The Temptation to Fill the Calendar

by Dan Masterton

It’s summertime, and the livin’ isn’t easy.

Gone are the days of 8:55 drop-off and 3:30 pickup. Here are the days of planning minimally two different activities for my bigger little kids.

My Sunday nights at the dry erase weekly calendar resemble the Charlie Day and Zach Galifianakis memes. There I stand, paving multiple avenues for the week’s days by which surplus energy and inexhaustible drive might be utilized and somewhat spent by the end of each day. This is largely a doomed proposition from the jump, for our two non-infant children are acing the whole “we’re not tired” test, filibustering bedtime nearly nightly and proclaiming “I can’t fall asleep” before evening prayers have even been recited and lights have even been dimmed.

For all the exhaustion and endeavoring for creativity in my weary heart (it’s not even July yet?), I am at least decently disposed to the chase. I have a “bucket list” note in my phone of big stuff to try for; my weekly calendar board has magnets labeled with each of our usual haunts (library, zoo, arboretum, children’s museum, etc.); I have flyers and browser bookmarks for the special summer events around town; I have a hitlist of playdate friends to hit up for meet-ups.

Thanks for reading A Restless Heart! My last paycheck bounced! My children — they need wine! Not a Simpsons fan, huh? Don’t worry, you can still enjoy these posts. Also, they’re free, and my family is doing just fine financially.

Ever since my wife and I made the choice that I’d mostly to stay home with the kids, I’ve always been the parent that wants my kids out and about. In part, this is an attempt to pair the direct, personal home time I get with my kids as a stay-at-home parent with the crucial, integral socializing they’d more naturally get if they were usually at a daycare or day-school. This has meant that playgrounds, library storytimes, park district classes, and all manner of social outings are part of the week-in-week-out fabric of my life at home with my kids.

I’m pretty Type-A, pretty organized, pretty resourceful — and this part of me gets to shine and gleam a bit in constructing this puzzle for and with my kids.

Yet, days like yesterday (Monday) come along, too, that leave me a bit flustered, frustrated, and even scared — days when I can’t come up with enough activities. When I drew up this week, I had a big blue circle and a question mark on Monday afternoon. We could hit a new splash pad after swim lessons in the morning — we wouldn’t even need to change! — but after coming home for lunch, there was nothing!

Library time needed to wait until Thursday, the day before we leave for a long weekend trip or else Lucy will read all her books before we even pack. The children’s museum would almost be closed by time we could finish lunch and run over there, so better save that for Tuesday. The special park district event is Wednesday, and the forecast is so hot for Monday that a day at the zoo would be miserable (we’ll go Friday before we pack). So what do we do?

The answer is obvious: nothing.

But I had already written “relax” in for Wednesday afternoon! That was already one module of planned relaxation time at home! Can I have two of those in a week? What madness am I inviting?!

It’s a struggle for me to embrace making fewer plans. But even just typing it out helps me acknowledge my absurdity.

Because of my personality and how my mind works, I am interested in structure, shape, and linear progression to such a degree that I’ve always struggled to play with my kids during these 3s, 4s, and 5s. When they’re younger, the randomness is more easily stomached; when they’re older, the understanding can be more easily reached. In this window, thought, their short attention span, the way they change their minds quickly, the way they set me up to contradict myself or mess up, the way they often can’t quite explain what they’re thinking or want — it eats at me. And I too often come into their playtime and imagined scenarios waiting to get frustrated.

So these lengthy blocks of time at home just feel like extended periods during which I will fall short, trouble our bond, and leave them irked. So I prefer to avoid it — to get out and about, to be playing and moving, to be going from here to there to here to there. In those transactions, I can be the effective cruise director who successfully shepherds them from fun thing to fun thing, and while doing so can more concretely provide the things they need — pre-packed supplies, snacks, water, gear, and more.

It’s a harsh self-characterization that is exaggerated, if still true. But I struggle to welcome the fallow time into our school breaks that we all could use!

Creatives take time away from the blank page and the new canvas to refresh their thinking and output; farmers leave plots of land empty for the soil to regenerate its nutrients and be better for the next crop; priests and religious take sabbaticals to decompress, study, and rest before returning to the field. While there’s many benefits to these things, it’s the fundamental reset and refresh for spirituality that is so crucial — a way to recalibrate and bring to new rest one’s soul.

My kids — and me — need to have this time somewhere in our week-to-week to retain our creativity, to struggle through these bumps in my road with them, and to keep learning how to be bored together and to cultivate fun from that boredom.

