The Domestic Church - Make Sure You Read the Bible

Our children can be wonderful evangelists to us, their parents. Since I've been thinking about how to inculcate a daily Catholic culture at home, I need to remember that evangelization, at its best, is a reciprocal activity. Last week, my seven-year-old daughter left me a to-do list. It was simple and profound, as children are wont to do. They have a way of cutting to the chase.

Here is her list:

1. take good cari of Lizzy (Take good care of Lizzy) - Lizzy was the name she gave to a plastic necklace that she was pretending was a lizard.
2. take cari of your sellfs (Take care of your selves) - This was directed toward me and my son.
3. Dad make sher you read the Bible (Dad, make sure you read the Bible) - Apparently my son was not obligated to do this.

This was completely unprompted. And it was such a blessing in so many ways.

Little did my daughter know that she was reinforcing the message of the Second Vatican Council in Dei Verbum, which strongly urges us all to read Sacred Scripture:

The sacred synod also earnestly and especially urges all the Christian faithful, especially Religious, to learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures the "excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:8). "For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."(5) Therefore, they should gladly put themselves in touch with the sacred text itself, whether it be through the liturgy, rich in the divine word, or through devotional reading, or through instructions suitable for the purpose and other aids which, in our time, with approval and active support of the shepherds of the Church, are commendably spread everywhere.

My daughter did not make this list for me because she sees me reading the Bible constantly. Where this urging on her part came from, I don't know, but I suspect it was the Holy Spirit working in her to guide me. Who could resist such a team as the Holy Spirit and my daughter?

There is a wonderful group of faith-filled couples with whom my wife and I have been associated for the past year. Last year we met monthly to read Fr. Walter J. Schu's, The Splendor of Love: John Paul II's Vision for Marriage and Family. It was a very good book and sparked a good deal of thought-provoking conversation. This year, we are having a monthly Bible study based on the Acts of the Apostles, and we are using the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible edition. I have never been part of a Bible study group. Better late than never.

Visible Catholicism

The Booklady has written three postings at her blog on mental prayer on 8/10/09, 8/12/09, and 8/13/09 that I found very informative. I struggle with my prayer life, as I suppose do most who draw breath in this life. The Booklady reminds us of the importance of nurturing our interior life. By doing that, we will give expression to that spiritual life in our daily physical living out of that interior faith. In fact, the deeper our hidden interior life, the more visible will be our exterior faith life. We need to consciously foster that exterior faith life, too. We need to make visible our Catholic faith.

We can make our Catholicism visible in little and big ways. On both our cars is a bumper sticker that says, "You can't be Catholic and pro-abortion." My family and I say grace before meals in restaurants. I cross myself when I go by a Catholic Church, even if I am in a car with someone else. On Ash Wednesday, I try to go to mass in the morning so I will wear the ashes all through my work day. Eucharistic processions are a public act of faith and adoration in the Real Presence. I have an image of the Sacred Heart on my key chain, and sometimes a co-worker will need to borrow my keys because I have a master key to certain rooms. I don't eat meat on Fridays throughout the year, and when someone asks me if I'm a vegetarian, it gives me an opportunity to say why I'm not eating meat.

These are all ways (and there are so many others) that give us an opportunity to show the distinctiveness of our Catholicism. We are a consecrated people, a people set apart. We are in the world, but not of the world. As Catholics, we should appear different; our faith should be different from what the world offers. Let us strive to make visible our Catholicism so that others (and ourselves!) may see it, wonder about it, and be changed by it.

Traveling Evangelization

Evangelization is a scary thing to most of us Catholics. We don't want to impose. We don't want to be pushy. We don't want to make people feel awkward. We don't want to be embarrassed. However, evangelization is not optional for Catholics. We find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Since, like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth. (Section 900; based on the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church], section 33)

It is important to note that the Catechism tells us that evangelization is a right and a duty, and we should remain aware of both aspects. How do we cope with the fear that we have of evangelization? Lumen Gentium tells us about one of the most important ways:

Moreover, by the sacraments, and especially by the sacred Eucharist, that love of God and humanity which is the soul of the entire apostolate is communicated and nourished. (Section 33)

So what are some ideas for evangelizing in non-threatening ways, especially starting out? Since this is the season of summer vacations, and since many people travel for business, here are a few ideas that I have either used or am planning on using when traveling and staying in a hotel.

