Franciscan at Home

“You do this often?” I was asked the other night. “About 70 times a year,” I replied to the astonishment of my interlocutor. The subject of the conversation was the Sacrament of Confirmation. Actually, in any given year, there may well be in excess of a hundred Confirmations across the Diocese. I am grateful to Archbishop Daniel Cronin, Archbishop Emeritus of Hartford, who generously assists me in confirming throughout the Fairfield County. I also remain grateful to Bishop William McCormick and to the late Bishop Daniel Hart, as well as to a number of priests, who have administered Confirmation in the Diocese of Bridgeport, through the years.

And what a joy and privilege it is to share such a great sacrament with so many young people. At the purely social level, Confirmation provides an opportunity to visit with brother priests, deacons, and lay leaders. It is also enables me to be with a large number of parishioners and visitors. As I enter churches filled with so many people – parents, grandparents, godparents, and friends – I am in the company of many who are seeking what is best for the young people I am about to confirm.

It is also an opportunity for me to share the Gospel not only with the confirmandi (Latin for “about to be confirmed”) but also with those already confirmed, perhaps many years ago. Following Mass and Confirmation, I visit with the newly confirmed as well as their parents and godparents. On those occasions, young people ask me to bless religious objects and tell me (at my prompting) whether they are rooting for the Mets, the Yankees, the Red Sox, or some other team. Many tell me about their schools or about special talents in music, drama, and sports. Often I am asked to pray for a loved one who is sick and dying or for some other special intention. Once in a while, parishioners will remind me of some exchange of correspondence, compliment their priests, or ask me a question – all while the cameras are clicking away. It’s organized chaos and it’s fun!

Confirmation also gives me the chance to thank the Directors of Religious Education, School Principals, catechists, youth ministers, and others who work so diligently to form our young people in the faith and in the truths and values that flow from faith. Theirs is not an easy task. We are blessed with wonderful, talented, and idealistic young people. At the same time, they tend to lead extremely busy lives, often with little time allotted for religious education and for Sunday Mass. Like it or not, at increasingly earlier ages, they also face a lot of pressure to engage in destructive behaviors such as premarital sex, drinking, and illicit drugs. These behaviors are contrary both to the Gospel and to good common sense. Our catechists and youth ministers are on the front lines in trying to help young people learn and embrace the faith so as to overcome these challenges both to their friendship with God and to their human dignity as well as to keep them on the path of integrity and discipleship.

El 11 de octubre del 2008, el Mons. Olmsted, Obispo de Phoenix, se dirigió a la organización internacional laica, Católicos Unidos en la Fe (CUF) con motivo del Congreso Conmemorativo de su 40° Aniversario en Pittsburgh, Pensilvania, EEUU. Muy gentilmente concede a The Sower el derecho de publicar su ponencia que presentamos a continuación.

Estoy verdaderamente agradecido con la organización Católicos Unidos por la Fe y por el llamamiento a un apostolado activo en la Iglesia y en el mundo que extendió el Vaticano II a los seglares. No obstante, quizá sea de provecho recordar las palabras con las que Juan Pablo II prosigue en su Exhortación Apostólica refiriéndose a las ‘tentaciones’ que enfrentan los seglares en los tiempos posconciliares (#2): “Al mismo tiempo, el Sínodo ha notado que el camino posconciliar de los fieles laicos no ha estado exento de dificultades y de peligros. En particular, se pueden recordar dos tentaciones a las que no siempre han sabido sustraerse: la tentación de reservar un interés tan marcado por los servicios y las tareas eclesiales, de tal modo que frecuentemente se ha llegado a una práctica dejación de sus responsabilidades específicas en el mundo profesional, social, económico, cultural y político; y la tentación de legitimar la indebida separación entre fe y vida, entre la acogida del Evangelio y la acción concreta en las más diversas realidades temporales y terrenas.”

Aunque esto lo comentó Juan Pablo II hace ya varios años, ¿no vemos estas mismas tentaciones aún hoy en día? Si no nos enfrentamos directamente con estas tentaciones, si los fieles laicos desisten de luchar la batalla interna que consiste en conformar sus vidas diarias con la verdad y la caridad del Evangelio, la santidad no se dará. Veamos un poco más de cerca a la batalla que arroja cada tentación.