In our case, this spat of involuntarily fallow land this time was just right.

It was proper space for Lucy to warmup after being wet at the splash pad by reading next to the big, sunny windows; for Ceci to set up a hair salon and plop me down in her chair for a styling; for Brigid to get a cozy, home-field-advantage nap in her crib in the midst of a nasty sleep regression and the emergence of the feared first tooth. And for me, it was a chance to finish the laundry in the afternoon instead of at 11pm, to empty the dishwasher, and then to just be — in this case, to lay down next to my avid reader, using her Dalmatian slippers as a temporary pillow, and rest for ten minutes, and then to get my bed-head, unwashed, hat-head hair “styled” by a local artisan. And then after everyone was awake and content, we all lounged around, playing in orbit of one another bit by bit.

It’s so tempting to never stop creating, to plant on every square foot of land each season, or to try to serve up activity non-stop. It’s better when that hustle incorporates some empty space and slows or stops for a bit. I’m happy to say that, for a moment, I’m a bit more rested and surely quite freshly coiffed. 

A Little Help with Help

by Dan Masterton

Years ago, amid my day-in-day-out listening of NPR, I heard a story that struck a chord in me as a parent.

The reporter shared how kids whose offers of help and interest in collaboration are welcomed by grown-ups then grow up to be more consistently interested in helping. Essentially, the way you warmly receive and find constructive ways to accept kids’ interest in helping can have a significantly positive impact on their collaborative mindset as they grow and can become a firmer part of their personality.

For all the clichéd or inaccurate insights I’ve heard in seven-plus years of parenting, I really liked this one.

It’s something I had been intentional about as my oldest child, Lucy, got taller and stronger and more coordinated. I remember inviting a freshly-turned-2-year-old Lucy on to a stool to separate pepperonis for me as we mixed up a batch of meat, sauce, and cheese for our homemade rendition of “pizza bread.” She was delighted. It was a job she could handle and that she was excited to do.

That story couple with some early successes practicing this philosophy led me to double down. It became trickier as my middle kiddo then wanted to do and try everything that big sister was doing, but I try to stick to the mindset of finding components and subtasks in these processes that they can reasonably and safely attempt.

Then, one day at church, this philosophy crept into a new area that I wasn’t expecting.

As we prepared the bits of the ritual of baptism for our youngest daughter, Brigid, who was baptized last month on Mothers’ Day, my friend John (then a religious brother and transitional deacon, and now a religious priest) asked us to get a reader for the petitions. I thought for a moment and quickly had the idea — why not have Lucy do it?

My good friend, Cari, who’s been a youth and campus minister for decades, captured an excellent pastoral principle in tidy language: if there’s a role a young person wants to do, even if it’s a role usually filled by an adult, give them the support they’d need and have them try it. This has helped her expand youth engagement, widen youth leadership formation, and accompany young people in becoming stronger people of faith who desire to lead their peers.

My ideals of parenting and her ideals of ministry (which I share and support) coincided here as I took my 7-year-old daughter — who is an avid reader and also is already low-key a model Catholic who loves family faith formation nights and Children’s Liturgy of the Word — and showed her a slate of petitions to read with the congregation.

My wife, Katherine, took her aside to a quiet space to practice the words and clarify the pronunciations. When it came time to read, John unthreaded the microphone out of his vestments to bring it down to her level and hold it for her. And the two of them stood at her sides as she ministered to our little baptismal congregation by serving as a lector.

She did amazing! It was a joy to be a part of. I still remember, at her baptism, welling up as my friend Fr. Kevin prayed that “when the Lord comes, may she go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom.” And this felt like a beautiful step in that direction.

Then, last weekend, we were visiting a big group of our friends on a big vacation together. Our host-friends had their priest-friend out to our houseful of friends, and he said a house Mass for us. The lectors for the readings? Lucy and our eight-year-old cousin. And they did great! And as I beamed, I thought of how our families welcome this thread of kid-help and bring it with us into our lives of faith, including regularly going to Mass to pray together with our families and our faith communities.

These were small moments where a young person had an interest in helping. There was a place where her help could be needed and used, and where her gifts could minister to and serve others. Her help was welcomed and accepted, and her mindset of wanting to help and serve is nurtured, sustained, and hopefully furthered.

