Franciscan at Home

The sea change in the approach that American teens and young adults take in regard to Christian faith just in the last decade has been rapid, palpable, and sometimes stunning. We live in a time in which “nearly half of cradle Catholics who become ‘unaffiliated’ are gone by age eighteen. Nearly 80 percent are gone and 71 percent have already taken on an ‘unaffiliated’ identity by their early twenties.”

According to Jean Twenge, a professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, the experience of faith has been complicated even further by the staggering increase in social media usage among these same teens and young adults, which has been accompanied by a correlative increase in feelings of depression, joylessness, and uselessness—as well a significant increase in suicide attempts. One of the most notable attributes of this generation, which Twenge calls “the iGen generation,” is its marked aversion to practicing, or even identifying with, Christianity.

We have seen many of these same trends in the high school in which I have taught theology and operated as campus minister during the last twelve years, but our overwhelming experience is that underlying most teenagers’ sense of disconnect from Christ and/or their Catholic faith is a sense of pain and confusion caused by suffering in their lives. Even when they do not share these things openly, we know that our students have suffered through broken homes, health problems, various kinds of anxiety and depressive disorders, romantic breakups, betrayal from friends, drug and alcohol abuse, self-harm, and every other imaginable problem. Knowing that the students don’t always have the desire or, in some cases, the ability to share these things, we make it a priority to find a way for them to share it with the Lord.

After a few minutes’ conversation on my doorstep, a Mormon missionary asked if I was, by chance, a “born-again Christian?” “Well,” I replied, “I’m a born-again Catholic.” This idea of being “born again” made me reflect on the challenge of awakening cultural Catholics to the radical implications of the Sacrament of Baptism. Living in County Kerry—the tourist magnet of Ireland—I’ve seen the trouble American visitors take to research their family tree and locate their Irish roots. They trawl through parish registers to find out about the births, marriages, and deaths of their ancestors. (“Who are your people?” is a familiar question in this part of the country.) Perhaps we can help cradle Catholics to develop the same kind of curiosity about their spiritual roots; to find out what difference it makes, in practice, to bear their surname, not just of O’Donnell, O’Sullivan, or O’Shea but “of Christ.”[1] Pope Francis, in one of his Wednesday catecheses, asked a set of questions that could form part of a parish or family catechesis on baptismal identity. “Is Baptism, for me, a fact of the past, relegated to a date…or is it a living reality, that pertains to my present, to every moment?” “Do you feel strong with the strength that Christ gave you by his death and his Resurrection? Or do you feel low, without strength?” “Baptism gives strength and it gives light. Do you feel enlightened, with that light that comes from Christ? Are you a man or woman of light? Or are you a dark person, without the light of Jesus?” (November 13, 2013) I would like to illustrate five points, based on this catechesis, which could help Catholic families to awaken to their baptismal identity and activate its power.

Although the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life,”[i] many Catholics are unfamiliar with its rich Old Testament and Jewish background. In this article, we will look at four aspects of this background: the king-priest Melchizedek, the Passover, the manna, and the bread of the Presence.

Melchizedek: Priest of God Most High

The first prefiguration of the Eucharist goes back to the mysterious figure of Melchizedek in the book of Genesis. This Melchizedek, called “king of Salem” and “priest of God Most High,” brought out bread and wine to Abraham and blessed him (Gen 14:18-20). His name means “king of righteousness” in Hebrew, and Salem—a shortened form of “Jerusalem” (cf. Ps 76:2)—derives from the word shalom (peace), so Melchizedek’s name also means “king of peace” (cf. Heb 7:2). Melchizedek is mentioned only in two other places in the Bible. In Psalm 110, the psalmist says to the Davidic king, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps 110:4); and the Epistle to the Hebrews identifies this Davidic king-priest with Christ (Heb 5:6-10; 6:20-7:17). The Church sees in Melchizedek’s offering to Abraham a prefiguring of her own eucharistic offering, in which Christ is presented to the Father under the species of bread and wine.[ii]

The Passover: Redemption from Slavery

But why bread and wine? In the Old Covenant these were offered in sacrifice “among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator.”[iii] Bread and wine acquired a particular significance in the context of the Passover and Exodus. When God delivered Israel out of Egypt, He commanded each Israelite family to slaughter a lamb, sprinkle its blood on the doorposts of the house, then eat the roasted lamb together with bitter herbs and unleavened bread (symbolizing the bitterness of slavery and haste of their imminent departure) (Ex 12:1-11). The sprinkled blood of the lamb protected the Israelite firstborn sons from the plague against the firstborn Egyptians and marked the beginning of their redemption from slavery.

