Biblical Catholics are So Childish – today in the Gospel @CatholicMom.com

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 1:56 pm By Jennifer Fitz

Today’s pre-prayed Gospel at CatholicMom.com is the “Let the children come to me” passage in Matthew. Couldn’t have been more timely, I’m perpetually devolving into rehashed childishness. You know this Gospel so well you’re probably ready to throw promotional trinkets at the wicked DRE who tricked you into volunteering for VBS this year:

Is there something new to be found in this reading?

No. There is something very old.

Just don’t even start with me about how this passage is your excuse for turning the practice of the faith into a perpetual marshmallow roast around the campfire:

We can make this passage trite by pretending it’s all about goofy songs instead of serious worship at Mass, or some other trendy way to substitute amateurism for sincerity. But watch children: They are serious creatures.

I talk about a handful of things, then finish with a prayer that includes lines like this:

Help us to be grateful for the immature, irresponsible, incompetent friends you’ve given us.

Now you know you want to read the whole thing.

***

Speaking of childishness, here’s the rough edit on Lord Have Mercy, There’s a Baby in My Church, for all you musicians enduring infant soloists this weekend.

How Much House Should a Bishop Inhabit?

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 2:58 pm By Jennifer Fitz

I live in a relatively small house. Not Third World Shack small, but the square footage per person makes most first-world “Small Houses!” fans gaze longingly at off-site storage options. I have friends who squeeze way more children into way less space, and friends who do it the other away around. We’re happy with where we fall on the real estate spectrum, grateful for what we have and making the best use of it we can.

CNN, on the other hand, is very worried about People Whose Homes Are the Wrong Size. Well, not just any people. They aren’t worried about publishing executives, or journalists, or graphic designers and IT guys. They must already have the right size homes. It’s bishops, don’t you know. So let’s talk about the clerical housing crisis.

1. Priest & bishops very rarely control where they live.

You get assigned to a job, and the house comes with it. It might be magnificent, it might be horrifying, it might have a deadly elevator. 98% of priests surveyed* report that they’ve had to live someplace very, very tacky. Can you, the current resident, do anything about the situation? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

2. It’s not “your” house to do with as you please.

Unless they’ve gone and used their personal funds to rent an alternate location, the rectory or bishop’s residence does not belong to the occupants. It’s typically the property of the diocese, and each priest or bishop is just a temporary resident. Your local parish priest probably has to fill out an acre of paperwork just to get new wallpaper in the bathroom, because the diocese wants to make sure that no disastrous DIY horror show is awaiting Father Replacement a year from now. The bishop has to not just consider his own needs, which might be minimal, but also what every bishop for the next fifty years is going to reasonably need.

3. It’s not only your house.

I wish I had room for guests in my house. Hotels are expensive, and if I had the space I’d happily host friends and family in a comfortable guest room. I’d have a proper dining room with a table suited for receiving more than one very slender person for dinner in inclement weather. Fortunately my state in life doesn’t call for me to house visiting colleagues, receive clients, or host large events. Getting mad at your priest or bishop for having space to receive guests is like being angry at the one family member who actually has room to host the family reunion.

4. Real estate isn’t that simple.

People who move frequently go through a lot of trouble to purchase homes that can easily be sold again when it’s time to move. The right neigbhorhood, right builder, right model of home . . . if you don’t pick a house that will hold its value and sell quickly, you end up losing a lot of money. Clergy don’t have the luxury of picking any neighborhood in the metro area. They don’t get assigned to a new city and told to house hunt, they get assigned to a new city and handed whatever real estate decision was made ten, fifty, three hundred years ago. If it really is time to reconsider the existing residence, the diocese still has to decide: What can we sell this property for? Can we get a different home in the same area? How much would a new location cost? And how much benefit would we get from relocating, compared to the time and energy we’d spend on managing the whole move?

5. Your bishop is a guy a lot like you.

How’s that holy poverty thing working out for you? Christians are called not just to a “spirit” of poverty, but to actually avoiding accumulating excess and actively seeking to share our goods with the poor. That’s the mission. That’s the ideal. Keeping each other accountable isn’t all bad. But before I call up my priest and chew him out for indulging in this or that luxury, I need to look at my own budget. Am I setting a good example? Or have I decided that somehow I get a free pass to pamper myself, but Father has to wear used burlap and live in a cardboard box? A shared cardboard box, mind you.