I hope we’re sensitive and attentive to offers of help — from little ones, from teens, and even from young adults. And I hope we all bring it thoughtfully into adulthood. I hope we never get so individualized or efficiency-minded or unimaginative that we turn down help. I know I’m prone to making things smooth and slick, and too often that comes at the expense of interaction and collaboration. I’m glad my daughter, my wife, my friends, and my faith could help draw me out of those things in myself and toward this life we ought to live in and with one another.

Do You Know A Guy? I Know A Guy

by Dan Masterton

Have you ever been to a Catholic wedding where it’s all too obvious that the celebrant doesn’t really know the couple? Often, the giveaway is the one-size-fits-all homily, where the Good News is preached, sure, but the pastorally sound thing of connecting explicitly to the couple is flimsy, if attempted at all.

Sure, it’s tempting to blame the priest. Did he even try to get to know them? Does he care about the couple? Is he burnt out and phoning it in? Maybe some of that is true; maybe he’s having an off day; maybe he was a last minute substitute celebrant.

But, have you ever thought — does the couple know the celebrant? Did they try to get to know him? Do they care about him? Are they lukewarm about the Sacrament or about their faith, and phoning it in?

I say this not to take sides but to reframe an oft-lobbed criticism. Have you tried to get to know a priest, religious sister, religious brother, or deacon?

Swings and Misses

Adult parish life is tricky, man.

At my first big boy parish, I tried volunteering to be a Eucharistic Minister and had a rough experience. The folks who did it were insular, cold, and weirdly mistrusting, or at least seemed that way to a 23-year-old me. (They wore albs, processed in with the priest, and sat together in the front pews; when I asked to sit with my girlfriend and then put on a robe and join them at the altar later in Mass, they didn’t want to let me.) And the way they and the rolled-in-two-minutes-before-Mass-and-threw-on-the-vestments pastor conversed in the sacristy was alienating to me. I realized this just as I had decided I was moving away soon, so I just let it slide.

At my second parish, my then-girlfriend and I belonged to an enormous city parish. The church was always packed, and we had a handful or more different priests rotating through as weekend celebrants all the time. In short, I didn’t try to get to know these priests, but I always appreciated that our pre-Mass announcements reintroduced to the celebrant and his ministry placements each time he celebrated Mass!

At my fourth parish, our elderly pastor rarely said more than two words, even when he was glad-handing before or after Mass. Our associate pastor was an energetic, charismatic fellow — nice enough but the kind of fellow who started each conversation with you as if you were meeting for a first time. We connected through the parish council on an idea for a parents-and-kids group, but after his initial word of support, I never heard back on anything again.

This is all to say that even when you take a step toward them, it doesn’t always work out to be besties with priests, for various reasons. But you might wonder — why do I expect that in any way at all?

Home Runs

For one, I grew up in a parish that spoiled me. Our long-serving pastor had essentially been left in place extra-long so that he could take newly-ordained priests under his wing, mentor them, and send them off to become pastors. Additionally, my mom was a second-grade teacher in our parish school, so between the pastor’s being her boss and her preparing half the parish for First Communion, I always felt like I had a strong sense of our priests.

Even more, though, I have had the privilege of being close with Viatorian brothers and priests. The Clerics of St. Viatorare a religious congregation that founded and still run St. Viator High School, my alma mater. Together with lay women and men associates, we strive to walk closely with youth and people who go underserved — I say “we” because I will be one of them after my commitment as a lay associate this fall.

In high school, some of them were my teachers, campus ministers, Sacramental celebrants, and service companions. I think what cemented our connection was the way they very unpretentiously made space for young people to lead and be heard. In high school, I was constantly invited to opportunities that, even now, still seem like major things for a teen, from editing a priest’s book of Gospel reflections to directing a one-day freshmen retreat.

My friend Fr. Corey Brost, CSV baptized Cecilia Jane for us, and then my pal Br. John Eustice, CSV (then a transitional deacon and soon a priest) baptized Brigid Felicity.

Young people often describe our men as “serious yet relatable.” They set an example of being committed to a life of faith, rich in prayer and service, while remaining “normal” guys who aren’t much different from your other friends. For example, my friend Br. John and I have served side by side at a men’s shelter as well as gone to a concert, a live music bar, and plenty of breweries.

I think this healthy connection with the Viatorians is a big part of why my faith is so steady and strong. It’s a natural part of my life in a way that is neither repressed nor overwrought. It’s organically a part of life as a whole. (And honestly, it’s part of why, while I respect and revere the Holy Cross men I’ve known from Notre Dame, from Fr. Jim to Fr. Peter to my classmates, I didn’t latch on to them quite so strongly!)

