R. Thomas Richard's Blog, page 16

The Renewal of Preaching in the Liturgical Homily for the New Evangelization

Below is a paragraph from a brief but excellent article by Fr. Gabriel de Chadarévian, OP, in Homiletic and Pastoral Review on-line.  The article is titled, “The Renewal of Preaching in the Liturgical Homily for the New Evangelization.”  Fr. Gabriel outlines the problem precisely!  He says,

In my own teaching and pastoral experience, I have come to realize, more and more, that a great number of practising Catholics know little about the faith they profess, and whose Sunday Eucharist they more or less faithfully attend. Hence, the great responsibility for sound faith formation or catechesis (doctrinal and moral). I also quickly discovered that among practicing Catholics (including some clergy), few have developed a vital, intimate, and loving relationship with Jesus Christ; few have experienced a living and personal encounter with the Risen Lord in the Eucharist, in the sacraments, in their personal prayer, and their activities, choosing him as the true center, Saviour and Lord of their lives. The dearth and poverty of these two essential components in the life of many Catholics (knowledge of the faith and personal relationship with Christ) have led to a hemorrhaging out of the Church, especially in Europe and North America, and a lukewarmness combined with doctrinal and moral confusion in the lives of many practicing Catholics.

You will be blessed to read the full paper.  He outlines the kind of preaching needed to spark the fire of the faith that the world today needs.  The link to the article is here:

The Renewal of Preaching in the Liturgical Homily for the New Evangelization.

Catholics! Some of the Members are Wandering Away!

The Catholic Church is not doing well in holding her own.  Of those Church members raised in the Church from childhood, a Pew Forum Study (Faith in Flux) found only about 2/3 (68%) of “Cradle Catholics” remain.  Of the 1/3 who leave the Church, about half become Protestants and about half remain unaffiliated with any religion.  A small part (3%) of the cradle Catholics leave and join other religious groups (Buddhists, Jehovah Witnesses, etc.)

The Church would be shrinking, were it not for immigration.  Those who have left the Church (over 10% of the American population are “former Catholics”!) outnumber those who have become Catholic (2.6% of American adults come into the Church), by a margin of nearly four to one.  Only the immigration of Catholics has kept the Church in America from diminishing year by year.  Evangelical groups, meanwhile, are zealously working with the immigrant population to attract, to convert and to keep them satisfied in a non-Catholic form of Christianity.

Here is a number from the Pew Study that I think ought to get our attention.  Of those who left the Church and became Protestant, 71% gave as a reason that their spiritual needs were not being met.  This was the most commonly given reason for this group.  How is it that spiritual needs are not being met, in the Catholic Church formed and sent by Jesus Himself, entrusted with the fullness of divinely revealed truth?  How can former Catholics find more to fill their spiritual needs, in denominations that have less of the spiritual food that God has given?  Something seriously wrong is happening.  Or maybe something seriously right and needed is not happening in the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church believes and teaches that the Sacred Liturgy is the “source and summit of the Christian life”!  We have just noted that of the 1/3 of Catholics who were raised under this Church belief and left the Church for Protestantism, 71% left because their spiritual needs were not being met!  The overwhelming majority of those spiritually hungry former Catholics (78%) found their home in evangelical Protestantism, where Scripture reigns and “sola scriptura” is the dominant doctrine.  We Catholics ought – ought – to learn something from this.

One observation that I think we need to take seriously is the hunger for the Word of God among Catholics.  This hunger is a beautiful gift from God – it is a hunger that the Church is obliged as Mother to respond to, in her children.  Catholics ought not have to leave the Church, to find the beauty and power and presence of Christ in His holy Word.

A related matter is the Presence that the Church does strongly proclaim and offer to her own: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Of course these issues are connected, in the Church: in the Mass, we celebrate both the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The table of the Word is offered, the Word is proclaimed in each Mass!

Indeed the Liturgy of the Word precedes that of the Eucharist in the Mass, just as in salvation history the Word was given first in written form, before Christ the Word came in living form as a man.  First the words, then the living Word!  Adult Catholics today need to find Jesus first in the words – in Holy Scripture, spiritually – before they can fully know Him and receive Him by faith in His real, substantial and sacramental Presence in the Eucharist.  “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17)

In a CARA study (Sacraments Today) at Georgetown University, the following question was asked the respondents: “Which of the following statements best agrees with your belief about the Eucharist/Holy Communion?”  Two possible responses were offered to choose from:

“Jesus Christ is really present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.”

