Catalonia. In the northwest of Spain around Santiago, the dialect is gallego. Additionally, the Camino draws people from all manner of countries who speak all sorts of languages, many of them hiking with no particular religious motivation to speak of. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t go to the pilgrimage if you’re afraid of languages; it is to say that the Camino offers a simple way to bridge any language gaps that could separate pilgrims on the way -- and that’s “Buen Camino”. At any time of day, in any situation, whether you’re coming or going, pilgrims from all places simply greet each other with a “Buen Camino.” It’s good morning/good afternoon/good night and “how are you” and “good to see you” and “keep it up” all rolled into one, through a phrase that just means “have a good journey.” There’s something wonderfully soothing about saying and hearing it that brings me peace, just thinking about it… so, maybe go on the Camino? I don’t get any commission. I just really like it. Happy to talk more or share pictures later!

So all of this is to say, a mindset of pilgrimage can peel away a lot of the BS that modern life can try to impose into our thought process to cloud our daily lives of faith. I think the best way I could describe that temptation is as a flimsy quest for productivity and efficiency. I will admit that there are certain days or weeks, at work or at home, where I just feel deluged by to-do’s, and so I have to activate a bit of butt-kicking mode to dig out from that pressure and make it back to a better baseline. On the whole, the times when such a mode is required or needed are probably fewer are further between than I might sometimes think. The more attractive and helpful and important quest is that of humble, receptive presence, and a mindset that readily gives and openly receives love. So while it’s well and good to have a stated, prioritized direction for your life, toward deeper faith, toward stronger family love, toward career stability that provides for you and yours, having a pilgrim’s attitude of trust and attentiveness is a more peace-filled path toward that best life.

As we reflect on the pillars of encounter, witness, and pilgrimage, I wanted to conclude with the words of our Mass. I think sometimes the wording and structure of our Mass can be a bit rote or tedious or stumbly. But if we are attentive, the right words and phrases can leap out to us and touch our hearts with their grace and beauty. Every Mass, in the Eucharistic Prayer, we acknowledge the pilgrim nature of this life. And as we strive to more intentionally encounter one another and be better witnesses of discipleship in the love we share, this is the prayer I’ll offer everyone: “Grant also to us, when our earthly pilgrimage is done, that we may come to an eternal dwelling place and live with you forever; there, in communion with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with the Apostles and Martyrs, with all the Saints, we shall praise and exalt you through Jesus Christ, your Son.”
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Saturday, August 3, 2019

Encounter, Witness, Pilgrimage: Part 2 (Theology on Tap 2019)

by Dan Masterton

Click back to Part 1 here. Read Part 2 below:

Next, then, let’s talk about witness. Witness is about how we can strive to be a positive example of discipleship by our lives. Would you guys believe that you are all called to be martyrs? This is a group that includes a man who was cooked alive (St. Lawrence), two women killed in the Roman arena (Sts. Felicity and Perpetua), a man who was dragged for miles and then torched in a firepit (St. Charles), and more. Sound good!? Well, I’m kind of kidding -- martyrs are those people whose commitment to the faith endured even to the point of execution, but we’re not all called to that crown. On the other hand, martyr means witness, and we are all called to be witnesses to the love of Christ, by being the hands and feet of Christ’s love in our world. When it comes to the martyrs, we have just about everything in common with them except perhaps the way they died. Their lives give witness to how dying to oneself creates greater capacity for one to love fully and completely.


Just a quick stop on the martyr tour to celebrate two of my all-time faves -- first, St. Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Oscar was a sort of humdrum priest, trying to do his thing for the people of San Salvador. In the midst of brutal civil war, in which the military and corrupt government were cooperating in suppressing and murdering the campesinos, or farming/working class, Oscar was appointed archbishop of San Salvador. Initially, Oscar tried to not ruffle any feathers, opting to perpetuate a status quo unstable peace in which the Church sort of stayed on the edges of the fray and didn’t interfere with the government/military. However, over time, Oscar rejected this unjust detente and became an outspoken critic of the corrupt, inhumane, murderous regime. Through social action, blistering homilies at Mass, and the dogged celebration of the Sacraments, Oscar took the Church from being a silent and complicit enabler to a clarion voice for human rights and peace. His prophetic stand became too threatening to the ruling junta, and they dispatched a hitman who assassinated him while he said Mass.