The Next Wave

I now work part-time with the Viatorians in a small pastoral and clerical role that they flexibly allow me to sculpt around primarily being a stay-at-home parent. One time, when I referred to Br. John, who was then my supervisor, too, my then 4-year-old daughter, Lucy said, “Do you mean brother like how Uncle Tim and Uncle Mike are your brothers?”

Here’s a recent episode of the podcast I produce where John and I discuss his nearly 20 years of religious life as a brother and his formation for priesthood. He’ll be ordained a priest June 8. We mostly behaved ourselves for this recording, and we probably could’ve made a director’s cut for our Patreon subscribers.

It kind of stopped me in my tracks. My instinctive answer? “Yeah… pretty much, buddy.” I briefly explained that he promised to live his life as a model of faith to everyone, in a way trying to be a good sibling or “brother” to everyone. But she wasn’t wrong! And I think it’s largely because she had been around me with the Viatorian guys, she had heard me talk about them and about our work, and she had developed an initial sense of what religious life maybe-kind-of-sort-of is.

In my seven-plus years as a parent, I’ve enjoyed the small but natural ways these positive relationships have suffused into our family life. Once or twice a year, I have a cookout at the house for my Viatorian friends, and priests and brothers are gathered around the same table as my kids. I bring my family to Viatorian Community events, like our Holy Thursday liturgy and dinner. And then there’s the wild card days, like when Br. John brings his table saw over so that he and I can work with my friend to put new baseboards in our bedrooms.

So What?

I often think about how our faith isn’t just meant to be a balm or crutch when things go sideways; in reality, our faith can feel insufficient if we only turn to it in crisis. I value — and try to model — a faith that is steady, that lives everyday, that animates most everything, during ups and downs and, most of all, everything in between

I think incorporating these relationships into one’s broader social life is a big boost to that suffusive, sustainable, solid-borne faith. So, if you didn’t go to Catholic school or you didn’t like Catholic school or you don’t have an in with a religious community of men or women or you have never connected with a priest or religious… where do you start?

Do you have any friends with priest/religious friends? Could you crash a meal or coffee with them?

Do you have any old teachers or youth/campus ministers who you liked? It’s almost a slam dunk that they’d be delightedto hear from you if you reached out.

If not — and this might seem like a wild one — invite your pastor over for dinner.

It might seem crazy, but… I did it once! At our third parish, I wanted to get to know our pastor, and he encouraged us to reach out to introduce ourselves so he wasn’t missing anyone. So I did! And he responded! And we planned a dinner at our place! And we made manicotti! And he brought wine! And he played with our 1-year-old, and she spit up on his shoes! It was lovely. And the subsequent, although often brief, interactions we had every time after felt much less superficial and feigned, especially for an introverted couple like Katherine and me.

It’s a neat thing to give a shot. It’s good for you and your faith life. It’s good for the heart and pastoral sense of a priest, sister, brother, or deacon.

And maybe, if you’re lucky, your new priest-friend will outlive you and preach a non-generic homily at your memorial Mass!

Bigger than Ourselves - Chapter 11: Some Non-Fictions about Writing Fiction

by Dan Masterton

So here we are, at the final chapter of what is (for now at least) my final fiction story. It’s been fun to work through the process and share it, and I’ve definitely learned a few things worth sharing.

The final chapter is a bit of an epilogue, so I let the last bit of the story stand on its audiobook-own. Here’s the reflections from writing these three stories and trying to get them out there a bit:

First, if you’ve ever wondered about creative writing or fiction writing, give NaNoWriMo a shot.

NaNoWriMo is shorthand for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that someone takes the month of November and attempts to write 50,000 words to tell a story during the 30 days. The specifics can vary from writer to writer, but the purpose is to set a tidy timeframe and a round-numbered quantity and set to it. While the peak of chatter and activity is November (the ideal time if the communal aspect will motivate you), their excellent resources for sketching and structuring a story and for setting yourself up to succeed are pretty evergreen.

In 2020, as we all navigated new waves of mask mandates, closures, and restrictions, and carried such uncertainty and change into the cold and indoor winter months, I decided to take the plunge on this during that November. Spending some September/October moments in brainstorms, outlines, and then intentional resources, I prepped a story and got down to business. I made it through 50,000 words before the end of the month, and spilled over into December with a few more bits. I shelved it for a few months, picked it up back up for review and edits, and decided to semi-publish it.