In 2001, 63% chose this statement.  In 2008, 57% chose this.

“Bread and wine are symbols of Jesus, but Jesus is not really present.”

In 2001, 37% chose this statement.  In 2008, 43% chose this.

Setting aside the imprecise language of the options, the startling fact remains that 43% of self-defined Catholics (not those who consider themselves “former” Catholics, yet) reject the doctrine of the Real Presence.  When we hold in the one hand the “source and summit” doctrine of the Church, and in the other hand a 43% denial of the Real Presence among self-identified Catholics, we can perhaps begin to understand the exodus to Protestantism because of spiritual hunger unfulfilled.  Is it well-educated and carefully discerned rejection of Church doctrine?  Is it ignorance of Church teaching?  Is it because the doctrine is presented (if at all) as hard and formal dogma, as unrealistic and incredible “law”?  Is it because so many Catholics today lack adult formation in the faith, and have never had the opportunity or time to consider carefully and prayerfully as adults this and the many other challenging doctrines entrusted to the Church?

The fact is, many Catholics do not receive Christ spiritually in His Word – a presence they hunger for.   Some – to our loss and theirs – leave the Church to find Him in Scripture elsewhere.   Many Catholics do not have the faith or the understanding to receive Christ in His Real and Substantial Presence in Holy Eucharist.  They think they are receiving merely a symbol, and so they lack the right disposition to become fruitful by the Gift.

Our Faith is not strong

The Pew study gives us more troubling news, concerning those Catholics who remain in the Church: by our own admission, our faith is not strong.  Less than half of the self-identified Catholics questioned, reported their faith to be very strong – whether in their childhood, in their youth, or in their adulthood now.  The numbers were, 46% reported very strong faith when they were children, 34% reported it in their teen years, and 46% reported this as true for them now as adults.  Our remaining Catholics – at least the majority of us – are not remaining because of a fervent (or “very strong”) Catholic faith.

It seems that such a lack of fervor explains very well how so many simply “gradually drifted away” from the Church.  The Pew study writes, “Nearly three-quarters of former Catholics who are now unaffiliated (71%) say this, as do more than half of those who have left Catholicism for Protestantism (54%).”  The ties that bind a human soul to the truth of God ought to be the strongest ties in his life!  But when faith is weak that the Church has such ultimate value – or when faith in God Himself is weak, unclear, poorly grasped in mind and heart – then we can well understand how such a soul can simply wander off, gradually and with little concern.

A relevant and interesting statistic that Pew reports is this: of those who left the Catholic Church for Evangelical Protestantism, 78% said that their spiritual needs were not being met in the Catholic Church, 70% said that they now have found a religion they like more.  Indeed among all former Catholics who are now Protestant (evangelical or main-line), 71% say that now their faith is “very strong”!   To me, this statistic is one of the most troubling.  These Catholics had to leave His Church to find Jesus “really” – with a faith of fervor and zeal.

 Conclusions

The answer to this strange and sad conundrum is simple, and the Church on paper has been exhorting us all to it for some time: we need meaningful, substantive, comprehensive and spiritually rich adult faith formation.  We have done well at dispensing sacraments having immense potency of grace!  But we are far from the rich bounty of fruitfulness that the Lord and His sacrifice deserve.  We have not done well – indeed we continue to do poorly – at making fervent disciples in His name.

Catholic adults deserve the formation worthy of disciples – indeed the defining mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel and make disciples of all nations.  What do we need to do?  What do we need to do better?  What do we need to do less, if at all?  One thing we need to do, I am sure, is begin to care, and deeply, about our obedience to the mission of Christ: make disciples!

Prayer is a Gift Intended to Grow

Living things grow, and develop, and mature.  And a mark of maturity is fruitfulness – an unfolding, a flowering, a quiet revelation of the inner beauty of the thing as it transcends itself.  Prayer is a special example, among the living gifts of God, intended to grow toward maturity and fruitfulness.  Prayer is (as the Catechism teaches, #2558 and following) our relationship with God in Christ.  That relationship, with God’s grace and by His design and intention, is meant to grow and to bear fruit.