The celebration of the Passover would henceforth for the Jewish people remain a perpetual memorial of God’s deliverance.[iv] Eventually, four cups of wine were added to its commemoration, representing God’s four redemptive actions during the Exodus.[v]

Al Sacramento de la Confirmación se refiere a menudo como "un sacramento en busca de una teología", o "un sacramento en busca de sentido" entre los ministros del sacramento. Aunque los documentos catequéticos presenten una consistente teología de la Confirmación, la diversidad en la práctica pastoral de diócesis a diócesis, e incluso de parroquia a parroquia dentro de la misma diócesis, sugiere que el Sacramento de la Confirmación tuviera diferentes sentidos y hasta diferentes teologías. En lugar de esto, propongo que la diversidad en la práctica no es el resultado de una teología variable, sino que se debe a diferentes enfoques pastorales. En su libro, Confirmation: The Baby in Solomon's Court [La confirmación: el bebé en la corte de Salomón], el Pbro. Paul Turner, sacerdote de la Diócesis de la Ciudad de Kansas - San José, Missouri, describe siete modelos de praxis en la tradición cristiana.[i] Utilizando el marco referencial del P. Paul como base para mis reflexiones, he distinguido tres modelos distintos para la práctica pastoral de la Confirmación hoy en día.

El Rito de Iniciación Cristiana para Adultos: En el caso de los catecúmenos adultos, la Confirmación se celebra inmediatamente después del Bautismo, en la misma liturgia. Los niños mayores a siete años deberían de ser incluidos en este modelo. En el caso de candidatos adultos, la Confirmación se celebra con adultos que fueron bautizados como católicos pero que no siguieron con su formación en la fe, o fueron bautizados en alguna otra tradición cristiana y que deseen entrar en plena comunión con la Iglesia Católica.

La Confirmación en el orden restaurado: Algunas diócesis[ii] celebran el Sacramento de la Confirmación antes del de la Eucaristía. Este modelo restaura el orden de la celebración de los Sacramentos de Iniciación al orden que tenía la Iglesia Universal hasta el año 1910.[iii] Aunque varíe la edad de la celebración en cada diócesis, generalmente situándose entre los ocho y los diez años de edad, el orden de la celebración ubica a la Confirmación antes de la Eucaristía.

La Confirmación de Candidatos Adolescentes: El Sacramento de la Confirmación se celebra después de la Primera Eucaristía, en algún momento durante la adolescencia; hay mucha variación en la edad para esta práctica, y generalmente abarca a los jóvenes entre trece y diecisiete años de edad.

Debido a la diversidad en las edades y circunstancias de los candidatos, se utilizan muchos diferentes enfoques hoy en día. Esto presenta retos únicos, entre los cuáles existe una confusión en cuanto a la teología del sacramento.

The Sacrament of Confirmation is often referred to as “a sacrament in search of a theology” or “a sacrament in search of meaning” among pastoral ministers. Even though the catechetical documents present a consistent theology of confirmation, the diversity in pastoral practice from diocese to diocese, and even from parish to parish within the same diocese, would suggest that the Sacrament of Confirmation has different meanings and even different theologies. Instead, I propose that the diversity in praxis is not the result of a variant theology, but rather of different pastoral approaches.

It was a warm, sunny day at the end of spring. Instead of spending the beautiful Saturday according to their own wishes, our students were reluctantly settling into their seats in a classroom. I saw looks of boredom on the faces of the youth and noted the variety of ages among those present. I glanced over at the two other members of our team: a young, enthusiastic priest and a very energetic woman who taught children much younger than those gathered before us. We had been recruited to deliver a day-long Confirmation retreat for a Native American community. On our three-hour drive to reach the reservation, Father had emphasized the fact that the culture from which these participants would be coming might present different challenges from those to which we were accustomed. Looking around the room, I began to understand what he had been describing. The ages of the confirmandi ranged from 5th to 11th graders; and some parents or family members also requested to attend the retreat. The sisters who ran the catechetical side of the mission church located on the reservation had already informed us that many of these students failed to attend any kind of courses regularly, and thus their level of catechesis was inconsistent.

The Book of Wisdom (18:6, 9) speaks to us about “the night of the Passover,” saying that the Israelites in Egypt were “putting into effect with one accord the divine institution.” Something divine was being instituted—established—when the Jews performed that first Passover meal according to the instructions they had received from God through Moses. Something “divine” because something of God.

However, the Passover meal of the New Covenant is divine in a far more profound way because in it there is not merely something of God, but God himself. The Body and Blood, the Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is really present in the Eucharist.

One evening, as I was offering Mass in the parish, I was joined at the altar by . . . a gnat. He showed up during the Opening Prayer; so when the time came for me to prepare the wine in the chalice, I was ready for him. He behaved just as I expected: he tried to get to the wine. Throughout the Eucharistic Prayer, I had to cover the chalices, uncover them for the essential parts—the invoking of the Holy Spirit and the Consecration of the Precious Blood—and then rapidly cover them again. Each time, as soon as the covering was removed and the fragrance of wine began to emanate from the chalices, here he came; and at times I had to brush him away as I continued with the prayers.

One evening when I came home from the office, my 12-year-old daughter was busily attending to her homework. Working on a lesson in suffixes, she asked me about the word “revitalize.”

I don’t claim to know much about grammar, but I do remember an insight on the suffix “-ize” from Dr. David Fagerberg, then a professor of liturgical theology at Mundelein’s Liturgical Institute. His lesson was short and to the point: “Whenever you see ‘ize’ at the end of a word,” he suggested, “it means ‘to make.’” For example, “trivialize” means “to make trivial.” “Familiarize” means “to make familiar.” “Minimize” means “to make minimal or small.”

It wasn’t grammar studied for its own sake in Dr. Fagerberg’s class, but the application of this “rule” to liturgical studies. If “ize” means “to make,” how ought we to understand liturgical words such as “symbolize,” “sacramentalize,” and “ritualize”? Applying the principle to these words, we see that the realities of faith—grace, salvation, redemption, the Mystical Body, the Paschal Mystery, and even Jesus himself—are “made” available to us via symbols, sacraments, and rituals.

The Sacrament of Matrimony is one such timely example. The unseen reality of marriage is ritualized and sacramentalized, thus made present to us here and now so that we can participate in it and conform ourselves to it. So if we wish to understand the newly promulgated Second edition of the Order of Celebrating Matrimony and participate in it fruitfully, we need to familiarize (make familiar) ourselves with its reality, substance, and mystery.

Waiting on God

We had just begun our new catechetical year at the parish. Following an opening session that was offered in large group, I made my way around to the various confirmation classes to sit in and see how things were going and how I might better support the catechists and candidates that year.

Before I became Catholic, if there was one word that summed up my evangelical Pentecostal Protestant experience, it was “spontaneous.” If there was one word that summed up my perception of the Catholic experience, it was “rubric.” My perception was that Protestants were spontaneous and therefore “authentic,” while Catholics had rubrics and were therefore “lifeless.” After I became Catholic, I began to work with RCIA and discovered that apparently I’m not alone. While concluding an RCIA inquiry meeting one year, I closed in an extemporaneous prayer and, when finished, one of the inquirers said out loud, “Wow! I had no idea you could pray like that. I thought Catholics could only pray memorized prayers.” As I have settled into being Catholic, I’ve learned the key to “authenticity” in prayer is not spontaneity but sincerity. Yes, there are many rubrics and prewritten prayers, but these are given to ensure that the faithful will hear more than an individual’s personal insights. As the tears streamed down my face during the Mass where my wife and I were received into full communion, there was nothing “spontaneous” about the event. The fact that I knew what was coming did not make it any less powerful or life giving. I’ve also learned that there is room for spontaneity. Like most things in the Church, it is both/and, with everything being done in its proper place and time. This article will examine aspects in the Church’s RCIA that allow for “planned spontaneity.” I use the phrase “planned spontaneity” because they are not truly spontaneous, but areas where the Church gives the celebrant freedom to adapt a particular part of the rite. I hope this article will inform those who direct RCIA and inspire priests to be more pastorally effective.