Franciscan at Home

A witness of faith and keeper of the memory of God; in experiencing the goodness and truth of the Gospel in his encounter with the person of Jesus, the catechist keeps, nourishes, and bears witness to the new life that stems from this, and becomes a sign for others. The faith contains the memory of God’s history with humanity. Keeping this memory, reawakening it in others, and placing it at the service of the proclamation is the specific vocation of the catechist. The testimony of his life is necessary for the credibility of the mission. Recognizing his own frailty before the mercy of God, the catechist does not cease to be the sign of hope for his brothers.

—Directory for Catechesis, no. 113[1]

The Memory of God in the Church

The Directory for Catechesis (DC) contains beauty and wisdom for those of us who seek to foster renewal in our own catechetical efforts and in catechesis for our Church. Two essential directives are (1) to look to the catechumenal model, the OCIA, as an analogy for how to develop and grow an evangelizing and kerygmatic catechesis, and (2) to define a catechist as someone who, “in collaboration with the Magisterium of Christ and as a servant of the action of the Holy Spirit,” is a “witness of faith and keeper of the memory of God . . . a teacher and a mystagogue . . . an accompanier and educator” (DC 113). While there is much that can be discussed to further understand these qualities, let us focus on how each of us is a catechist according to the Lord’s will and plan for us, through our baptism and by the working of the Holy Spirit. Each of us, as a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, retains and awakens anew the “memory of God” in our lives—and has the opportunity to reawaken this memory in others.

We have been baptized into a living body, one that already retains the memory of God’s saving plan and action through history, understood as salvation history, culminating in the Paschal Mystery of Christ and now bearing fruit in our own time and place through the grace of the sacramental life of the Church. Just as the lives of the saints, our brothers and sisters in faith who have gone before us, bear witness and announce to us that the Lord has a loving plan for each of us unique to who we are and our own time, so we are invited to embark on the path of holiness set before us. We, too, are called to bear the good fruit of drawing others to the Lord by our witness. What is the “memory of God” that we are to keep, if not the saving action of the Lord in our lives? Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV reflected on this in a recent catechesis: “Dear brothers and sisters, when will we too be capable of interrupting our journey and having compassion? When we understand that the wounded man in the street represents each one of us. And then the memory of all the times that Jesus stopped to take care of us will make us more capable of compassion.”[2]

When one asks us about our past, our families, or our history, we will often be able to recount details of people and events that are personal and real, that enable another to enter into our memory and, in a way, make it their own. For example, our children may not have known our grandparents, or even our parents, but they may have a memory of them from the stories that we share. Likewise, we have not personally lived through the events of the Old Testament or the New, nor the many events of the Church’s life through the past centuries; yet, we can carry the memory of our brothers and sisters in faith as if they were part of our immediate family.

A strong community life within a parish does not just happen overnight. It is not the result of one specific curriculum or event but is woven together over time, creating a vibrant tapestry of unification in vision and way of life. When you enter a strong parish community for Sunday Mass, you feel alive, welcomed, and called to more. People of every age attend, the young and the old in necessary relationship, as a vibrant parish community is often multigenerational and a place people want to “come home” to and be part of. Together, they can weather the storms of staff and pastor changes or turbulent events. A strong community takes its strength from its intricate weave centered on Christ and his teachings and his sacraments, allowing for frays to be mended and the tapestry to grow.

After nearly 20 years of serving parishes, we have found that helping build strong community is our passion. We have seen real fruit not only for those immediately in front of us but for multiple generations. In the January 2022 issue of The Catechetical Review, we wrote an article titled “No Family Is an Island: The Necessity of Community Living,” in which we focused on our personal experience of building a large young family community within our parish. What began as our deep desire to grow in our faith life through a strong community like we had in college became with God’s grace a thriving, faithful community that included nearly all of the young families in the parish. Once you experience the tremendous blessings of full Catholic community, it is hard to imagine life without it.

In this article we wish to engage the question of how to build parish community from the perspective of parish planning. We have been asked by many people in ministry, “What is your secret to building parish community?” And though it would be easier if there was just one great program to follow, book to read, curriculum to buy, or priest to beg to be assigned to your parish, we have found the answer to be intentional work and a slow and steady weaving of the parish tapestry.

“Is it time for Narnia yet?” The beseeching eyes of my seven and eight-year-old students implored me to say a definitive yes. Smiling, I set my teacher’s book aside and picked up my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In an instant, the children were sitting in front of me, eagerly awaiting the next installment of the seven-book fantasy series penned by C. S. Lewis.