As time goes on, as I see more and more of the ways of the world and as I am called deeper and deeper into the ways of God, this becomes increasing clear to me: His Church, His holy and beautiful Bride, His living Body still on this earth, has been given an awesome and crucial task.  The Church was sent as light into the world – a world growing darker and darker, closer and closer to cataclysm, to epic disaster, to final climax.  Yes, I know that “the end is near” has been shouted for millennia now!  And it has been true for millennia, and it remains true today.  These are the last days, the last days which began at Pentecost when the Church was first sent out to the dark and confused world with the Good News of Light, of eternal Life in Christ.

The mission is not new, the message is not new, the impoverished and starving audience is not new, the One Holy Source of the Good News is eternal!  His living water is still flowing from His Sacred Heart, through His pierced side, flowing out for the good and for the salvation of whole world.  The messenger sent – His Holy Church – is not new either, but she is in profound need of deep and true renewal.  She is as if asleep, as if unable to see, or respond.  Christ in the garden, seeking prayer-communion with His Father in the shadow of the Cross that drew near, warned His disciples: “”Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”  (Lk 22:40)  He knew the Cross was near – at the very door.  He knew the need of His Church: prayer!    He Himself knelt down and entered the agony bound together with love, His Self-offering.  He found them not praying, but sleeping.  He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Lk 22:46)

The Church needs prayer.  Each one of us needs to grow in prayer.  Prayer is union with God.  (John Vianney) Prayer is our relationship with God in Christ.  Prayer is our communion with the Spirit, our living water in the barren desert of man apart from God.  We need to find that communion, and remain in it – in Him, our very life.

New Article on Prayer – Catholic Exchange

The on-line magazine Catholic Exchange has published now two of my articles on prayer – the first one, Grow in Christ, Marriage & Prayer, and now a second one, Ways to Grow in Prayer.  I invite you all to read them both, and to add your thoughts and comments which I always appreciate very much.

Grow in Christ, Marriage and Prayer

Thomas has written another article in “Catholic Exchange” which can be a blessing to all.

In this article Thomas explores the beauty of God’s design for growth in our relationship with Him (prayer) and relationships with others, most especially in our marriages.  One need not be married to appreciate the article for it contains insights all of us can rejoice in as the Church is the Bride of Christ.   I hope you will read it, at the link below, and comment either here on this blog or at  the Catholic Exchange website site:

Grow in Christ, Marriage, & Prayer

Gratefully and prayerfully,

Deborah

Three Temptations to Spiritual Immaturity

The link I will write below leads to a new article I just published on the Catholic website, Catholic Exchange.  In the article, I try to connect the “three temptations” that Pope Francis recently warned the Bishops of Latin America about, to many of the spiritual weaknesses we can painfully see in the contemporary Church in America.  Please feel invited to read the article, and if you’d like, make a comment on the Exchange.  And/or here.

Here is the link to the article:

Three Temptations to Spiritual Immaturity.

What Happens to a Church When the Members Won’t Grow Up?

I recently wrote an article for Homiletic and Pastoral Review - an on-line magazine especially written for those concerned with preaching and pastoral needs of the Church.  The readership is, probably, mostly clergy for the obvious reasons, but lay persons do read it, and do also contribute articles for it.  Certainly laity are concerned about preaching in the Church, and certainly we also are concerned about the many pastoral matters in our parishes.

Anyway, this article of mine was just published on HPR.  I want to share it with the readership of the blog also, hence this link to it: What Happens to a Church When the Members Won’t Grow Up?  Click on the link, if you will, and read it.  As always, I invite your comments below (as does the HPR site also).

The problem written about is seen first in the secular culture – a kind of “Peter Pan syndrome” – a clinging to youth and immaturity, to care-free, worry-free, responsibility-free but fruitless days before the drudgery of adulthood came to ruin it all.  In our time many parents want to be “friends” and almost peers with their children, if they have any, and dread being the “grown-up” in the eyes of the young.  Many adults want to talk as, dress as, act as they did in their own teen years.  They may cling to the same music, television, movie and sports interests, dreading becoming “like their parents” in their own eyes.  Maturity is not a good thing, in this culture devoted to youth, and it is postponed as long as possible.  It is fled, as if it were a disease.