Holy Poverty, Simplicity, Humility

Is there a history, in some times and places, of clergy using their office as an excuse to wallow in luxury? Most certainly there is. I hear politicians and business executives are prone to excessive indulgence, too. Do some dioceses manage their real estate poorly, building or holding onto real estate that far exceeds the reasonable needs of ministry? I haven’t seen it myself, but I imagine it happens. (My diocese is constantly renting meeting space from Baptists . . . I don’t think we’re over-building.) Do most of us need to spend less on ourselves and more on others? I would hazard there are a good number of us that could use that advice, yes.

Because self-indulgence is such a problem in our culture, I love reading about people who manage to do more with less. Families that fit a lot of kids into a small but happy home, churches that serve their communities in frugal but well-maintained buildings, religious orders that build with an eye for durability and simplicity rather than showmanship — I love to hear about that stuff. It inspires me. It helps me do better.

That’s why I’m looking forward to CNN’s follow-up piece, where they unroll their new corporate real estate and executive compensation strategy. Meanwhile, Joanne McPortland tackles the spiritual side:

Jesus told the rich young man that he must give up all that he had to serve God authentically. The rich man went away sad, because he was much attached to his possessions. But Jesus had very different answers for the wealthy followers whose generosity supplied his own ministry and gave him the forum to preach and heal. He had a very different answer for Judas, who chided the woman of Bethany for wasting precious ointment on Jesus’ comfort. In each circumstance, Jesus judges the heart and the intention of the individual, not the exterior circumstances. So does Pope Francis.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Sam Rocha takes it from another perspective, different conclusion, sort of. (I pretty much agree with Sam, even though he more or less disagrees with me. It’s a complex topic.)

DOUBLE UPDATE: Sam strikes again: CNN Exposes Socialist Catholic Archbishops.

*Very small sample size on that survey.

Photo by Elkman (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

How Do I Get the Kids to Behave in Class? There’s a book for that.

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 3:06 pm By Jennifer Fitz

My book is up on the block today at Simcha Fisher’s NFP Week Giveaway extravaganza. Go enter now, and you can also try for the sauerkraut-making kit and 13 other great prizes.

Tomorrow, the good sports will be asking, “Since I didn’t win that one copy, should I just spend the $7 on my very own?”

Yes, I think you probably should.

Classroom Management for Catechists is for you if:

You teach religious education.
You do some other activity that involves a roomful of ~~monkeys~~ sweet, delightful children determined to test your holiness at every turn.
You are trying to find ~~victim souls~~ volunteers to teach in your program, but all the likely candidates are terrified at the prospect. (This is a healthy fear.)

It’s short, readable, and covers all the usual problem scenarios. My assumption is that you actually want to teach the kids the Catholic faith (or whatever subject you’re teaching), not just play Bingo all morning. My other assumption is that you need to understand how classroom discipline works, rather than memorizing a list of handy tips. Your students are spending their summer thinking up new and amazing ways to test your problem-solving skills. So that’s what I teach: Problem-solving skills.

You can see the table of contents here, and I think it’s mostly self-explanatory. The one chapter you might wonder about is “Classroom Leadership”. That one’s about how to teach effectively when you have more than one adult in the room (as you probably will). Yes, you can indeed share responsibilities and address discipline problems, all while finishing out the school year still friends with your co-leaders.

If you have any questions about what other topics I cover, just ask.

So you want an autographed copy, then?

Limited time offer, while supplies last: Since I’m going to spend vast amounts of time later this week at the Midlands Homeschool Convention, and so will the kind folks at the St. Francis Catholic Book and Gift Shop, if you contact the shop and make arrangements to buy a book this week, I can sign a copy before they ship it to you. Personalized, even. (Caveat: My handwriting is horrible. Order your book now to find out just how bad it is.)

PS: If your name is on the acknowledgements page . . .

You should already own a signed copy from me. If I meant to send you a copy and I didn’t or it got lost in the mail, let me know this week, and I can get a reliable person to put one in the mail to you. Thanks!

