Franciscan at Home

As the “hero” of the Book of Job illustrates, the life of the believer is often beset with difficulty—even, and perhaps often, great difficulty. This is the way of human life in a fallen world, and as Job and many others illustrate, a living faith provides no immunity from undergoing such difficulties. Though God has promised “that in everything [he] works for good with those who love him” (Rom 8:28) so that we can ultimately rest secure in him (see Rom 8:18–21), he does not guarantee freedom from bodily pain and spiritual sorrow. This problem, the problem of suffering, is the knife’s edge of the problem of evil, for it is evil, both natural and moral, that brings suffering upon us. But how do we bear such suffering and its source in the evil we find both in ourselves and in one another? And how do we learn to live a good life in the face of evil and suffering—a life filled with hope and love, a life oriented toward God?

Faith Secured

Of course, the answer is to be found in the Catholic faith—that is, in our faith in Jesus Christ and his Mystical Body, the Church. In the practice of our faith, we learn—sometimes slowly, sometimes swiftly—to cling to Christ in his Church and thereby to receive his gift of redemption. This gift can then become increasingly effectual as we deal with life’s inevitable vagaries, and we can even begin to participate in Christ’s holiness and live a life of friendship with God. But, as Jesus counsels us, in order to enter into his salvific company we must daily deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him (see Mt 16:24). Just so, we learn to humbly surrender to his love and begin to experience the intimacy of his presence. This is the way of Christian life, a way St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) calls “the science of the cross.”[1] It is an unusual science inasmuch as it is never learned in a general and theoretical way but only ever in a singular and existential way—it is a science learned only by the individual, and only individually. And it is precisely by remaining close to Christ in this way, by clinging to him in the difficulties of life, that we begin to learn how to suffer well in the face of evil.

Yet, every believer worth his salt knows this already, for every Christian knows that God loves him and that he must unite his particular cross to Christ’s. But a difficulty presents itself here. When we experience the suffering that follows upon natural and moral evil, when we are in pain and are sorrowful, we can begin to waver in our practice of the faith. Though we may perhaps think we are secure from such problems, that these difficulties are only for the weak of faith, none of us are really so secure that we are exempt from this temptation—which we ask the Father to “lead us not into” (see Mt 6:13). It is generally true that when we are hurt by evil and suffer its cost, we can often get annoyed and cover over our hurt with defensive anger; with anger comes the possibility of growing frustrated with life and its difficulties; if the frustrated anger is chronic, we can become entrenched in resentment and bitterness; and finally, we may begin to struggle to believe in a truly good God and may even doubt his existence.

Now, it is right here, at this point of struggle, that we find a most biting existential question. When we face evil and are filled with its suffering, we are questioned, so to speak, by its presence. It says to us, “Is God still good? Even now, while I suffer?” And again: “Does a good God even exist? If he is good, how could he let this awfulness happen to me?” But how are we to handle this difficulty, a difficulty we all face, or at least will face? When our faith is tested and evil begins to rattle its very foundations, perhaps tempting us toward disbelief, how do we withstand this trial and bolster ourselves against such a temptation? In a way, the answer is simple: Christ has suffered for me and with me; Christ has conquered evil and borne the weight of my suffering. Or, in the words the beautiful paschal troparion of the Byzantines, “By death he conquered death, and to those in the grave, he granted life.”[2]

Yet, when we suffer, since we can also evidently stumble, we would be wise to secure our faith and that of others against this patent threat to the life of faith—which, ultimately considered, is the only real threat. There are numerous ways within the practice of the faith itself to fortify the individual against evil and suffering, but there is also something external to faith strictly considered that supports its integrity: its foundation in natural knowledge of (not belief in) the existence of the good God.

Properly speaking, assent to the truth of the existence of God and his goodness are not articles of faith. Though the individual believer can rely on faith to accept these truths, they are actually knowable in a purely natural way, through reflecting on the nature of the world and its creatures. Indeed, this possibility is itself something revealed, for example, when St. Paul says, “What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:19–20; see also Ps 19:1–6). This scaffolding of natural knowledge of God supports the supernatural act of faith so that the believer’s faith is rightly substantiated and appropriately coordinated (a particular application of the dictum “grace perfects nature”[3]).

In light of this possibility, we could reflect on the Western tradition’s numerous philosophical demonstrations of the existence of God, those of Sts. Thomas, Bonaventure, and Anselm, together with many others. But for this article, allow me to take all these proofs for granted in order to look a little closer at the reality of creation itself—that is, the startling fact of being a creature created by the Creator. This is an awesome reality, and one well worth pondering at length.

Orphaned at five and trying to make sense of the world as a teenager, Charles de Foucauld lost his faith at the age of 15. Reflecting on this period of his life, he wrote, “I lived twelve years denying nothing and believing nothing, despairing of truth and not believing in God. No proof seemed evident enough.”[1] The further away he drifted from God, the more the young Charles, not yet a saint, resembled the prodigal son of Luke’s Gospel (see Lk 15:13–16).

Naturally contemplative, Charles appreciated solitude, but his conception of natural solitude uniquely “included the quiet presence of those he loved.”[2] He desired a well-ordered life, but in reality, the further away he drifted from God, the further he drifted from his family and friends. In his alienation, he experienced a profound sorrow and loneliness: “A painful emptiness, a sadness that I had never experienced before would return to me every night when I was alone in my apartment . . . I would be overcome by silence, disgust, and infinite boredom.”[3] As a young soldier and explorer, he spent several years living in Algeria and Morocco before returning to Paris in 1886 at the age of 28. Moved by Christian charity, his family welcomed him back with open arms and hearts, treating him as if he had never left for Africa or fallen into sin.

His family’s response shocked him—the witness of his family’s love toward him inspired him to live more virtuously: “I drew closer and closer to this beloved family. I lived in such an atmosphere of virtue that life returned to me, visibly.”[4] In particular, God drew Charles back to the Church through his older cousin, Marie de Bondy. Eight years older than Charles, Marie had first accompanied and formed him in the faith when he was preparing to receive his first Communion. Knowing her as an adult, Charles witnessed an intelligent, virtuous woman who loved God with all her heart. Suddenly Catholicism no longer seemed absurd and foolish to him.

Writing to Marie after his conversion, Charles remarked, “God has made you the first instrument of his mercies towards me, from you everything else began. Had you not converted me, brought me to Jesus and taught me little by little, letter by letter all that is holy and good, where would I be today?”[5] In this, Marie was a model catechist: She did not teach Charles with words but rather “by her silence, her gentleness, her goodness, her perfection.”[6] She taught him from her lived intimacy with Jesus, leading him into an equally intimate friendship with the Lord that inspired him to give his life as a religious priest and, ultimately, as a martyr in Algeria.

Editor’s Note: The Jubilee year of hope comes to an end on January 6, 2026. In September 2025, the Church celebrated the Jubilee of Catechists, asking God’s grace upon all those who teach the faith. We are happy to republish below the homily of Pope Leo XIV given on this important occasion in the life of the Church and in the lives of each of us who have been invited by God to form others in the Christian life.

The words of Jesus convey to us how God sees the world, at every moment and in every place. We heard in the Gospel (Lk 16:19–31) that his eyes observe a poor man and a rich man: seeing one dying of hunger and the other gorging himself in front of him, the elegant clothes of one and the sores of the other licked by dogs (cf. Lk 16:19–21). But the Lord looks into the hearts of people, and through his eyes, we can also recognize one who is in need and one who is indifferent. Lazarus is forgotten by the one right there before him, just beyond the doorway of his house, and yet God is close to him and remembers his name. On the other hand, the man who lives in abundance is nameless, because he has lost himself by forgetting his neighbor. He is lost in the thoughts of his heart: full of things and empty of love. His possessions do not make him a good person.

The story that Christ tells us is, unfortunately, very relevant today. At the doorstep of today’s opulence stands the misery of entire peoples, ravaged by war and exploitation. Through the centuries, nothing seems to have changed: How many Lazaruses die before the greed that forgets justice, before profits that trample on charity, and before riches that are blind to the pain of the poor! Yet the Gospel assures us that Lazarus’ sufferings will come to an end. His pains end just as the rich man’s revelry ends, and God does justice to both: “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried” (v. 22). The Church tirelessly proclaims this word of the Lord, so that it may convert our hearts.

Dear friends, by a remarkable coincidence, this same Gospel passage was also proclaimed during the Jubilee of Catechists in the Holy Year of Mercy. Addressing pilgrims who had come to Rome for the occasion, Pope Francis emphasized that God redeems the world from all evil by giving his life for our salvation. God’s saving work is the beginning of our mission because it invites us to give of ourselves for the good of all. The Pope said to the catechists: This is the center by “which everything revolves, this beating heart which gives life to everything is the Paschal proclamation, the first proclamation: The Lord Jesus is risen, the Lord Jesus loves you, and he has given his life for you; risen and alive, he is close to you and waits for you every day” (Homily, 25 September 2016). These words help us to reflect on the dialogue in the Gospel between the rich man and Abraham. The rich man’s plea to save his brothers becomes a call to action for us.

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None of us wants to suffer. We don’t want to be diagnosed with a disease. We don’t want to experience loss.But suffering is inevitable. When it comes, what are we to do? Is it merely to be endured? What, if anything, can we learn from Jesus and his experience of suffering? What does his response to suffering mean for us, who are joined to him in baptism?

The Priesthood of Jesus

Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father. He is the divine Teacher and our model of holiness. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that he is also a priest, our great High Priest, making of his entire life—but especially his Paschal Mystery—a sacrifice to the Father (see CCC 662; Heb 7; 9:11–15). If we are baptized into Christ and joined into union with him, then the fact that he has a priestly identity and mission means something significant for us.

In the baptismal liturgy, these words are spoken over the newly baptized person: “He [God] now anoints you with the Chrism of salvation, so that you may remain as a member of Christ, Priest, Prophet, and King, unto eternal life.”[1] The ritual text indicates that every baptized person possesses a priestly identity and mission, which centers around the offering of sacrifice. From this point on, our lives are meant to be sacrificial. At Mass, those who are priests by baptism gather around the one who is a priest by ordination, who stands in the person of Jesus, and we all as the assembled body of Christ offer the sacrifice of Jesus to the Father.

Yet, there is another offering that we priests (by baptism) make in the liturgy. While every facet of the life of the baptized person is capable of being offered to God as a gift, our suffering can also be offered to God. Let’s consider here what would be required for suffering to be experienced and turned over to the Father as a priestly offering.

I’d like to suggest that there are three steps to suffering in a way aligned with our missionary identity. Each of these movements is needed if our sufferings are to be experienced as truly ours and if we are to be conscious and present to them so that they might be given to the Father as a gift.

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.

C. S. Lewis’s devil Screwtape advises junior tempter Wormwood, “The parochial organization should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people . . . together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires.”[1] Christian community makes tangibly present communion with Christ. It is often the first place people begin to encounter him and believe in the possibility of his love, which is manifested through the love of the Church’s members. Even in its veiled, earthly form, the Communion of Saints has the power to radiate Christ to the world. This article will briefly examine the nature of this communion and its power to bear witness to Christ, as well as offer some ideas for fostering a deeper and more intentional living of this communion within our communities.

The Communion of Saints

The Communion of Saints on earth is quite simple: Its source is Christ; its soul is charity. Christ himself, on the evening before his Passion, prayed, “that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, . . . that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me” (Jn 17:21, 23). The members of the Church are “a holy people united with the unity of the Trinity.”[2] The Holy Spirit unites the Church in a single bond of love. Moreover, in the Eucharist, Christ binds each person together so that they are members of this same whole.

Being enriched by Christ’s gift and made one in him opens our horizons. In the midst of its treatment of the Our Father, the Catechism has this stunning line: “Finally, if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the love that we receive frees us from it” (2792). God’s love frees us. We no longer need to protect ourselves. Transformed by the renewal of our minds (Rom 12:2), grace allows us to see the love God has bestowed on us. It opens our eyes to the fact that my brother or sister in the Lord is in some way part of me.[3] And it moves us to “leave individualism behind,” embracing this communion. We are able to live heroic charity, loving as we have been loved.

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God” (1 Jn 4:7). God takes our ordinary nature and, through grace, elevates it to share in his life. This means that simple, everyday gestures of love and care take on extraordinary depth. They are the “stuff” sanctity is made of. I can remember gathering with a group to pray for a friend who was dying. I knew her as my mentor and a gifted catechetical leader, but as others shared how they knew her, I began to realize there was so much more to her life of sanctity than just what she did for the Church in her role as catechist. One friend shared how my mentor had helped her with laundry during her prolonged recovery from surgery. Another spoke of how she had come to understand authentic family life when my mentor had opened her home to her and helped her. These simple, human gestures of love and self-sacrifice provided the deepest and most authentic witness to Christ that my mentor offered in her very full life. This is the kind of love Tertullian said caused the pagans to exclaim, “See how these Christians love one another!”[4] Sometimes it is the humblest gestures that speak the most loudly of Christ’s presence and love.

This final article in this series presents three methods for making catechesis authentically organic. “The organic unity of the faith bears witness to its ultimate essence and allows it to be proclaimed and taught in its immediacy, without reductions or diminutions. The fact that the teaching may be gradual and adapted to persons and circumstances does not invalidate its organic unity.”[1]

Teaching the Unity of the Faith by Means of the Catholic Family Story

When a person receives the Sacraments of Initiation, God’s plan is being accomplished: he created each person in order to live together in his own Trinitarian life. The role of the catechist is to share with others an evangelizing narration of salvation history—the story of who God is and what his plan is for them. “We heard with our own ears, O God, our fathers have told us the story of the things you did in their days, you yourself, in days long ago” (Ps 44:1). Every teaching given to participants should flow from and be directed toward their participation in the Catholic “family story” as a venerable means to achieve a genuinely organic catechesis:

In his De catechizandis rudibus [The First Catechetical Instruction] Augustine makes explicit the theory of what must be the object and the manner of the catechesis of catechumens. . . . He begins with creation and briefly narrates the whole sacred history up to Christ and the Church, and then passes to the resurrection of the flesh and to the future life. Everything is centered on Christ. . . . Now it is possible to catch a glimpse of the marvelous unity which, in this conception, unites Bible, magisterial teaching, liturgy, tradition, theology, ordinary preaching to the faithful and catechesis of the catechumens. . . . The bond which unifies all these members is the primacy of emphasis given to the reality of salvation history that each is called upon to explain.[2]

This family story includes, with the telling of it, an invitation to join the family and make the story one’s own. It informs the structure of what a catechist hands on; it is a unifying force that gives participants a framework in which to place each new teaching. For this reason, the story should be told, in its entirety, near the very beginning of the catechumenal process, during the precatechumenate. This can be accomplished in 30 minutes. The catechist simply lays out the story element by element, beginning with God, continuing to the present day, and following through all the way to the last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. The major points of the story could include the following:

1. God our uncreated Creator, who is utterly transcendent: God is a Trinity, a family of persons whose life is love; God has a plan of intimacy for his human creatures.
2. Creation: especially being created in the image of God, as well as the creation of angels.
3. The Fall: sin, death, and separation of the human family from God.
4. God’s plan to answer sin: a gradual reconciling of his prodigals through a fatherly gathering of a people to himself; the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David.
5. The history of the prophets: God’s steadfast fidelity to his covenants, the stubbornness of the Chosen People; the prophets are entrusted with a message of rebuke, correction, loving reconciliation, and future promise.
6. The Incarnation (the pivotal point in the whole story): Jesus Christ, true God and true Man; Mary’s unique participation in God’s gift of himself, her “yes” to God; all promises are fulfilled in him who was sent by the Father.
7. The Paschal mystery: Jesus’ Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension—the redemption of all humanity.
8. The establishment of the Universal Church: the Father regathers his people as his adopted ones.
9. The descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: the guarantor of the deposit of faith and the life of the deposit of grace.
10. The story since Pentecost: a new family identity, evangelization, the saints, and everyone here and now.
11. The Second Coming of Jesus and the reality of the promises of heaven.

By narrating our family story at the outset of the catechumenal process, the catechist can place each new teaching in the context of the Catholic family story. Each truth is like an episode in the continuing saga of God’s love for us. At some point in the catechumenate period, the catechist can and should go back and tell the story again, in greater detail and length, incorporating more personal reflection. This could take over an hour of time, but it is well worth it. A reminder of the history of God’s unique love for his human creation gives each catechetical session coherence by uniting it with everything else that has been unpacked previously.

This past semester, I had the joy of bringing my family to Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian campus, where I taught for the spring.

This past semester, I had the joy of bringing my family to Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian campus, where I taught for the spring. One of the most compelling facets of this experience was our immersion in the lives of many saints as they may be met in various places around the European continent. That, of course, is the extraordinary thing about the saints—they may be encountered in the most tangible of ways by visiting their cities, their graves, and even (in the case of Pope St. John Paul II) their favorite ice cream shops. Their homes are sometimes preserved, as are occasionally their actual bodies in a miraculous way. Over the course of this semester in Austria, I was deeply stirred in my own encounters with the Church Triumphant in these holy places. Allow me to offer three examples.

First, I had quite an astonishing run-in with divine providence in Rome. I had recently read about a remarkable recently beatified woman: Bl. Elisabetta Canori Mora. Born in the 18th century, Elisabetta had fallen in love with a young lawyer and joyfully married him. Then, almost immediately, her husband chose to be serially unfaithful to her. He soon gambled away the young family’s living in a life of self-absorbed debauchery. Hoping for a beautiful marriage and family life, Elisabetta instead found herself unloved and disrespected and very much alone. Her reaction to this terrible situation was profound. The book I had been reading described her response in this way:

Drawing strength from intense prayer and from the conviction that the sacrament of matrimony had truly bound them together in a precious and indissoluble way, Elisabetta resolved on total fidelity to her husband and their two daughters, whom she supported laboriously by her own work. She honored the sacrament she had received, although she was forced to do so alone, venturing onto a “mystical” terrain made of inexhaustible charity, aid for other families in difficulty, the attentive upbringing of her own daughters, and getting to know Jesus her Bridegroom, who assisted her with miracles of love.[1]

When I was walking the streets of Rome, I suddenly remembered her, wondering where in Italy she had lived. A moment’s research relayed to me the astonishing fact that she had actually lived in Rome and her body was buried not a mile away from where I stood. She was here! In amazement, I walked to her church and knelt at her grave, asking her intercession for my own marriage and those of my loved ones. Being in that church was a way to draw close to her. It was an experience both consoling and inspiring.

“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]