How Do We Bear Witness???...

For those who have been reading here for a while, (there may be a few), you know that over the last few years I have gone through an number of changes in my thinking. Some more radical than others, but none it would seem to be without significance. Over the past week or so I have been wrestling with the question of how exactly do we as Catholic Christians bear witness to our faith? How do we bear witness to Christ, faithfully and effectively? In this case, it is my views on Sacred Scripture that have changed over the years, and have led me to this new enquiry. Now, I realize there are countless books out there covering "evangelization," but I'm quietly waiting for and seeking deeper answers. I'll try to explain...

50 years ago or so, a person seeking to be received into the Catholic Church would in all likelihood have received, in the format of lectures and or presentations, information about the Church. Divine Revelation was often presented as a collection of discrete truths and or doctrines to be believed. Assent to these truths was seen as assent to the Catholic faith. Divine revelation was equated with doctrine. (I realize I am generalizing). If the person received the information and also demonstrated good will and genuine desire, they could be baptized and received into the Church. There were two problems with this that were addressed by the Second Vatican Council. First, it reduced the faith simply to information. Secondly, and a more dangerous problem, the view that Divine Revelation was a collection of "proposed" truths to be believed, known as the "Propositional View of Divine Revelation" if pushed to extremes could and did, and still does result in all manor of fundamentalism, both biblical and ecclesiastical.

Catholics do and should get a little uncomfortable when either we or any of our separated brethren call the Bible the "Word of God." I realize that there are many different nuances of meaning attached to this term by various competing faith communities. My point here is that Catholics and indeed all Christians form whatever stripe should recognize that the supreme revelation of God to man is not a book, but a person. It is Christ himself who is the Word of God. It is interesting that Our Lord did not Himself write anything, which is no small point to ponder. As Saint Thomas Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologiae 3.42, and I am not quoting, Our Lord's teaching was of a much higher order.

The Word of God that was active in the Law and the Prophets has entered definitively and in totality into the world as one of us. The term "Word of God" refers properly as I said, not to a book, (although as Catholics we certainly venerate the Sacred Scriptures,) but to the creating and saving Word incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is in Him that God has spoken His unsurpassable word of love. We should not reduce Divine Revelation to a body of information about God, but instead view it as a living, vibrant encounter with God. Divine revelation comes to us as an invitation into relationship. Vatican II took up a trinitarian view of revelation, that of God speaking an eternal Word of love into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. How can we possibly reduce that to paper and ink? Seen in this way, for me at least, the problems and limitations of the propositional view come into sharp focus.

Do you see my difficulty? For many years I approached this idea of 'evangelism,' or more properly now as a Catholic, 'evangelization,' (they are not to be understood as interchangeable), as the passing on of information about God using my Bible. Today I believe the Scriptures are the divinely inspired record that bear witness to the Revelation of God in the Person of Christ, but that is a very different thing from the more fundamentalist "inspired, inerrant, infallible perfect word for word scripture.

So,.....how do we bear witness faithfully? If we are to be having a living an encounter with the living God, how do we bring others into meaningful dialogue with our lives? I am not looking for easy answers, in fact the more difficult the better....

Saint Benedict, pray for us

Serving, and Being Served....

"...the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves."

(Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke, 22:26-27) NRSV.

"...and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

(Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, 20:27-28) NRSV.

"You call me Teacher and Lord - and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, you Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."

(Holy Gospel According to Saint John, 13:13-15) NRSV.

"Everyone in the community should take turns serving in the kitchen and at table. None should be exonerated from the kitchen duty except in the case of sickness or the call of some important business for the monastery, because serving each other in this way has the great merit of fostering charity."

(Rule of Saint Benedict 35:1-3).

I remember the first time I read Eric Dean's "Saint Benedict for the Laity." It was a fascinating read for me as a Catholic, in that Dean is a Presbyterian and ecumenical Benedictine oblate. His take on a variety of subjects was unlike any I had yet come across. I distinctly remember reading the chapter on service and his personal sharing of the difficulty he encountered in his initial visits to a monastery when older, more frail monks rose to serve dinner to the guests. I couldn't help but have this come into my mind the first time I had dinner with my brothers at the Abbey of Saint-Benoit-du-Lac. I've had some time to reflect a little on this and have arrived at the conclusion that it is time for my little ones, my daughter who is 6 and my son who is 4, to begin helping out around the house. My motives are varied, so here goes.

How, and perhaps more importantly why should I try to get my little ones involved in the maintenance of the household? I suppose there are many reasons people would offer. Some may find doing the menial tasks around the house somewhat degrading, and so it follows that everyone should do his or her share. For others a more pragmatic reason might be proposed, teaching our children responsibility and how to take care of themselves now so that they will be able to manage once they no longer live in their parents home. Neither of these seems appropriate to me. Of course I want to teach my little ones about responsibility, but that is not my motive here.

I want to teach my little ones what I think is a higher ideal. Why should they help out around the house? I'm hoping to teach them that this is part of learning what it means to belong to a community. We all ought to be learning what it means to serve one another, to joyfully serve, and to take satisfaction from that service. For example, washing the dishes. Washing the dishes isn't done simply because it has to be done, (although they do and I understand that), it is done for the sake of the members of the household who need to use them.

It strikes me in the references cited above to the Holy Gospel and the Rule that in service to others, especially in something as simple as serving dinner at the table to our loved ones, the Mystery of the Incarnation is played out. If we have eyes to see, and ears to hear, we can see in Christ Himself our Divine example, that service to others is a privilege. One that all members of our household should hold dear. I am going to try and teach this to my little family.

God come to my assistance, Lord make haste to help me...

Simplicity.....Not so Simple....

Sigh........I started to go over the simple living manifesto, (see link below) and have begun to at least try and figure out what my life priorities are. Sounds simple enough. I was fooled. I'm beginning to see just how the unexamined life truly isn't worth living.

There are always the quick and easy answers like "Faith, Family Friends." I little reflection though challenged my naive notions. What do I mean exactly when I say that Faith is my number one priority? What does my faith really mean to me? How am I to go about living out this faith that I so confidently assert to be #1 in my books!!!??? The answers seem easy enough, or so I initially thought. However, after a couple of weeks thinking all of this over, I have come to some preliminary conclusions. As far as the primacy of faith, (having written down and reflected on what exactly I would like to accomplish in my personal and family life as a result), I can see that either I don't really value this faith that much at all, or I simply give mental assent to an ideal that I am simply to lazy and selfish with my time and energy to pursue. Either way, (I'm not sure which it is yet) something needs to change if I value this as much as I say I do. Perhaps I've deceived myself?

I have noticed how fond we as Catholics are when it comes to holding up the saints as examples of faith. We read about their lives, we tell the stories, and draw all manner of inspiration from them. The thought occurs to me though that If I were to actually meet a Saint like Saint Benedict or Saint Francis, or Saint Theresa, I would probably label them a fanatic! I know that when anyone I know shows this kind of zeal for the things of God, they get labelled fanatic or worse. What would my reaction be to actually being introduced to Saint Dominic? Would I tell these Saints to loosen up and have a little fun! I don't know......

Why do we settle for less and assume that it is the normal state of affairs? I know where I want to go, am I willing to go there? What will it cost me? I just don't know yet...

I know one thing for sure, this process and journey has only just begun. I'm going to push myself to complete the full work....

Saints of God, pray for us....