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ISSN 0896-4297
Contents
Becoming Christian
Introduction
3
Herbert Anderson
Faithful Becoming: Forming Families in the Art of
Paradoxical Living in a Fragmented and Pluralistic World
5
James J. Greenfield, O.S.F.S.
Young, Adult, and Catholic: A Wonderful Complexity
15
Eileen D. Crowley
New Media and Normal Mysticism:
An Unexpected Gift for Ongoing Spiritual Formation
26
Michel Andraos
Becoming a Christian, Becoming a Peacemaker
32
Mary Frohlich, R.S.C.J.
Discernment as a Way of Life
41
Frank J. Matera
Preaching in a Different Key:
Preaching the Gospel According to Paul
52
Guerric DeBona, O.S.B.
Classical Rhetoric and the Contemporary Preacher
66
NTR
VO L U M E 1 8 , N U M B E R 3 • AU G U S T 2 0 0 5
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
Scott C. Alexander
John Paul II and Catholic-Muslim Solidarity
77
KEEPING CURRENT
Amanda D. Quantz
When Everything Old Is New Again
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Church History
81
WORD AND WORSHIP
Donald Senior, C.P.
Preaching Mark
85
BOOK REVIEWS
Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, eds. In Whom We Live and Move and
Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a
Scientific World. (Reviewed by Ilia Delio, O.S.F.)
88
Oliver Davies. A Theology of Compassion: Metaphysics of Difference
and the Renewal of Tradition. (Reviewed by Daniel P. Haggerty)
89
James Wallace, C.Ss.R., Robert P. Waznak, S.S., and Guerric DeBona, O.S.B.
Lift Up Your Hearts. Homilies for the “A” Cycle.
(Reviewed by Gerard Sloyan)
90
Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins, eds. In Many and Diverse Ways:
In Honor of Jacques Dupuis. (Reviewed by Donald Buggert, O.Carm.)
92
Michael Kwatera, O.S.B. The Ministry of Communion. 2nd ed.
James A. Comisky. The Ministry of Hospitality. 2nd ed.
(Reviewed by Virginia Sloyan)
93
Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B. Praying the Scriptures.
(Reviewed by Joseph Wimmer, O.S.A.)
94
Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds. The Ecumenical Future.
Background Papers for In One Body through the Cross:
The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity.
(Reviewed by Caren C. Stayer)
95
2
CONTENTS
Introduction
The Acts of the Apostles refers several times to the following of Jesus within
the context of the Christian church as “the Way”—using the ordinary Greek
word for road: hodós. The pre-Christian monks at Qumran used the equivalent
Semitic term to describe itself and its mode of incarnating the covenant in a concrete faith community. Both groups were obviously borrowing from the language
and thinking of the Old Testament.
This imaging of religious experience as a path or travel route is rooted in a
basic insight: our relationship with God, both as individuals and as a people
called to faith, is not just an assortment of isolated episodes; it is an ongoing
journey, a process, a trajectory. The thematic articles in this issue reflect this conviction from various angles. They explore the gradual progression through
which we are led to a fuller possession of our identity as friends of God, as well
as the step-by-step manner in which we respond to this lifelong vocation at various stages in the journey.
The journey we pursue today is carried on in a society where social, cultural,
and religious differences challenge the beliefs and stability of the Christian family. Herbert Anderson explores several strategies with which to deal with this
often divisive diversity—strategies that foster the mutual recognition of equality, that promote training in tolerance and creative faithfulness to basic values,
and that open the “domestic church” to the public mission of a globally oriented
faith.
Jim Greenfield, recognizing the importance of ministry to young adult Catholics, urges us to examine what sociologists and psychologists can contribute to
our understanding of the patterns of development that can be discerned among
those in this age group. His practical illustrations demonstrate how this information can be helpful in the creation of pastoral approaches that work to make
Christ more vividly present to this exciting but widely diverse group within the
church as they grapple with their own religious identity.
Eileen Crowley approaches our theme of ongoing Christian development by
explaining how engaging parishioners in producing media art for worship is a
form of spiritual formation, and is especially attractive for young people. She
notes that this “can benefit Catholics in their everyday challenge of becoming
more and more Christian in what Rahner has called the ‘liturgy of the world.’”
INTRODUCTION
3
In his “Becoming a Christian, Becoming a Peacemaker,” Michel Andraos proposes that, for followers of Christ, peacemaking is not just a moral obligation
but actually a way of life. Becoming an instrument of peace is a transformative
praxis that enables us to imitate God’s own peacemaking initiatives. This spiritual
calling begins, quite literally, in our own hearts and homes, and then continues to
develop as a commitment to a lifestyle that includes practical peacemaking and
concrete social involvement demonstrated in concrete actions, which are the
fruits of the Spirit of peace.
In a parallel vein, Mary Frohlich’s “Discernment as a Way of Life” emphasizes
that spiritual discernment needs to be thought of in terms broader than as a onetime assessment made to reach a major life decision. Mature reflection on this
concept reinforces the insight that “tuning in” to the guidance of the Spirit entails an ongoing reorientation of one’s relationship with Christ. Coming to correct
understanding is conditioned by habits of the mind and will steadily turn to hear
(and rise to!) what the Spirit reveals from deep within and from without, both in
trial and tranquility.
This edition of NTR also features two articles for those engaged in the preaching ministry. First, Frank Matera, a noted New Testament professor at The
Catholic University of America, discusses how his decision to preach on the
Pauline epistles on Sundays led to preaching in a “new key.” He identifies four
issues that are rooted in preaching the saving death and life-giving resurrection
of Jesus Christ and how the paschal mystery speaks to contemporary Christians.
Then, Guerric DeBona, professor of preaching at St. Meinrad’s Seminary and
School of Theology, draws the attention of preachers to the riches of the classical tradition of rhetoric, making use of the ancient fivefold rhetorical process
involved in preparing to give a speech and showing its ongoing practical value
for today’s preachers.
In Signs of the Times, Scott Alexander, professor of Islam at the Catholic
Theological Union in Chicago, offers a moving reflection on the warm response
of his many Muslim friends and colleagues to the death of Pope John Paul II,
seeing in it a basis for hope for ongoing Catholic-Muslim dialogue both in the
U.S. and abroad. In Keeping Current, Amanda Quantz, associate professor of
church history at the Catholic Theological Union, looks at various new works
that can deepen our knowledge and understanding of the theology, history, and
art of the Eastern Christian traditions. Then, in Word and Worship, Donald Senior,
another eminent Scripture scholar and president of the Catholic Theological
Union in Chicago, helps preachers and those engaged in Lectionary-based catechesis by identifying and reflecting on three major motifs found in the Gospel of
Mark that begins to be read the First Sunday of Advent. Finally, our book
reviewers have provided us with reports on several new works.
4
INTRODUCTION
NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • AUGUST 2005
Faithful Becoming
Forming Families in the Art of Paradoxical
Living in a Fragmented and Pluralistic World
Herbert Anderson
Social, cultural, and religious diversity in today’s society offers
many challenges to the beliefs and stability of the Christian family.
The author explores strategies to deal with this diversity, foster mutual
recognition of equality, promote training in tolerance and fidelity to our
basic values, and encourage a hospitality which opens the
domestic church to the public mission of a globally oriented faith.
M
y mother was raised in rural western Minnesota at the beginning of the
twentieth century in a context of ethnic and religious homogeneity. Some
of that uniformity still existed when I was a child sixty years ago. Everybody I
knew then had been socialized into the same worldview and shared values in
which I was being formed. Parents raising children and children growing up at
the beginning of the twenty-first century and the third millennium will face a
much more diverse context with fewer certainties. Adults in families face the
same challenges as they seek to continue to be formed for faithful living. The
society in which we live is increasingly less homogeneous, stable, localized, and
predictable because we live in increasingly heterogeneous, changing, translocal,
and unpredictable globalized contexts. We can no longer assume a common
worldview in the primary contexts of our lives, even including the church. When
the world appears disjunctive or when we participate simultaneously in very
Herbert Anderson is emeritus professor of pastoral theology at Catholic Theological
Union in Chicago. He was visiting professor of pastoral care at Yale Divinity School for
academic year 2004–2005.
FAITHFUL BECOMING
5
different social or cultural networks, we need to be formed to live in uncertainties, contradictions, ambiguities, and conflicting interests.
The challenge facing families today is to forge patterns of faithful living in a
fragmented and pluralistic world. There are at least ten unavoidable tensions
that families will face as they learn the art of paradoxical living:
1. How will families balance the demands of the workplace and the obligations
of home?
2. How will families foster respect for difference in order to form people for
living in an increasingly pluralistic world?
3. How will families of the future continue to be havens of hospitality in a world
that has become increasingly dangerous?
4. How will families manage the technology that makes them simultaneously
more porous to influence from the world outside the home and more isolated?
5. How will families strengthen the practice of commitment in family living
when the society is dubious of the value of long-term commitment?
6. How will families form future citizens with a commitment to the common
good in a society that is preoccupied with individualism and privatism?
7. How will families respond to the increasing religious and cultural diversity
within our own midst?
8. How will multitasking affect the quality of relationships within the family?
What will be the effect on childrearing of dictating corporate memos while
nursing an infant or consulting by cell phone while watching a child’s soccer
match?
9. How will marriages be sustained and renewed as the life span increases and
the years of childrearing decrease proportionately?
10. How will families continue to form disciples of Christ for the sake of the
world?
Each of these questions is worthy of longer consideration. The intent of this
essay is to suggest ways of forming faithful Christians that take seriously the
paradoxical nature of family living at the beginning of a new millennium. In the
space available for this essay, we will examine only the first three questions.
The Paradoxical Spirituality of Family Living
T
6
he spirituality that embraces paradox is particularly necessary for modern
family living. By paradox, I mean a contradiction that does not seem to be
HERBERT ANDERSON
true but nonetheless is true. The Cross is the ultimate paradox for the Christian.
If we live the way of the Cross, we will live the contradictions that only God can
resolve. The last are first, the meek inherit the earth, and in order to live we have
to die. Paradox is not only the Christian way; it is inherent in human nature, in
human community, and, particularly, in the family. Marriage is sustained by
holding in vital, paradoxical tension the fundamental human need for intimacy
and the equally fundamental human need for autonomy.
In The Bonds of Love, Jessica Benjamin describes a new ‘logic of paradox’
that arises when marital partners see one another as equal subjects. “Perhaps the
most fateful paradox is the one posed by our simultaneous need for recognition
and independence—that the other subject is outside our control and yet we need
him or her” (221). There is no theme more necessary or more complex for a vital marriage than
the paradox of mutual recognition of equal subjects. Each person in a marriage may be a fully
defined self, but the recognition of that unique
Paradox is not only
self by the other is necessary for the marriage to
work. This experience of recognizing and being
the Christian way;
recognized is not only prerequisite for community; it is fundamental for human growth and
it is inherent in
identity. Marriages that endure and flourish have
achieved a kind of mutual recognition between
human nature, in
husband and wife that honors each one as a
unique and separate subject.
human community,
What is necessary for marriage is equally
and, particularly,
critical for family living. A family is a community in which the well-being of the whole and
in the family.
the well-being of each part must be held in
almost sacred tension. The family’s capacity to
be intimate and caring and its capacity to be
separate and different are paradoxically linked.
A family’s capacity to be together depends on its ability to be separate and honor
the autonomy of each member. Even when we want to be emotionally free, we
still depend on others in the family for recognition and intimacy. Solitude and
community are paradoxically connected. We leave our families of origin in order
to go home again; if we can’t go home again, we probably have not left. Couples
who are comfortable with the paradox of marital intimacy and distance will
work toward forming families in which commitment to the whole and commitment to each separate person are held as a sacred trust.
Embracing paradox is not easy, even in the safe intimacy of family living. It
requires humility about what is right and a willingness to entertain the possibility
that two things might be true. Because there is another side to everything, as
FAITHFUL BECOMING
7
Thomas Merton once observed, we need to practice listening to the other side in
our families so that no one’s idea or contribution is left out. Embracing paradox
is difficult because it is messy and a little like fuzzy-mindedness and too much
like ambiguity. Because we would rather believe that things are this way or that
way, we are tempted to foster a family belief system with absolutes that exclude
or divide.
Pat Parker articulates very clearly what I mean by the truth of paradox in the
opening lines of her poem “For the White Person who Wants to Know how to be
my Friend.”
The first thing you do is to forget that I’m Black.
Second, you must never forget that I’m Black (297).
Families need to embrace paradox as a way of faithful Christian living in order
to respond constructively to the challenges they face at the beginning of the new
millennium. If a family’s belief system includes paradox at the center, it will be
able to understand that contradiction, ambiguity, and uncertainty are part of life
and not alien to becoming and being a faithful Christian.
How Will Families Balance the Demands
of the Workplace and the Obligations of Home?
C
ouples who are determined to work toward an equal division of household
and parenting responsibilities often find themselves torn by the limits of
time. Even when the intent is to establish equality between women and men in
marriage, there is simply too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.