NFP Tip #1: Learn from a Real Live Human

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 3:07 pm By Jennifer Fitz

It’s NFP Awareness Week. We are aware. Fifteen years aware, which I think in NFP years is about 387 years. We’ve used NFP both to conceive and to avoid pregnancy. It works, and it’s good for your body and good for your marriage.

NFP can also be frustrating, and there are some things you can do to make it less frustrating and more successful. Hence my list of NFP tips. I’ll start with #1 today and work my way through the list. You’ll have seen most of these other places– not because I’m copying but because they are true. Wisdom in a multitude of counselors, all that.

FYI – The book you want on NFP, in addition to your how-to tutorials, is Simcha Fisher’s excellent The Sinner’s Guide to NFP. Simcha’s hosting a giant giveway this week with very many cool prizes, some of them directly related to NFP (ex: fertility monitors), some only indirectly related (ex: my book), and some particularly suited to those who’d rather forget NFP altogether.

***

My Number One Most Important Tip for Successful NFP: Learn from a Real Live Human

People often ask, “What method should I learn?” It’s a good question, because the many various methods do have their strong points. The method that fits your body best is going to be the method you stick with in the long run. {Cue foreshadowing music for tip #2.}

But when you are first starting to learn NFP, you don’t need the most-customized method. Later you can have that. First you need to learn one method, any method, with rock-solid reliability. The way to develop that confidence and certainty is to work with an experienced instructor.

Here’s a directory of instructors around the US.

Ideally you’ll meet in person with someone local. If there simply isn’t someone local, then learning long-distance is a good second choice. It isn’t ideal, but if it’s all you have, it is better than nothing.

Don’t Cut and Run Too Early

So you found a real live human, you’ve charted for a few months, and you’re starting to get the hang of things. Don’t let your instructor out of your clutches yet. Continue with live-person assistance until:

You and your spouse are 100% happy with your ability to avoid or achieve pregnancy.
You’ve gotten through post-partum craziness at least once.

It might be a long time between when you first master NFP (whether to avoid, achieve, or both) and when you find yourself with a newborn baby and a serious reason to postpone pregnancy. Okay, that’s fine. Hunt down that instructor, or a different instructor. Life with a new baby is hard enough without trying to figure out post-partum NFP on your own.

As long as you’re 100% confident of your NFP-using ability, you can pretty much coast on your own. But any time you hit a nebulous “Now What??” moment, find an instructor. Nothing beats real humans for helping you make sense of the crazy.

Staying on the Narrow Road in Gardening Our Souls

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 3:09 pm By Jennifer Fitz

Julie Davis comments on the Parable of the Sower:

Listening to the Gospel reading last Sunday with the parable of the sowers, this was the very thought that ran through my head. Yes the soil may be packed down hard from people walking on it, but if someone hoes it up, adds some compost, and the soft rain falls? Then it too may be fertile.

To which I’d like to add a thought.

Years ago, when our then-pastor preached on the idea of mulching and composting in order to improve the fertility of one’s garden, I was very relieved. I didn’t need to worry I would some how just turn out to be the wrong sort of dirt, too bad, no eternal life growing here.

As Julie puts it:

In my own life, I can see that the more often I examine my conscience, cultivate the virtues, repent of my sins in confession, and so forth, then the more God’s grace can enrich my life.

All this is a tremendous consolation . . . some of the time.

The difficulty being that life is like gardening. By which I mean, and let’s just smash that sentimental soundtrack you’re tempted to play in the background as I say it: Gardens go through seasons. Even in the tropics.

You aren’t always mulching, or always plowing, or always sowing. There’s a time to let the chickens in, and a time to keep the chickens out. Like they lived it in Farmer Boy, there’s a time for getting up before dawn to salvage the crop, and there’s a time for leaving the farm to the kids while Mom and Dad head off on vacation for a week. Even though you know there’s not going to be any sugar left in the barrel when you get back.

It’s easy to err in both directions. In our laziness we can be inclined to leave the garden to mind itself, and just assume a great crop is growing in the abandoned soil of our souls. It won’t. The soul needs to be worked. It needs regular attention. But we can also scruple, and those of us who swing through states in life are particularly prone to this type of scrupling.