In Christ, it ought to be different!  We are exhorted to grow up in all ways into Christ – into maturity in Him – into the fruitfulness of a mature spirituality, and a mature following of our Lord.  But as in so many things, so also in this, the ways of the world creep into the Church.  And we find in the Church a shrinking back from the call to maturity – to grow in Christ – to come to maturity in grace, unto fruitfulness.

Some in the Church, it ought to be said, have been confused with a mishearing of St. Therese and a spirituality of childhood gleaned from her writings and her example of child-like sanctity.   The child-like trust and faith of St. Therese is not the childish flight from discipleship, with its real challenges and responsibilities, that characterizes our failure to grow and develop as we should.  There is a way in which the spiritually mature are “like children” in moral innocence, in ready obedience, in intrinsic humility, and so on.  One must become “as a child” to enter the Kingdom of heaven!  But in the Kingdom, one must grow into the perfection of our Father’s intention: the perfection (the maturity) of disinterested charity, of moral purity, of heroic obedience, of habitual humility, of unwavering trust in our Father.

Adulthood – and parenthood – ain’t for sissies!  Excuse the slang, but it does make the point.  Leadership in the Church also is not for the fainthearted, nor for those lacking the courage to carry the burden.  The Church was sent to make disciples, and to shepherd those disciples into the fullness of our vocation in Christ – to maturity, to fruitfulness in Him.  May the Lord give us all grace to do as He commanded – and to follow Him, with the trust of a child and the mature courage of a man or woman, no matter the cost.

The Quiet Light of Reverence, and Witness for Christ

Jesus came as “light” into the world – and Jesus passed on this light to His Church.  He sent His Church to be the light of the world, in Him.  The world needs light!  The world is becoming encompassed by, immersed in, and it seems overwhelmed by darkness.  God made man in His own beautiful image – but man chose, and chooses, an ugly counterfeit of light, all the while telling himself and one another that such darkness is actually light and no counterfeit at all.

As the world seems to fall further and further into crudeness, baseness, disrespect and irreverence – with the corresponding social ills of violence, abuse, injustice and corruption – I see more and more clearly the need for prayer to God for His light and His grace.  By himself, man will only kill himself and one another in the process.  We need the light and the life of God – and the Church needs to bear witness to this need, and to the fount of divine life and light that God has entrusted to His Church.

Men begin to see God, when they see men of God.  Thus we need not merely teachers, as Paul VI said, but witnesses.  The world needs righteous men and women – men and women of God, whose lives are explained and make sense only in His light.  We don’t need salesmen, or advertisers, or corporate officials, or managers – or if we do, we need them only in and after true witness.  We need saints!  And without saints, we are the most impoverished of any charitable NGO or social club.  We need prayer!  

Prayer is communion with God.  The Catechism (#2564) says, “Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ.”  We need saints in prayer, because only there is the bridge to God, to life, to sanity.  Men and women in relationship with God are crucial and sacred bridges linking man, and men, in darkness to God Who is light and life.  Over this bridge, so to speak, can pass saving grace – living water – to a world of men lost in a dry, barren desert of darkness.  We need men and women of prayer.

Reverence

What is reverence, if not the foundation and enduring attitude of prayer?  What is reverence if not the human response to the presence of God who is ever-present?  What is reverence if not the habit of being in the presence of God, and thus the habit of prayer?  In the transfiguration, the apostles saw Jesus radiating with a light different from any before seen.  They saw Him radiating the beatitude of His communion with the Father and the Spirit.  They saw, I would suggest, in supernatural perfection what is pointed to, and prefigured in a limited and natural way, in authentic reverence.  Reverence radiates holy, personal and intimate communion with God.  Reverence in a righteous man or woman radiates what is glowing within: communion with the ever-present and eternal God.  The righteous man or woman “sees” Him!  The only righteous response is the habit of holy reverence, and the habit of continual prayer with Him.