It was 2022. I was on the cusp of leaving teaching to enter a monastery, and as a parting gift to my students, I had decided to read the Chronicles of Narnia aloud to them over the course of a few months. Why? I firmly believed that in years to come, their memories of this series could potentially ignite embers of faith in their hearts or even fan them vigorously into flame. Yes, the language can be old-fashioned in parts; yes, some may recoil at the traditional gender roles or turns of phrase; and yet, there is something so delightfully compelling about these stories. Fans can easily relate, for instance, to what Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware describe as a “delicious” combination of pleasure and nourishment: “Both the dreams of fairyland and the promise of heaven invade the imagination at the same time, baptizing it with wonderful and unexpected effects.”[1]

The Catechetical Power of Fairy Tales

Recognition of the power of quality literature and story in stirring or deepening faith is not a new phenomenon. C. S. Lewis, for instance, attributed one of the keystones of his eventual conversion to reading George MacDonald’s Phantastes. Steeped in rich spiritual overtones, this story features a young man named Anodos whose desire for “fairy country,” kindled upon reading a fairy tale, stirs him to embark on a perilous yet delightful journey through an enchanted wood.[2] Notably, as David Downing outlines, Anodos becomes more attuned to the natural world around him and discovers within himself a “capacity for simple happiness.”[3] From a catechetical point of view, there is an almost Edenlike quality to this. Thomas Howard, for instance, alludes to it when he describes Narnia as the “forgotten country” residing deep in the inner sanctum of our imagination. Similarly, Joseph Pearce highlights our inclination to forget the divine image in which we were made and, hence, the heavenly homeland to which we truly belong.[4] Our natural longing for God and heaven, planted in us at the dawn of our existence, can be easily buried by the clutter and chaos of life.

Fairy tales can awaken this longing within us and reconnect us, paradoxically, with what is truly real. For instance, Lewis found himself enchanted by what he describes as the “quality of the real universe” found in MacDonald’s fantasies.[5] They seemed to prompt an enhanced appreciation of the hidden, illustrious qualities of the world around him or, in his words, “the divine magical, terrifying and ecstatic reality in which we all live.”[6] This parallels Joseph Pearce’s claim that, far from one’s immersion in a good story constituting a diversion from reality, it is instead a delightful reversion to it.[7] The good “magic” of fairyland, he says, has a sacramental quality: the capacity to reflect heavenly realities to us and provide us with a lens through which we can perceive them.[8] Moreover, one can be both delighted and caught off guard by talking animals, fauns, centaurs, unicorns, and personified trees, and thus more receptive to the truths behind them. If, like Lucy, one of the major heroines of the series, we “see” with the humility and purity of a child, we may in fact be granted a “fleeting glimpse of Eden.”[9]

For adults, however, the many concerns and fast-paced nature of life can stifle our natural capacity for wonder and thus counteract this manner of “seeing.” When we consider, as the Directory for Catechesis outlines, that many sacramental recipients or aspirants have not actually experienced an explicit encounter with Christ and therefore are often unacquainted with the deep power and warmth of the faith, we can ponder the possibility of a disconnect between intellect and imagination.[10] As important as knowledge about Christ and the Church is, it is not enough to recall facts. We need to be immersed in the wonder of it all, to stand in awe of this divine spark within us, the luminous reality of which we are part, and the glorious destiny to which we are called. As such, before the work of catechesis can achieve its desired end of deeper and enduring intimacy with Christ, one of its preliminary tasks may be to unearth and kindle our capacity and natural longing for wonder. One possible avenue is the use of quality literature in catechesis, which opens up a whole world of possibility.

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In every age of the Church, God raises up saintly men and women whose holiness builds up the community of the Church. These saints are living reflections of the face of Christ in the world, and their lives invite our imitation on the path of holiness aided by God’s grace. In our own time, the Church continues to raise up for our imitation saintly men and women who respond to our baptismal vocation to Christian discipleship. They remind us that the Christian life is lived out precisely within the community of the Church and the Communion of Saints.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, highlights our communion with the saints when it teaches that:

It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened. Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace, and the life of the People of God itself. (CCC 957; quoting Lumen Gentium 50; cf. Eph 4:1–6)

Each liturgical year on the fourth day of October, the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Francis of Assisi. This beloved saint embraced radical discipleship through poverty and the preaching of the Gospel to all—rich and poor, lowly and exalted. St. Francis was, and continues to be, a builder of the community of the Church through his radical witness to holiness of life and missionary discipleship. As we join the Church in celebrating his saintly life and in imitating his saintly virtues, an exquisite illuminated manuscript from the early 14th century offers a stirring visual catechesis for our contemplation.

The Church recognizes that every parish community includes members with disabilities and earnestly desires their active participation. . . . Catholic adults and children with disabilities, and their families, earnestly desire full and meaningful participation in the sacramental life of the Church.[1]

The parish is where the local Church lives as family, called together by the Lord, amidst all the peace, goodness, beauty, joys, struggles, and sufferings of this world.[2] People with impairments belong in our families and parishes,[3] and the US bishops in their teaching about disciples with impairments and their families, highlight the essential role of the parish, the local and visible expression of the Eucharistic community.[4] This invitation to think not only about individuals but about the whole parish family is instructive and offers an opportunity to reimagine aspects of catechesis.

Turning to the Directory for Catechesis, we similarly find an exposition of multiple facets of the parish and sacramental life, including emphases on: staying close to families of people with impairments, solidarity, inclusion, shared ministry, and a recognition that people with impairments are not passive but active members of the parish.[5] I suggest that the Directory also encourages us to consider that the above characteristics are to be grounded in a fraternal and deeply personal love embodied in close Christian community—not just on Sundays but on each day of the week and not only in parish buildings but wherever Christians gather. We might consider what such love in the parish could look like through four interrelated perspectives on the ordinary, conversion, friendship, and new life.

The Ordinary

While it may sound odd to phrase it this way, the parish is to be for us an ordinary environment—that is, a normative expression of our shared life as Church.[6] And in that sense, to the degree that human impairment is part of this world, we lose out on some of the richness of this ordinary life when those with impairments and their families are separated physically or socially from the parish, perhaps in subtle or unrecognized ways[7] (such as not being made welcome at Mass or at parish events or being left out of parish planning), and pushed behind forbidding walls of strangeness, to adapt a phrase from Miguel Romero.[8] In contrast, a family unity among Catholics with and without impairments, lived out in the Church and the parish, should be a quite ordinary and usual exercise of faith that simultaneously provides a profoundly attractive witness to fellow Christians and to the world.[9]

Such unity is a striking illustration of Pope Leo XIV’s motto: “In the One, we are one.” Working together as a parish family to overcome some of the social barriers and negative stereotypes surrounding impairment and impaired people is a beautiful mission consistent with the Gospel and the witness of the apostolic Church. The communal tasks of discovering and embracing each other’s gifts no matter how out of sight, of listening closely for new voices of peace no matter how muted, and of dismantling social walls no matter how high can help a parish to flourish as a community of love (1 Cor 12:4–11).

Imagine a parish breakfast at which it goes without saying that some enjoying the food and company need help with eating or with having a conversation. Picture a gift bearer at Sunday Mass whose speech is to some extent inarticulate as a result of a traumatic brain injury, or an altar server or lector who is a regular at the Sunday Mass but sometimes takes him- or herself off the schedule due to the cyclical nature of a psychiatric disorder, or a faith formation team with a catechetical leader who uses a wheelchair.[10] All this and more should be ordinary for the parish.

Youth Ministry begins with ministering to young people. Though this statement appears self-evident from the title, it can be easy to forget this simple truth. As youth ministers, our time is often divided between writing lesson plans, answering emails from parents, developing programs and Bible studies, ordering pizza, and a host of other logistical and administrative tasks. But youth ministry is first and foremost about discipling young people—accompanying them on their journey toward Christ. In order to do this, we need to minister to their needs.

There is an old adage that goes, “teens don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” If we want to lead young people closer to Jesus, we need to begin by being attentive to their corporal and spiritual needs and ministering in those areas. In this article we’ll be focusing specifically on young people’s need for community, including practical steps we can take as youth ministers in ministering to this need.

Why Young People Need Community

In 2023, The US Surgeon General’s office released a public advisory titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. This eye-opening report documented some concerning trends in our country. As a whole, we are spending far less time socially connected to others in a meaningful way. Participation in community organizations has gone down drastically, with many young people opting for gathering virtually rather than in person. Unfortunately, these lower-quality interactions simply cannot meet young people’s need for meaningful connections with others. Social media, despite its name, can negatively impact young people socially and lead to greater feelings of isolation.[1]

Social media isn’t the only factor contributing to this; overscheduling extracurricular activities, smaller families, the pandemic, and a host of other sociological factors certainly play a role. As people who minister to young people, the question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we doing about this problem? The reality is that we are one of the first lines of defense against the loneliness epidemic. As Catholics, we believe that the human person was made for community with God and with other people. We know we cannot do it alone. Our youth groups and parishes can be a place where young people can experience authentic community, a taste of heaven on earth.

At a regional bishop’s meeting that i recently attended, an animated dialogue took place regarding different catechetical approaches currently employed in our Catholic schools. The discussion was wide ranging, but several bishops lamented the all-too-common absence of any treatment of the “fear of the Lord.” It appears that many texts avoid all but a passing reference to it. What also became apparent is that, in numerous cases, the reason for its exclusion is that many teachers and catechists simply don’t understand it themselves! Many intentionally omit it in order to protect people, especially children, from what they judge to be a punitive focus that is out of keeping with modern religious sensibilities. The teaching is thought to be inherently Jansenist, and they fear its effect on children and catechumens. This is a tragedy, as nothing could be further from the truth.

Fear of the Lord is a critically important disposition of a person toward God. It acknowledges the infinite glory and majesty of the Supreme Being, the One Creator God who effortlessly sustains all that he has created in being. He is mysterious beyond comprehension, an all-consuming fire, at once terrible in power and fascinating beyond imagination. As the Catechism affirms, “we firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple” (202) and one “infinitely above everything that we can understand or say” (206).

To truly grasp the immense mystery of God’s infinite splendor and grandeur is to be amazed. It is to be filled with deep religious awe. God is discovered as the numinous, omnipresent presence to which every creature owes its existence and to whom they must answer. The Catechism affirms that, when faced with God’s presence, humans discover their own insignificance and recognize God’s holiness (see 208). This is, of course, absolutely true and profoundly important. But it is also where the confusion begins.

In the summer of 2002, I had a health crisis, and left a community where I had been discerning a vocation to consecrated life. Feeling alone, and at a loss as to how to move forward, I went home to my parents to recover. About a year later, my mother developed ALS, and after eight months in hospice care, went home to Jesus. I was still in poor health, without work, and grieving. I could not foresee how the Lord would come to my aid. Then my sister invited me to come to Michigan to help her homeschool her seven children, to a town and parish where, she claimed, the Catholic community was amazing. I had been in many places where I’d experienced rich community and was a little skeptical. But I felt deep peace and even certainty that this was the right next step—at least for a little while.

Six months after I arrived in my sister’s town, some new friends asked me how I liked being there. I answered: “I’d like to be buried here.” I was not being morbid. Rather, after spending several years in Europe, Washington DC, and Canada, I’d at last found a place to settle, to rest in, to belong.

As I cared for and instructed my three very young nieces and nephew, my soul began to come to life again and let go of grief. Through my sister and her friends, I found myself adopted into a vibrant group of Catholic families, most of whom homeschooled. The parents were serious about living their faith and forming their children in it. I looked forward to the weekly mom’s coffee and play group, and soon I was “Aunt Liz” to a host of children.

One day not long after I’d arrived in Michigan, I stayed to pray after daily Mass at the parish, and the grief over my recent losses surfaced. Crying, I was surprised to see a woman I did not know tap me on the shoulder, asking if she could pray with me. I said yes, and that was the beginning of a beautiful Christian friendship. It was also my introduction to a community where praying with others was a normal occurrence. In those early days, I took advantage of all kinds of opportunities for healing prayer, basking in the love and consolation I received.

Because there was no space for me in my sister’s house, I was invited to live with a family from the parish who lived down the street. They became fast friends. The father of the family enlisted my service on the evangelization committee at the parish. We promoted and facilitated new small groups, and soon I was meeting folks of all ages from all walks of life and welcoming them into the community of which I was still a new member.

The more people I met, the more I was amazed by the witness of faith. Funerals at the parish were powerful experiences of hope, and I left them inspired and eager to run the race well. One image in particular remains emblazoned in my memory. It was the memorial Mass for the adult son of a couple who had already lost their other son. During the opening hymn, the father stood in the front row of the church with his hands raised, praising God with full voice. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and yet, his faith in God’s goodness and mercy impelled him to give thanks even in the midst of heartache.

When people learn that I have a full-on, legitimate Irish pub in my backyard, their first reaction is usually bewilderment, followed quickly by a deep curiosity. Then, when they see some photos and I explain what happens inside, they often want one of their own. The idea of a private backyard pub lands especially strongly with men. Often, people need to come and visit to truly understand what it is and how it works. Once they come inside and start to see it, curiosity sets in. Inevitably, the conversation shifts to the question of why. “Why did you do all this? And is your wife okay with it?”

It is no secret that friendship seems to be on the decline in this first part of the 21st century. According to a 2021 survey from the Survey Center on American Life, only 38% of Americans report having five or more friends. In 1990, the year I graduated from college, that number was 63%. Men seem to be suffering the most. Only 21% of men reported receiving any emotional support from a friend within the past week. Today, one in seven men report having no close friends at all.[1] I cannot say that one day I decided to build the pub to directly address this epidemic of loneliness. Its evolution was far more natural and organic. But this epidemic has certainly weighed heavily on my heart for a long time.

Born from Suffering

Long before the pub became a thing, it started with a couple of chairs on the side of our house. This modest, entirely unremarkable place somehow developed into a spot where people would come to sit quietly and talk about the challenges and heartaches of their lives. Sometimes it was a place of laughter and fun, but more often it was a place for thoughtful reflection, encouragement, and deep interpersonal encounters. For many years, I would sit there alone at night and post reflections on social media based on things I was hearing and contemplating.

To understand the genesis of the pub, however, you have to understand the backstory. Our family history is inextricably tied to my ongoing 22-year journey of medical challenges. It began with a cancer diagnosis in 2003. That lymphoma was supposed to be relatively easy to eradicate, but for some reason, it just didn’t want to leave quietly. Ultimately, it took five protocols of chemotherapy, six weeks of daily radiation, and two brutal stem cell transplants requiring months of hospitalizations and quarantine. I underwent 19 bone marrow biopsies and five surgical biopsies. Since then, I’ve had 23 other surgeries indirectly related to cancer, and about two dozen additional hospitalizations. I still average one or two per year. Throw in a devastating accident that broke my kneecap in half (requiring two surgeries) and a host of side effects—including tinnitus, chronic fatigue syndrome, recurring viral attacks, chemo-induced cognitive impairment, and radiation-induced cardiotoxicity that led to a heart attack and the placement of three stents in my arteries in 2021, and you start to get a picture of what my wife Margy and our five children have endured with me.

All of this helped make the pub what it is today. For over two decades, in our darkest hours of suffering, our family, friends, and neighbors consistently rallied around us in amazing ways. We’ve been the beneficiaries of countless meals, rides, free childcare, and miscellaneous acts of love.

Shortly after my initial diagnosis, the house we had leased for seven years was being repurposed, and we needed to find a new place to live. Not making much money at the time and facing a daunting and potentially fatal illness, we were in a difficult position. Providentially, there was an affordable house for sale in an up-and-coming neighborhood, but it needed a lot of work. It had good bones and a warm and positive history, but was a true fixer upper. Think weeds, neglect, clutter, and deferred maintenance. To illustrate this, one of the conditions of the sale was for the seller to remove the Volkswagen Beetle embedded in the ground in the backyard before we closed the deal.

Amidst our cancer battle, taking on a project like this was a daunting task. But our community rallied. Led by a saintly Holy Cross brother, over 200 people worked for three and a half months to get our house ready while I was receiving chemotherapy and radiation. Margy was often at my side during treatments, so my sister Mary, along with neighbors and friends, including the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, temporarily “adopted” our children and joyfully cared for them. When we took our car into the mechanic, instead of fixing it he went out and bought us a new one. Let that sink in: our mechanic bought us a car. Years later, when that one broke down, a family friend bought us a brand-new minivan. People sent us anonymous gifts of every imaginable kind. I would never be able to remember and list all of the various ways our community blessed us during those dark times.

When my cancer came back for a third time in 2007 and I was forced into six months of isolated quarantine, the community organized a fundraiser at our local high school that raised $85,000—the exact amount needed to cover our expenses. Four hundred and fifty people attended.

If we lived another 10,000 years, we could never repay these people. Our gratitude is profound and overwhelming. This is a kind of gratitude that demands a response. Our pub ministry grew directly from this wellspring of love.

Last spring, most of my family spent a semester at Franciscan University of Steubenville’s beautiful campus in Gaming, Austria. As an introvert, one of my worries going into the semester was getting to know a whole new group of coworkers and joining their community as an outsider. Never have I been more delighted to discover my worries were unwarranted.We were picked up at the airport by a beautiful and generous family. When we arrived to Gaming late at night, a benevolent philosophy professor insisted on bringing in our bags. There was warm pumpkin soup and tea waiting for us at the dinner table. And with a burst of joy and energy, four amazing Franciscan TOR sisters rushed into the house with hugs and words of welcome. Over the course of the next four months, the faculty and staff there became the dearest of friends. Never have I experienced friendship and community in such a concentrated way.

For most of us, our current cultural climate is one of stark isolation. With families spread out geographically more than ever, and with screens drawing us away from real human interaction, it is easy to live significantly withdrawn from good relationships. Without the cultural supports for community that previous generations enjoyed, unless we take intentional steps toward others, it’s very easy to lead a solitary and lonely life.

And yet, we human beings were made for communion with others. We know theologically that we were made for union with God (who is a communion of Trinitarian persons) and with all the baptized who are joined to him. And on a natural human level, we know that good relationships are critical to the flourishing of every human being—even if finding such authentic community can be a bewildering quest today.