Franciscan at Home

“I die, but God does not die! . . . Viva Cristo Rey!”

— Last words of Anacleto González Flores, 20th century martyr[1]

The accounts of the Christian martyrs never fail to captivate. Whatever our circumstances—young or old, believer or non-believer—we are attracted to stories of those who prefer death to renouncing their faith. We can be awed by the excitement of their adventure and their perseverance and determination in facing their heroic deaths at the hands of executioners or wild beasts. Yet, to equate martyrology to dramatic narrative misses the theological significance of Christian suffering and sacrifice.

The root of the word “martyr” comes from the ancient Greek legal term μάρτυς, “mártus,” meaning “witness” or “testimony.” In the early days of the Church, imprisonment and death remained a common fate for Christians who refused to recant their belief in the Gospel. But despite pagan and secular efforts to eradicate Christianity through the elimination of her stubbornly outspoken and often-prominent adherents, the Church continued to grow in numbers.

Tertullian, a second-century Father of the Church, offered an allegorical observation as he defended his fellow Christians against the sadistic oppression by the civil authorities in his Apologeticus:

Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed. Many of your writers exhort to the courageous bearing of pain and death . . . ; and yet their words do not find so many disciples as Christians do, teachers not by words, but by their deeds.[2]

Anyone paying attention to recent trends within catechetical programming is sure to have noticed that video-based resources are becoming more and more prevalent. This is true for both adult and youth catechesis. Video resources are now nearly as ubiquitous as textbooks. In many cases, textbooks even function as a supplement to videos, which constitute the greater part of the lesson. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to make a clear-eyed assessment of video presentations as a catechetical methodology.

Videos certainly have a number of advantages. The use of new media in catechesis runs lockstep with Pope John Paul II’s call for a new evangelization. Through digital media, students are able to learn from some of the greatest catechists and evangelists this new century has produced. Video-based programs are often more affordable than traditional textbook series—a major relief to a cash-strapped parish program. Furthermore, with the advent of streaming, catechesis is no longer confined to the traditional classroom. Students can now access catechetical materials from home and alongside their families. Finally, many of these programs are both thoroughly orthodox and incredibly well-produced. It is now possible to have a program that is on the “cutting edge” methodologically without being enslaved to passing fancies of theological speculation.

On the other hand, videos also have their drawbacks. Linda Stone, a former consultant for tech giants Apple and Microsoft, coined the phrase “continuous partial attention” to describe how many of us go about our day-to-day lives.[1] Our attention is constantly divided between many different, simultaneous objects: we watch the news while checking our email, making breakfast, and talking on the phone. Without a doubt, video media, especially with the rise of short-form content, has exacerbated this condition. Catechists should carefully consider whether it is wise to adopt a form of content that is nearly synonymous with distraction. Additionally, there is a temptation to let the personalities on screen replace the personality of the catechist. A catechist cannot be reduced to someone merely pressing play on a video; they must be an active agent and a witness to their students.

The year 2025 will mark the occasion of an ordinary Jubilee. Pope Francis announced the Jubilee Year on May 9, 2024 with the Apostolic Letter Spes non Confundit (SC), "Hope Does Not Disappoint", and it officially began on December 24, 2024, with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. But, what is the Jubilee? Where does it come from, and why does the Church continue to celebrate it? How will it be celebrated in 2025?

Encountering Hope

“May the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus” (SC, 1). This is the hope that moves the pope in declaring the Holy Year of 2025. This is the center of the Holy Year: a genuine encounter. The encounter is with the Crucified and Risen One, the Son of the Father, Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Living One. It is a personal encounter because it is shaped by the reality in which we live—the specific time that the People of the Lord and the human community are living through, their culture, their characteristics, their gifts, their specific dramas, etc.

This encounter is marked by a very particular tone: we are to meet the Lord in the environment of hope. In fact, this encounter is a source of hope. The encounter with the Crucified and Risen Lord guarantees that hope will “not disappoint” (Rom 5:5). In Spanish, this phrase is la esperanza no defrauda—hope does not deceive you, does not fool you, does not mislead you. The Greek verb used by Paul (καταισχύνει) also carries the connotation of shame: hope will not leave you ashamed. It is not something to be embarrassed about. In summary, you can trust it. It is solid ground. But, what kind of certainty is this?

It is not the certainty of someone who already knows everything in advance, consumed by the anxiety of control. It is the agile confidence of one who knows they are supported by what is necessary and sufficient—the announcement of the Gospel—to cross any kind of terrain, even one made of tribulations and sufferings.

I believe I shall see the LORD’S goodness
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD, take courage;
be stouthearted, wait for the LORD!

—Psalm 27:13–14

Nothing has gone out of vogue like waiting.

“Buy Now.” Instacart. DoorDash. Prime. No wait: press button and skip line. Our hypertechnical society seems to have finally pushed through what has been a problem for human beings from the beginning. After all, Eve’s doubt in God’s providence, a deep suspicion sown by the cunning serpent, led her to reach out and take matters into her own hands as Adam stood by silently affirming the sinful act. Why wait for the Lord when she could make it happen instantly? We are no different today. Human beings have always hated waiting and have tried to do something about it.

If the Church’s doctrine of purgatory was ever fashionable, it is passé now. Our culture has dismissed hell as an antiquarian, fear-mongering tactic used by religious officials to control people. Meanwhile, humanitarian efforts and good -people-ism have neutralized its threat. And why wait for heaven? We can build our own tech-utopia here! With hell removed from the scene and heavenly decadence on earth, purgatory has no place. We don’t have time for it.

But maybe we should.

Revisiting Purgatory

Death initiates one into an eternal either/or: either heaven or hell. Upon dying, everyone will face a particular judgment and will receive, as the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “entrance into the happiness of heaven, immediately or after an appropriate purification, or entry into the eternal damnation of hell.”[1] Hell or heaven. And, indeed, nothing unclean or impure will enter heaven (see Rv 21:27). So, those words from the Compendium—“after an appropriate purification”—cannot be overlooked. Purgatory is that appropriate time, place, and state of purification. “Purgatory is the state of those who die in God’s friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.”[2]

Purgatory is an expression of God’s merciful love. If nothing unclean can enter heaven, then someone who dies with a venial sin is “toast.” If nothing unclean can enter heaven, then the slightest attachment to sin spells tragedy. Unless there is a purgatory. Purgatory is God’s mercy, as time is a mercy. The doctrine of purgatory says the ultimate outcome has already been determined (i.e., heaven), yes, but purgatory is a kind of “overtime” to allow God’s love to continue to transform, purify, and prepare one for heaven. The primary direction and fundamental destiny of one’s life has been determined by the grace of faith, but the ultimate attainment of this destiny requires further purification. As Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, explains, “Even if one’s fundamental life-decision is finally decided and fixed in death, one’s definitive destiny need not necessarily be reached straight away. It may be that the basic decision of a human being is covered over by layers of secondary decisions and needs to be dug free.”[3]

The word “purgatory” comes from the Latin word purgare, meaning to make clean, to purify. To purify from what? In short, any attachment to sin. Purgatory purifies one of any venial sin and satisfies temporal punishment. Venial sins are those less serious sins that weaken but do not destroy relationship with God as mortal sin does. Temporal punishment has to do with the temporal consequences due to our sins, the damage that is left behind. Take, for example, my son, who cares for our chickens. If he refuses to wear his boots out to the coop and walks into our house with mud and chicken litter on his shoes, I can forgive him and no longer see him as a disobedient son—but he will still need to clean up the mess on the floor. Another example: I may forgive my four-year-old for slapping his sister with lunch meat (she may forgive him, too), but he still needs to sit in timeout to think about his actions, feel remorse, and amend his ways. Purgatory is a bit like a spiritual timeout.

Last week, I changed the lives of 36 engaged couples (most of whom are already sexually active) in seven hours. More accurately, God and I changed their lives through Pope St. John Paul II’s theology of the body (TOB).[1]

What is it about TOB that reaches others, whether young or old, parent or student, married or single? I’d like to unpack that for those of you whose mission is “boots-on-the-ground”: parents, catechists, classroom teachers, diocesan officials, and anyone else who may need it. As a former Confirmation leader, RCIA director, and educator for over 25 years—and as a single woman with no children—I approach the theology of the body very differently from others. With this background and over 27 years of studying TOB, allow me to outline three very concrete, practical phrases that can help us teach the truth of the body in a pastorally loving way.

The Body Matters

Start teaching everybody by using this phrase: “the body matters.” For instance, let’s say you are teaching children in a catechetical setting, and they ask, “Why do we have to go to Mass?” or “Why do I have to eat well?” or “Why did God become human?” The answer: because the body matters!

• Mass is important because the body matters—your body, everybody’s body, and most importantly, Jesus’ Body matters! If we want to be close to God spiritually, we can start by being close to God physically. Jesus’ Eucharistic Body is received into your body; that’s why it is called Holy Communion: you are now intimately connected with God in Christ.
• Eating well is important since the body matters. Without healthy food, it is harder to function in life, and so it is harder to love others.
• The Son of God became human because the body matters. He knew humans are embodied persons, and since he wanted to save us, he too became embodied.

As St. John Paul II says, “Through the fact that the Word of God became flesh, the body entered theology . . . through the main door” (TOB 23:4). In other words, the body matters.

In the contemporary age, when utilitarian aims of education rule alongside individual choice, electives, and test prep, it may come as a surprise that a Catholic school might require each student to participate in a choral music program. A choral program, moreover, that is more than a so-called specials class, more than a diversion in the middle of the school day, more than an easy A. Situated on the campus of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas, Cathedral High School was founded in 2022. Here, music occupies such a central place in the curriculum that it forms one of the four foundational pillars of the school. And it is not the only school of its kind. Across the United States, a movement is taking place to return to the riches of an authentic liberal education.

Catholic schools are once again placing value on the study of the visual and performing arts. The training up of the young person in the art of singing and the study of music is an ancient and highly valued discipline of education. Music, in the great tradition of liberal education, is one of the four mathematical disciplines known together as the quadrivium—on equal footing with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. These, alongside the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, form what is known as the seven liberal arts. “Liberal” here comes from the word “free.” Young minds are freed to truly think, question, and learn in the search for truth.

As Catholics, we know that truth is not a disembodied idea; Truth has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ. The immense task of the Catholic school music teacher is to help form young people to listen, which, when done properly, leads them to hear the Word of God, to know Christ, and to attune their lives to him. Sacred music, as the language of the liturgy, rightly deserves a central place in the life of the Catholic school.

Near the end of the 19th century, scientist and co-founder of the New York University School of Medicine John William Draper penned an influential polemic entitled History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. In the book, Draper argued that “the history of science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.”[1] Among the various “traditionary faiths” mentioned specifically in the book, it was Catholicism that most attracted Draper’s ire, as he viewed Catholicism, with its hierarchical structure and doctrinal pronouncements, as particularly antithetical to scientific progress. Draper’s book was wildly popular in the United States and was translated into at least ten different languages. The problem with the book, as modern historians of science have adequately demonstrated, was that it was inaccurate in almost every respect.

Setting the Record Straight

As the historian of science Ronald Numbers pointed out in a lecture, Draper’s book “was in fact less of a dispassionate history, which it wasn’t, than a screed against Roman Catholics and what they had [apparently] done to inhibit scientific progress.”[2] Despite the book’s factual problems, it gave birth to the myth that the Church has been diametrically opposed to science—a myth that has remained somewhat prevalent in the culture down to the present time. Certainly, one can find examples of conflict when one searches through the two millennia of interactions between the Church and science (the Galileo episode is one obvious example). However, the reality is that conflict does not dominate this history. In fact, while one can point to churchmen throughout history who have had issues with different scientific discoveries and theories, one is hard-pressed to find any other example besides the Galileo case in which the Church condemned a specific scientific theory.

Not only has this history not been dominated by conflict, but any cursory examination of the actual historical record reveals the sheer magnitude of support and encouragement offered by the Church to those engaged in scientific discovery. In fact, the Church was the primary patron of scientific research from the Middle Ages up through the 17th century. According to theologian Richard DeClue, “The Church and her high-ranking officials were primary patrons of budding scientists, promoting and financially supporting their work of advancing scientific knowledge” during this period.[3] As the historian of science John Heilbron put it, “The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries . . . than any other, and probably all, other institutions.”[4] And it was not only astronomy that the Church funded; nearly every branch of science benefitted from the Church’s largesse.

Despite this reality, the popular story of the history of science in the West is that science lay dormant during the Middle Ages because the Church dominated the culture with her backward, superstitious thinking. In this telling of the tale, it wasn’t until the Renaissance fueled the intellectual rebirth of classical humanist thinking that the chains of Church dogma were loosened, and science could finally flourish. The truth, though, is quite the opposite. In fact, one can see that in the Middle Ages the foundations were being established for the rise of modern science, in large part through the efforts of the Catholic Church.

On May 9, 2024, Pope Francis announced to the world that the following year, 2025, would be a Jubilee Year for the Catholic Church worldwide. The Jubilee Year would begin on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024, and last until Epiphany, January 6, 2026. This holy year would be marked by special liturgical celebrations, greater availability of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) and Indulgences, concrete expressions of works of mercy (caring for the sick, the elderly, the homeless, migrants, etc.), and pilgrimages to Rome and her most important churches (basilicas). How has the world reacted?

From Apathy to Antagonism and Everything in Between

I’m sure that, for much of the world, the announcement came and went unnoticed. What the Catholic Church does is so irrelevant in some places and to some people that the news of the Jubilee Year never appeared on their radar screen, so to speak.

Others probably received the news with cynicism. I understand this reaction, as I, too, harbored cynicism about the Catholic Church for the first thirty years of my life. “So the Pope is announcing a Jubilee Year that promises forgiveness of sin for all those who make a pilgrimage to Rome. What a convenient way to drum up tourist revenue for the Vatican city state! The Pope’s pocketbook must have been getting lean, so he had to think creatively!”

Still others likely reacted with hostility. These would be theologically serious Protestants, who remember quite well what issues were at stake in the Reformation and still identify closely with the theological views of the first generation of Protestant Reformers, men like Martin Luther and John Calvin. For such Protestants, the proclamation of a Jubilee Year is a triggering event that calls to mind the Catholic Church’s practice of indulgences. The sale of indulgences provoked the Reformation in the first place. The legend goes that a certain priest by the name of Johann Tetzel was traveling through Germany raising money for the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by selling indulgences. “When the coin in the coffer clings,” he is supposed to have said, “the soul to heaven springs!” This crass distortion of the Church’s theology and practice of indulgences unsurprisingly aroused vocal resistance from Martin Luther and others, who felt that it obscured the Good News of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. For some modern Protestants who remember this history well, Pope Francis’ announcement of the Jubilee Year only shows that Rome hasn’t changed, that she continues to disguise the Gospel with her traditions and rituals.

Catholics, or at least those favorably disposed toward the Church, probably haven’t reacted with cynicism or hostility, but at least some have met the announcement with puzzlement. There are young people, converts, and “reverts” who have never experienced a Jubilee Year—or at least don’t remember the last one well. They want to know, “What is a Jubilee Year? Does it make any difference to my spiritual life? How should I participate?” They are open; they just need more information.

Finally, there are more experienced Catholics who do understand what a Jubilee Year is and remember previous ones. But perhaps they heard the news of the Pope’s announcement and greeted it with a yawn: “Here we go again . . . another Jubilee Year. I suppose I should try to do something this time . . . maybe walk to the local shrine and try to get an indulgence for Dad.” I understand that there is such a thing as “Catholic fatigue,” even for well-meaning Catholics. And for many, the Jubilee Year can seem like just another thing to do, like the annual diocesan-parish share campaign, the parish picnic, and the monthly Knights of Columbus council meeting.

I think I understand all of these reactions fairly well. This is now the fifth Jubilee Year of my lifetime, the second I will experience as a Catholic, and over the course of my life I personally have had all the reactions I mentioned above: obliviousness, cynicism, hostility, puzzlement, fatigue. And yet, I’m convinced in my heart that the proper response to the announcement of Jubilee 2025 should be joy, hope, and excitement. Lived well, this Jubilee Year can be a moment of miracle and grace for all of us, a kind of yearlong spiritual Christmas season in which we daily awake to open the gifts of grace that God our Father so lovingly gives us. So, I write these words to wake up the oblivious, calm the cynical and hostile, inform the puzzled, and energize the fatigued to embrace this Jubilee Year and live it to the fullest.

A Personal Connection

In an odd and unexpected way, my life has come to be wrapped up in the Jubilee. My journey into the Catholic Church began in earnest just as the Great Jubilee Year of 2000 was beginning. In the Fall of 1999, when preparations were getting intense, I was accepted into the doctoral program in Scripture at Notre Dame, intending to study with a fellow Calvinist who taught Old Testament there. Then, to my surprise, my doctoral supervisor suggested I write my dissertation on the Jubilee Year of Leviticus 25, even though I’d had no particular interest in this area before.

The year 2000 turned out to be a kind of personal jubilee for me as I discovered the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the liberating power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And by the end of the year, I made the decision to enter the Catholic Church. This I did, with my wife and family, early in 2001, just as the world’s greatest scholar on Leviticus, Rabbi Jacob Milgrom, was releasing his massive commentary on the final chapters of that book, including the Jubilee Year. I can’t help but feel that God providentially brought me out of my bondage to sin and error and into the Catholic Church—the only place where I had access to the Sacraments necessary to experience spiritual liberation—through the graces Pope John Paul II unleashed by proclaiming the Great Jubilee.

Last year was my first year as a high school campus minister. Part of my job was also teaching an “Approaches to Leadership in the Faith” class. Students had to apply and interview to be in this class, and they were then selected to be the retreat leaders, and leaders in our school community, for the year. I had a lot of freedom when it came to how I instructed the students and what I decided to teach them. I felt as though the most valuable thing I could do is take them to the chapel for the first 20 minutes of class each time I had them. To me, having them develop a personal relationship with Christ was the most important thing in which to invest.

While we were in the chapel, I would introduce the students to different forms of prayer. We would do lectio divina, intercessory prayer, praise and worship, reflections for the liturgical seasons, etc. I always ended our time in the chapel by lifting up our prayers and intentions to Jesus through Mary, and then we would pray a Hail Mary together. After a while of me leading the Hail Mary, I had one of my students, Gabriella, ask if she could do it. I was more than happy to allow her to take the lead on our closing prayer!