Rosaries

Once while traveling for business, I rented a car. In the glove box was a rosary. (It was bright-deer-hunting-season orange; simply hideous as far as aesthetics.) That started me thinking that I should say the Rosary while on my trip, which I did. I left the rosary on the desk in the room. After the maid had come in to clean up the room, she had very reverently hung the rosary over the center of the headboard of the bed. I was (and still am) very touched by that simple yet powerful gesture of faith. When I returned the rental car, I put the rosary back in the glove box for the next person.

So I would suggest two approaches. First, inexpensive rosaries are very easy to come by. Leave one in a rental car or leave one in a drawer in a hotel room. You never know how the rosary may speak to the next guest in the room. Second, while you are staying, leave the rosary out for the maids to see. Many maids are Hispanic and may currently be or may have once been Catholic, so such a religious object may have great meaning for them, or call them to a renewed use of the Rosary. Even if the maid is not and has never been Catholic, simply seeing the rosary may be some consolation to her in what is a difficult day's work.

Putting Money in Perspective

I once heard something about someone (possibly an urban legend) putting a large denomination bill in a hotel Bible. I thought, that's an interesting way to get people to at least open a Bible. And as we know from his Confessions, simply opening a Bible had a significant impact on St. Augustine:


So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, "Take up and read; Take up and read. " Instantly, my countenance altered, I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me: and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away. (8.12.29)

I don't put large bills in the hotel room Bibles, just one dollar bill. But I always put it in the same spot: Matthew 18. That is the part where Peter asks Jesus how often he has to forgive his brother if he sins against him. "As many as seven times?" (Matthew 18:21). Peter reminds me very much of myself in these moments, which is why he makes such a good patron saint for me. Of course, Jesus replies, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:22). Then Jesus tells the parable of the servant who owed his king an insurmountable debt. The servant pleads with the king, who forgives the entire debt. Then, the ungrateful servant goes out and threatens to put a man into prison if he does not pay him the much smaller sum owed to him. When the king finds out about this encounter, he throws the ungrateful servant into prison "till he should pay all his debt." The parable concludes, "So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart." (Matthew 18:23-35). This is what Jesus was talking about earlier in Matthew when he prayed "forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12). I like the irony of leaving money in a Bible passage that commands us to be charitable both as regards money and also as regards love.

Prayer Cards

I have not done this yet, but another item we can leave in hotel rooms is a prayer card. Whether they be cards for particular saints, cards with the Our Father or the Hail Mary on them, or some other religious card, these can be very meaningful to others. I think of Fr. John Corapi's conversion story in this regard. Although raised a Catholic, he had left his faith, pursued a life of complete materialism, and through drug addiction ended up homeless. At that point he began re-learning the Hail Mary from a prayer card that his mother had sent him. That child-like beginning started him along a path that led him back to the Church, into the priesthood, and into a powerful apostolate. Think of prayer cards as signposts left to mark the trail for other fellow travelers.

I'm sure others have more ideas. These are unobtrusive ways of spreading the faith that get us started on the path to more overt apostolates. When it comes to evangelization, let us all pray:

...grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness. (Acts 4:29)

God and Bread

I found out about this quotation today from Mohandas Gandhi:

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

This is a good reminder to us of the following:

1. We have an important obligation to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters. As James reminds us, "If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." (James 2:15-17)
2. When it comes to evangelization, we need to learn what people need and feed them. The Catholic faith is a banquet; we should feed others from the table what it is they most hunger for, not necessarily what we most want to give them. One of my favorite expressions for evangelization is "one beggar showing another beggar where the food is."
3. Finally, the Eucharist is God in the appearance of bread. The Eucharist is literally what Gandhi is describing here, although it is not what he had in mind. The world is so hungry for God, He comes to us as bread and wine, that our hunger might be fed and our thirst might be quenched.

Reflections on C and Es

Before I met my wife, I had never heard the term "C and Es" before. For those who may be as unfamiliar with the term as I was, it is shorthand for "Christmas and Easter" Catholics, that is, those who only attend mass at those holy days.

Such people are what are commonly referred to as "cultural Catholics," or what I have called "heirloom Catholics." While the fact that some people go to mass only on Easter and Christmas and don't attend the rest of the year is certainly tragic, this situation also offers hope. True, their Catholicism is something apart from them rather than integrated into their lives. However, they do have this tug, this tie, to something that they don't understand, and they still retain the sense that there is something important about their Catholicism.

That faint light can be used to show them the way to the full glory of The Light of World. Rather than referring to such people as "Christmas and Easter" Catholics, perhaps we should change the "C and E" to stand for "Come and Encounter." Those of us who attend mass regularly need to invite and catechize those who do not attend regularly. Catholics who can stay away from the mass do not understand what the mass is, or they would move heaven and earth to be at mass regularly. Rather than looking at the speck in their eyes, perhaps we need to think about the log in our eyes; what are we not doing to help our brothers and sisters see what they are missing? Are we showing them what they can encounter at mass? Do our lives and words reflect the joy, the transformation that is the Eucharist and the Gospel? Are we welcoming?

How did Jesus welcome the woman taken in adultery, or the Samaritan woman at the well? With truth and love.

What did the Samaritan woman do after speaking with Jesus? She left her water jar (that is how excited she was) and went into the city telling people, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" (John 4:29). Are we that excited about what we have found in Jesus? Do we invite others to "Come" to Him?

Let us pray to Jesus for the words, the courage, the humility, to invite others to Come and Encounter Him.

Joy and the Holy Spirit

I've been lingering over Acts 13:44-52 and Acts 14:1-7. Those passages are about evangelizing, but they are also about where our strength comes from.

Paul and Barnabas were in Antioch. Having been expelled from there, Paul and Barnabas "shook the the dust from their feet in defiance and went off to Iconium, but the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit" (Acts 13:51-52). How many of us, having been driven from a place, would describe ourselves as "filled with joy"? I was putting quarter-round molding in my son's room today and came up against a few minor obstacles (including busting my knuckle against a door trying to remove a nail), and I did not feel joy.

In fact, after leaving Antioch, Paul and Barnabas went to Iconium, and there they were "preaching fearlessly for the Lord" (Acts 14:3). Despite their experience in Antioch, Paul and Barnabas were still "preaching fearlessly." As one who is rather timid, I greatly admire Paul's and Barnabas' ability to speak in the face of opposition. Again, after their experience in Iconium, Paul and Barnabas go to the towns of Lystra and Derbe, where "they preached the Good News" (Acts 14:7). Despite the rejection, despite the threats to their lives (in Iconium there was an effort to stone them), Paul and Barnabas went somewhere else to preach fearlessly for the Lord. Indeed, even with such apparently negative circumstances, what they preached continued to be "the Good News." From one perspective, we might be tempted to say, "What's so good about it, if this is the result?" It is at those times that we need to remind ourselves that "Good Friday" does not seem very good, either. And yet, what appears to be a defeat is in reality a victory over death.

How can we have joy in the face of opposition? How can we have hope in the face of defeat? We can't, unless the source of our strength is God. The Holy Spirit gave Paul and Barnabas the courage to do this critical but difficult mission. Because of their interior life of prayer, guided by the Holy Spirit, they could fearless preach the Good News of Christ who is the Father's Word made flesh.

As we near Holy Week and contemplate Christ's passion, let us remember that the Good News is good but not easy, that our joy comes from pouring out ourselves rather than focusing on ourselves, and that after the Crucifixion comes the Resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.