Franciscan at Home

One of the words particularly beloved of Pope Francis, is the Greek parrhēsia.[i] It is also a significant word for all who hand on the faith of the Church: parents, priests and religious, catechists in parishes, and teachers in schools. We could go so far as to say that it sums up for us how we should learn to catechize for the new evangelization.

Every page of the Catechism’s text is characterized by this quality of parrhēsia. The Catechism explains that the word means “straightforward simplicity, filial trust, joyous assurance, humble boldness, the certainty of being loved,”[ii] reminding us that we can speak with “straightforward simplicity” precisely because of our filial trust in the Lord; we can speak with “humble boldness” because of the certainty we have of his love for us.

Hablando por mí, debo admitir que mi mente a menudo divaga durante la Misa, especialmente durante la Misa diaria. Generalmente me dejo caer en un banco de la iglesia unos treinta segundos antes o después de que el sacerdote haya entrado. Mi mente anda dando vueltas y estoy distraído por miles de pequeñas preocupaciones. Para cuando haya terminado el Evangelio, a menudo me doy cuenta que apenas he escuchado una palabra. Mi respuesta, "Gloria a Ti, Señor Jesús" a veces me provoca una risita silenciosa ya que viene pegada al final de un chorro de pensamientos que nada tenían que ver con Jesús. Luego, a pesar de mi sincera intención de concentrarme en la homilía, de nuevo se me va la mente. Sin embargo, a lo largo de los años, he descubierto unas técnicas que me han ayudado a lidiar con este problema.

C. S. Lewis was a conjurer, whose words evoke the magic of ordinary things, breach the ramparts of rationalism, awaken the appetite for the eternal, and evangelize through the medium of fiction.

Plato’s “allegory of the cave,” as related by Socrates, tells of a group of people imprisoned in a cave since childhood. They have never seen the light of day and so imagine that shadows projected on a wall compose the whole of reality.

The progressive narrowing of thought in the Western world since the Enlightenment has achieved a similar kind of effect, shrinking our horizons and restricting our vision of reality. We could say that this intellectual narrowing has dimmed the memory of our true homeland, or, as philosopher Peter Kreeft describes, it has screwed “down the manhole covers on us so we became squinting underground creatures” instead of eagles capable of soaring towards the sun. Like the cave dweller’s attraction to reality in Plato’s famous allegory, however, the longing for light (which is the desire for the infinite) cannot be fully extinguished. Though buried deeply, it lies dormant and waits for someone to bring it to life.

As with many of our metaphysical troubles, often the path of awakening passes through a baptism of the imagination, the faculty that acts like a router to the deepest recesses of the soul. The art of storytelling is an exquisitely appropriate means to the rehabilitation of our capacity to perceive reality. Stories pique our curiosity and sense of wonder, and they excite our spiritual taste buds. With our souls’ senses heightened, our vision begins to clear and sharpen, and we perceive the magic and mystery that lies beneath the surface of everyday things.

Jesus used stories, symbols, parables, and paradoxes to reveal the “mysteries of the Kingdom.” The Word Incarnate, whose story is “the most tremendous tale of all,” revealed the magic of ordinary things, like seeds, sowers, trees, food, and drink in order to unlock the portals of the imagination and awaken our longing for infinite love and joy.[i] He is the storyteller par excellence and the bearer of Good News from a far-off country, the “happy homeland of the Trinity,” which is our true origin and destiny.

Those involved in youth and young adult ministry accompany and mentor young people as they center their lives on Christ. We hope you enjoy this testimony written by a young adult woman, who describes a significant instance of this conversion from her own life.

Recently, I spoke to 100 young adults on a retreat in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona. The majority of attendees were single and feeling uncertain about their lives and the direction the Lord was taking them. In addition, many spoke of the ache they have in their hearts—the longing they have to find someone to love them in marriage. I remember this feeling myself when I was a single younger adult praying for my vocation and wondering if God would ask me to be single for the rest of my life. The thought made me feel so sad and lonely. Then something changed.

In his 1979 apostolic exhortation On Catechesis in Our Time, St. John Paul II wrote, “the definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity.” In these words, we catechists can perceive our humbling mission. With the challenges we face as catechists, both from the world around us and perhaps even more crucially from our own experience of our limitations and our inner brokenness, this affirmation should help us stand firm in faith, hope, and love. God, our Father, who is Love, would not ask us to do anything without giving us the means to accomplish his will.