We know that Mr. Laborer can’t spend the same number of hours at prayer as Brother Contemplative. They both pray and work, but the one does relatively more work, and the other relatively more prayer. Both, responding to their respective vocations, grow in holiness through their efforts. The trick is in knowing which man we are right now, today.

We can’t say, “Oh, doing ________ is my calling, I don’t need the sacraments!” or “My work is my prayer!” Nonsense. But we can abandon ourselves entirely to the will of God in unusual or chaotic seasons. We can acknowledge the frosts, freezes, droughts and floods that come our way. We can acknowledge that just now we have less time for composting the garden of the soul, knowing full well that there is a day coming soon when, result of the relatively less attention we’ve lavished on purely spiritual things, weeding and smashing bugs are going to be the order of the day.

Updated with a Related Link: Everything ever written by Margaret Rose Realy. Who has a new book in the works, hurray!

Photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (d2709-1Uploaded by January) [CC BY 2.0 or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This is Your Brain on Catholicism

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 3:16 pm By Jennifer Fitz

Thanks to Kathy Schiffer for pointing out the link to this study, which reports a difference in the way Catholic and Atheist brains work in the face of a moral dilemma. I’ve only looked at the abstract, and of course one must never overdo in one’s inferences.

There is a Bible verse that relates to this phenomenon, one that the spouse made it his goal to memorize years ago when he first became a Christian:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2.

Humans are both body *and* soul, bound together so firmly that if you try to separate the two, death is the result. The growth of our soul is expressed in the transformation of our bodies, as this study hints. What we do with our bodies likewise changes our souls.

Lest you despair because it feels like your soul is stymied by an uncooperative body, my thoughts on that vexing situation are in the second half of this post here.

Taming the Feral Faithful: How to Lure Serious Catholics Back to Your Parish

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 1:16 pm By Jennifer Fitz

“The good news,” I found myself telling a new arrival recently, in giving her the lay of the land her new home city, “Is that I’m pretty sure all your priests are Catholic.”

You either know what I meant or you’re in willful denial, and I mean that in the kindest possible way.

As we gear up for the Synod for the Family, one of the realities we have to face is that the reason we are in such a bind on matters of sex & marriage among Catholics is that the Church has been flaking apart for over fifty years. Please recall that the same young adults who brought us the not-so-Free and not-at-all-Love Revolution were, by in large, the products of our golden years of Catholic ascendancy. Baby boom, Catholic schools, nuns in habits, Hollywood movies about kind-hearted priests, all of it.

When the culture made its formal shift in the last quarter of the 20th century, the groundwork had all been put in place by the Leave it to Beaver generation. It wasn’t radical hippies who changed our world; it was clean-cut suburban couples certain, just certain, that an IUD was the solution to their marital difficulties. And Father told them it was probably all right.

That’s the background.

As our Church leaders attempt, this fall, to somehow put back together the doctrinal fracas that’s been festering and popping their entire clerical careers, there’s a hidden-in-plain-sight wellspring of evangelical talent that the Church desperately needs to call back into action: The marginalized devout.

The Catholic at the Window

Earlier this week we found a stray kitten at the playground. It was sick, scared, and desperate for its long-gone mother. He’d come running if we meowed, and then bolt as soon as he got near. We managed to get him home, and put out food and water in a safe hiding spot in the bushes. This little kitten who was terrified of letting anyone near him clambered up the windowsill and meowed all night to be let inside. He knew he needed a home, but he was too scared to actually come close to the humans inside it.

These are the Feral Faithful. An example: A sensible, hardworking, devout Catholic mom mentioned one afternoon that she had too much free time on her hands now that her youngest had gone off to college. “That’s super,” I said. “The campus ministry at the school near your town is trying to build up its discipleship programs. You’d be a great mentor for some of the young adult leaders there.”

Her face clouded over. No. Not possible. “I tried to get involved in young adult stuff once. They don’t want people like us.” She found something else to do with her free time.

This isn’t an isolated story. I’ve heard stories like this from around the country and overseas. The would-be catechist told, “We’ll call you if we can’t find anyone else.” The single mother faithfully bringing her rambunctious child to Mass, only to be told she’s nuts for coming to church every Sunday, why doesn’t she just stay home? The Church isn’t for people like her.