While I am indeed grateful for Catholics United for the Faith and for Vatican II’s summons of the laity to their active apostolate in the Church and the world, it might be helpful to recall what John Paul II went on to write in his Apostolic Exhortation about “temptations” faced by the laity after Vatican II (#2),

“At the same time… the post-conciliar path of the lay faithful has not been without its difficulties and dangers. In particular, two temptations can be cited which they have not always known how to avoid: the temptation of being so strongly interested in Church services and tasks that some fail to become actively engaged in their responsibilities in the professional, social, cultural and political world; and the temptation of legitimizing the unwarranted separation of faith from life, that is a separation of the Gospel’s acceptance from the actual living of the Gospel in various situations in the world.”

Although John Paul II made these remarks some years ago, do we not still see these temptations today? If these temptations are not faced squarely, if the laity fail to engage in the battle within of conforming their daily lives with the truth and charity of the Gospel, holiness will not happen. Let’s look a little closer at the battle each temptation poses.

In a real sense, the mystery of grace is not very complicated. In essence, the life of grace is a wonderful exchange of love, God’s love and our response. God who is love gives himself freely to every one of us. Ours is the challenge to respond in love. Even in that challenge God helps us.

For the better part of ten years, I served as chairman of the national bishops’ committee that was charged with overseeing the use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in our country. The primary methodology we used to accomplish the task of our committee was to review religion textbooks and series of texts intended to aid in catechetical instruction. Our review was to determine whether or not the content of the textbooks was in conformity with the teaching of the Catechism.

Much in the published texts was good but there were deficiencies. One of the significant deficiencies detected in the review of a good number of texts concerned the teaching about the grace of the sacraments of the Church. The typical impression given in religion textbooks was that the value of the sacraments was more about what we do at the various stages of life than what God does. In fact, the life of grace has to do with what God does for us, what God gives us. God is love and the gift of himself through the instrumentality of the Sacraments of the Church is his initiative not ours. Out part is to receive and to accept and to embrace his love. We love in response to God’s love. Thus we are enriched at every stage of our life with God.

In this article, Bishop Blair looks at the role of the Holy Spirit and prayer in Evangelization and Catechesis.

In 2009, catechetical leaders in the United States will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the publishing of Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation, issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In this article, Bishop Blair highlights and reflects upon the document’s emphasis on prayer, especially to the Holy Spirit.

The Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, states that adult Catholics ‘must be women and men of prayer’ if they are to address the widespread spiritual hunger that characterizes society today. ‘Deepening personal prayer’ is acknowledged as a significant means to achieving the first of three major goals in the pastoral plan, that is, to ‘Invite and Enable Ongoing Conversion to Jesus in Holiness of Life’. Prayer is also presented as the fourth of six dimensions of a living, explicit and fruitful Christian faith.

I would like to offer some reflections on prayer, specifically on prayer in relation to the Holy Spirit, as an essential spiritual requirement for the fruitfulness of any pastoral plan, including adult faith formation.

As the Bishop of Lancaster, I published my teaching document Fit for Mission? Schools on Catholic education and the ethos of Catholic schools in November 2007. It was distributed to all parents, teachers, and school governors in my diocese.

To be honest, my document isn’t groundbreaking, just a simple and clear presentation of the Church’s understanding of the identity and role of Catholic schools, and a frank assessment of problems, with some practical suggestions.

We need a renaissance of catechesis in Catholic schools.

To put it simply, the purpose of Fit for Mission? Schools is to promote a renaissance of evangelisation and catechesis in Catholic schools. If a school does not present the fullness of Catholic faith to our students, so that they have the opportunity of entering into a living relationship with the person of Jesus Christ, then they offer nothing worthy of the name ‘Catholic’.

At the heart of my strategy is the expectation that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is placed at the heart of the life of schools and colleges in my diocese. Little did I realise the reaction such a proposal would cause in my own country and around the world. Nowadays for a bishop to insist that schools present the fullness of Catholic faith with clarity and conviction is to invite controversy, opposition and hostility, from both inside and outside the Church – from those Catholics who dissent from the teaching of the Church and from powerful groups in secular society.

Subsequent events have convinced me that in order to face such challenges catechists, more than ever, need to deepen their co-operation with the gifts of the Holy Spirit received through the sacrament of Confirmation, especially the gift of courage. The sacrament of Confirmation is a much neglected and underdeveloped source of grace and strength in the life of the Church.

Reflections on Retreat

It is the day after my annual retreat at St. Joseph Abbey, a monastery of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists) nestled in the hills of Spencer, Massachusetts.  I arrived at the abbey a few days after returning from Washington, D.C. where I was privileged, along with 250 of my brother bishops, to share in Pope Benedict XVI’s pastoral visit to the United States.