  The human person, by his nature, needs to find and to enter and to remain in an attitude of reverence.  Only such an attitude – an habitual attitude of reverence – is worthy of a human person and only this allows him to live in appreciation of life, his life, and time, and creation, and other persons, and his very being.  Only reverence can keep a person in prayer, as he walks through his life on this earth.  

Reverence is the foundation of prayer – the first step into prayer – the interior recognition of the presence of the holy, in which we are standing at this moment.  Reverence recognizes the Other in Whom we are immersed, even now.  Whether in silence and solitude, or in a noisy crowd rushing here or there on some street of some city, it really does not matter.  God is present, waiting in His eternal silence, for our awakening and our knowing how near He is, here and now.

So many in the world do not seem to know of this resting place and resting time with Him, in reverence.   They seem to know only the outside of things and moments, only the busyness and the noise, and not the quiet interior center where life is.

Why is it that this place of rest, this reverence – this Sabbath – is not seen, is not found, is not known?  Perhaps people are too afraid to stop and look for it.  It is not hidden, unless it is hidden in plain sight, right before our eyes.  It is not covered, unless by the dust of our own  blind activity.  It is not too far from us, unless we are too far from ourselves and the present moment in which we live and move and have our being.

There is a “great escape” being attempted by man, in our time.  He is in flight from God, he is running.  He fears the very light that would save him.  Jesus sent His Church to be the light that came not to condemn but to save, and the world deserves – in the union of mercy and justice that is in God – His light.  Church, let each and every one of us hear His call to us to be light in this dark world!  Let each and every one of us give to the last breath we breathe, our lives in a living sacrifice to His will, that we might be a bridge of reverence and prayer, for others to the saving light of Christ.

“Stifle the mother…”

The title of this blog entry is from an article by Father Rutler, whom some may know from EWTN.  After I read his article I wanted to share it because it expressed so well the terrible darkness in the United States today.  Leaders in our government, as well as citizens who may be among our own families and friends, have believed the “father of lies”.  Please read:

Evil, be thou my good

By Father George Rutler

With my parents at a performance of Gounod’s Faust at the opera some years ago, when Marguerite went mad in Act V after killing her baby, my mother let out a gasp that embarrassed me, for we were in a box over stage left and conspicuous. Now I bless my mother because that maternal empathy is the heart of civilization. “A voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children” (Jeremiah 31:15). Stifle the mother, and you stifle the child, and the world dies. Our Lady, being a take-charge kind of woman, as was evident at the wedding in Cana, may have been a midwife often in Nazareth, weeping at the loss of infants as she surely did when the innocents were massacred in Bethlehem.

In the opera, the repentant Marguerite is taken by angels singing “Salvation!” But Faust, who bartered his soul to Mephistopheles before fathering Marguerite’s child, is bound to that Satan who, in the words of Milton, bids “Evil, be thou my good.” Anyone who calls evil good, moves discourse about infanticide to a very dark place.

On April 26, President Obama, the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood, not only thanked that organization which aborts around 300,000 children a year, but added, “God bless you.” Evil, be thou my good.

On June 13, Nancy Pelosi said that the abortion issue is “sacred ground.” Evil, be thou my good.

On June 20, a New York Times Op-Ed contributor described the aborting of her 23-week-old son, who had a heart defect: “I felt my son’s budding life end as a doctor inserted a needle through my belly into his tiny heart. As horrible as that moment was — it will live with me forever — I am grateful. We made sure our son was not born only to suffer. He died in a warm and loving place, inside me.” Evil, be thou my good.

Our merciful Lord will hear the cry of those who make terrible mistakes, especially those who have not had the grace of being taught right from wrong. To them he offers real angels, and not singers on a stage. But he also predicted that “a time is coming when anyone who kills will think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2). Like Faust, such people ask God to bless destroyers of life, and call the killing fields “sacred ground,” and even describe the womb of a mother who kills her child as a “warm and loving place.”

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said that no one is safe around a mother who would kill her own child. Anyone who makes a Faustian bargain knows that even Christ is not safe around such a mother: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Satan calls evil good. Christ calls it crucifixion.

