Franciscan at Home

When John Everett Millais’ Christ in the House of His Parents was first displayed at the Royal Academy, the public response was near-universal revulsion.

Beneath the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth is the place where tradition tells us the Angel appeared to the Blessed Virgin Mary. An altar stands in this grotto, inscribed with these words: “verbum caro hic factum est” (the Word became flesh here).

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This is a paid advertisement in the July-September 2021 issue. Advertisements should not be viewed as endorsements from the publisher. 

How do you bring someone to faith in Jesus Christ? As Christians, this is a question we should have a ready-made answer for.

"The Church is alive in Iraz, and Christ is alive in Iraq."

Pope Francis, March 7, 2021 Erbil, Iraz

On my fiftieth birthday, I received as a gift a detailed map of the world. The map holds pins of places traveled on behalf of Franciscan University of Steubenville and the names of cohort members in the Master of Catholic Leadership graduate program, of which I am the director. Each name on the map is significant as is the story of how they have come to their leadership role.

In March of 2021, I had the privilege of adding my own pin to this map. Along with Fr. David Pivonka, TOR, and Dr. Daniel Kempton, Vice President for Academic Affairs, I traveled to Erbil, Iraq at the invitation of Archbishop Bashar Warda. Our trip coincided with Pope Francis’s historic visit to Iraq.

I walked along the forbidden streets of one of Philadelphia’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods while being greeted respectfully by neighbors. They knew I lived at the church and, despite countless warnings about the safety of this community, I encountered only joyful faces. One of the first conversations I had as I walked from the El station to the church rectory, where I lived with other young adults, was with a seven-year-old girl, who asked me: “Is God a father and Mary a mother?”

Yes, Mary is a mother, and she is the mother of all of us; she is Comforter of the Afflicted and Refuge for Sinners. She is Mother of Divine Grace and Mother Most Pure. Her mission as Mother continues in the world today, through the Church.[1] This is why we turn to the Church in time of need—we bring our spiritual, material, social, and emotional needs to the Church.

“The church has always been here,” another man explained to me, “but the doors were always locked. No one was there.” It was as if our neighbors intrinsically knew that this grandiose, beautiful building that stretched up to the heavens was meant to be their saving grace; that they should be able to look to the church in time of need and find comfort (Is 66:13); that they should be able to knock and have the door open unto them (Mt 7:7).

In 2020, the Shepherds of the Church gave us a treasure in the new Directory for Catechesis. Dr. Farey was a member of the working party for the bishops on the new Directory and shares additional reflections on its practical implications in this issue and the next two issues.

There is an uncomfortable reality of spiritual multiplication with which we catechists, ministers, and missionaries must wrestle. That reality is this: spiritual multiplication produces results, but not always in the way we imagine.

There is a growing trend within the Church, rightly so, toward mentorship or coaching of our leaders. The idea is that great programs are not effective without great people leading those programs. Associated with this focus on mentorship is a theory some people call “spiritual multiplication”, which attempts to go one step further in mentoring leaders to multiply themselves into others who would be able to do the same. Spiritual multiplication is considered a theory because it depends on the precarious “if”: if one disciple multiplies into two others. 

To actualize the extraordinary potential of spiritual multiplication, we must go beyond the theory and begin living out of the principles that make multiplication possible. 

Early Memories