Tag: preaching

  • The Not-So-Flashy Evangelism

    What’s Going on with this Blog?

    After I published a few posts, I had a conversation with my mom about the blog. She knows me as a writer who has spent a good portion of his career doing PR and marketing work. In short: someone who writes persuasively, hopefully with personality and passion. Upon reading my posts, her response was something along the lines of “It just doesn’t seem like you. You could give people more examples from your life, or more ideas about incorporating Christ’s message into their lives.”

    It was a good conversation. We agreed that my approach was more academic (for lack of a better word) and that the writing was a bit dense and not particularly flashy. Or even inspiring. She didn’t understand why I would choose to write this way, and I explained that these posts are simply my contemplations on the readings of the day, and will naturally reflect the stage of my own faith formation. I’ve been reading a lot of Church Fathers, writings on the liturgy, writings of past popes and other thinkers in the Church. I am particularly interested in delving into the layers of meaning found within the Word of God. Perhaps it’s my training in English Departments and years of close textual analysis. 

    St. John the Baptist Preaching, c. 1665, by Mattia Preti

    But as we spoke I realized there was more. We are also a product of certain biases about how things are done and how they’re most effective. I must admit that I’ve done a 180° turn in my approach to faith matters compared to my day job in marketing and PR. Much of this is due to the influence of a particularly smart and biased Polish Dominican priest named Jacek Buda. Thanks to years of tutelage — his recommended readings, long discussions over good vodka, and time spent in prayer together — I realize that I’ve taken on some of his more fundamental beliefs about the nature of evangelization.

    The primary nugget I’ve gleaned from my time with Fr. Jacek: our practice of faith must point to God, not to us. He’s likely the best homilist I’ve known, and not because he makes us laugh, is terribly witty, or tells us fascinating stories. He’s not a commanding, loud presence at the ambo; quite the opposite, despite his large frame and ample belly, he speaks softly (almost inaudibly at times!) so that his listeners lean forward, straining to hear. He simply uses his homily as that time during the Mass was meant to be used: to draw us more deeply into the Word of God by uncovering the levels of meaning therein. “What’s more interesting and captivating than the Word of God?” he asks. And as I’ve examined that question in the light of taking my faith seriously, the answer is that nothing is more interesting, enlightening, or important. Christ, the Word, is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). If I believe this, which I do, then the Word is much more incredibly powerful and interesting than we give it credit. Inexhaustibly interesting as many important writers have stated.

    our practice of faith must point to God, not to us.

    How do we know when our practice of the faith points to God and not to us? It’s really quite simple. Are members of the congregation using time before Mass to chat with one another instead of preparing for the holy liturgy? Then it’s more about them in that moment. Is a preacher talking about himself more than God? Is he developing a cult of personality around himself? Then it’s more about him than God in those moments. Do we constantly ask how to put Christ’s words into practice in daily life, turning our faith into a perpetual self-improvement strategy (or society improvement strategy)? Then it’s becoming more about us than God. 

    I don’t want to be misunderstood as an extremist here. It can be very instructive to hear a priest share a personal story as a way to better understand a gospel reading. The Church as the Body of Christ is communal, with friendship in its heart (perhaps not effusively in the chapel around the time of the liturgy, however, to harp on a personal pet peeve). And social justice and personal sanctity are important parts of our life as Christians. But I’d rather err on the side of pointing to, praising, and reflecting God with all my heart and being than reveling in the worldly and the human.

    The true meaning of the universe exists without us doing anything. And the amazing thing: that truth is fully present during the liturgy. As Catholics in the United States, we’ve taken on some unfortunate aspects of worship from our Protestant brothers and sisters. I have no ax to grind here, and I respect them as much as anyone, but they do not believe that Christ is really and truly present in the Eucharist at Mass, sanctifying them and giving them true communion with God here and now. So, of course they look for other things to make their services more interesting, palatable, and entertaining. But we do believe in the presence of Christ in the Mass. As such, we should not be tempted by a path of entertainment and easy palatability that simply detracts from the deep realities of the mysteries of our faith.

    So back to the question of this not-so-flashy blog. That aspect of entertainment, persuasion, even manipulation is something that we’ve come to expect in every aspect of our lives. I fundamentally don’t believe it belongs or is necessary when it comes to our faith. It’s not important that I convince you of something. What’s important is that every person seek God — yearn for God, learn about God — on his or her own. The Word of God is in the scriptures, waiting to instruct us and dwell with us. This blog, like Fr. Jacek’s homilies, is hopefully simply pointing to God in the scriptures and allowing Him to do the work that He naturally does in our lives.

    Photo by DoDo Phanthamaly, Pexels.com

    Here, we might apply the old adage, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” The type of writing typified by advertising and marketing wants to hand us fish on a platter, better yet, as many fish as we can eat, buy one get one free! Notice how this type of exciting, persuasive writing in fact gnaws away at our freedom to choose. So often the marketing promise contains an implicit “you’d be ridiculous to choose any other option,” it cajoles and promises what it can’t deliver, and in this way is manipulative. God does not operate this way. He maintains our freedom to choose light or dark and stands behind his promises. If we want to “point to God” in our actions and evangelization, we must also provide people a way to meet God as their complete selves and discover for themselves the wonders he provides.