When both partners in a marriage work outside the home, they often experience
a clash of callings—the calling of work and the calling to family living. This
conflict is implicit in the organization of modern, industrial, market-driven societies. Although many changes have occurred, like flextime, job sharing, or personal leaves, the old demands for single-minded devotion to the workplace have
not changed significantly. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the family is
constantly juggling multiple obligations and expectations to be in several places
simultaneously. Sometimes the tensions are of our own making because families
have overscheduled their children with too many worthwhile activities. Some
couples run out of time because they need to work two, three, or four jobs in
order to afford the house they never have time to enjoy. Honoring the vital human
needs for community and autonomy is the paradox embedded in the conflict
between work and family.
Resolving the tensions between home and work will require a new way of
thinking about the marital bond. If we understand equal partnership for women
8
HERBERT ANDERSON
and men at home and in the workplace as a sign of God’s longing for justice and
mutual respect for all people, then the marital promise will need to include a
commitment to be just with one another as well as loving to one another. Pauline
Kleingeld, in an essay in Mutuality Matters: Family, Faith, and Just Love, has
proposed that we reconceive the ideal of marriage as “not only a matter of love,
but also of justice. On this view, married couples ideally would think of themselves as sharing at least two overarching aims: a loving marriage and a just
marriage” (30). What Kleingeld has proposed changes the framework for negotiating role equality in marriage.
Positive changes in some aspects of society and in many marriages have not
eliminated injustice from marriage nor have they eradicated injustice toward
women in the church and at work. Women are
paid less for the same or equivalent work. Household labor studies consistently show that women
continue to do more housework than men even
when both work outside the home. We need to
[T]hen the marital
work for laws and policies that are just, but just
laws do not guarantee just action in the privacy
promise will need
of family life. Becoming and being married in a
way that honors the unique gifts of each partner
to include a
in a marriage depends on a commitment to
forming a just bond.
commitment to be
A combined sixty-hour workweek for couples
with children has been proposed as one way to
just with one
relieve the tension between work and family.
another as well
The proponents of this ideal acknowledge that
it would only work in wealthier modern societies.
as loving to one
To accomplish this ideal, Don S. Browning
suggests that “market and government must
another.
work with culture-making institutions such as
church, synagogue, and mosque to create a new
philosophy of leisure and new restraints on the
consumerism that drives our compulsion to constantly earn more money” (27). Rather than expecting families to adjust to the
demands of the marketplace, the vision embodied in the sixty-hour combined
work seeks to reform the world of work so it conforms to the scale of families
with children. Even if the demands of a market economy were transformed, the
sixty-hour workweek for families with young children would still require couples
to be committed to a just distribution of responsibilities within the marital bond.
My wife Phyllis and I made an audiotape twenty-five years ago entitled “One
Marriage, Two Ministries.” Although the two ministries in our situation were
both in the church, the issues we identified around autonomy and community
FAITHFUL BECOMING
9
have application for all couples who think of their work in the world as a ministry.
We were only beginning to understand then what Kleingeld has identified now
as a just marriage. Since then, we have had to make complex choices that included painful sacrifices. Most of the time, the accommodations have been just,
even when they were neither equal nor mutual. Phyllis and I never achieved the
ideal of a sixty-hour workweek for couples when the children were at home or
after they left home. There is a truth to the ideal, however, that is more important
that legislating hours: family life requires time and attention. We have learned in
these twenty-five years that the struggle for a just marriage depends on three
central commitments: paying attention to one another even if the house is not
clean, a willingness to live with the paradoxical reality of autonomy and community, and the desire and commitment to be gracious with one another along
the way.
How Will Families Foster Respect for
Difference in Order to Form People for Living
in an Increasingly Pluralistic Context?
I
was raised in a strong Christian family environment in which difference was
regarded as dangerous and sameness was the place of safety. My context was
so homogeneous that it was not until much later in life that I was challenged by
the religious and ethnic diversity that is now everywhere present. The diversity
of religions or cultures is not new, of course. What is new, however, is that
human difference is no longer hidden by geographic distance or behind cultural
walls or religious imperialism. Encounters with diversity that once were the
province of missionaries, the adventurous, the open-minded, or those too poor to
live where they wished are now an unavoidable and irreversible dimension of
daily living for more and more people. The gift of diversity is that it enlarges our
understanding of the world. The challenge of diversity is that there are fewer
absolutes. Moreover, we cannot assume that neighbors or even fellow church
members will share the same worldview. When honoring difference among us is
a core value, disagreement and conflict among the people of God is unavoidable.
Two things are paradoxically true. Children and parents both need to know
what they believe and why because our life-contexts are increasingly pluralistic
and secular. At the same time, it is important to foster tolerance in everyone in
the family toward those who believe differently. There was a telling exchange between John Kerry and President George Bush in the first debate that epitomizes
the paradox necessary for families to honor difference and keep core values. John
Kerry said, “Sometimes certainty can get you into trouble,” to which President
Bush responded very quickly that he would continue to hold to his “core values.”
Most people have core values and most of them would say that they try to keep
10
HERBERT ANDERSON
them. The debate is about which core values to keep. I am suggesting that tolerance must be a core value in this time of pluralism, alongside the commitment to
peace, protection of the most vulnerable, and the needs of the poor.
What people believe is increasingly chosen rather than given. This presents
families and the church with a new challenge in passing on the faith to the next
generation. The authority of church teachings remains but it must be supplemented by age-appropriate internalization of those beliefs as one’s own. In order
to be intentional about what it teaches, a family needs to be self-conscious and
self-critical about its operational belief system. A family is often not aware how
its view of life has operationalized a belief system that may or may not be compatible with official church teaching. But family members are more likely to be
aware of maxims or sayings that embody family beliefs that are carried from
generation to generation. If a sainted member regularly reminds the family that
“halitosis is better than no breath at all” or “you can eat with only one spoon at a
time,” gratitude without complaining is more likely to be fostered than if the
family saying is something like “it only costs a little more to go first class” or
“schöne Leute, haben schöne Sachen: nice people have nice things.”
James Fowler once described the family as an ecology of faith consciousness in
which the interplay between individual and shared constructions of meaning
and purpose honors the age and differences of faith development. “The ecology
of consciousness arising from their respective stage-specific ways of contributing to and appropriating from the family’s shared meanings will necessarily be
quite complex” (14). In order to provide a context in which tolerance of the beliefs of others is encouraged alongside a commitment to one’s own faith, families
will need to strive for an ecology that is more egalitarian than hierarchical, more
including than excluding, and willing to be committed to people and ideas in the
midst of uncertainty. Creating a family ecology of openness is critical because
the longing for certainty is so deep in this time of terror and uncertainty that
people are willing to give up personal autonomy or sacrifice the freedom to doubt
in order to feel secure and then pass it on to their children.
How Shall Families of the Future
Continue to Be Havens of Hospitality in a World
That Has Become Increasingly Dangerous?
I
have for some time thought that hospitality is a central theological theme for
family living. Husbands and wives are able to be generous and hospitable with
one another when they believe they already have enough. “The invisible boundaries that a couple create around their relationship in order to nurture and
strengthen it need to be permeable enough to encourage their participation in
worlds outside their marital bond” (Anderson & Fite, 157). Families practice
FAITHFUL BECOMING
11
hospitality when adult children marry or when a child is born. The characteristics of hospitality essential for welcoming a child continue throughout a family’s
history. When families are unable to welcome or at least receive new people and
ideas, adolescent children may need to run away to grow up, college-age children
do not bring home new friends or ideas, and adult children will find endless
excuses not to go home if who they love or how they live is unacceptable. Hospitality is the spiritual heart of family living.
When the family offers hospitality to a stranger, it welcomes something new,
unfamiliar, and unknown that has the potential to expand the world of the family.
In ancient times, because wayside inns were scarce, it was a sacred obligation to
show courtesy to the stranger at the gate. In our time, hospitality is not just a
sacred obligation; it is necessary for our survival. The Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama
has suggested that “the only way to stop the violence of genocide in our world is by extending
hospitality to strangers” (169). Showing hospiWe may need to
tality is not only the essence of the Gospel: it is
necessary for survival in an increasingly pluralredefine hospitality
istic world. The family is the first and primary
context in which we learn how to practice the
in order to
art of hospitality.
We may need to redefine hospitality in order
understand how it
to understand how it might be the spiritual heart
of family living. I suspect that most of us have
might be the
had the experience of being in the home of
spiritual heart of
friends who entertained us well with their
stories but did not ask anything about our lives.
family living.
In this pattern of entertaining, the host is the
subject and the guest is the object. The problem
with this approach to hospitality is that we are
too concerned about what we are doing for our
guest and not enough concerned about what we are receiving from them. When
we extend hospitality in this way, we underscore the power of the host and
diminish the guest. Our desire to provide hospitality, noble as it may be, keeps us
in the power position and may in the end foster dependency and resentment.
By his table practices, Jesus revealed God’s own table practices by being both
host and guest. Jesus is both insider and outsider, both stranger and the one who
offers hospitality on the road to Emmaus. If we follow the pattern of Jesus, we
not only welcome the stranger; we are the stranger who is welcomed. If we are to
be a people of hospitality in the spirit of Jesus, we must also be both host and
guest to the gifts that the stranger brings. The table may be filled with food but
our hearts and minds are empty enough to receive what the guests have to give.
12
HERBERT ANDERSON
Paradoxically, it is emptiness (and even poverty) that makes the fullness of
hospitality possible.
Being formed in the practice of hospitality is critical for our time because it
invites us to explore different ways of thinking about what is public and what is
private. In order to maintain the distinction between the public and private, we
have kept separate the public sphere of work from the private domestic sphere,
public laws and policies from the personal and private. Roman Catholic lay theologian Rosemary L. Haughton proposes that home is a place of encounter between the public and private and hospitality is how home functions. Here is how
she describes her paradoxical vision:
I use the word hospitality in a wide sense that expresses the willingness to make
common, at least temporarily, what is in some sense private, which is how we
think of home. But hospitality, even in its most restricted sense, is about breaking down barriers. To invite another person into the space I regard as my own
is, at least temporarily, to give up a measure of privacy. It is already to make
a breach in the division between the public and the private to create the
common—and it happens in the space called home” (208).
Hospitality, as Rosemary L. Haughton describes it, creates something new,
something that does not fit the easy separations we make between the public and
private spheres of life. And it gives new meaning to home. In this sense, hospitality is how we think as well as what we do. It is at the spiritual heart of family
living. Home is no longer just a private sphere, because hospitality has made it
something common. Paradoxically, it is both a haven from the world and a
launching place for mission into the world.
Conclusion
T
he question for families becomes this: how will our being together as a family
form us and empower us for faithful service in and to the world for the sake
of Christ? Faithful becoming for family living in the new millennium must look
outside the family as well as inside. Whenever the family becomes an end in
itself, it is simply a slightly larger version of American individualism. The family
cannot just be a haven from the world if it is understood as domestic church: it
must also be in mission to the world. It is the vocation of marriage and families,
John Paul II wrote in his Letter to Families, “to contribute to the transformation
of the earth and the renewal of the world, of creation and of all humanity”
(1994:653). Each family grows in its understanding of its particular mission in
society and in the church through prayer, the study of Scriptures, and a careful
reading of the signs of the times. Working toward a just bond, celebrating
FAITHFUL BECOMING
13
difference as a gift of God, and practicing hospitality are other ways by which
families are formed for ministry in and to the world in the third millennium.
References
Anderson, Herbert and Robert Cotton Fite. Becoming Married. Louisville, KY: Westminster/
John Knox Press, 1993.
Anderson, Herbert, Ed Foley, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, and Robert Schreiter, eds. Mutuality
Matters: Family, Faith, and Just Love. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 2004.
Benjamin, Jessica. The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of
Domination. New York: Pantheon, 1988.
Browning, Don S. Marriage and Modernization: How Globalization Threatens Marriage
and What to Do about It. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003.
Fowler, James. “Perspectives on the Family from the Standpoint of Faith Development
Theory.” In Perkins School of Theology Journal 33:1 (Fall, 1979).
Haughton, Rosemary L. “Hospitality: Home and the Integration of Privacy and Community.” In Leroy S. Rouner, ed., The Longing for Home. Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1996.
John Paul II. “Letter to Families.” Origins. Vol. 23, No. 37 (March 3, 1994).
Kleingeld, Pauline. “Just Love? Marriage and the Question of Justice.” In Mutuality
Matters: Family, Faith, and Just Love. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 2004, 23–42.
Koyama, Kosuke. “Extend Hospitality to Strangers.” In Currents in Theology and Mission
(June 1993) 165–76.
Parker, Pat. “For the White Person who wants to know How to be my Friend.” Quoted in
Making Face, Making Soul/Hacienda Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by
Women of Color. Ed. Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books,
1990.
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HERBERT ANDERSON
NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • AUGUST 2005
Young, Adult, and Catholic
A Wonderful Complexity
James J. Greenfield, O.S.F.S.
The crucial importance of ministry to young adult Catholics urges us to
examine what sociologists and psychologists can contribute to our
understanding of the patterns of development of this age group today.
The author shows how this information can assist our working out
pastoral strategies to make Christ more vividly present to them.
V
arious ideas of what constitutes Catholic identity in the United States in the
twenty-first century coexist at the present time. “What makes one Catholic?” is a much-asked question, and facile answers abound. Some identify as
“Catholic” one who rigidly adheres to certain teachings, or simply claims to be a
disciple of Christ, or strictly observes rituals. However, the formation of a Catholic
identity is always a complex process.
There is an identity crisis among many Catholics in the postconciliar church.
One particularly important group for all Catholics to understand is young adults.
Thirty percent of Americans decide between their twenty-fifth and fortieth
birthdays to become regular churchgoers (Greeley, 1990), and many more make
significant decisions in their early and mid-twenties about continuing the original
religious identification and devotional levels of their late teens.
The study by Hoge and others (2001) of young adult Catholics shows how difficult it is to find consensus in the Catholic Church in the United States about
where young adults are on their faith journeys. We do know that the transition
from late adolescence to young adulthood surfaces a wealth of information since
that is when young people are asking critical questions such as “Who am I?” and
James J. Greenfield, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, serves as formation advisor
for his community and teaches pastoral care courses at the Washington Theological Union
in Washington, D.C.
Y O U N G, A D U L T, A N D C A T H O L I C
15
“Whom do I love?” How the “young, adult, and Catholic” person answers these
questions and expresses other dreams and desires deserves thoughtful analysis,
if we are to understand the role of faith in their development.
In this essay I will explore what it means to be young, adult, and Catholic, and
how this knowledge should affect pastoral ministry to them. Using Erik Erikson’s
theory of identity formation, I will also rely on James Marcia’s identity status
research. Finally, using the approach of “discovering a way of life” to translate
some of the psychosocial categories of Erikson and Marcia, I will offer some
pastoral observations for keeping the vitality of this age group before us as we
discover anew the wonderful complexity of what it means to grow up.
Young and Adult: Identity Formation
B
ecoming a Christian is a lifelong process, and the leitmotif of the Gospel is the
call to conversion. Erikson (1963) provides a classic overview describing the
process of human growth and development across a typical lifespan, from birth
to death or from “bust to dust” as his students referred to it. As late adolescents
negotiate an understanding of where they fit into peer groups, school structures,
and parental requirements, they are also lured to explore the challenges and
opportunities of the adult world. For Erikson, the stabilizing of identity is both
the major personality achievement of late adolescence and a critical component
of a productive, happy, adult life. Identity construction involves defining who
you are, what you value, and the directions you choose to pursue in life. Many
late teens undergo an identity crisis, a temporary period of uncertainty and
confusion, as they experiment with alternatives before settling on a set of values
or goals, though to some it is more an exploration than a crisis. During later
adolescence, young men and women undertake various trial-and-error activities
before they integrate goals, dreams, and desires into an organized self-structure
(Marcia, 1980).
Immediately after the period of late adolescence come the challenging early
adult years (typically the early twenties to the mid-thirties). The primary developmental task now is to achieve a sense of intimacy and the ability to be in an open
and caring relationship with another person without fear of losing one’s own
identity. This is a time to learn whom one cares to be with and then, over the
course of a lifetime, how to love and care for those significant persons.
Occupation and Ideology: Identity Domains
E
16
specially relevant during the period of identity formation is the interplay
between an occupation and an ideology, two variables that impact upon the
J A M E S J. G R E E N F I E L D, O. S . F. S .
grace of conversion. These are paramount for Erikson in that they focus attention on the idealism of youth (Erikson uses the word ideology) still present in
late adolescent identity formation and the concomitant need to balance this
idealism with meaningful work. He contends that it is primarily the inability to
settle on an occupational identity that disturbs young people. Erikson also
argues that to envisage a future, the young adult needs “a religion” and a clear
comprehension of life in light of an intelligible theory (ideology). An ideology
for Erikson is “something between a theory and a religion.” It can be placed on a
continuum: unbridled exuberance for an ideal at one end and an overidentification with the status quo at the other. The moorings of adolescence shake loose
and the task of finding one’s own values and beliefs now becomes salient. Some
confusion is inevitable in this process as one chooses, conforms to, or rejects a
religious tradition.
Cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1974) describes religion as (a) a set of
symbols that purports to explain the uniquely real; (b) a collection of rituals;
(c) a community that is constituted by and transmits these symbols and rituals;
(d) a heritage of beliefs; and (e) a differentiation from those who are not part of
the heritage by relational or familial affiliation. This framework is helpful, and
supports Erikson’s notion of identity formation. For example, some might associate a religious tradition primarily with a collection of rituals or a heritage of
beliefs but leave out the important aspect of transmitting these rituals and beliefs in meaningful ways. When viewed in Geertz’s framework, ritual and belief
account for only one of the myriad ways young adults understand living within
a religious tradition. But identity formation issues are no less important in the
shaping of Catholic identity.
Exploration and Commitment: Identity Status
I
n addition to occupation and ideology, Erikson identifies two further variables
in identity formation: exploration and commitment. They provide a fuller
picture of what happens as the youth, seeking personal investment, chooses
among many alternatives. It also shows that individual young adults may be at
widely different points in the process of identity formation.
Exploration can serve as a measure of the way an individual looks into and
experiments with alternative directions and beliefs. Commitment refers to choices
made from among several alternative paths. Using these two variables, Marcia
(1966, 1980) began by interviewing college students and observed four clusters
or identity statuses, which categorize distinct ways later adolescents and early
adults engage identity formation. His work provides a window into the way late
adolescents and young adults shift from one status to another through a process
Y O U N G, A D U L T, A N D C A T H O L I C
17
of exploration and commitment. The four statuses which we will examine here
are: identity achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion (Marcia, 1994).
Identity Achievement
Identity-achieved individuals have undergone the exploratory process and
made occupational and ideological commitments. Resolved and resilient, they are
now able to describe their choices and express the reasons for them. They are
typically sensitive to external demands and make their decisions based on internalized and identified values that they can make their own. They tend to have
more peaceful relationships with their families and even appreciate the differences that exist within the family system. They perform well under stress, reason
at high levels of moral development, are relatively resistant to self-esteem
manipulation, and appear to have internalized self-regulatory processes (Marcia,
1980).
Two common examples of identity-achieved personalities are helpful. The
first is the high school senior who has engaged the process of “college shopping”
by seriously exploring all his choices and reasons for and against certain
schools. At the end of the process he chooses what school seems best and makes
a wholehearted attempt to meet all the requirements for acceptance. The second
is the college senior who wrestles with her desire to find her first full-time job
or serve in a volunteer program similar to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. After
thoughtful discernment and information gathering she makes a decision and
moves forward with the plan of action.
Identity Moratorium
The moratorium status represents almost total exploration, but is a transitional position, since most people move on to the achievement position (Marcia,
1994). People in moratorium are often intense, active and lively, struggling,
engaging, and occasionally exhausting! They seize the opportunity to use family,
teachers, and friends as sounding boards for expressing and working out their
current dilemmas. “Moratoriums” characteristically make no commitments because the exploratory process defines their basic approach to life. They often
deal with fundamental questions to which there is really no one right answer and
laboriously ponder significant issues at the expense of decision making (which
is required for identity achievement). Time magazine devoted its January 24,
2005, cover story to “The Twixters,” a group who fit this moratorium status quite
well. This phenomenon will be revisited later in this essay.
Identity Foreclosure
The third status, identity foreclosure, is marked by commitment but with an
absence of exploration. The commitment generally reflects the wishes of parents
or other authority figures. “Foreclosures” are usually neat, well-organized, goal
18
J A M E S J. G R E E N F I E L D, O. S . F. S .
directed, clean, and well behaved. They prefer to be told what to do by an acceptable authority figure rather than to determine their own directions. They are
inflexible in their thought processes, tend to espouse moral values at the level of
Kohlberg’s (1978) “Law and Order,” are generally obedient and conforming, and
deal with negative information about themselves by either a façade of acceptance or active resistance. “Foreclosures” have little doubt about what is right and
they tend to choose as friends and partners people who are very much like them.
Typical “foreclosed” individuals might affiliate with a particular political party
simply because their parents do so.
Identity Diffusion
The final category is the identity-diffused individual. Such persons may
engage in some cursory and intermittent exploration, but remain uncommitted.
There are two typical personality types here: the socially isolated and apathetic,
and the interpersonally frivolous. “Whereas the description of the foreclosure
family could provide material for a full-color government brochure on the happy,
healthy family, the description of the diffusion family is more dismal” (Marcia,
1994:76). Family interpersonal relationships are either sparse or extraordinarily
shallow for the identity diffused. These individuals may also experience mental
health challenges more acutely than the other statuses.
Emerging Adulthood:
A New Identity Phenomenon
R
ecent research on “emerging adulthood” has extended the applicability of
Marcia’s work, especially for Western and industrialized cultures. The
essential qualities of emerging adulthood are described as (a) a period of much
exploration (similar to the moratorium status), especially in the area of love and
work; (b) a time of instability; (c) a very self-focused period in the life span;
(d) a transition time in which one is neither an adolescent nor an adult; and
(e) a time of endless possibility where hope leading to the opportunity for transformation abounds (Arnett, 2004). Arnett, the leading researcher in this area,
carefully avoids calling this group late adolescents or early adults because of the
unique features that are present in these individuals.
We are all aware of the difficulty of defining (or delimiting) the potential
members of a “young adult group” in most parishes. No wonder Britney Spears’
song “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” is an apt anthem for this emerging
adulthood phenomenon.
Emerging adulthood in our contemporary experience is an interstitial period
when possibilities are endless and the social pressure to make lasting commitments among these choices is low. The refrain for emerging adults is “keep
Y O U N G, A D U L T, A N D C A T H O L I C
19
options open” because a better offer is likely to come their way. To elucidate the
emerging adulthood phenomenon further, I refer to two recent articles.
(A) The Utne Reader introduces the concept of a “quarterlife crisis”:
Oprah dedicated a show to it, bloggers have raved about it, and punk bands
on both coasts have named themselves after it. It even has its own shelf in the
self-help section of the bookstore. There’s no question that the “quarterlife
crisis”—a term referring to the emotional upheaval experienced by many in
their 20s—has morphed beyond a catchy phrase into a bonafide social trend.
Some even predict that it will eclipse midlife as the crisis du jour (Thomas, 71).
(B) Time magazine describes “Twixters” as young people between the ages of
18 and 25 (and beyond) as a distinct group in a “never-never land between
adolescence and adulthood in which people stall for a few extra years, putting off
the iron cage of adult responsibility that constantly threatens to crash down on
them. They’re betwixt and between. You could call them Twixters” (Grossman,
44). Statistics indicate that on average, the four-year college sojourn is a thing of
the past; it now takes five years to complete an undergraduate degree. The effort
devoted to finding a meaningful occupation and concomitant affiliation to some
sort of ideology is protracted because of time spent paying off college loans,
reducing credit-card debt from frivolous college spending, and the amount of
time and energy these Twixters may devote to advanced degrees.
Thus, the delaying of the traditional rites of passage that marked the movement from adolescence to adulthood (graduating from a school, getting a job and
developing a career, settling into a relationship) is prevalent in this group of
emerging adults. Gail Sheehy (1995), a respected research voice in the field of
human development, opines that the old demarcation points for adulthood
scheduled to begin at 21 and end at 65 are hopelessly out-of-date. She reports
that people today are leaving childhood sooner, taking longer to grow up, and resisting growing old! Fresh, new images—as in Sheehy’s metaphor of “mapping
one’s life over time,” Arnett’s emerging adulthood, the designation of a quarterlife crisis, and the Twixters phenomenon—are now surfacing to dramatize the
wonderful complexity of human development and why it does not easily fit into
neat and tidy categories.
Being Catholic: Discovering a “Way of Life”
E
rikson maintained that the inability to settle on an occupational identity disturbs many young people. Frustrated by the massive and creative effort
required to meet today’s search for meaningful employment and then a sense
of participation and belonging, young Catholics from “identity-achieved” to
20
J A M E S J. G R E E N F I E L D, O. S . F. S .
“identity-diffused” may be distanced from the church at a time when the spirituality, drama, and poetry of their church can be a help in their quest for identity
and intimacy. Writing decades ago, Erikson may not have imagined that his two
domains of identity formation (occupation and ideology) would be as difficult to
balance as it has proved. As “exploration” is prolonged, so identity achievement
is deferred by a late teen or an emerging adult. “Moratorium”—or even diffused
identity status—is increasingly characteristic of young people. This group does
seem to enjoy life by taking more time than in the past to complete school, look
for a job (not the ideal job but any job), pay the bills, or drag their feet moving
from the parents’ house. But, lest this sound like an indictment, there is a very
positive side of all this—the young adult can use this time for serious soulsearching and the pondering of love and work issues.
Some of the major obstacles to the forging of
a Catholic identity seem to be the experience
of bland rituals, prayers, symbols, creeds, and
beliefs. Contemporary popular culture (mediadefined) subtly flaunts the recognizable characIn contradistinction
teristics of an ideology, or way of life, and favors
fads and trendy lifestyles. The danger is that a
to a lifestyle,
lifestyle (Erikson’s occupation) disconnected
from a “way of life” (Erikson’s ideology) will be
a way of life is a
indefinitely prolonged and fail to provide a
framework for living life meaningfully and
way of relating to
deeply. The shibboleth “I’m really into this!”
masquerades the utterly shallow feelings that
God, one’s self,
surface when the first lifestyle disappointment
around “what one is into” is encountered. Some
and others.
young adults may become addicted to entertainment, distraction, and amusement. Their false
selves offer ample reason to run free and reign
supreme. Their mantra is “try on another lifestyle” so that they can “be into
something” again!
In contradistinction to a lifestyle, a way of life is a way of relating to God,
one’s self, and others which is recognizable and respected by those whom society
regards as mature. The benefit of committing to a religious tradition, as
described by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, is that it can bind and shape an
individual to a community. Becoming a Christian comes from a daily choice to
grow into the person one is destined to be by God. A lifestyle may leave me
dangerously on the sidelines as a spectator of the life I am called to live; but a way
of life situates me in a dynamic community of others whose needs, like mine, for
the proclamation of God’s eternal love can be met. Theologian Robert Barron,
in his very practical book The Strangest Way, (p. 13), says that the earliest term
Y O U N G, A D U L T, A N D C A T H O L I C
21
used to describe Christianity was the “simple but evocative word ‘way’” from
Acts 9:2. He captures the dimensions of what that “way” means: clear and distinct practices, rituals, prayers, symbols, creeds, and beliefs that constitute what
can be labeled a Christian culture. A way of life challenges our daily living, it
constricts and tethers us but it does this in exciting ways!
In conclusion, I offer three pastoral observations to keep the vitality of identity
formation before us as we discover anew that wonderful complexity posed by
the triadic mixture of young, adult, and Catholic as a top priority for pastoral
ministry.
A Pastoral Agenda
Observation One—The Data
An important observation for pastoral ministry with young adults is that they
are not uniform in their concerns, feelings, and attitudes in reference to church.
Some of them may be emerging or Twixters, and vary on the spectrum from
identity-achieved to identity-diffused. I suggest we begin where we are and not
where we want to be in terms of proposing a pastoral agenda for this multifaceted group. The study by Hoge and others found, among many demographic
variables, that young Catholics are not leaving the church in droves; they maintain a healthy balance between suspicion and criticism of the church, and they
are not all right of center on some teachings. A USCCB publication (1997),
addressed to young adults and those in leadership positions working with them,
acknowledges that young adult ministry is left wanting in many dioceses. Recognizing that young adults are developmentally poised to begin looking at
choices and commitments relative to their Catholic identity, it is incumbent on
those in young adult ministry to address the myriad ways religion, through ritual
and symbol, speaks to everyday life. Also, in a world beleaguered by terrorism,
young Catholics ought to reference Catholic social teaching to address these
realities and then learn how to support ecumenical and interfaith efforts.
A 2004 poll of CARA, which looked at Mass attendance in the United States,
showed that slightly more than one in five post-Vatican II generation Catholics
(between ages 18 and 40) said they attended Mass at least once a week or more.
By comparison, 52 percent of pre-Vatican II Catholics and 38 percent of Vatican
II generation Catholics reported weekly Mass attendance. Ronald Rolheiser notes
that even though Mass attendance seems to be dropping, the churches themselves have great staying power:
Most people who are not at church on Sunday are not at home brooding about
the church’s faults. . . . They are sleeping, shopping, skiing, jogging in the park,
watching baseball and football games, working on their lawns and gardens,
22
J A M E S J. G R E E N F I E L D, O. S . F. S .
and visiting with family and friends. They are on sabbatical. They want a
kingdom, not a church (p. 113).
The pastoral challenge here is to present the experience of community to young
adults as one in which the day-to-day rub of life is necessary for transmitting the
symbols and rituals for a Catholic identity. The sacraments may become sterile
rituals for this group if they are only showing up for baptisms, weddings, and
funerals; and the concerns of the Gospel may be irrelevant to them if their energies
are not better harnessed.
Observation Two—Magical Thinking
Much religion is taught in childhood when magical thinking surrounds early
faith development. Alongside the childhood notions of Jesus Christ, the ideas of
Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, monsters under the bed, and “grown-ups knowing
best” abound. Adolescence is the time for leaving these ideas behind, but all too
frequently childhood understandings of God remain! Those working with young
adults are often in a position to re-present religion and help them grow into more
mature disciples who still exhibit childlike wonder but reason with an adult-like
faith.
The pastoral challenge here is to help young adults move beyond the magical
modes of childhood thinking to a more mature, relational, and adult faith. As one
reaches late adolescence and young adulthood, a caution is not to throw the bathwater out with the baby: the baby is the younger, magical-thinking self, and the
bathwater is the comfort and cleansing of coming to know oneself as a child of
God. Also, mature notions of faith that enrich one’s worldview and experience
are now possible. The maturity of young adults is enriched when they are introduced to an image of God as one who invites and calls into relationship and not
one who simply rewards and punishes.
Observation Three—Heart of Faith Is Jesus Christ
Imagine the difference between an identity-foreclosed student and an identityachieved student grappling with the rich tradition of Catholic moral teaching.
A “foreclosed” person would acquiesce when authority insists that the tradition
of the church should be accepted without criticism. Contrast the “achieved” person, negotiating the primacy of relationship with Jesus Christ. Imagine, too, that
a pastoral minister is in moratorium: the image of church he or she communicates may seem full of hopeful opportunities but hopelessly out of touch with
the realities of everyday parish life. The pastoral challenge in such cases is to
present the faith as a way of life that does in fact respond to the longings of
young adults for ideology and occupation.
To develop an understanding that one is a child of God and a disciple of Jesus
Christ and then called to give and receive love is the starting point for a Catholic
Y O U N G, A D U L T, A N D C A T H O L I C
23
identity. Building upon this basic conviction, one begins to discover that his or
her life is for others, and that giving one’s life for others is the way to come to the
resolution of the two identity questions extending from late adolescence into
young adulthood: “Who am I?” and “Whom do I Love?” The lurking danger in
answering these questions is that the response will come solely from catechisms
or rubrics and not primarily from the depths of the mystery of the revelation of
the person of Christ.
Conclusion
T
he nexus between a theoretical model of psychosocial identity formation
and the realities of many young adult Catholics may offer helpful insights
to pastoral ministers. The relative lack of programs and offerings for young
adult Catholics and the complexities of meeting their needs provide challenges
for all who are working in educational, campus ministry, catechetical, faith formation, and parish settings. Using the insights of identity status to focus attention on the various ways young adults are exploring and committing to the way
of life that is Christianity may prove helpful for those who want to take this
group seriously as members of the Body of Christ.
References
Arnett, Jeffrey. Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from Late Teens through the
Twenties. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Barron, Robert. The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path. New York: Orbis Books,
2002.
Erikson, Erik. Childhood and Society. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1963.
Geertz, Clifford. Myth, Symbol, and Culture. New York: Norton, 1974.
Greeley, Andrew. The Catholic Myth: The Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics.
New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1990.
Grossman, Lev. “Grow Up? Not So Fast.” Time, January 25, 2005.
Hoge, Dean R. and others. Young Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice. Notre Dame,
IN.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.
Kohlberg, L. “Revision in Theory and Practice of Moral Development.” In New Directions
for Child Development 23 (1978) 141–61.
Marcia, James. “Development and Validity of Ego Identity Status.” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology 3 (1966) 551–58.
24
J A M E S J. G R E E N F I E L D, O. S . F. S .
________. “Identity in Adolescence.” In J. Adelson, ed., Handbook of Adolescent Psychology.
New York: Wiley, 1980.
________. “The Empirical Study of Ego Identity.” In H. Bosma, T. Graafsma, H. Grotevant,
and D. de Levit, eds., Identity and Development: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994.
Origins CNS Documentary Service. “Where Does Mass Attendance in the United States
Stand?” January 2005.
Rolheiser, Ronald. The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. New York:
Doubleday, 1999.
Sheehy, Gail. New Passage: Mapping Your Life Across Time. New York: Ballantine Books,
1995.
Thomas, Eliza. “Transcending the Quarter Life Crisis.” In Utne Reader 124 (July/August
2004) 71–72.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Sons and Daughters of the Light: A Pastoral
Plan for Ministry with Young Adults.” USCCB Publishing: Washington, D.C., 1997.
Y O U N G, A D U L T, A N D C A T H O L I C
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NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • AUGUST 2005
New Media and
Normal Mysticism
An Unexpected Gift for
Ongoing Spiritual Formation
Eileen D. Crowley
The author describes a collaborative process called “communal co-creation” in
which church members create media for liturgy as another step in the process of
becoming Christian. The use of projected images for prayer and meditation can
help participants in liturgy to become more attuned to “the divine in the daily.”
F
ew Catholics know that on the very same day in 1963 that Pope Paul VI promulgated the first constitution of the Second Vatican Council, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium; hereafter SC ), he also
released a decree on media and social communications entitled Inter Mirifica, the
Decree on the Mass Media. This latter decree reflected upon the rapidly evolving
forms of electronic communications media that were transforming cultures into
media cultures. The title of that decree (“Among the Marvelous Things”) comes
from its opening statement that declares media to be among humanity’s
“marvelous” technical inventions (#1). In continuing to reflect on the insights of
Inter Mirifica, John Paul II noted in his 1990 World Communications Day Speech:
“[T]he council fathers saw [that] . . . it was for God’s faithful people to make
creative use of the new discoveries and technologies for the benefit of humanity
and the fulfillment of God’s plan for the world.”
Eileen D. Crowley, assistant professor of word and worship at Catholic Theological
Union, Chicago, was a media producer and communications consultant for twenty years.
26
E I L E E N D. C R O W L E Y
Communio et Progressio (Unity and Advancement), a 1971 pastoral instruction on the application of Inter Mirifica, affirmed media as “gifts of God” (#2).
Again, before his death, John Paul II addressed an apostolic letter to those working in communications and closed it with this declaration: “Do not be afraid of
new technologies! These rank ‘among the marvelous things’—‘inter mirifica’—
which God has placed at our disposal to discover, to use and to make known the
truth” (The Rapid Development, January 24, 2005).
Through decrees, letters, and speeches, the universal and local church has
reflected upon the pitfalls and possibilities of media in their various manifestations in our lives: the press, radio, the cinema, satellite communications, broadcast television, cable transmissions, video programs, community-produced media,
educational media, computers, and the Internet. Despite Communio et Progressio’s
“vision of communication as a way toward communion” (#5), the intersection of
worship and media has so far been left theologically unexplored.
Participation in Liturgy and Media Co-Creation
I
ntriguingly, church teachings about liturgy and media do reflect a common
underlying premise: participation. Participating in activities that bring people
into communion with each other—in the work of liturgy and the work of
media—can bring us into deeper communion with our Creator as well, and to
participation in “something of God’s creative activity” (Ethics in Communications, #31).
Participation is a crucial concept and expressed goal in SC. This document
makes clear that in worship “full and active participation by all the people is the
aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source
from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore
pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it . . . in all their pastoral
work” (#14). Striving to lead worshipers toward this goal has proven to be a tall
order for church leaders, ordained and lay. SC explains the urgency of their making this effort. For people to experience and to derive that true Christian spirit,
worshipers need to come to liturgy “with proper dispositions” so “that their
minds should be attuned to their voices,” and so that they can be ready “to cooperate with divine grace” (#11). Ideally, then, worshipers need to “participate”
before, during, and after liturgy in a life that becomes a life of ongoing worship.
In recent decades, members of some Catholic and mainline Protestant churches
have begun to participate in a volunteer activity that has the potential to contribute to that ideal. Involving both liturgy and media, this activity leads from
one into the other and back again. In these faith communities, members produce
their own “new media” for worship—that is, any creative combination of
NEW MEDIA AND NORMAL MYSTICISM
27
projected or displayed images, computer graphics and animation, video, film
clips, and image magnification. When this media production is done in the context of spiritual and liturgical reflection and formation, I call the entire process
“communal co-creation.”
From my research I can report that this collaborative process differs from community to community in how communal co-creation actually happens and in
who becomes involved. However, I submit, wherever this process takes hold and
wherever the baptized of every age, educational and social background, and life
circumstance are welcomed into creating media for liturgy, communal co-creation
is a gift. Such faith communities are inviting members to take another step in the
lifelong process of becoming Christian.
Communal co-creation has the potential to offer the faithful an opportunity to
prepare themselves to worship in a way similar to the preparation children,
teens, and adults experience through Lectionary-based catechesis. As those who
have been involved in Lectionary-based catechesis can attest, the more worshipers prepare themselves to listen to the proclamation of Scripture on Sunday,
the more they actually hear the Word. The very process of creating media for
worship likewise enhances the possibility for worshipers to “come with proper
dispositions” more “attuned” and ready to “cooperate with divine grace,” not
only in their worship, but ultimately, in their media-saturated daily lives. For, as
the 1992 pastoral instruction on media Aetatis Novae (“Dawn of a New Era”)
explains: “Today, much that men and women know and think about is conditioned by the media; to a considerable extent, human experience itself is an
experience of media” (no. 2).
Communal Co-Creation in Three Churches
I
n the late 1970s, the 150 founding leaders and families who built the worship
space for the Catholic Community of the Good Shepherd in suburban Cincinnati,
Ohio, knew they could not afford to commission much art, but they thought they
could provide a form of stained-glass window. As one long-time parishioner
recalled, “The thought here was that we could have all kinds of inspirational
images through the media.” They built a nine-by-eighteen-foot multimedia screen
above their altar. Since 1977, teams of volunteers have created for every Sunday
liturgy postcommunion media meditations to accompany the postcommunion
song that the cantor sings. The team members base their media reflection upon
the Scripture of the day, the liturgical season, and the postcommunion song. In
addition to producing media meditations for Sunday Eucharist, parish volunteers
have also created slide-based meditations for weddings, reconciliation services,
confirmation, First Communions, and Advent, Lent, and Holy Week liturgies.
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E I L E E N D. C R O W L E Y
In the late 1990s, staff and parish volunteers at St. Joseph’s Church in Roseburg,
Oregon, began projecting images for meditation and lyrics for the encouragement of greater participation on Sunday and during liturgies at other times
during the year. Originally purchased for youth ministry liturgies, the media projection equipment has been a hit with all age groups, especially with the older
members who find it easier to read the large projected lyrics. Different parish
groups—adults, teens, and school children—have taken the responsibility for
locating images to accompany the weekly Lenten Stations of the Cross. For
evening prayer, photographs from parish photographers have served as icon-like
images for extended silent contemplation. And, the pastor reports, no family
would now think of celebrating a funeral without including a prelude accompanied by images that the family members had selected of their deceased loved
one.
In Waupun, Wisconsin, the pastor of Union-Congregational Church first used
media to focus attention on mission activities and to increase financial support
for them. The collection rose considerably that year. In the late 1990s, the pastor
and a core team of volunteers developed a new media-saturated Sunday preaching service. Projected media has also appeared, as deemed appropriate, in Communion and other services. While the media-rich service was originally designed
to attract teens and young adults, the approach has proven equally attractive to
members of all ages. As part of their regular worship preparation process, the
core team reaches out to invite other media-savvy members—for example, two
teenage cousins, a parent and child, a family, or an individual—to be “freelance
producers” of homemade music videos. These producers put religious and secular
images to country, rock, pop, folk, blues, and contemporary Christian songs. The
videos, based on that week’s Scripture or theme, may be incorporated into the
liturgy at various points. All members are welcome to attend the annual parish
retreat where they can reflect on how God communicates through today’s popular media. As a result of her involvement with this media ministry and her
experience of this media-based preaching service, one woman reported that, as
she is listening to the radio or watching TV or a film, “Now I’m always looking
for God.”
Spiritual Attunement in Liturgy and Life
M
y research indicates that when worshipers encounter popular and homemade media in their worship, they experience differently the diverse media
in their daily lives. They encounter it with new eyes and ears. They become more
attuned to the divine in the daily. Their worship life can lead to the kind of
attunement Jewish liturgical scholar Max Kadushin calls “normal mysticism.”
This changed perspective enables
NEW MEDIA AND NORMAL MYSTICISM
29
a person to make normal, commonplace, recurrent situations and events occasions for worship. . . . These daily commonplace situations are not only interpreted in the act of worship as manifestations of God’s love, but they arouse in
the individual . . . a poignant sense of the nearness of God (Kadushin, 168).
In the course of interviewing more than a hundred church leaders and worshipers who had contributed to the communal co-creation of new media for
worship, I heard over and over again how they, like the woman in Wisconsin,
now find themselves always looking for God in the photography, video, film, and
music they experience in their daily lives. They report how much more engaged
they now find themselves to be in worship, too. They are becoming “full,
conscious, active participants” in the liturgy of the church and the liturgy of the
world.
New Possibilities and Demands
T
o be sure, no liturgy requires the use of today’s new media. It is just one
option that a parish or school can choose, or not. That decision must be a
local one. If chosen, though, new possibilities and new demands follow.
One possibility is that people typically excluded from liturgical ministries—
such as members living with disabilities and others on the margins of parish or
school life—can find a place in this process. Visual and media artists can be
welcomed not only to offer the artistic fruits of their gifts, but also to inspire and
to teach those less skilled. At various times, such a process might draw in and call
upon the skills and ideas of techno-savvy teens and young adults, movie and TV
buffs, graphic designers, computer techies, musicians, art historians and teachers,
amateur and professional photographers and videographers, poets, and other
willing souls eager to tap into their imagination. Collaborating together, regular
members of a core team, freelance producers, and other contributors can create, to
use Mother Teresa’s phrase, “something beautiful for God” and for God’s people.
One critical demand is for ongoing training and spiritual formation of leaders
and volunteers alike, a need no different from that of other liturgical ministries.
This spiritual practice calls for solid leadership. Communal co-creation must be
built upon a solid spiritual foundation of scriptural reflection, liturgical mystagogy, and catechesis. Leaders need to ensure that, over time, participants receive
formation in liturgy, Scripture, ethics, and media aesthetics. Together, leaders
and liturgical-media-ministers-in-the-making need to develop not only technical
skills but also analytical skills to discern whether they are on the right track
about using media in worship at all. Most importantly, all participants would
need to share the vision of SC that liturgy is the work of all the people, not just
those on the pastoral staff.
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E I L E E N D. C R O W L E Y
“Thus says the Lord: ‘I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it?’” (Isaiah 43:16a, 19a). The unexpected gift of communal
co-creation of new media for worship has indeed already sprung forth in local
churches, Catholic and Protestant, scattered across the U.S., Canada, the UK,
Australia, Singapore, Korea, and elsewhere. If seen as an ongoing spiritual practice, this process offers Christians opportunities not only to use the gifts God has
given them but also to experience the gift of normal mysticism.
References
Aetatis Novae, Communio et Progressio, Inter Mirifica, Ethics in Communications, and
other Church Documents on Media are available on the Pauline Media website:
http://www.daughtersofstpaul.com/mediastudies/churchdocs/index.html.
Apostolic Letter on the Media, “The Rapid Development,” is also available on the Vatican
website:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/index.htm
Bausch, Michael G. Silver Screen, Sacred Story. Bethesda, MD: Alban Institute Publications, 2002.
Crowley (-Horak), Eileen. Testing the Fruits: Aesthetics as Applied to Liturgical Media Art.
Ph.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary (NYC), 2002.
________. “Media Art in Worship: The Potential for a New Liturgical Art, Its Pastoral and
Theological Consequences.” Plenary address, Institute for Liturgical Studies,
Valparaiso, IN, 20–21 April 2004.
________. “Mediating Grace: Liturgical Art and Ministry in a Media Culture.” Public lecture, University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, 29 March 2004.
________. “New Media in Worship.” Eucharistic Ministries (January 2003) 4–5.
Kadushin, Max. Worship and Ethics. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
World Communications Day speeches are available from the Vatican website:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/
NEW MEDIA AND NORMAL MYSTICISM
31
NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • AUGUST 2005
Becoming a Christian,
Becoming a Peacemaker
Michel Andraos
Becoming a peacemaker is not just a moral obligation for every
Christian believer but rather a way of life and a transformative praxis that
enables peacemakers to imitate God’s own initiatives. This spiritual calling
begins in our own hearts and homes, and continues in a lifestyle of
practical peacemaking and social involvement as fruits of the Spirit.
A
life in peace is a basic human desire. It is also a basic human right, many
would argue. For most people of the world today, this desire is far from
their reach, and their right is violated. Confronting the evil of violence in daily
life, which is present in all societies and life situations, is a constant challenge for
individuals and communities, no matter where they live. Whether violence is
cultural, economic, interpersonal, military, emotional, or social, it is an evil that
challenges human societies, communities, and individuals who yearn to live in
peace.
This is particularly challenging to those people of faith whose religious ethic
of life is fundamentally an ethic of nonviolence and peacemaking, such as Christians. As I will argue below, our Christian faith, tradition, and church teaching
call us to be peacemakers, to make a life of peace, for ourselves and others. What
do we really mean by peace? What do we mean by becoming peacemakers in the
face of the violence of daily life? Is the Christian calling primarily for living a life
of inner, personal peace, or is it mainly for making social peace? Are social peace
and personal peace unrelated? Is one possible without the other? Can people
maintain inner peace while living in situations of violence? What are we exactly
Michel Andraos, assistant professor at Catholic Theological Union, teaches in the areas
of cross-cultural ministry, theology of peace, mission of the church, and peacemaking.
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MICHEL ANDRAOS
called to as Christians? The multiple ways we talk about peace makes the Christian vocation of becoming peacemakers very complex (Himes, 37–39).
It is beyond the scope of this essay to address all the complex questions
mentioned above. This article will first briefly present an interpretation of the
first stories in the book of Genesis that would help us look at the initial human
experience of violence and the development of the religious response and vision
of peace in Scripture; second, it will use the example of family life as a principal
experience of transformation to become peacemakers; third, it will discuss some
aspects of the Christian vocation of peacemaking; and finally, it will point to the
centrality of the call to become peacemakers in Catholic teaching. I will argue
that the Christian calling to become peacemakers is an integral part of the identity of Christians, and that it is at the heart of the Good News of salvation of the
Gospel and our Christian faith. Becoming peacemakers, as used in this essay, is
not intended to mean that all Christians should become peace activists in the
general political sense and enroll in peace movements, although that is not an
un-Christian task. Rather, peacemaking will be considered as a way of life for
Christians in daily situations where we are constantly confronted with a choice
between responding violently or in a way that makes peace.
The Initial Human Experience of
Violence and the Divine Calling
T
he German bishops have recently written a pastoral letter entitled “A Just
Peace.” In light of the new unfolding world events, these bishops present a
biblical theology of peace that prepares the way for their reflection on violence,
on what a just peace in our world would look like, and on the mission of the
church. The letter argues that the human experience of violence is the background for the vision of peace that evolved in the first book of the Hebrew Scriptures. The stories in the book of Genesis describe early human existence as one
of murder and social violence. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and disrupted the
original harmony that was intended between human beings and the Creator
(Gen 1–3).
In chapter four of the book of Genesis, the descendant of the first human
couple, Cain, motivated by rivalry, murders his brother Abel. As humans developed socially, expanded and built cities, we learn later in Genesis, the whole of
humanity sinned and the earth became corrupt. “When the Lord saw how great
was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was
ever anything but evil,” God was grieved and regretted creating humans and the
earth (Gen 6:5-6). According to Genesis, God decided to end life on earth by sending a flood. This was God’s way of dealing with the social violence of the first
human beings, we are told in the biblical story. Violence among humans has also
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33
affected the earth. Biblical theology makes a connection as early as the book of
Genesis between social violence generated by human beings and the future of
the earth.
But the Flood is not the end of the story. God also had a plan for a new beginning and for setting humanity on a new course in history. The Scriptures consistently tell us that God does not allow violence to have the last word. Before the
Flood, God called Noah, who was an exception, and who “found favor with the
Lord” (Gen 6:8). Noah and his family were guided by God to build an ark and
were saved with their animals from the Flood. God made a new covenant with
Noah that opened the possibility for a new beginning. This new agreement is
permanent and universal, and it also opened a new possibility and hope for
the earth (Gen 6–9). In the story of Noah, God
promised that there would be no more floods to
deal with evil (A Just Peace, 9–12).
The realization that the early human experience is primarily an experience of violence
The Scriptures
seems to be a main teaching in Genesis. This
drama of social violence and the possibility for
consistently tell us
a new beginning seem to be a pattern in the
biblical understanding of history. In a situation
that God does not
of great crisis, God calls new people for a new
beginning, who bring new hope for peace. This is
allow violence to
also a lesson we learn from the story of Abraham
a few chapters later in the same book (Gen 12),
have the last word.
the story of Moses in Exodus, and from most of
the books of the Prophets. This pattern does not
end with Genesis, Exodus, and the Prophets; it
cuts across the rest of Scripture. It is also a framework within which we can read
the story of Jesus.
The Christian Gospels are essentially a testimony of how Jesus responded in
new ways to the many types of violence he experienced, e.g., political violence,
poverty, exclusion, cultural violence, religious violence, and finally to the concrete physical violence he experienced through his crucifixion. God’s response
was to raise Jesus from the dead. Jesus’ teaching, life, death, and resurrection
open for us new possibilities for responding to violence and making peace.
In the Gospel of Luke, peace to all people was the first good news from heaven
announced by the angels at the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:14). In the Sermon on the
Mount, Jesus tells us that the peacemakers are blessed because they are children
of God. They are transformed by peacemaking and they share the same nature
of God, as God’s children. John Paul II, commenting on the passage from the
Gospel of Matthew, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called
children of God” (Matt 5:9), asks, “And why else would peacemakers be called
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MICHEL ANDRAOS
children of God, if not because God is by nature the God of peace?” (John Paul II,
2004).
Jesus gave a gift of a new peace to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (John 14:27). He also
became our peace (Eph 2:14). However, the Christian Scriptures do not offer us a
full explanation as to what this peace essentially means and how we ought to live
it out, so we continue to explore and develop this teaching to the present day.
I would like to suggest that becoming a peacemaker, as I will develop later in
this essay, is not just a moral obligation for a believer in God but rather a way of
life and a transformative praxis that makes believers peacemakers, like God.
Family Life as a Principal Experience of
Transformation for Peacemaking
O
ne of the biggest surprises in my personal journey of transformation and
learning to become a peacemaker has been my relationship with my wife
and two little children. My experience of parenting over the past four years has
made it very clear that it is much easier for me to maintain an attitude of nonviolence and a commitment to peacemaking in the political and social arena than
to do so at home. After many years of believing and acting for peace on a variety
of global issues with strong theological and political convictions, the new call for
personal transformation in my relations with my spouse and children is by far a
deeper challenge for me. Let me use a familiar example.
Dealing with the tendency to use punishment (emotional or physical) with my
children in order to establish or maintain peace at home is an ongoing challenge.
When I act on my initial spontaneous impulse in a situation of conflict among
my children, my action would normally perpetuate the cycle of violence that is
generated as a result of the conflict rather than breaking its cycle and transforming it. Like all children do, my two little children, four and two-and-a-half
years old, often fight over toys. There are more than enough toys for each. However, the desire for the toy that the other is playing with at the moment is always
a source of conflict and battles. Even though such battles happen on a daily
basis, they still often take me by surprise. Despite my many years of spiritual,
theological, and some practical training in nonviolence and peacemaking, my
initial, spontaneous, almost instinctive angry reaction is immediately to intervene and punish the one who started the fight. When I act in this manner, which
I sometimes do, I normally immediately punish the one who initiated the violence
and force that one to return the toy to the other. The victim is happy again while
the other is angry, and “peace” is apparently reestablished. In my experience,
understanding this scenario has been quite significant for understanding the
dynamics of spirals of violence at a much larger scale.
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35
My violent reaction in this manner continues the cycle of violence that began
with two actors and now it involves a third. Another option for my intervention
would be to take a step back, recognize my anger, and try to initiate a mediation
to bring the two to talk together, which often takes a lot of creativity, time, and
attention. But by doing so, I facilitate a dialogue that could lead to a different way
for making peace. There is an ongoing tension between the tendency to act with
anger and continue the cycle of violence, on the one hand, and the option of
trying to initiate a dialogue that could potentially transform a conflict and make
peace. Dealing with this tension is a permanent challenge in my personal transformation.
This is a simple example from the interpersonal relationships in family life,
but in my opinion, it is very indicative. It is a
typical scenario that helps us understand larger
social conflicts. Responding to daily life situations of violence calls for a conscious commitment, creativity, and moral imagination to break
Opting for making
and transform the various cycles of violence we
encounter, rather than becoming part of their
peace in the family
continuation. Relationships with one’s spouse
and children open significant new possibilities
is not different from
for transformation to peacemakers, in the deepest biblical, Christian sense beyond the family.
other life situations.
“If we can experience the possibility of peace—
nonviolent conflict resolution—at the family
level,” affirm the authors of Parenting for Peace
and Justice, “then our faith in the possibility of peace and our willingness to work
for it at the other levels grow” (McGinnis, 25).
This process of transformation in the family is not different from what
Richard Gaillardetz calls “working out our salvation” in family relations. In his
book on the spirituality of Christian marriage, Gaillardetz makes a strong argument about the connection between marriage, conversion, and salvation. “I am
growing in the conviction that my relationship with my wife and children is
indeed the spiritual ‘place’ wherein I will work out my salvation. . . . ‘[S]alvation,’ the spiritual transformation that God wishes to effect in me, transpires
within the crucible of my relationship with my wife and children” (Gaillardetz,
62). What is said above about conversion and salvation applies also to becoming
peacemakers. I, too, am growing in the same conviction.
Opting for making peace in the family is not different from other life situations; the challenges are similar. Tensions that could cause conflicts are part of
the daily experience of living. The challenge is constantly to respond by engaging
in a process of transformation that becomes an attitude and a way of life for
dealing with conflicts, despite the fact that tensions and conflicts will continue to
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MICHEL ANDRAOS
happen. Transforming the exercise of power in situations of conflict from domination to mutuality and service is key for transforming a conflict. In his work on
peace in the Scriptures, biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann offers a helpful
insight and a tool of transformation used by Jesus. Referring to the scene of
Jesus washing the feet of his disciples (John 13:14), Brueggemann says that the
towel and basin become powerful symbols of peacemaking; “they are the tools
of the trade.” The towel and basin are tools for making peace and becoming
peacemakers. They are tools for transforming attitudes and relations of power,
an important dimension of conflicts without which we cannot make peace
(Brueggemann, 143). “Power over” is transformed to become service, empowerment, and “power with” that makes peace (Bamat and Cejka, 269).
The Vocation of Peacemakers
A
s already mentioned in the first part of this article, we do not have a clear,
specific explanation in the Scriptures and the Christian traditions as to
what it means to become a peacemaker. The argument that peacemaking is an
integral part of our Christian life and identity is quite clear, but knowing what
that concretely means in each situation is left to the contextual interpretation of
believers. The commitment to nonviolence and the commandment to love one’s
enemies are certainly two concrete expressions of what it means to be a peacemaker. However, Jesus’ teaching about peacemaking goes far beyond these two
expressions.
No matter where we live out the Christian vocation of peacemakers, it is
always an invitation to an adventure and taking risks. Not unlike discipleship,
it is a long journey of faith that involves ongoing personal transformation.
Speaking not from an explicitly theological perspective, John Paul Lederach,
a leading voice in the area of peacemaking, dedicates a chapter in his most
recent work, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, to
discuss the vocation of peace builder. The vocation of becoming a peacemaker,
notes the author, is a commitment to a relationship, which entails risk. “Risk is
mystery. It requires a journey. Risk means we take a step toward and into the
unknown. By its very definition risk accepts vulnerability and lets go of the need
to control a priori the process or the outcome of human affairs.”
Based on his long experience in observing peacemaking around the world, the
author’s key insight for understanding the vocation of a peacemaker is that it
is part of the mystery of faith and life. It is a journey toward a land totally
unfamiliar, a “mysterious journey toward the sacred” (Lederach, chapter 14).
This insight resonates with what John Paul II said, commenting on the passage in the Sermon on the Mount about God’s special blessing to peacemakers.
“How could this saying, which is a summons to work in the immense field of
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peace, find such a powerful echo in the human heart if it did not correspond to
an irrepressible yearning and hope dwelling within us?” (John Paul II, 2004).
The vocation of becoming a peacemaker is a commitment to a life of peace
that involves practical peacemaking. Kenneth Himes, in a recent article on Catholic
social teaching on peace, makes a clear argument that points to an important
dimension of the vocation of being a peacemaker. What is needed, Himes contends, are not only personal attitudes, positions, and words, but also clear social
commitments demonstrated in concrete actions and lifestyle. Religious or faith
convictions and attitudes are not enough.
On the other hand, Lederach, based on his experience with peacemakers in
many violent situations in the world, argues that practical skills and training are
not enough either. Successful peace building is an art that springs out of one’s
soul. Successful peace builders have a deep sense of vocation rooted in the mystery of peacemaking and are connected to the sacred that nurtures their moral
imagination. In the same vein, Leonardo Boff affirms that inner peace, rooted in
a spiritual relationship, and social peace are connected. “Spiritual masters of all
cultures,” notes Boff, “are convinced that peace between persons and peoples is a
matter of the soul and heart. Those who wish to be on good terms with others
. . . must be on good terms with themselves. They must pacify their souls, become centered, and bring together the dispersing and scattering tendencies that
conspire against peace” (Boff, 22). According to Boff, the religious connection
with the sacred is the main source of inner peace (Boff, 24). All the above arguments, I believe, contribute to a better understanding of what we mean by
becoming peacemakers.
The Call to Become Peacemakers in
Modern Catholic Teaching
T
he teachings of Jesus on peace and the example of his response to violence
have been taken very seriously in the Christian traditions across the ages. In
modern Catholic social teaching, peace and the call to become peacemakers
occupy a central position. Most popes of the last century have issued letters,
messages, prayers, and encyclicals on peace. The annual messages of the World
Day of Peace, initiated on January 1, 1968, by Paul VI, are a constant reminder of
the centrality of the topic of world peace in the church and to Christian life. In
his first World Day of Peace message, Paul VI pointed to the centrality of peace
in the Gospel: proclaiming peace is announcing Jesus Christ. John Paul II
repeated exactly the same words:
We Christians see the commitment to educate others and ourselves to peace as
something at the very heart of our religion. For Christians, in fact, to proclaim
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MICHEL ANDRAOS
peace is to announce Christ who is “our peace” (Eph 2:14); it is to announce his
Gospel, which is a “Gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15); it is to call all people to the
beatitude of being “peacemakers” (John Paul II, 2004).
In an earlier message, John Paul II asserted that building peace is essential to
the mission and vocation of every Christian and to the church, which is called to
be a “sacrament and sign of peace.” The evangelizing mission of the church is
equated with its work for peace. He notes:
For the Catholic faithful, the commitment to build peace and justice is not
secondary but essential. . . . During this Jubilee Year, the Church vividly
remembers her Lord and intends to confirm her vocation and mission to be in
Christ a “sacrament” or sign and instrument of peace in the world and for the
world. For the Church, to carry out her evangelizing mission means to work for
peace. (John Paul II, 2000)
This teaching emphasizes the Gospel calling for us Christians to become peacemakers in the world. John Paul II affirms that this calling is an essential element
not only of our faith, but also of what it means to be church in the world.
Conclusion
D
espite our propensity to violence, we Christians believe that peace is a deep
desire in the human heart, a gift, and the intention of the Creator. A full
understanding of the origin of violence in human relations is still unknown to us.
Human and social sciences offer a variety of helpful approaches and analyses,
but what motivates violence, its root causes and origin, is still a mystery. It is
linked to the broader mystery of evil. What makes one nation or people, oftentimes in the name of their faith, take pride in inflicting violence on other peoples?
The same could be said about other types of interpersonal and social relations.
As I outlined earlier in this essay, violence is acknowledged as part of the
human condition early on in our biblical understanding of the history of salvation. This recognition is also a central element in the development of many other
religions and cultures. The call to live as peacemakers, from a Christian perspective, is a spiritual endeavor with far reaching personal, social, and political implications. Confessing and following Christ as our peace is an ongoing process of
personal transformation, as well as a way of life where the cycles of violence encountered are constantly challenged and hopefully transformed by a new faith,
ethic, and commitment.
Paul Knitter argues that religions are not finished products. Rather, they are
constantly “becoming” together. This argument offers an insightful perspective
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on becoming peacemakers. We learn from physics, says Knitter, that all creation
is constantly in an interrelated process of “becoming.” “If everything is becoming rather than being, the becoming takes place through interrelating. In that
context, we can be only by becoming, and we can become only by relating”
(Knitter, 10).
Peace is not primarily the reestablishment of a previous order or the realization
of an ideal; rather, it is an ongoing process of transformation and creation at the
personal and social levels. Becoming peacemakers, as Christians, means to acquire
and develop a sense for recognizing the possibilities for new beginnings that God
offers in the midst of each conflict and situation of violence, and to become an
active agent in the transformation of these relationships and situations.
References
A Just Peace. Document of the German Bishops, # 66. Bonn: Sekretariat der Deutschen
Bischofskonferenz, September 27, 2000.
Bamat, Thomas and Mary Ann Cejka, eds. Artisans of Peace: Grassroots Peacemaking
among Christian Communities. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003.
Boff, Leonardo. The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for Our World. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002.
Brueggemann, Walter. Peace. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001.
Gaillardetz, Richard. A Daring Promise: A Spirituality of Christian Marriage. New York:
Crossroad, 2002.
Himes, Kenneth R. “Catholic Social Teaching on Peace Since Gaudium et Spes: The Roles
of Justice and Social Development.” New Theology Review 18 (1) (February 2005)
36–45.
John Paul II, “Peace on Earth to Those Whom God Loves!” Message for the Celebration of
the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2000.
________. “An Ever Timely Commitment: Teaching Peace.” Message for the Celebration
of the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2004.
Knitter, Paul. Introducing Theologies of Religion. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002.
Lederach, John Paul. The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. Oxford
University Press, 2005.
McGinnis, James and Kathleen. Parenting for Peace and Justice. Ten Years Later. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990.
Paul VI, “Message for the Observance of a World Day of Peace, January 1, 1968.”
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MICHEL ANDRAOS
NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • AUGUST 2005
Discernment as a
Way of Life
Mary Frohlich, R.S.C.J.
Spiritual discernment is more than a one-time assessment made to reach a
major life decision. Mature reflection suggests that “tuning in” to the guidance
of the Spirit entails an ongoing reorientation of one’s relationship with Christ.
Coming to correct understanding is conditioned by habits of the mind
which will steadily turn to hear—and rise to—what the Spirit reveals.
Three Scenarios
S
cenario One: The parish council of an urban church is confronted with
diminishing finances and increasing needs as the neighborhood changes.
One member, a part-time lay student at a local seminary, proposes that they use
a discernment model to sort out the confusing situation and search for God’s will
for their future. He provides a book that describes a process they can use. After
several weeks of trying to work with this model, however, most members of the
council feel that confusion and tension are even worse and that no solutions to
their original concerns are on the horizon. They end the experiment, expressing
great cynicism about the very idea of discernment.
Scenario Two: Julia is 32 years old. Throughout her 20s she rarely went to
church or prayed, but recently she has developed a more regular prayer life. Now,
she is feeling drawn to give her life in Christian service. Among the many options
she thinks about are joining a religious community, going to seminary as a lay
Mary Frohlich, R.S.C.J., is associate professor of spirituality at Catholic Theological
Union in Chicago. She writes on the Carmelite saints, spirituality of place, method in the
discipline of spirituality, and issues in contemporary spirituality.
D I S C E R N M E N T A S A WAY O F L I F E
41
student, or signing up for an overseas lay volunteer program. She finds a spiritual director with whom to discern and agrees to see her once a month for nine
months. At the end of that time Julia believes that her call is to go overseas.
A year later, lonely and depressed in a rural area of Thailand, she is certain that
the discernment process “didn’t work” and that she has made a huge mistake.
Scenario Three: A religious congregation is gathered in chapter to discern its
new leadership. They have been using the same highly structured process for the
last several chapters, so most members are comfortable with the routine. However, this time there is a faction that is agitating to throw out the usual process
and engage in a different kind of dialogue. The present leadership and the hired
facilitators reject this on the grounds that it
would not be “discernment.” They manage to retain control of the proceedings, and there are no
surprises in the leadership that is chosen. Over
the next few years, however, morale in the con[O]ne cannot
gregation goes into steady decline, and several
members of the “faction” (which included many
participate in God’s
of the younger members of the congregation)
leave the community.
project of love
The participants in all three of these scenarios
ended up disillusioned with discernment. What
else do they have in common? They all approached
imagine how.
discernment as a special, method-based, timelimited process. In fact, this is the way a great
many Christians understand discernment. More
often than not, it is only when an individual or
group is face to face with a major decision that they think of discerning. This
essay will make the case that one can rarely discern well at the turning points if
one has not all along been living a lifestyle grounded in discernment. Discernment must be first of all a “way of life” before it can be a practice for times of
special decision-making.
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola are perhaps the best-known set of
practices for discernment. They have helped to guide generations of fervent
Christians through vocational and other important discernments. The two sets of
“Rules for Discernment” that Ignatius included in the appendices are brilliant
summaries of wisdom for how to distinguish between the movements of the
Holy Spirit and the effects of other forces. Yet the very predominance of the
Exercises has sometimes contributed to the tendency to think of discernment primarily as something an individual does with a spiritual director, during a retreat
or an otherwise limited period of time, when a major life decision needs to be
made. While drawing appreciatively on what Ignatius has to offer, this essay
if one cannot
42
M A R Y F R O H L I C H, R. S . C . J.
aims to expand our consciousness of when, how, and where discernment fits into
our Christian walk.
Preview of Key Elements
I
t is not easy to consistently choose discernment as a way of life, for the cultural, economic, and social systems within which our daily lives unfold do not
support it. As Vincent J. Miller has spelled out in trenchant detail in his recent
Consuming Religion, we live in an era when we are formed from childhood to
salve our longings by buying (literally or figuratively) prepackaged solutions
from the many on offer. The result is that we tend to treat religious choices in the
same way: as a lineup of disconnected options from which we can select, with the
assumption that “consuming” what we have chosen will quickly deliver satisfaction. Thus, when we are faced with a spiritual issue and wonder what God might
be wanting from us, our first response is likely to be to look around for a package
to buy—whether it be a book, a method, some sessions with a spiritual director,
or a retreat. To choose, instead, to reorient our whole lives to the learning of discernment demands a deeply countercultural level of choice.
The body of this essay presents three core sets of attitudes and practices that
are essential to cultivate if one is to live discernment as a way of life. They are:
(1) Following Everybody’s Jesus;
(2) Availability for the Specific Invitation of the Spirit;
(3) Radical Faith in the God Who Raises the Crucified.
Just as the Trinity is a flow of life and love among three who are One, living
discernment as a way of life involves a continual flow among these three dimensions that make up an integrated Christian spirituality. One can enter the flow at
any point, but a serious engagement with it will move one deep into all three. In
each of the scenarios described above, discerners failed to engage one or more of
these; as a result, their discernment processes were weak and incomplete.
A key idea that will run through the essay is that discernment as a way of life
has everything to do with the formation of memory and imagination. Stories and
symbols deeply shape the way we interact with the world around us. A commonplace of Scholastic theology was that one cannot love what one does not know. In
a more action-oriented postmodern vein, perhaps we could say that one cannot
participate in God’s project of love if one cannot imagine how. The outpoured
love of God is not known in the abstract; we can discern it only if we bear within
our own psyches the images and stories that raise up its possibility within the
chaos of life’s particulars.
D I S C E R N M E N T A S A WAY O F L I F E
43
Of course, the fullness of divine life is far beyond our capability of knowing
or imagining; yet the very notion of discernment presumes faith that God has
created us with a capacity to understand and participate in what God is about in
the world. Perhaps everyone who begins a deliberate discernment process
secretly hopes for the “flash of lightning” from God that will definitively settle
the issue at hand. Yet even if this occurred, our response would be mediated by
how we were able to imagine the meaning of this dazzling revelation. At the
same time, such an event would be deeply impressed on memory, and in this way
would itself shape the capability of imagining that we bring to future occasions
of discernment. Thus, this essay will explore how discernment depends on both
the lifelong formation of memory and its availability for being reshaped through
the power of unique revelatory moments.
Following Everybody’s Jesus
C
hristian discernment always revolves around Jesus, who is the epicenter of
Christian revelation. Discernment as a way of life begins with getting to
know this person who belongs, not just to any of us as an individual, but to
everybody. An insight that appears in almost all classical treatments of discernment is that to discern well, one must be humble. One aspect of this is accepting
that before expecting God to speak to us uniquely, we must first look for God’s
guidance through the teachings of our tradition and the ordinary relationships
and responsibilities of our state in life. This language may sound a bit quaint,
but the advice is still basically valid. The fact that Jesus has given himself to
“everybody” means that a great deal of the wisdom of the Spirit has passed into
a common stock that everyone can draw on.
Discernment as a way of life means commitment to these “ordinary” aspects
of the call to discipleship, as a foundation for being prepared to respond to what
is more out of the ordinary. The Spirit will ultimately mediate this knowledge,
for as Paul wrote in First Corinthians, “We have the mind of Christ!” (1 Cor 2:16).
Yet we will not have the balanced wisdom to recognize the valid movement of the
Spirit unless we also know Jesus well through the other, more concrete forms in
which knowledge of him comes to us—namely, Scripture and the ongoing life of
Christian communities.
A common mistake is to think of discernment as almost entirely an individual
and interior process. Rather, the norm of Christian discernment is communal, for
this is normatively where “everybody’s Jesus” is found. As Matthew’s Jesus puts
it, “Where two or three are gathered, there am I also” (Matthew 18:20). Jesus’ mission was to bring the Good News to all humanity, and the Spirit’s ongoing work
is to form the community that will continue that mission. At bottom, this is
always what we are trying to discern: How are we being invited, here and now, to
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M A R Y F R O H L I C H, R. S . C . J.
share in this mission of building up the community of God’s people and proclaiming the Good News? Thus, discernment of the Spirit of Jesus takes place in
community and for community.
The minimum presence of Christian community for discernment is dialogue
with a spiritual director. Yet there is risk of some distortion if this is the only
form of community within which discernment takes place. People sometimes
use spiritual direction as a kind of oasis that is carefully maintained in a compartment separate from other relationships and activities. Also, the spiritual
direction relationship typically is not mutual, but is focused on the needs and
concerns of the directee only. This protected and inward-focused character of
spiritual direction gives it its unique value for discernment, as a space where
especially deep listening can take place. Yet discerning the movement of the Spirit also requires
other kinds of listening and interacting.
The ideal place to come to know Jesus and to
discern his Spirit is in a community that shares
The ideal place to
life and faith on a regular basis, where individuals know one another well and care deeply
come to know Jesus
about one another’s spiritual journeys, yet at the
same time are free enough not to try to impose
and to discern his
their own desires or expectations upon one
another. Clearly, this is an ideal that is rarely
Spirit is in a
experienced in its fullness! Moreover, it may be
unrealistic to expect to find all that we need for
community.
discernment in any one set of relationships. Still,
if we are serious about becoming discerning
people, we will be wise to broaden our networks
and be on the lookout for individuals and groups with whom we can commit to
building this level of shared life.
The preeminent memory book of the community centered on Jesus is, of
course, the Bible. Scripture is not a historical record per se, but a compilation of
various community testimonies to core events and meanings in a millenniumslong walk with God. As we read and pray with Scripture, our imagination is
shaped by the symbols and stories that have emerged from hundreds of individual and group encounters with God. This is utterly essential formation for a life
of discernment. As Luke Timothy Johnson puts it, “We cannot recognize the action
of God in the present as God’s action unless we have some knowledge of God’s
work in the past” (Johnson, 25).
In fact, often it is in the very act of meditating on a Scripture passage that we
are awakened to Spirit-filled insight into a present dilemma. The recorded story
of God’s life in the community of the past becomes a frame through which our
ability to imagine and receive that life afresh is configured. Yet it is poor planning
D I S C E R N M E N T A S A WAY O F L I F E
45
to wait to engage in this kind of meditation until the day when we are desperate
for such an enlightenment. The frequent practice of reflecting on Scripture,
sometimes in solitude, sometimes in faith-sharing with others, and regularly in
communal liturgy, is the best remote preparation for occasions of more intensive
discernment.
The particular gift of the Ignatian Exercises is their ability to form our imagination in the following of Jesus. Retreatants are led through a structured series of
exercises that meditate on Jesus’ healing love, his passion and death, his resurrection, and his ongoing mission. Ignatius teaches a powerful mode of employing the imagination to place oneself as a participant in the Gospel stories, and to
picture oneself at the crossroads of the choice to follow Jesus. Engaging in a retreat based on the Exercises is an excellent way to practice this kind of meditation. It may also be an occasion to enter intensively into a specific discernment
process, and perhaps to come to new clarity about where the invitation of Jesus’
Spirit is moving in one’s life. Yet, as indicated above, it would be problematic to
engage in such a practice as something in a separate compartment from the rest
of one’s life. The point of imagining one’s way into the Gospel stories is to be
formed as Jesus’ disciple, and discipleship is a lifelong, “24–7” commitment.
Availability for the
Specific Invitation of the Spirit
T
he previous section focused on the aspect of following Jesus that is lifelong,
everyday, and “common.” This section looks at the other side: the ways in
which the disciple must be open to unexpected or unusual movements of the
Spirit. These two modes (as well as the third one) are not necessarily sequential;
rather, they are different facets of an organic process of growth in a discerning
life. Once again, our focus is as much on how one prepares and makes oneself
capable of such a deep openness, as on the element of grace that no one can
prepare or control.
The issue at hand here is a deeper intimacy with God; and we cannot be intimate with God, who dwells within us, unless we have grown into a deep level of
intimacy with ourselves. Like intimacy with another person, this demands attentiveness in the midst of the daily grind as well as in the special moments of
intensity. A habit of noticing and gently reflecting on one’s emotional, mental,
and behavioral reactions to whatever is happening around one may be one of the
most essential practices for growing in discernment.
In his Autobiography, Ignatius of Loyola described how he was first awakened
to insight into the subtle movements of the Holy Spirit by paying attention to the
different trajectories of fantasies and feelings that followed when he read novels
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M A R Y F R O H L I C H, R. S . C . J.
of chivalry or lives of the saints (Autobiography, 22–25). The practice of the
“examen,” in which one regularly takes time to review the feelings and responses
stirred by the day’s events, is designed to foster this kind of sensitivity to the
movement of the Spirit (Ignatius, Exercises, #24–26). While daily examen is usually
an individual practice, something similar can be done in group settings at more
widely spaced intervals.
