Franciscan at Home

Peter Kreeft writes his own reflective poem on the following poem by Christopher Derrick:

He's a terror, that one:

Turns water into wine,

Wine into blood—

I wonder what He turns blood into?

“We, the ordinary people of the streets, believe with all our might that this street, this world, where God has placed us, is our place of holiness.”

A brief survey of our world should be evidence enough that we are sorely in need of virtue. In need of a disposition for the good, beautiful, and true, as well as strength to choose them over what is bad, ugly, and false. Even within our own personal lives, the call to holiness requires both supernatural grace (what God does) and human virtue (what we do to participate in becoming who God made us to be). One of the principal responsibilities of any parent, teacher, or catechist is to help form their children/students with a vision of what a virtuous life looks like and how to acquire and grow in virtue. Most of us are familiar with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, as well as the cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude that build from and are strengthened by the theological virtues. However, many are not as familiar with virtue of magnanimity: the virtue of desiring and doing great things

In early April 2018, Pope Francis released his Apostolic Exhortation Rejoice and Be Glad, in which he invites us to respond generously to God’s invitation to holiness of life. We are called to be holy disciples of the Lord; but we need to learn from the witness of saints who have gone before us, not just officially canonized saints but also saintly people next door or in our extended family.

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God is always at work in the hearts of his children. When catechists become aware of the mystery of the Triune God at work in the hearts of the children we serve, we naturally respond with humility and a desire for greater obedience to God, the Master Catechist.

Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi, cofounders of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd knew how to bow before the mystery of God at work in children, as is evident from this quote they wrote in a letter to catechists in Canada:

"It happens that in being with children we will sense the presence of a force, mysterious and silent, which does not belong to us, and we will treasure it as an inestimable privilege to be granted at times to “see” it working within the child. As Elijah did on Mount Horeb when he heard the “tiny, whispering sound,” at moments like this we too will want to “cover our face” in beholding the presence of God" (1Kgs 19:13).[i]

If we fail to acknowledge the reality of this always-present mystery, we are tempted to rely on our own education, training, experience, or skills as catechists to produce something we can measure. Rather than bow in humble obedience before God’s mysterious ways, we may become frustrated at not being able to share all we know. An inordinate focus on our own successes or failures as catechists impedes our growth in humility, an essential virtue in our work.

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In Saint Paul's exhortation to the Romans, we read: "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age . . . ." (Rom 12:1-2). To some, this may sound contradictory: "offer you bodies as . . . your spiritual worship." To those who think that the material and the spiritual are not only separate but completely separated categories, Saint Paul's exhortation makes no sense.

There are philosophies that presume the material and the spiritual (if there even is a spiritual reality) are completely separate. And there are religions that propose the material (if there even is a material reality) and the spiritual are completely separate categories. But Christianity is not one of those, neither philosophically nor religiously. Christianity believes in the Incarnation: that God, who is spirit (Jn 4:24), united himself to a material body:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of grace and truth . . . . [Jn 1:1, 14. emphasis added]
In the Person of Jesus Christ above all, the spiritual and the material are united. And each human person, made in the image and likeness of God, is also a union of the spiritual and the material.

And so, if we "offer [our] bodies as a living sacrifice . . . to God", we indeed are worshipping spiritually. To do this, we must "not conform [our]selves to this age", Saint Paul goes on to exhort. That was true in his day, and it is true in ours.