Why do the ranks of traditionalist, Latin-Mass loving faithful always seem just on the verge of falling off the edge of the Church? Consider the possibility that those pews are full of faithful Catholics being pushed away by the self-satisfied center.

No matter where you fall on the spectrum of hurt-by-the-Church Catholics, once you’ve been shoved aside from the mainstream of parish life, it’s hard to ever want to go back.

The Paradox of Reform

The irony is this: The Synod for the Family aims above all to reach out to those who have been marginalized by their irregular marital situations. What do we do, for example, with Catholics who have gone ahead and remarried without an annulment, and thus can no longer receive the Holy Eucharist? In looking for an answer, we can either put an elbow in the eye of the faithful Catholic who doesn’t abandon Church teaching, or we could, radically, turn for guidance to those who have remained loyal to the faith despite the difficulties.

We’ve worked our way back down to 4th century Rome. It’s legal to be Catholic, but the Catholic faith just won’t blend with the wider culture. Do we want to say the pagan culture is correct after all? Or do we want to ask those who’ve held out against the cultural onslaught to join in the fight for souls?

Domesticating the Devout

So what’s a pastor to do? How do you coax faithful Catholics, hardened into isolation by years of rejection, out of hiding in the pews and back in to service? You don’t even know who these people are half the time.

1. Signal Change and Invite. It isn’t necessary to terrify the comfortable in the process. The building blocks of reform are not earthquakes and demolition crews. “We’d like to start a Latin Schola in addition to our Contemporary Choir.” “We are now offering NFP classes, and need volunteers to give their testimony on how NFP has worked in their marriage.” “We are starting a ministry for the divorced who aren’t able to remarry, if you’ve been in that situation and would like to support others going through this, we’d love to have you.”

2. Address Serious Problems. Did I mention my stray kitten was sick? Being in pain makes it hard to build new relationships. Whether it’s schism on the right or heresy on the left, until the serious ills are rectified, there can be no restoration. Sometimes that means putting the cat in the box and going to the vet. Gently but firmly. I know you hate it now, but when this is all better, you’ll be glad. In desperate times, stay focused on the most desperate problems. The kitten still doesn’t use his litter box as neatly as he ought . . . we’re patient. Deal with the big problems, and let the small things work themselves out with time.

3. Keep Inviting. My not-quite-wild kitten didn’t quit running away the first time I set out a bowl of cat food. Slowly, patiently, we keep offering opportunities to engage. The feral faithful aren’t ready join in the parish fun today? Okay, I’ll let you know next time. We’re always happy to have you.

4. Feed the Good Stuff. How do you seduce someone? Give them what they need, and make it beautiful. If want a cat in my yard, I don’t put out yet more bird seed with the reasoning that only birds ever come to the place. If I want Catholics firmly grounded in their faith lingering at my parish, I’ve got to offer the type of liturgy, faith formation, and service opportunities that fill the needs of intentional disciples.

That doesn’t mean I starve everyone else. It does mean that the ratio “milk” and “meat” that we offer be geared towards providing the barely-Catholic with a gracious welcome, but also making it possible for growing disciples to deepen and mature their faith.

But Those People Are Not This Problem

Does all this sound terribly removed from the issues we’re supposed to be discussing at the Synod for the Family? To the contrary. The Church is not the Catechism and Canon Law. The teaching and discipline of the Church serve us, edify us, and form us. But the “us” is what makes up the Body of Christ.

If my heart is in need of healing, it is my brain that needs to diagnose the problem, my eyes that need to pick the right medicine off the shelf, my hands and mouth that give it to me by way of throat, stomach, and blood vessels, and my legs that need to do the right amount of exercise to rest or train my heart as needed. If a part of the body that’s “not the problem” isn’t pulling it’s load, the injury will not be so easily healed.

This is my latest contribution to the Patheos Symposium on the Synod for the Family. See an excellent initial round-up of articles here. More to come as we wrap this up. Enjoy!

#Synod #SynodfortheFamily

Photo: w:User:Stavrolo [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons