The Faith of Francis
The new interview with Pope Francis is out, and the average person and average Catholic is left to sift through the many news stories that seek to distill the lengthy interview into a palatable portion. Obviously, different media outlets have different editorial motivations to choose pulled quotes or otherwise summarize the conversation.
Ideally, the majority of people would read the whole interview, or at least open the primary source to view the transcript and skim through Francis' words for sections and subjects in which they are interested.
I'm not here to damn society for its habits, though I do fear the momentum of our BuzzFeed-ified style of gathering information. I think we can serve each other well by sharing our favorite parts with each other, so what I do want is to call attention to one of many bright spots in Francis' consistently inspiring message.
The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.Amid this section of the dialogue, Francis insists upon a bigger manifestation of the faith that fuels our being. Yes, the Church has strict, absolute teachings on divisive moral and social issues. Yes, the Church's positions can be unpopular and come off as dismissive or intolerant. The challenge for Catholics then becomes to delve more deeply into the truths and realities of our faith, strive toward understanding, and share that wider faith that proceeds from our God of total unity.
Francis is calling us to a more comprehensive, complete, lived faith. We don't need to cast aside the teachings we uphold, for they respond to the challenges of our times in light of the truth we know from Christ. We do need to broaden our perspective, and live out our faith beyond the parameters of any specific social issue.
Yes, abortion is wrong, but more than opposing pro-abortion laws and practices, how do we learn to love better, to better support mothers unsure about keeping their pregnancies, to strengthen the understanding of marriage and family? Birth control is wrong, but how do we develop a fuller understanding of sex, of self-gift, of parenthood? Homosexuality is a heavy cross to bear, but how do we better identify and magnify the dignity of homosexual people, love in relationship, and true expression of love?
Francis is exhorting us to live a faith that does not become boxed in by itinerant rigidity. We can call out sin in our society and in one another for what it is, but we are not militant policemen. We can simultaneously oppose social sin while also loving and calling to light the dignity of all people, all called to be ministers from Christ in baptism. Our faith can inform our politics and morality, but it is bigger than any issue or dispute. God calls us to live a faith that enfleshes His love, the love He showed by becoming Man, by dying and rising, and by sending us the Spirit to be with us always.
The Sunnyside of Social Media
Social media gets a bad rap these days. As with most any invention or new technology, people have used it for good as well as bad. We hear stories of cyberbullying, sometimes leading to suicides, of sexting and excessive sexualization of young people, of addiction, obsession, and self-absorbtion stemming from social media's growing dominance over people's lives.
Amid the darkness, there are plenty of times when social media helps bring light into the world. Like Good Samaritan-esque stories overshadowed by news of murders and shootings, good things are happening in the social media sphere. And even more importantly, as seen in this case, we can find God bringing the good that He always will bring from a potentially dark time.
A deeply beloved teacher was recently fired from my alma mater high school. The specifics of the circumstances are contentious and unclear, but our dear teacher took to social media to respond. He told all of us that he was in fact fired, that students were misled to believe that he had resigned, and that he was embracing this crossroads moment as a liberating opportunity in his life, concluding by saying, "I know God will not lead me down a path that is wrong for me. I want to thank all for the outpouring of support. You have touched me more than you know!"
There is always the back-and-forth of he-said-she-said conjectures, and we may never know the exact story. What we do know is that a man who was loved by 15+ years of students was now dismissed. He'd no longer man the post from which he made such a tremendous, positive impact on hundreds, if not thousands, of students lives.
Within a day of his sharing the sad news, 150 people had liked his post, and a beautiful stream of support, stories, and gratitude followed. Alumni came out of the woodwork to affirm and thank this great teacher and stand with him in a tough time.
50 comments in total tell the story of a swath of alumni and their concern, support, gratitude, and a host of other emotions in solidarity with our beloved teacher. Christ's victory on the cross showed us that nothing - not even literal crucifixion - was so bad that God could not work good from it. From Christ's cross came salvation for all, and from this tough time came love, community, and support for a man of Christ.
Planting the Seeds
Directing retreats is easily my favorite part of my job. The performer part of me, the part of me that makes me an introvert by only a small majority, enjoys being in front of a crowd, cracking jokes, being loud, breaking the ice, and defusing their awkwardness, even if by magnifying it. And the minister part of me loves seizing on that attention and guidance, on the budding community that can form on retreat, to push people to a meaningful, spiritually richer, faith-alive place.
The best part of all of that? Empowering youth to lead. The retreat is a blast, fun and one-of-a-kind in such a particular way. However, the training and communal preparation of a leadership team is the best to me. Walking the path of emotions and logistics is beautiful. How do you prepare a person and team to emotionally, mentally, and spiritually engage others while also giving them the tools - questions, a schedule, activities, etc. - that support that encounter? It's a challenge I embrace and dive into headlong.
I love to walk the prospective leaders through things dry-run style, exposing them to the same activities that they'll ask others to do - making them dance the dance, answer the questions, fill out the worksheets. Yet no matter what I do or say, we can't prepare for everything. I can only put in my best effort toward forming them to be capable on their own and then unleash them.
And inevitably, they face frustrations. They encounter students and groups who are even more extreme versions of the characters we role-played in practice small groups. They wonder if they've failed, or fallen short. And I try to remind them, as I remind myself in training them, that we can only do our best. We may never get to know the degree to which we succeeded in our leadership. We can only give our best most faithful effort and put it in their hands.
Ministry is a richly metaphor-ize-able topic, and I love gardening's applications to it. Ultimately as ministers, we are often gardeners. However, our gardening task may differ depending on the growth of the "plants". Sometimes, we are planting the seeds; sometimes, we are watering them; sometimes, we are pruning the branches on a shrub; sometimes, we are enjoying the fruit the tree bares; sometimes, we may end up resting comfortably in the shade of the tree. It is up to us to pay attention to the stage of the garden before us - in our small groups, in our schools and parishes, in our classrooms - and give our best effort toward gardening accordingly.
Whether it's an increasingly seasoned campus minister training upperclassmen or teenagers guiding freshmen on their first high school retreat, we must give our faithful effort in whatever stage of work lies in the vineyard, and then find peace in surrendering our effort and the encounter-in-faith by offering it up to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment