Franciscan at Home

I’ll never forget my first day on the job as a parish youth minister. The parish business manager kindly escorted me to my office, opened the door, and then simply said: “Welcome! Now go and do youth ministry!” When she left, I felt like the kids in Jurassic Park when the adult in their Jeep abandons them to hide from a T-Rex: “He left us!” Sitting in silence, the weight of my new job overwhelmed me as a crushing confusion set in: How does one simply “go and do” youth ministry? What does that even mean? Where do I start?

Even though I studied and prepared in college for youth ministry, I had a lot to learn. I still do, even after 10 years of full-time parish youth ministry. Over the years, I’ve accumulated some valuable insight about how to help teens grow as disciples that I’d love to share with you.

One mistake I made early on as a youth minister was rushing teens into peer leadership roles. I learned this lesson the hard way after taking a group of teens from my parish to a weeklong Catholic summer camp. That week of camp was awesome; people were encountering Jesus left and right and truly connecting with each other. I was witnessing something beautiful. Young people were sharing, asking meaningful questions, praying with one another, worshiping Jesus with their whole heart, and showing real signs of deeper conversion. When we got back home, the first thing I did was assign many of those teens to help lead small groups during our Sunday youth nights. I thought it was time for them to “go, therefore”! (Mt 28:19). I was excited to see them on mission.

The mistake here is that I was prioritizing their influence over their interior formation. It didn’t take long before this group started to drift apart. Not only did I separate them from each other by assigning them to lead separate groups, I neglected to provide them with deeper formation while “their hearts were burning” (cf. Lk 24:32). Furthermore, I did not offer them more opportunities to continue growing together in community.

I took my first steps as a catechist at 17, when I met the Missionaries of Charity on a service camp trip sponsored by my youth group. The sisters needed help with their summer camp for inner-city children, and I needed service hours for graduation. That summer changed my life. I discovered the joy of catechesis and ended up serving and teaching alongside the sisters for seven years until I entered my community, the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word.

These Missionary of Charity sisters, inspired by Mother Teresa’s witness and charism, mentored me in the art of Christocentric catechesis. The Missionaries of Charity incorporate evangelization and catechesis into everything they do, particularly in their work with children. The children’s time of catechesis was not called religion class; it was “Getting to Know Jesus.” In its striking simplicity, this title captures the essence of catechesis: “to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ.”[1]

The sisters didn’t have textbooks, slideshows, or videos; the Scriptures, the liturgy, and the Church’s teaching were their only sources. They taught from their own experience of intimacy with Jesus, lived in the daily rhythm of their communal prayer life as religious sisters. This prayer life permeated their entire catechetical process, beginning with a time of prayer in chapel asking God to bless our work and open the hearts of the children. For the sisters, catechesis was not just about communicating truths of the faith—it was about sharing the joy of a life lived in union with Jesus and inviting the children to experience this same joy. This catechesis was effective, too. Several children converted to the Catholic faith over the years and continue to live committed Christian lives to this day.

My community’s sisters often witness similar transformations in those we encounter in our apostolate of evangelization through catechesis and retreats. Following our patrons, Sts. Francis and Dominic, we teach spiritual things spiritually (see 1 Cor 2:13), inviting our students and retreatants to experience the riches of a Catholic life. Although we are an active community, we spend about five hours a day in prayer so that the Church’s liturgical life shapes both our communal and apostolic undertakings.

In these short reflections, we will consider how various elements of the spiritual life lived by a religious community might also inspire a life of prayer in any person—priest, religious, or lay person—who is called to the sacred work of forming others in the Catholic life.

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.

As tears filled his eyes and his voice broke, the 16-year-old sophomore told me, “I just can’t see her the way she deserves to be seen.” He meant his girlfriend, about whom he cared deeply. His compulsion to consume pornography was sabotaging his ability to love her.

Once hidden and socially condemned, porn is now ubiquitous and normalized. The mainstream tolerance of porn began gradually increasing in the 1960s, though you usually had to go looking for it. With the explosion of smart devices and artificial intelligence, porn now comes looking for you.

But rather than ushering in liberation, normalized porn has wrought enslaving devastation across our humanity. Porn dehumanizes those who produce it, those who consume it, those who are victimized and trafficked into it, and those whose relationships are fractured in the collateral damage. Porn inverts the meaning of human sexuality—designed to be a joyous, life-giving gift of self—into a reductive experience of pleasure and dominance. In all its terrible forms, porn reduces relationships to transactions. For so many like the young sophomore who recognized his own distorted vision, porn is a ruthless enemy of the love we yearn to give and receive.

Young people are experiencing porn’s harm in their lives regularly and distinctly. The average age of first exposure to porn fluctuates between 11 and 12. By age 13, more than half of teens have seen porn. They often report they feel ashamed and guilty after consuming porn. They often acknowledge its compulsive dynamic and destructiveness in their relationships. They wrestle to escape it.[1]

When I asked a group of about 150 teenage girls what normalized distortions they thought were causing harm to their own lives, almost all of them named pornography. They wrote: “You can’t get away from porn.” “Everyone cheats because people have extremely high and unrealistic expectations caused by porn.” “People lose interest so easily in you because they’re used to porn, which shows girls in a fictional way.” “Porn creates selfish fantasies for people, causing them to forget the meaning of love.”