In this issue's "Inspired through Art" department, Jem Sullivan introduces a method of teaching with art that follows the contours of the ancient practice of lectio divina. In addition to offering a synopsis of this promising approach, she then shows how to use it to reflect upon a masterpiece from the Italian Renaissance. We live in a visual culture. From our waking moments to the day’s end, our senses are accessing the natural world and the visual culture that surrounds us. As catechists, we know this visual culture well from our daily experience of print, electronic and social media, mass communication, and entertainment; and the dominant visual culture also shapes those we are privileged to catechize. In a culture of images, how might the rich heritage of Christian art serve catechesis and evangelization? What catechetical methods might we employ to lead those we catechize to deeper faith in Christ through reflection on masterpieces of Christian art? In this article, we will consider the ancient spiritual practice of lectio divina and its adaptation today for reflection upon works of art. To gain a good sense for how lectio divina could be employed in this way, this method will be used to reflect in a catechetical manner upon a masterpiece painting of the Annunciation by Giovanni di Paolo. Why Attend to Beauty in Christian Art? Christian art speaks the language of the Incarnation. In his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XVI drew attention to the theological basis of Christian art when he noted that, “the complete absence of images is incompatible with faith in the Incarnation of God.”[1] Both Saint John Paul II and Pope Francis urge catechists to attend to the vast Christian artistic tradition as a means of evangelization and catechesis. Pope John Paul II observed that, “in the history of human culture…believers have gained from art in their experience of prayer and Christian living…[I]n times when few could read or write, [artistic] representations of the bible were a concrete mode of catechesis…[since] every genuine art form in its own way is a path to the inmost reality of man and of the world.”[2] Pope Francis highlights the evangelizing role of art when he wrote, “every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus…So a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith.”[3]

Silence is an invitation to receive a gift. Our part is to receive, respond, and then collaborate more fully with the work of the Holy Spirit. By learning to appreciate silence, we make the time and space needed to allow our desire for God to grow. As our desire for God grows, we in turn, respond more readily to his next invitation to silence. An Ecosystem for Active Reflection God doesn’t impose silence on us, nor does he coerce it from us; instead he waits in silence for us to turn toward him. When we attempt to force silence on ourselves or others as a penance or punishment, or out of our own need for control, we risk associating silence with emptiness or privation. Granted, there is a self-emptying which accompanies our entry into silence, but privation is not silence’s end. The sole purpose of a self-emptying silence is to make room for God’s fullness. Consider the full active silence that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI encourages: “In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth... Deeper reflection helps us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected... For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of ‘ecosystem’ that maintains a just equilibrium between silence and words, images and sounds.”

The Car, the Barn, and the Woods

The goal of the catechist is to lead others to an encounter with the living God, leading them to conversion.

My father, Pat Brueggen, was my CCD instructor, youth minister, sports coach, but most importantly my role model for the faith. The man I got to see after the cleanup from our lock-ins and football games was a person whose faith was intertwined in the way he lived his life. Catholicism was not merely an 8-5 job, but it was what drove every facet of his life. The barn, the woods, and the car may not seem like primary places of catechesis, but this is where I learned my faith and grew closer to Jesus. My dad would listen to Scott Hahn cassette tapes while milking the cows and would always take time to pass that knowledge on to us. I would watch my father in the tree stand dressed in his blaze orange, shivering with a rosary in his hand because of the freezing temperatures. In the car, every time we would pass a Church, he would reverently make a sign of the cross to remind himself and those in the car that Jesus was present there. God was continually working through my father in a way that prompted me to want to have a relationship with God myself.

Over the course of my life, I have seen the Holy Spirit working in my dad, which drew me to want the same Spirit to live and be seen in me.

Andrew Brueggen
Holmen, Wisconsin

The Spirituality of the Catechist
What is the most important element in the catechetical process? Is it the doctrine to be passed on? Is it the method one employs? Is it the catechist’s preparation or the ability to adapt to the age and culture of the students? These are all essential, as the General Directory for Catechesis reminds us. These elements, however, depend on one indispensable and often overlooked factor: the spirituality of the catechist. Why is this so? Unlike subjects in the arts and sciences, the Christian faith cannot be adequately passed on unless the catechist lives that faith—unless it has penetrated his very being and transformed him from within. When this happens, he is no longer merely a teacher, but a living witness to something beyond himself. Like John the Baptist, he points to another, to the Lamb of God. The Guide for Catechists, a wonderful document about catechesis in mission territories, puts it this way: “The work of catechists involves their whole being. Before they preach the Word they must make it their own and live by it. The world…needs evangelizers who speak of a God they know and who is familiar to them, as if they saw the Invisible.”[i] The catechist, in fact, invites those he catechizes to share in the communion he himself has with Christ as a member of his body, the Church. Echoing St. John’s words in his first epistle, catechists can say: what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, “that you may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn 1:1-3).

A catechist does not merely impart a body of knowledge, therefore; his catechesis “form[s] the personality of the believer.”[ii] The catechist offers his students an “apprenticeship of the entire Christian life.”[iii] The students will acquire from him a way of being, an attitude, a way of relating to the world. Those who have children know that they are deeply affected not only by the content of the words we speak, but by how we speak those words, by how we act, and by our attitudes, in a word, by how we live. Who am I? What gives me joy? What do I love? How do I respond to weakness, to poverty, to sickness, to sin? How do I look at other people in the world? All these fundamental attitudes are conveyed when we catechize. Do our students learn from us what it means to be a Christian?