I took two more swings at writing stories — in 2021 and 2022 — and I ended up with three full-fledged (novice) medium-length works of fiction. It was a lot of fun to set a goal and work to meet it. I personally found the dash of specificity coupled with wide creative latitude was perfect to engage my creative side and send me in the right direction.

With the exception of a rare assignment along the way in high school, college, and grad school, I can’t remember doing much significant creative writing during school. It was fun to bring all these years of education, reading, and writing into a different mode and try to do something meaningful in a new way. You should give it a shot, too!

The audiobook podcasting and reflecting is complete! Things will shift to a more varied slate of reflections, akin to what longtime friends and readers are used to. Subscribe here to get them in your inbox!

Second, I am uncomfortable with self-promotion. I am unskilled at self-promotion. I am frustrated by the seeming necessity of self-promotion.

The darnedest thing about writing is that people will never read anything you write if they don’t know that you wrote it. If I could will it, I would love to get everything I write in front of a perfect target audience without my ever having directly personally suggested it to any members of that audience. Unfortunately, it takes the writer doing that on their own behalf or laboriously building an audience of people to be that extension; even with an agent or publisher, an author still needs to be committed to doing this big in order to supercharge the reach. I don’t have the stomach for it.

I enjoy small-stakes moments in which I might allude to something I’ve written or published. But, despite whatever arrogance and self-assuredness I possess, I’ve never liked the idea of doing much more than passive posts on social media. I even discontinued the Facebook Page I had going for many years because it just felt too much like an imposition and overkill, especially when I would re-share those posts to my own profile.

When I got these stories together into a larger book, I took one last good try at this process. I picked out some folks who do great work spotlighting things akin to what I do, and I connected with them over sharing these stories. My hope was that my casting a narrow, intentional net, that I could connect with the right audience, seek those connections in an authentic way, and then share myself and my work in a way that felt comfortable.

I was able to join one podcast, one article Q&A, and one web video series, and I am grateful to Jim, Robert, and Amy for their great work and their partnership in spreading the word in this way. Ultimately, these opportunities did not convert to massive book sales, but I am glad to have had the opportunity and appreciate getting those thoughts out to people who may have listened, read, or watched. If more opportunities come up to do interviews, panels, talks, or articles, I’d enjoy the chance, but my heart isn’t in the pavement-pounding or self-marketing that goes into increasing those opportunities.

Ultimately, it reinforced to me that I’ve always welcomed and embraced the things that come more organically, through my jobs, my friendships, and my professional network of ministry folks, and it also confirmed that I am ineffective, uncomfortable, and uninterested in trying to promote myself. I think there’s a line of questioning that helps me understand this not as self-promotion but more broadly or inclusively as evangelization or ministry or informing people. I struggle to get there.

I’d say it’s part aversion and part inability. And I can live with that. I am comfortable marketing myself for jobs and to get a placement in ministry, and I welcome what comes downstream of that. I know my call is to ministry, through pastoral interactions, through writing, and more, unfolding as it may, without pressing.

Finally, you have to be excited about making something artful, creative, and beautiful for its own sake.

Given the overlapping themes of young adults exploring their lives of faith in the Church, in discernment, and in relationship, I put these three stories together into one book. It was fun to title it (Go Your Way!), make some cover art (my Camino pilgrim’s shell!), and build the little compilation (a nifty navy paperback).

Making this website was fun, too —

almost like writing a cover letter for the public!

Visit bit.ly/booksbydan to browse around.

Even after all that work on the back end plus doing the things I described above to put it out there plus a few bucks in paid advertising, I think I sold about 25 copies of the first story standing on its own and then about 10 copies of the compilation. Eventually, I just lowered the Amazon price to a $0 royalty, and it’s basically listed for cost-of-goods and prints on demand per order. I like this better. I find I actually bring it up more often to others when the financial piece is zeroed out!

This is all to say that, while I would welcome an increased audience if it came, I’ve founded wider, deeper, fuller peace in simply writing — and in the editing, the design, and the process and synthesis — for its own sake. I write because my brain and heart seize upon questions and ideas and hash them out naturally, before I even need to be intentional about it. I write because I want to organize the reflections and synthesize them into something sharper. I write and share because I want to offer my process and result to others and find whether or not it has resonated with them (and this is the little place that drives me to still do this bit of self-promotion I do).

My friend Josh has an even more mature, polished handle on this complex. Put simply, he suggests, “There are precious few external rewards to this craft — writing is an exceptionally inefficient way to gain attention.” He suggests that if you can do an anything else that you just do that. And he’s not wrong.