Shame and secrecy only magnify and compound the problem. How can we help, and why does it matter so much that we do? With ideas about sexuality so commonly distorted, young people need clear vision.

Christian writings between the apostolic age and the third century are extremely rare. At the turn of the first century AD, both Pope Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch underscore the jurisdiction possessed by bishops over the forgiveness of sins. For most in those early years of Christianity, sin and repentance were simply accepted as a normal part of the average life of every Christian and needed no formulas or procedures to deal with it.

However, in the third and fourth centuries, the rise of certain heresies provoked a greater development and precision on doctrinal matters and practice. This certainly was the case in relation to sin and forgiveness. Approaching Confession became a definitively rigorous and public act. Led by the bishop, the entire Christian community would be involved as all prayed for the penitent.[1]

In the early Middle Ages, Irish missionary monks who came to the mainland brought with them a different form of the sacrament: private confession—that is, confession strictly between the penitent and God’s representative, the priest. Although the monks were certainly not lenient in the handing out of severe penances, they did effectively mollify the more terrifying features connected with public confessions.[2] In short, confessions were beginning to be practiced in generally the same way as they are today. However, though they had undergone significant changes in attitude and procedure, in essence the official canonical features of Confession remained: the honest recounting of one’s sins, the Church sitting in judgment in the person of the priest, the penalty administered, and final reconciliation.

This is not to be marveled at since the Church is as living and dynamic as is Christ himself. She is, after all, the extension of the risen, glorified Christ in space and time. Consequently, the Church has always been able to adapt herself to the special needs of the people of God at a particular time and circumstance. She has therefore periodically changed her approach to Confession—and can possibly change it again in the future.

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.

One of the hallmarks of a Jubilee Year is a pilgrimage to the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome. But what is a pilgrimage? It is harder to define than one might think. Throughout history, men, women, and children have traveled for a variety of reasons, often for motivations other than simple relocation or practical needs. We can see a type of intentional, spiritual travel in the history of the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Romans.

The term “pilgrim” comes from the Latin peregrinus, meaning “traveler” or “one from abroad.” Americans might initially think of the Mayflower before they think of Santiago de Compostela in Spain or Chartres in France. A pilgrim, however, is not just any traveler. A pilgrim is one seeking God. Pilgrimages are spiritual journeys: tangible, outward signs of an inward desire to move towards conversion and growth in holiness. All major religions have an understanding of this interior need to physically move toward a sacred location.

History of Pilgrimage

Our Christian pilgrimages have deep Jewish roots. Three times a year, Jewish males were commanded to go to the temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the great pilgrimage feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot (see Dt 16:16). They would travel from wherever they had settled to be near the holy place where God dwelt with his people. Soon after the time of Christ, Christians began traveling to Jerusalem to walk in the footsteps of Christ and to pray where he died and rose again. Some, like St. Jerome and St. Paula, went on pilgrimage and never returned home, settling in the Holy Land to be close to these places.

When the Holy Land later became too dangerous for travel, Christians began making pilgrimages closer to home, walking to the tomb of St. James in Spain or even constructing small shrines to the events of the Passion in their gardens and churches. The practice of the Stations of the Cross came from a desire to make pilgrimage even when it was impossible to travel to the Holy Land.

In a sense, pilgrimages to Rome began right after the death of Peter. Local Christians cared for his grave, building a small shrine over it, touching belongings to it, and asking his intercession. Even if these people only came from across town, they were pilgrims—a pilgrimage depends not on distance but on disposition. After Constantine constructed his magnificent basilicas over the tomb of Peter on Vatican Hill and the tomb of Paul on the Via Ostiensis, Christians throughout the empire could flock to these sacred places in safety.

In his exposition on the Creed, St. Ambrose calls it “our heart’s meditation and an ever-present guardian . . . unquestionably, the treasure of our soul.” I wonder how many of us think of the Creed in this way—and how many children do? A guardian? The treasure of our soul? Something on which our heart loves to meditate? In I Believe, We Believe, however, we have been given a book for children and adults that not only teaches richly and attractively but also feeds the longing of the soul for God’s beauty and eternity.

It is an illustrated catechesis on the Apostles’ Creed from Bethlehem Books with text by Caroline Farey and artwork by Roseanne Sharpe. Five double-spread watercolors delightfully proclaim the whole of the Creed in pictorial form, the images simple, strong, and clear. Each illustration is followed by a catechetical commentary that walks engagingly through it, highlighting and explaining the main images. The book takes the form of a journey through the Creed, using the central figure of a child being led through the doorway of Baptism into the mysteries of the faith, accompanied by the child’s guardian angel who introduces the mysteries and teaches the child. The book is recommended for ages nine to adult, with read-aloud interest for those of ages seven and up.

The second half of the book is made up of a section called “Enrichment Pages”—rich resources for catechists, parents, and teachers to use to introduce their children to essential and foundational principles for understanding any aspect of the faith, principles that will help form the child in an authentic Catholic worldview. These pages draw from the same five illustrations, this time identifying images and features that appear in different ways and guises across the artwork as a whole, in this way revealing the marvelous coherence of the Creed and the faith it proclaims. A glossary of terms and a set of cross-references to parts of the Catechism concludes the book.

The joy and youthfulness of the Catholic priesthood never fade.