    A last word of thanks to my mom. I’m glad you weren’t afraid to have that conversation with me, be honest about your thoughts, and hear my response. With God’s grace we can avoid hurting feelings when we’re truthful and act in love!

     

  • Mark’s account of the mute spirit exorcism

    Monday, 7th Week of Ordinary Time: Mark 9:14-29

    Today’s reading was that great one from St. Mark where Jesus, Peter, James, and John come down from the mountain of the Transfiguration to find their disciples in a bit of a ruckus with the scribes. As I read and listened, it was one of those times when the reality of the actual Word of God springing into our lives was evident. Every sentence struck me as being loaded with import.

    The Transfiguration of Christ: Part of an iconostasis in Constantinople style. Middle of the 12th century. | Wikimedia Commons.

    The crowds are “utterly amazed” when they see Jesus after his transfiguration. But we get no time to dwell on that piece of revelation because the old law of the scribes is once again challenging the new charism of the spirit. Off we go, back to his ministry! Jesus asks about the nature of their argument and “someone from the crowd” answers that he brought his possessed son to be cured but the disciples were unable to do it. This seems like a non-sequitur to me – was that really the argument the scribes were having? I tend to think from evidence elsewhere that they are claiming, as usual, that the disciples (and Jesus) have no authority to teach and drive out spirits because they don’t follow the law to the very letter. They’re probably accusing them of blasphemy.

    But the text continues without further discussion of the scribes. Jesus responds with a lament: “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?  Bring him to me.” His exasperation is clear. It’s almost jarring (for me, at least) because we honor the Transfiguration to such an extent that I’m imagining this white-as-snow figure of Christ fairly floating down the mountain, radiating love, having been face-to-face with the Father, and these words of complaint don’t seem to fit. It’s a great reminder not to get complacent with images and notions (especially romantic or emotional ones) about who the Lord is. We really can’t fathom.

    When the man explains about his son’s possession, he finishes with what seems to be a request based in an appropriate stance towards God: “if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Shouldn’t we ask for compassion and help? But Jesus pounces upon the first part of his appeal: “‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.” His exasperation continues, it seems. It’s as if he’s saying “can’t you all see who I am?” Then, Mark gives us one of the best lines in the gospels: “the boy’s father cried out, ‘I do believe, help my unbelief!’” We should all have this tattooed on our bodies somewhere. If that’s not the human condition, I don’t know what is. We are so weak in faith, that even our tentative belief must be bolstered by a plea for help with our basic struggle to believe.

    Piqsels/Creative Commons Zero

    Bishop Robert Barron’s daily gospel reflection picks up on this problem of faith. He writes, “Don’t think of faith so much first in propositional form—the things that I believe—but rather in psychological or spiritual form. Faith is an attitude of trust in the God who is always holding out new possibilities to us.” I really like thinking of faith as an “attitude of trust.”

    Barron’s words remind me of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who writes in Introduction to Christianity, “For to believe as a Christian means in fact entrusting oneself to the meaning that upholds me and the world; taking it as the firm ground on which I can stand fearlessly” (73).  I love his construction of faith as the firm ground, the thing that I stand on, that upholds me. He has a wonderfully large understanding of “meaning” in his book as going far beyond “knowledge.” He writes: “[To believe] means affirming that the meaning we do not make but can only receive is already granted to us so that we have only to take it and entrust ourselves to it” (73). Again, trust (not knowledge) becomes the operative function when it comes to faith. I guess this is what Jesus bemoans when he points out the conditional aspect of the man’s plea; the “if you can” part betrays a lack of trust.

    One other thing strikes me about this wonderfully rich gospel reading. The boy is possessed by a “mute and deaf spirit.” The significance must be noted. After Jesus drives out the spirit and heals the boy, his disciples ask him in private why they were not able to drive out the spirit. Jesus answers: “This kind can only come out through prayer.” My first thoughts are, “Oh, no, now we need an evil spirit compendium and a degree in demonology to do the good work of God in the world.” It just seems to be a weird qualification – how could the disciples, or we for that matter, distinguish between types of spirits and what is needed to drive them out? But that’s not what Christ’s message is during his ministry. It’s not magic or the arcane arts. The important thing he says is “through prayer.” What is prayer other than the verbalization of our faith, our trust in God, in order to praise him, thank him, and intercess for others? There is something important about speech, about the word, verbalization – which is faith proclaimed – that becomes an action in its own right. It’s no coincidence that this is a “mute and deaf spirit”: it clarifies the problem with not proclaiming faith, with not hearing the Word. Yes, here is the Word of God made flesh – as true of a testament to the power of logos in our world as there can be – reminding us that it’s not enough to have faith, but to put that faith into action through our own words and prayers.

    What a great reading for me as I contemplate the lay Dominican vocation. This order of preachers – what does it mean? What significance might it have for me? Is it about me being called to write and preach about God? Is there something that fundamentally fits with God’s call to us all? Today’s gospel seems to affirm these thoughts.