And I think that’s part of why I can only be a writer as a component and complement to ministry. I can only write when I live out an incarnate faith in my life, in my relationships, in my marriage and family, and in my Church communities, and when I’m striving to be a John-the-Baptist in ministering Christ and the Gospel and our social teaching to others in accompaniment and formation. Doing that ministry and living my life fuel the writing and make it a major-but-not-sole part of who I am and what I do.

Yet, I want to write. I need to write. I want to share. I need to hear what people are reading and what they think of what they’re reading. And all of this happens best when I separate myself from seeking mass appeal or quantified audience or analytical engagement. I’ll never be able to totally avoid the insights data or ignore the quantity of engagement, but I’ll always be delighted to read a comment, hear someone’s response to my offering, or get the chance to have a longer discussion — because I wrote and shared.

Bigger than Ourselves: Ch. 10 - A Feasible, Realistic Image of an Ideal Church

 by Dan Masterton

What is your image of the Church?

Sometimes, you can get a sense of someone’s image without even asking them directly. When our lives of faith or our view of the Church come up in conversation, people’s reactions and the places they go organically can often tip this off.

For some people, their response jumps right toward the bishops. As they talk about the way the bishops declare and explain teachings — and in reality, if the bishops spontaneously come up, it’s usually to criticize them — you get a sense of that person’s probably hierarchical image of the Church. For these folks, the Church is its clergy.

Blogs are dying. Emails are proliferating. Why not automatically barrage yourself with another weekly salvo? Enroll in the inanity and insanity here.

In a similar way, sometimes people’s responses focus on the teachings themselves, the dogmas and doctrines and the catechism points and the expectations for Christian living. This image is one of rules and limits, of Church as police state or rulebook.

And sometimes, folks will describe a gathering of people, whether around the altar for a Sunday Mass, banded together for a charity collection drive or service project, or gathered for a social affair. Here, you see an image of community and the life they seek to share.

In truth, our Catholic faith and our Catholic Church is all of these things — we are bishops and clergy and teachings and a Christian lifestyle and a community of believers. And more. Yet, if we find ourselves particularly frustrated or disappointed by our bishops or priests, or we find ourselves particularly frustrated or disappointed by shortcomings in pastorally sharing and learning this faith, we may end up with a limited sense of our Church, and struggle to see past its bishops’ limitations and missteps or its inability to maintain a strong pastoral sense.

I think our faith is strongest, and perhaps most true to Christ and the Gospel, when it begins from a sense of the Body of Christ — that is, both a community of believers gathered in Christ’s name as well as the Eucharist that Christ instituted and gave us a gift to celebrate together and propel us outward to loving action. From there, yes, we turn to our bishops and priests for teaching and leadership, but we ourselves can learn and teach, too. And we look to our Church for a cohesive, coherent transmission of our faith and lifestyle, but we seek to live it out in grace, in accompaniment, and in mutual support and struggle to be all the love God made us to be.

As I go further into adulthood, and meet more and more lapsed or non-practicing Catholics, I count the blessings of having had a moderate and pastorally sound parish to grow up in, of knowing grounded and real religious brothers and priests in the Viatorians and the Congregation of Holy Cross, and of finding parishes as an adult and maintaining relationships where this pastoral, human, joyful community could continue to be found. And I wonder how we can bring more people, especially these Catholics, into positive experiences that might reignite a rogue ember and start a fire of faith in them anew.

In some ways, Bigger than Ourselves is meant to be idealistic, in that it portrays an ultimate hopefulness and good that comes when everything lines up well and people come together in the best ways. Yet, it’s also meant to be a feasible, realistic portrait of Church life and parish life — no one in this story and no behavior in this story in fairy-tale-ish or wildly unlikely. In fact, the people, their ponderings, and their actions all come from real life relationships and experiences I’ve had in my Church life.

I’ve long believed that my best form of evangelization isn’t systematic theology, apologetics, or debate and argument; it’s a life of faith, well lived, often understated but never hidden or diluted. I think the same is true of Church life and parish life — our steady dedication to coming together in Christ as the Body of Christ and responding with individual and communal lives of love and joy can show others the good of this life in Christ. I think this St. Brendan council of young, old, and in between; of lay and ordained; of deep faith and emerging dedication — they are an image of a community we can be and the good we can do, with and for each other, and for Christ’s sake.

Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 9: Step 1 - Reduce Institutions ... Step 3 - Profit?

by Dan Masterton

It sure seems to me that Catholic parish life is struggling.