Please let us continue to pray for one another, for the Church in our country and all over the world to which we are sent as disciples of Christ.  Let us continue to strive to become the saints God has called us to be that His Light may shine through as as He shone through Mary and all His saints on this earth.  We have been baptized into His Truth and we have been given a work to do:  “Go, make disciples …”  By God’s grace, evil is overcome by good.  Let us expose the lies of satan at every opportunity we are given.  Our Lady is the Mother and Model for all of us.  Blessed John Paul II said that if we neglect His Mother we will not long after neglect her Son.  The evil one would like nothing better than to “stifle the Mother” , as he has succeeded in stifling so many mothers and so many children have died.

Thoughts Following a Recent Mass: Catholics Need to Learn to Pray

The Catholic Church has a great and beautiful tradition of prayerfulness!  The family of saints in the Church who have written and taught both the art and the science of prayer is a treasure for all Catholics.  The very real – substantially real – Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, reserved in the Tabernacles of so many of our churches, ought to proclaim to all Catholics that the sanctuary of a church is a holy place.  One would think that Catholics would greatly value the sanctuary of a Catholic church as that: a holy place, a sacred space, where God dwells and waits for us, a place of profound reverence.

It used to be this way.  As a child I well remember the sense of reverence that I had – that I was taught – whenever I entered a Catholic church.  We entered quietly, we entered into prayer, we knew we were in God’s House, all was different here.  A whispered “Hello” might be appropriate to a friend or a relative – more likely was simply a nod or a smile in silence.  Even passing a Catholic church outside, in a car or walking, evoked the sense that there inside was the sacred, the holy, the divine.

It is so very different now.  The power of secularism in this country, in western culture, has done immense damage to that precious religious sense that was so common some decades ago.  A far-reaching “dumbing down” has weakened us, infected us, made less of us.  Not only has the religious sense suffered within us, but our very human dignity has become degraded.  We in the West are not only less religious, we are less human as a culture and a people.  We respect and reverence not only God less, but one another and even ourselves less.  People laugh at, ridicule and mock others as common fare in popular entertainment.  Cruelty grows, where respect diminishes.  All this degradation is the simple consequence of secularism’s fundamental faith, that there is no God or if “it” is, “it” is irrelevant.  And when He is irrelevant, all is irrelevant.  Upon such godlessness, man can find nothing relevant to satisfy his incessant hunger, to fill the void left in his heart when God has been excluded from it.

All the coldness and insensitivity of the secular culture has had its effect on the members of the Catholic Church.  Because we in the Church have not been formed in the Faith adequately, many of us lack the solid foundation of faith adequate to resist the advances of the enemy.  We in the Church have failed to evangelize the Faith in the culture, and now the culture is evangelizing us to their ways.  We have failed to broadcast light, and now darkness grows – and it is invading the Church through her members.

So I finally get to my point: we Catholics need to learn how to pray, so as to develop and live in the habit of prayerfulness.  I am ashamed to say – even among those old enough to remember the prayerfulness that used to characterize us at least while in the House of God – so many Catholics have forgotten.  Many younger Catholics have never learned this!  But many of those who did learn as children the attitude and behavior proper to preparation before Mass, have forgotten.  Catholics awaiting Mass to begin can chat away as carelessly as anyone, apparently as neglectful as an unbeliever of the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle a mere few feet away,  apparently as unconcerned as an unbeliever that the Sacrifice of the Mass is about to begin.  And again, I am ashamed to say, apparently as ignorant as an unbeliever that when that Sacrifice occurs in the Holy Mass, we in the congregation are to offer our own personal lives in self-offering with our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are to unite our lives with His, on the Cross.  Ponder that, in preparation for the Holy Mass, that our presence be one with His, and that our offering may be one with His.

With His perfect Self-offering, we are to offer our works, our sufferings, our praises, our lives in union with Him!  That personal self-offering deserves – He deserves from us – our full, conscious and active participation, our presence with Him in holy worship.  In other words, the Mass deserves our preparation, and our preparation requires time in sincere and authentic prayer.  Jesus deserves our prayerful preparation for what we are about to do with Him.  God the Father deserves our rightful disposition for what we are about to receive: God Himself, in Holy Communion.  Before Mass begins, we need to be in prayer – not chatting away about temporal and worldly concerns.

How can we become more prayerful?  That, my friends, is a question worth considering, and worth answering to ourselves.  It is not so complicated: we can become more prayerful, by praying more.  We need more time of silence, not less.  We need more time in solitude, not less.  We need more time with His revealed Truth in Scripture, not less.  And the more time we squander with unimportant things, the less time we have for the necessary one.  “It is not rocket science,” as the saying goes.

Friendship with God in Christ

The Catechism describes very beautifully the personal and covenantal communion with God in Christ – the communion that is for us to enter – called prayer.  Outside of Christ, man hides from God, estranged from Him by the guilt of sin and the fear of Him that, in justice, arises in us because of our sin.  But Christ came to save us from that estrangement, and He shows us on the Cross that we are loved by God “yes even that much.”  Because of Him we are forgiven, and because of Him we are invited into the beatitude of divine communion.  Jesus shows us on the Cross that He, God, calls to us as friend.

How is it then, that so much of the world – so much even of the “Christian” Western world – acts and lives and hides in hedonistic self-indulgence – as if God does not even exist?  This is a mystery upon mystery!  Upon the luminous mystery of God’s Self-sacrificial outpoured love for man yet in sin, is the dark mystery of man’s continued rejection of Him.  Too many – even in the Church! – are too busy for God.

The Church is called to go, to proclaim God’s invitation, to announce His merciful compassion, to echo from mountain to valley the great news of forgiveness and of a new beginning for man – a new life.  Yet the dark mystery continues!  Even within the Church, the mystery of man’s self-preoccupations dim the luminance of the Gospel, and the Church turns not out to the fallen world that is so needful of His Good News, but she turns within, to programs and projects, to fundraisers and clubs, to dinners and bazaars and receptions of celebration of one another.  Why is she this way?  The Church exists to evangelize – but she hardly knows the word.  Her work is worldly, because her prayer is worldly.

To share His good news, it must be alive in our own souls – it must be life itself to us!  The Church was on fire in their own hearts, after the fire of Pentecost fell upon them.  That fire spread.  We need that fire today, and first of all we need to awaken and see how far from it we have lapsed.

We need our lives to be founded upon the communion of prayer with the living God – we need lives of personal relationship with Him, God the Holy Trinity.  Such lives of prayer demonstrate what Jesus meant when He said, “Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.” (Jn 15:4)  Bearing fruit for the Lord – working works of worship in His name – depend on the reality or the falsity of that word applied to our lives: Do I remain in Him?  Is my relationship with Him real, habitual, enduring, persisting?  Or am I a part-time Christian?  Is Jesus Christ my very life, my vocation – or is He a hobby for me?

Our prayer life grows and deepens exactly as our “knowing” of Him grows and deepens.  Our prayer-communion with God is not based on a knowing-about God, but a knowing Him in a personal and increasingly intimate way.  I want to write about prayer, because I see such a great need for deep and authentic prayer in the Church among the members: laity and clergy.  The Church is called into a real and vital union with God!  A shallow knowing merely about God will not do.  A superficial and passing acquaintance with Him will not do.  Every Catholic needs to meet God in Christ – coming “face-to-face” so to speak with Him – encountering Him on the holy ground of revealed truth – that a real relationship with Him can begin and can grow.

I know also that many Catholics want this vibrant, life-receiving relationship with Christ.  Many want to have and to live a true, rich communion of prayer with Him.  God wants that too, and He is very willing to pour forth His grace to enable that communion.  So what is needed?  To grow in prayer, we must pray.  To advance, we must begin.  To enter more deeply into His mystery, we must walk to the door, and knock.  I’ll insert here a brief reminder that I did write about the grades of prayer, and how prayer does advance, in my book The Ordinary Path to Holiness.  And other books are available.  Many prayerful men and women in the Church have left a record for us, to help us learn, and grow.  Are you willing to invest time in an investment with “guaranteed return”?  The Lord promised that everyone who asks receives, who seeks finds, and who knocks will have the door opened for them.  And His treasures beat the stock market every time!

This interior movement and growth – from real encounter with Him, to coming to know Him, to growing in that “friendship” that is communion – this is the journey of prayer, this is the path to holiness, this is the life of a disciple.  Catholics, seek to meet Him in His Word, that a holy friendship can begin.  He is our friend, truly and sincerely.  He is life for us.