Next, St. Maximilian Kolbe of Poland, and eventually Auschwitz: Maximilian was a Franciscan friar during World War II. His primary ministry was building a massive media network focused on evangelization and prayer, all under the patronage of Mary. As the Nazis grew in power and reach, he was arrested, jailed, and eventually freed, before being arrested again in a later round-up and sent to Auschwitz. There, he joined thousands of other prisoners in poor conditions, harsh work, and almost certain and impending death. Maximilian, despite his advanced age, regularly forewent meals to give food to fellow prisoners, heard confessions, offered spiritual counsel, led prayer, and did what he could to insist on loving all of his neighbors, including the Nazi officers. After a prisoner successfully escaped, the prisoners were marched out to the yard, where the officers announced they’d be choosing ten prisoners to be starved to death as punishment for that escape. Maximilian knew one of the randomly chosen men to be a family man with family members alive on the outside; Maximilian volunteered himself in that man’s place, and the officers assented. Maximilian continued his steady love and support even as he was starved to death. He was the last of the ten to survive, and his resilient spirit lasted two weeks before the officers decided to lethally inject him. Maximilian is considered a martyr of charity, since he gave his life in Christian love for that of another person.

In some sense, there is nothing extraordinary about Oscar and Maximilian as individuals. They were fairly normal people, living fairly normal lives, trying to be faithful and loving in their own worlds. The way that they loved, while it happened in extreme circumstances and under extraordinary pressure, is not a love that is unattainable. In fact, the example of saints is meant to show us just the opposite. Oscar, Maximilian, and countless others are canonized and celebrated to show us what we as sons and daughters of God are capable of doing, if we just die to ourselves a bit more and live more fully instead in Christ. The title of martyr is beautiful not because we want to seek a tragic death but because their deaths ratified the depth and magnitude of witness that their lives offered already.

This is why I love the martyrs. They challenge me to more intentionally die to myself and remind me what a faithful person can be capable of doing. As much as I may have ideas for how I want to spend my time, I know that my liberation and growth comes in loving others better, and creating space in me to receive love. When my wife calls home on her drive back from the hospital night shift, my temptation is to try to continue what I’m doing, multi-tasking and not paying full attention to her. But I know that she is just trying to be communicative, to engage with me before she gets back and crashes into bed, and use the conversation to keep alert as she journeys home. I know the loving thing to do is drop what I’m doing or what I wanted to be doing and be present to her and that conversation. Similarly, when I’m playing with my daughter, my temptation is to give myself too many and too long of free passes to turn on the TV to the game or pull out my phone and scroll. But I know that my daughter is just trying to include me and share something with me. Even if it’s the fourth time reading her the same book that morning or receiving the third request for applesauce that hour, I know that whatever I’d look at on Twitter can wait and that being present to my daughter is the greatest and most loving thing I can do.

It’s the martyrs and saints that provide the core witness to me, the ones who respond to Jesus’ life and love with great love of their own to show me how great love can be if I put it before all other things. One way to understand this better is by adapting Fr. Steve Bevans’ explanation of contextual theology. As Bevans tries to explain how experience can be an integral way to understand of our faith, he encourages several ways to engage that experience and be aware of its impact on our theological comprehension. One important aspect is what he calls “transcendental contextual theology,” where we approach our interactions with other people with genuine objectivity, such that we charitably and patiently receive their practices and behaviors without bias so that we might learn from what they do. *exhale* For our sake, I’d like to simplify this by using Bevans’ “garden analogy.”

Bevans compares this ideal to gardening, especially having an eye out for others’ gardens. Maybe you can think of a neighbor or friend or family member who keeps an immaculate lawn or grows delicious herbs or vegetables or maintains beautiful plants and flowers. If we have even a slight interest in gardening, our inclination is to ask that person how they do it -- How do you get your grass so green? How do you grow such tasty produce? How do you get your plants so lush and healthy? And the reason we ask the master gardener for their tips isn’t because they’ve stood on their front lawn barking out directives on how others should garden; we ask because we see the life in their garden and want to know how we can achieve that same result.

The ideal of witness carries this same element. Personally, I look to the saints and martyrs to reflect upon and learn more how I can be a better source of God’s love to others, how I can better be the hands of feet of Christ’s love. From there, I hope that my life -- my choices, my actions, my routines, my priorities -- can become a beautiful garden. I’m not trying to show off or insist upon a prescriptive model by which one has to strictly live; I am hoping that my prioritization of faith and family, my steady insistence on going to Mass every week, my commitment to give of our firstfruits to the Church and the marginalized, and more will be a quiet example that might help others grow in small ways. And this comes from the witness of my admired martyrs as I try to live a discipleship with Christ that offers witness to others.

Read Part 3 here.
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Friday, August 2, 2019

Encounter, Witness, Pilgrimage: Part 1 (Theology on Tap 2019)

by Dan Masterton

 Below is Part 1 of my Theology on Tap talk, Encounter, Witness, Pilgrimage: One Person's Way of Trying to Carry Faith in Everyday Life. Thank you to the young adults of suburban parishes in and around Tinley Park in the Archdiocese of Chicago for inviting me to share this.

* * *

I’ve worked with high schoolers in campus ministry for seven years. Among the many fun and interesting things I’ve shared with them over the years is a catechetical exercise called “Stump the Minister.” For a certain period of time, colleagues who have studied theology team up with me to take questions from the students, which the students contribute either by raising their hand or dropping slips anonymously and letting us screen them. It’s meant to be an open-ended way to invite students to express their curiosities, doubts, and confusion as they learn the faith. We get all sorts of interesting questions, from the typical ones that want reexplanations on sexual teachings and other moral challenges to some more unusual ones, some that are clearly silly attempts to troll us. One of the best questions we ever chose to answer was “Why are you Catholic?”

Each of us took a swing at answering it, as it’s one of the questions that’s simultaneously difficult and easy to answer. I told them that I believe religions are all trying to explain what the purpose of everything is. I explained that I believe Jesus Christ and Christianity are founded on love and its centrality to everything we do and everything we are. Christians -- in a way straight out of the Jewish Scriptures -- are called to love God and one another with all our hearts, all our being, and with all our strength, and thus to give and receive love with open and humble hearts. I told them that I believe Catholicism, with its centuries of lived faith responding to this call of Christ by building a worldwide community of faith, explains and lives out this call to love best, in my estimation. And that’s why I am Catholic and choose to continue being Catholic.

I felt decent about my answer; the students were disappointed. I think some of them were waiting for me or another teacher to trash some other religions and get on a supremacist Catholic soapbox. But maybe the other thing that left them wanting a little bit was that I didn’t really reference my own life of faith any further. What about my daily life as a Catholic was good and attractive and sustaining?


Well, in my 30 years of life, I've had enough religion/theology class, Mass attendance, and Catholic experience to fill a lifetime. As much as I love it all, it can sometimes be difficult to try to keep a clean connection between the immense beautiful Truth of the faith and the realities of a daily life of family, work, logistics, relationships, and more. The best way I can try to keep it all straight is to focus on central ideals of my life and my faith: encountering others through attentive, grounded presence -- ENCOUNTER; striving, whether explicitly or implicitly, to be a positive example of discipleship with Christ in the witness of my life -- WITNESS; and embracing the discernment, calls, and graces of life as earnest pilgrimage -- PILGRIMAGE. These ideals might be a good way for you to reframe your life of faith more intentionally or a means to engage your own life and identify the pillars that hold it up for you.

So, first, let’s talk about encounter, starting with conversation, especially small-talk. I am terrible at small-talk. As an introvert, I’m just not comfortable making those social connections and asking those little questions that forge a connection and help you get to know someone in the moment. I should have one of those shirts that says “introverted but willing to talk about my faith.” On a night like this, I’m a different person because I know by virtue of your coming here that you’re just looking for a chill evening when you can grab a beer, do a little listening, and chat with a few folks.


As such, when I do find myself in small-talk, or even when I’m talking more comfortably with people I know better and love dearly, I try to be attentive and focus on listening. Do you ever converse with someone and realize that, as they talk or tell a story, you’re maybe listening a bit, but mentally you’re focused on something their sharing set off in your mind? Then, rather than primarily listening, you’re formulating what you’ll share and waiting for them to finish so you can jump in. And then as you wait, you’re hardly listening at all anymore. And then you think your moment has come and you start to talk, but then you realize they weren’t done, and they keep talking. And then you realize you’ve been a pretty terrible listener.