As an adult, I’ve seen the issues up close, not just through how our parish looks and through my work in ministry but also through our own parental and familial choices.

Thanks for reading! Since blogs are being sent to nice farms up north, I’m doubling my posts over here on Substack, too. Sign up for emails of dripping, salacious, gossipy content here!

It’s always been important to me, each time I move, to minimize my church-shopping. I will try Mass in a few places, get a feel for each community, and think it through. But then I want to choose one place to settle, formally register, set a repeating online donation, and go to Mass and try to really plug in there. In our settled hometown for our family, we have done that and put down roots at one parish for a few years now. So in terms of commitment, consistent attendance, and financial support, we are doing what we can to vote with our feet in favor of one parish and parish life.

However, we struggle to prioritize socializing and seeking ongoing formation at our parish. As we hear announcements and flip through the bulletin, we grumble about trying to fit potential Church outings around soccer practices, ice skating lessons, music classes, and other appointments — not to mention sitting at home and relaxing together for at least some of the time. Most often, we come for Sunday Mass and our one night each month of family faith formation, and then we aren’t really around the church much. I may squeeze in a food drop for the quarterly soup kitchen crew’s cooking or bring gifts for the Christmas giving collection, but our in-person presence at anything more is minimal. So in terms of engagement, presence, and relationship-building, we are nearly a non-factor — and thus part of the problem a bit.

The potentially growing poverty of parish life is surely financial and infrastructural — younger generations are just less likely to register and donate, both to weekly collections (and capital campaigns I imagine), and vocations to priesthood and religious life are of lesser quantity than they used to be (though, in my work in vocation ministry, I do see a probable increase in quality of discernment and formation). But perhaps the greater poverty is the poverty of engagement. And that’s just the topline issue I would identify among families that do belong somehow.

Moving one layer outward, sociological studies are indicating a reduction in formal belonging, and perhaps an aversion, among Gen Z (generally considered those born between 1997 and 2012), including to formal religion. Yet, these studies also see a continued desire for spirituality and exploration.

In a sense, it’s a new version of the old issue of being “spiritual but not religious.” However, sometimes this is now connected with those who identify as “nothing in particular” or “none” rather than as atheists or agnostics. Where as the SBNR vibe was often a hedge or a cover against admitting atheism, this newer identification often indicates an active and ongoing desire to engage with one’s spirituality and beliefs actively. Yet, it is done so in a personal, often private and hard-to-identify way, and a certainly in a way uncoupled from institutional religion.

On one hand, I can understand the institutional distrust, especially of an institution with high-profile and significant modern struggles, not least its cover-ups and sexual scandals. On the other hand, I am skeptical of the idea of taking on major spiritual exploration disconnected from a community element — we know that many, if not most, things are richer, more impactful, and more sustainable when reinforced by a community experience and by relationships, from drug and alcohol addiction recovery to professional organizations to bowling and softball leagues. A tricky wrinkle is that I imagine many from this crowd would welcome communal religion if it was a grassroots thing. The problem there is that this breezes past the funny tension between desiring an organic, spontaneous start and a group that doesn’t strike me as especially organized or proactive toward this.

Whatever you may think about these tendencies or preferences, I find myself worrying about the downstream impact. Those who resist, oppose, or tear down institutions while desiring the things they perennially prepare and offer, and those who do so without all that much of an idea of what comes next, are playing a risky game. 

That’s easier for me to say because I am more optimistic about institutions overall, thinking those who are active and rise to leadership can make an impact that improves institutions. For those who are skeptical of churches but desiring spiritual lives, I would hope for a level of engagement that evolves to reform community spiritual life, especially among Catholics, rather than discard or reject it.

For Kevin, here, there’s a real challenge of taking the cold realities of data and subjective input and trying to make a strategic and sustainable decision. It is easy to see merging, closure, and reduction as the needed intervention; it is also easy to see the care and hope of people longing to retain a fading community. The harder thing, often, is to chart a third way, one that acknowledges increasingly sad realities yet also retains hope and responds with creativity. We don’t have tosimply close a bunch of churches; we don’t have to give in to high emotions that cling to fading models. The idea here is that Kevin, his bishop, and the people of St. Brendan may have a creative third way.

Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 8: Multi-Potentiality and God's Ongoing Invitations

by Dan Masterton

When I was in college at the University of Notre Dame, I always liked finding folks who had unusual combinations of majors, supplemental majors, and minors. Why pre-health and economics? Why accounting and theology? Why piano performance and engineering?

The conversation usually unfurled a fascinating combination of gifts, talents, and skills alongside intriguing passions and desires. Sometimes, it was more of a lark — a way to explore an intellectual curiosity at a high level and expand one’s mind; more often, it reflected a healthy inner tension that wondered what crossovers and professional potentials could be unlocked at an unusual point of overlap.

As an adult professional working in Catholic schools, this kind of person was all around me. While some colleagues were came into teaching from a classic education/subject area course of study, many others were this kind of hodgepodge I describe — the math teacher who could also teach classical guitar, the football coach and assistant AD with a divinity degree, or the theology and social justice warrior finishing a counseling degree.

And in a situation where you’re constantly underfunded, understaffed, and underrested, having a faculty/staff with diverse backgrounds, a wide range of skills, and ready passions goes a long way. There are plenty of times where a school can abuse or exploit this depth in their human capital, but, when this is well managed and done with grace, it becomes a major blessing — and an often necessary way — that a Catholic school can evolve and endure and sustain.

In a perfect world, the faculty, staff, and admins would have clear, concise job descriptions without amendments and add-ons and loosely worded “other duties as assigned” clauses to go with healthy salaries that help you stomach the time commitment. In reality, Catholic education usually has to be a bit more Mad-Max-Fury-Road. And survival and the chance to thrive are usually tied to the nimble ways that school leadership can identify its employees’ gifts, utilize them effectively, and try to juggle titles, responsibilities, and expectations flexibly to fit.

The strongest schools I’ve seen have sought to retain dedicated, talented people and use them and their skills in the best way possible. Usually, this meant clinging less tightly to cardboard-cutout titles and rigid job descriptions and leaning into more unconventional combinations. When you trust your people and manage the relationships faithfully, this can and does work.

Part of this is leaving space for people to grow and develop, and for people to admit and nurture secondary or subtler gifts they have deeper within them that can be brought to bear on the community. In my time in Catholic education and ministry, I’ve variously leaned into writing, graphic design, social media management, and community organizing in ways I didn’t know I had in me — and ways I didn’t know I’d want to. I’ve seen others go back to school for new and different training, seek out new roles in coaching or student life/activities, or pursue faith formation anew. 

All this is to say that we have a multi-potentiality within us that often only comes out by necessity in our professional lives, but often is rooted in wider, richer curiosities or even sometimes in impulses from younger days that may thrive when given new air to breathe. Sometimes, this can tax or stretch us in partly unwelcome ways; at other moments, it can unpack a long-wondered-about potential that enables us to grow and serve in badly needed ways.

Part of the mystery at play is God’s ongoing invitations. I used to think of vocation largely as “God’s call,” but I’ve found that language and understanding to be too reductive. Some religious brothers, priests, and sisters I know — many of whom work in vocation ministry — prefer to use the phrasing of “God’s invitation and our response.”

And my dear friend Br. John likes to add that “God’s invitations are ongoing.” It is neither a one-sided interaction nor a once-and-for-all prompting. God called us by name in birth and baptism; God calls us in our states of life, beginning as singles and then considering continuing in that or turning to marriage or religious/ordained life; God calls us to a vocational path of work or service; God calls us to particular lanes of that path; God calls us also to personal and specific vocational expressions. And all through these invitations, what we hear — and the response we discern — can evolve, both in expected and unexpected ways.

 

For Jill, she has always been a teacher. For decades, it has been expressed through patient education and peer mentorship and training. Now, that expression may be evolving, and just as her heart evolves in its understanding and desire to express itself, so, too, do the invitations come from God, especially through those faithful people around her.

God doesn’t waste any of our faithful presence to God, others, and ourselves. It is all part of our vocational path of striving to be part of Someone (Christ) and Something (the Church) bigger than ourselves.

* * *

In returning to blogging, my first project is to finish up the audiobook/podcast of my fiction stories. My three stories — “What There Is to Be Done”, “Abundance, not Scarcity”, and “Bigger than Ourselves” — are collected into “Go Your Way: Stories from Our Lives of Faith,” which is available on Amazon. (I basically use Amazon as an on-demand printer; the price is set to yield a $0.00 royalty.) My third story was in progress when I stepped away last summer, and here I’m getting back to it. Each episode is one chapter from the book plus a brief reflection.

Bigger than Ourselves is itself a series of short stories, about various people at a Catholic parish, and the book as a whole ties them together through their community life.

For more on my writing, visit my LinkTree portfolio or book information website.