Al reconocer el papel esencial que juegan los padres de familia en la vida de sus hijos y viendo los retos que enfrentan los papás hoy en día, me quiero dirigir a los papás en este artículo. Es bueno recordar las palabras de la Declaración sobre la educación cristiana de los Documentos del Segundo Concilio Vaticano, en el que el Concilio nos recuerda que ‘los primeros y principales educadores’ son los padres de familia quienes ponen el ejemplo de lo que significa ser católico para sus hijos.

‘[Los] padres… están gravemente obligados a la educación de la prole y, por tanto, ellos son los primeros y principales educadores... Es, pues, obligación de los padres formar un ambiente familiar animado por el amor, por la piedad hacia Dios y hacia los hombres, que favorezca la educación íntegra personal y social de los hijos. La familia es, por tanto, la primera escuela de las virtudes sociales, de las que todas las sociedades necesitan. Sobre todo, en la familia cristiana, enriquecida con la gracia del sacramento y los deberes del matrimonio, es necesario que los hijos aprendan desde sus primeros años a conocer [a Dios de acuerdo a] la fe recibida en el bautismo, [de adorar a Dios y de amar al prójimo].’

El día del bautismo de sus hijos, los padres prometen ‘aceptar la responsabilidad de educar’ a sus hijos ‘en la práctica de la fe.’ Esta responsabilidad es de su ‘cuidado constante’. Los padres deben de ‘velar a que la vida divina que Dios les da [a sus hijos] se salvaguarde del veneno del pecado, y crezca siempre más fuerte en sus corazones.’ Reflexionemos sobre estas palabras para entender lo que significan para los padres de familia de hoy.

We print here the inspirational homily given by the Bishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, O.P., at the year beginning preparations for World Youth Day, a marvellous meditation on the Cross and its meaning.

Behold the Cross. What does it mean? A gibbet on which a young man was tortured and executed for his beliefs? A totem at the end of beads hanging from the rear-vision mirror in a car? A symbol used by vampire-slayers to ward off evil spirits? A sign outside hospitals, ambulances, the Red Cross Blood Bank, indicating care and healing? A memorial along the side of the road to some young person who crashed or in a graveyard to some young solider who was killed? A tattoo on the arm of a bikie or jewellery around the neck of a cool girl? An invitation on the top of churches to come inside? The ‘halt and the lame creeping to the cross’ on Good Friday hoping for something?

Behold the Cross on which ‘the Son of man must be lifted up’. The first Christians saw this instrument of execution very much as a countersign to the world and as a source of a new kind of power and wisdom. Soon it was the code signal for Christians. Generations of theologians and bishops, mystics and saints, artists and ordinary people revered the cross. They bowed or genuflected before it in their churches or homes. They scratched it on the tombs of their loved ones. They brought to it their fears and sufferings, hopes and dreams. They made the sign of the cross, especially to pray for things or against evil. For as we just heard in our Gospel passage ‘God so loved the world he gave his only Son, that those who believe in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.’ (Jn 3:13-17) If you feel lost, right now, this day, or any day in the future, turn to him and find in his cross life, not death.

Matthew concludes his Gospel with Jesus commanding his apostles in these words, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (28:19-20). This command, which later became known as the Great Commission, comprises the main mission of the Church (see Evangelii Nuntiandi 14). It is for this mission that the Holy Spirit is poured upon the disciples gathered in the upper room on Pentecost morning. Strengthened by the Holy Spirit, the early Church fulfills Jesus’ Great Commission by proclaiming the Gospel, calling people to conversion, baptizing, and teaching. I would like to take some time to reflect more deeply on Christ’s call to “Go” – that is the initial evangelization activity of the Church.

Jesus’ mandate “constitutes the essential mission of the Church” both yesterday and today (EN 14). Reflecting on Jesus’ command, the General Directory for Catechesis states:

“Primary proclamation is addressed to non-believers and those living in religious indifference. Its functions are to proclaim the Gospel and to call to conversion.… Primary proclamation, which every Christian is called to perform, is part of that "Go" (183) which Jesus imposes on his disciples: it implies, therefore, a going-out, a haste, a message.” GDC 61

There are three fundamental aspects of Jesus’ commission that call for our attention if we are going to understand clearly what Jesus is asking of his disciples. These three include a going forth, a haste, and a message.