This is a dangerous dynamic. Maybe it’s one that describes many of your conversations; maybe it’s one that only bites you once in a while. I know, for me, this is something I’ve seen in others’ conversations and in the face of people I talk to, and so it has become something more integral for me, as I try hard not to do those things that others do to bother me. This tendency is troublesome because it creates a dynamic in which you’re just using conversation as an outlet for stuff you want to say rather than embracing it as an opportunity to encounter another person and hear them out. The whole thing is a fine line. On the one hand, conversation needs to be about attentive presence to another person, yet on the other hand, conversation is meant to be reciprocal and mutual, an opportunity for each person to both listen and share. And since part of that is sharing experiences and thoughts that resonate with what your friend is sharing with you, it necessitates jumping in with your thoughts in response to your friend.

So the path to loving, humble, mutual encounter is in more intentional presence, one that checks your potential tendency to overshare or dominate a conversation. One way I try to rein myself in is through active listening. Even as thoughts arise of stories or experiences I may want to share, I set those aside initially to make sure I’m fully hearing out the other person first. I try to look for moments when I can help identify a word or phrase to more precisely describe what the person is talking about; I try to ask follow-up questions about details or elements about which I’m uncertain; I try to offer little summaries of what I’ve heard to see if I’m correctly understanding what the person is saying to me. And then, overall, I try to make sure I’ve at least done one of these things to listen and be present before I open my mouth with my own thoughts or stories. My hope is that I won’t take “my turn” until the person I’m conversing with has had a full opportunity for a turn of their own.

Building out from there, a mindset of encounter is built on the Catholic Social Teaching of solidarity. By the dictionary, solidarity is a feeling of unity, support, or mutual agreement; it is the way you stand with another person. In our social tradition, solidarity calls us to be mindful of all people as if they are our brother or sister. It means that while you should love your family and chosen friends deeply, you should also feel deep affection and concern for all people. When a group of people go hungry or persecuted or devastated by natural disaster, you should hurt for them and respond to them with the same affection as you would your family and friends. Solidarity is the call to honor all people in all places as equal and beloved children of God.

Solidarity is well practiced when it comes to service and justice, and it’s something that should animate how we try to serve. Yet, when done right, it’s a mindset that informs all your encounters in all areas of life, not just those times when you are “doing a service project” or “serving at a service site.” Initially, service usually conjures some basic feelings of goodness in the heart of a servant -- Helping someone else makes me feel good… Seeing that poverty and hunger really opened my eyes to the realities in our world… Knowing how some people are struggling made me appreciate what I have.

These are all worthwhile realizations, but a mindset of encounter calls you to look more deeply than just yourself. Encounter is about manifesting the fullness of your solidarity with others, and this entails mutuality and reciprocity. Rather than thinking you’re serving in order to do something for someone -- or conversing while thinking you’re doing something for someone by listening to them -- solidarity means acknowledging that the other person is teaching, forming, and loving you. It’s in this attitude of mutuality and reciprocity that encounter then becomes about both giving and receiving love, about your perhaps doing something for another person but definitely about someone else doing something for you. Rather than a top-down interaction, this enfleshment of solidarity happens side by side. In lieu of any sort of power dynamic, you instead gain the capacity to accompany one another. It becomes less about “what’s in it for me?” and instead becomes an intentional acknowledgement that a moment of encounter is a two-way street on which love ought to travel both ways.

This should carry into prayer. If we’re to really encounter God, we have to acknowledge the mutuality in our prayer. We may often come to prayer trying to change God or convince God of something we want or need; instead, we need to come to prayer with an openness to God’s changing us. While we may enter into prayer with guns blazing, ready to deluge God with our intentions, a catalogue of our worries or anxieties, a cascade of rosary-bead-fueled Hail Mary’s, we have to also include space for God to deluge us. God may not speak to us in the same fashion that we speak to Him, but that’s probably a good thing. It invites us to create quiet and attentiveness in our manner of conversation and in our prayerful attitude of encounter that allows God to impact us. Then in that way, we can encounter God in a better way that involves letting God encounter us.

Read Part 2 here.
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