The intimacy that God desires to share with us often seems subtle or hidden
from our point of view. Yet most people can name a few life events when they
had a transient but uniquely potent awareness of love, light, unity, tenderness:
a kind of transcendent “falling in love” that stands in memory as a permanent
beacon of the hope that love and goodness really are the bottom line of who one
is. The birth of a child, a walk in spring, a phrase read, a chance encounter with a
hurting person—anything might be the catalyst of such a moment. In her Dialogue,
Catherine of Siena offers a profound image for how this relates to self-knowledge
and discernment. She presents God as speaking to her, saying:
So think of the soul as a tree made for love and living only by my love. . . .
The circle in which this tree’s root, the soul’s love, must grow is true knowledge
of herself, knowledge that is joined to me, who like the circle have neither
beginning nor end. . . . This knowledge of yourself, and of me within yourself,
is grounded in the soil of true humility. . . . So the tree of charity is nurtured
in humility and branches out in true discernment (Dialogue #10).
As Catherine points out, true self-knowledge is to know one’s very being as
rooted and grounded in God’s love. Since at this level God, in Godself, is always
united with us (even when we are oblivious or rejecting of that union), this kind
of awareness potentially can break through even in completely unexpected times
or places. A key exercise for growing in self-knowledge is to remember and ponder
those occasions where God’s love embraced us most powerfully. Such moments
can transform a person’s sense of what their life is really about and spark a new
fire to find a way to live it out. As one goes about living this new direction in life,
one continues to draw energy and hope from the memory of the touchstone
event.
This whole process is crucial for the development of our ability to recognize
when God is again moving authentically in our lives. God relates to us with total
fidelity, so insofar as the past realization of who we are in that relationship was
authentic, each new occasion of God’s invitation will be in continuity with it. At
the same time, each “now” moment of God’s breakthrough is also redolent with
the passion of a new falling in love, bringing a new perspective and the need to
reclaim and reinterpret all that has gone before. As we move through life telling
and retelling the story of that God-relationship, both to ourselves and to others,
our knowledge of ourselves and of God deepen together.
D I S C E R N M E N T A S A WAY O F L I F E
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Radical Faith in the God Who Raises the Crucified
Y
et every faith-journey also encompasses times when neither a formed
imagination nor remembrance of God’s special touches suffices to prevent
an unnerving sense of confusion about where God is in it all. The journey of selfknowledge has its high points of discovering that we are made for love, but it
also has its low points of discovering the nastier potentials of our human nature.
For most of us, much of this works its way out in the crucible of human relationships. Whether in marriage, parenthood, religious community, or work,
human relationships bring a combination of pleasures and stresses. Wanted or
not, there is daily feedback from others about our imperfections as well as our
gifts. Receiving and pondering this feedback require an even more demanding level of humility.
At the same time, learning to accept, love, and
forgive others when they annoy or even hurt us
Whether in marriage,
begins to exercise us in another level of faith.
Even more challenging than difficult relationparenthood, religious
ships or personal failures are calamitous events
that occur without warning and result in terrible
community, or work,
suffering or diminishment. Accidents, wars,
natural disasters, criminal acts: these utterly inhuman relationships
explicable catastrophes can shatter a person’s
settled worldview and shake faith to the roots.
bring a combination
On the day after Christmas in 2004, a tsunami
swept almost 200,000 people to their deaths and
of pleasures and
destroyed the families, homes, lands, and hopes
of millions more. How does one discern God’s
stresses.
presence in the face of such horrors? On the
theological level, this is a classic question for
theodicy—that is, for theologies explaining why
God allows (or, in some versions, even intends)
so much suffering and destruction. But on the personal level, such occurrences
(or their less public equivalents within our own small life-worlds) are the ultimate challenge to living discernment as a way of life.
In The Love of God, Francis de Sales distinguished between discerning God’s
“declared will,” which may be known through the commandments and evangelical counsels as well as through special inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and discerning God’s “permissive will” (de Sales, Books VIII and IX). The first two
sections of this essay dealt with what de Sales called God’s “declared will”—that
is, what God positively desires for us and invites us to choose freely. This section,
however, deals with finding God in what neither God nor we ourselves desire at
all—namely, unbearable suffering, absurdity, broken dreams, tragic death. De Sales
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M A R Y F R O H L I C H, R. S . C . J.
noted that a major difference is that God’s declared will is like an invitation to
dinner, which we can politely accept or refuse; but when earthquake, accident,
violent attack, or major illness happen, we don’t have a choice about our life
being turned upside down (de Sales, Book VIII, ch. 3; Book IX, ch. 14).
Many today would quibble with de Sales’ theodicy, which implies that God is
behind such horrors even to the degree of “permitting” them. However, his real
focus is not on how the shocking events came about, but on how we are to live
into the certainty that God is with us in them. As I read it, de Sales is not saying
that God is indifferent to terrible events, or, worse, that God intentionally sends
them our way. Rather, God’s compassion and forgiveness are so all-encompassing
that there is no possible catastrophe—whether human-caused or sheerly natural
—that will not be embraced with utmost love
and, in some way beyond our ken, woven into
the merciful plans of God’s heart.
These are the kinds of events that one can do
little or nothing to make immediate preparation
Reactions of grief
for, since they crash in upon us without warning. Yet living discernment as a way of life does
and anger are
offer us an approach to remote preparation. In
ordinary life there are many occasions when our
natural, yet staying
plans, hopes, and desires are overturned in small
ways. There are also illnesses, accidents, and
in that mode will
quarrels that do not reach the level of catastrophe
but nonetheless perturb us considerably. These
only create vicious
are opportunities to practice the radical faith
circles that lead
that will be required when disaster strikes. Reactions of grief and anger are natural, yet stayultimately to more
ing in that mode will only create vicious circles
that lead ultimately to more hurt and destruchurt and destruction.
tion. A pause to ponder the infinity of God’s
mercy that can compassionately embrace both
our sorrow and the aggression of whatever or
whoever has hurt us is a way to begin to cocreate
with God a heart-center of peace in the midst of any level of chaos.
This practice brings us, in a way, full circle. Once again we are following
“everybody’s Jesus” whose earthly life ended on an instrument of torture. This
time, however, our following has moved from the level of forming our imagination to that of walking our own path of blood and tears. Fidelity to this path will
lead us, moreover, to yet another level: namely, the blossoming of lived sisterand brotherhood with those whose spirits and bodies are broken daily by the
crucifying effects of poverty, environmental degradation, and political exclusion.
Radical faith in the God who raises the crucified will, ultimately, teach us that the
D I S C E R N M E N T A S A WAY O F L I F E
49
“preferential option for the poor” is not simply another consumer option that sits
side by side with many others on a full shelf of possibilities. On the cross, Jesus
poured out his blood and his Spirit. Still today, God’s Spirit is being poured out
wherever the cross is planted—in our own lives, and in the world. In discovering
this for ourselves, we learn the most fundamental principle of discernment as a
way of life.
Conclusion
T
his schema of three aspects of discernment as a way of life is, in a way, a
new version of the classic threefold way of purgation, illumination, and
union. “Following everybody’s Jesus” involves the hard, purgative work of letting
go of one’s egoistic plans for one’s own aggrandizement and being formed in the
ways of Jesus. “Availability for the specific invitation of the Spirit” requires the
freedom and self-knowledge to open up to God’s illumination on an intimate
level. “Radical faith in the God who raises the crucified” focuses on a kind of
union that excludes nothing, not even catastrophe and death. Discernment, in
this view, is not so much a practice as the foundation of a whole spirituality.
Given that few of us are very far advanced in living this spirituality in its fullness, what might help those described in our initial scenarios to make some
progress? The parish council (Scenario One) would have a far better experience
of communal discernment if they began with a long-term commitment to formation of heart and mind in “Following everybody’s Jesus.” Only then will they
be able to distinguish the movement of the Spirit when it comes—and deal
maturely with the elements of confusion and uncertainty that are an inevitable
part of group life in a time of transition.
In order to come to terms with her present situation of discouragement, Julia
(Scenario Two) needs especially to seek “Radical faith in the God who raises the
crucified.” Her challenge is to stop second-guessing her original discernment and
instead discover God in the painful here and now. The exercises of imagination
and memory described in relation to the first two modes may be of help to her.
Even more crucial, however, will be the support of a community that is steadfast
in discerning faith, even when she sees only darkness.
The religious congregation (Scenario Three) is unlikely to grow in vitality
without serious attention to “Availability to the specific invitation of the Spirit.”
Hopefully, the group will find ways to refresh imagination and rekindle the
energy of daily discipleship. Yet the reality of diminishment must also be faced;
they too will need to go to the depths of radical faith.
As these brief reviews of the scenarios have indicated, the three aspects of
discernment are woven together in a kind of trinitarian mutuality, so that they
can ultimately only be engaged as a whole. There is, finally, no “quick fix” for
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knowing the way of God in one’s life; for the way is simply wholehearted commitment to the journey, moment by moment, day by day, year by year.
References
Catherine of Siena. The Dialogue. Translated and introduced by Suzanne Noffke. New
York: Paulist, 1980.
Francis de Sales. The Love of God: A Treatise. Translated and introduced by Vincent
Kerns. Westminster, MD: Newman, 1962.
Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and a
Contemporary Reading. Trans. Elder Mullan; edited and commentated by David L.
Fleming. St. Louis, MO: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978.
________. The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola with Related Documents. Translated
by Joseph F. O’Callaghan; edited and introduced by John C. Olin. NY: Fordham University, 1992.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making in the Church.
Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996.
Miller, Vincent J. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture.
NY: Continuum, 2004.
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NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • AUGUST 2005
Preaching in a Different Key
Preaching the Gospel According to Paul 1
Frank J. Matera
A decision to preach the Gospel according to Paul on Sundays led this
Pauline scholar and author to realize that this required preaching
“in a new way, in a different tone, in another key”: one more explicitly
theological and conceptual, that applies the saving death and resurrection
of Jesus to the concrete particulars of a community’s life.
S
ome years ago I decided to recycle my old homilies. After all, I had been
preaching from the Lectionary, primarily from the Gospels, for more than
thirty years, and I had written out and kept most of my homilies. And so, instead
of writing new homilies, I began to revise old ones. My homily preparation
became easier, and in most instances the homilies were better for the revision.
But as time passed, I began to feel uncomfortable about recycling old material.
Consequently, I ended the experiment and began to compose new homilies once
more.
On one particular Sunday, after preaching what I thought was a rather
insightful homily, I decided to compare it with what I had said in earlier years. To
my amazement and embarrassment, the homily I had written was essentially the
same homily I had given three years earlier! It began with the same example that
I thought was so original. It developed the same theological theme that I thought
Frank J. Matera is the Andrews-Kelly-Ryan Professor of Biblical Studies at the Catholic
University of America, Washington, D.C. He is the author of Galatians (Sacra Pagina
series, Liturgical Press); Second Corinthians (New Testament Library); Stategies for
Preaching Paul; New Testament Ethics: The Legacy of Jesus and Paul; and New Testament
Christology (all Liturgical Press).
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F R A N K J. M A T E R A
was so insightful. And it made the same hermeneutical leap from text to life that
I thought was so exciting. I immediately realized that having preached for more
than thirty years, I had fallen into a pattern when preaching from the Gospels.
I was focusing on the same themes, using the same examples, applying the text
in the same way. It was then that I decided to make myself preach on a regular
basis from the Pauline epistles, whether I wanted to or not.
At first I found this to be a more difficult task than I anticipated, even though
I had been teaching the Pauline letters for several years. The problem, as I soon
discovered, was that the pattern I developed for preaching from the Gospels did
not fit the Pauline epistles. Try as I might, I could not pour new wine into old
wineskins. I had to preach in a new way, in a different tone, in another key. I had
to preach the Gospel according to Paul rather than the Gospel according to Mark,
or Matthew, or Luke, or John.
Some months later, when I finally returned to preaching from the Synoptic
Gospels, I still found myself preaching in a Pauline key. Phrases and concepts
from Paul’s letters now entered my preaching more freely and more often, and
I was now interpreting the Gospels in light of Paul’s Gospel—not that there is
another Gospel, as Paul reminds us in Galatians. But as I hope to explain, the
Gospel can and should be preached in a different key, at least from time to time.
Two Kinds of Preaching
P
reaching from Paul reminded me that the Gospels are narratives suited to a
particular kind of preaching that is narrative in its mode. For example, on a
given Sunday the congregation hears a portion of the Gospel narrative—a parable, a miracle, a controversy story—and in most instances the preacher retells
that story in a way that draws out its contemporary significance and spiritual
meaning for the congregation. The result is a narrative or story-based preaching
that is appropriate to the Gospels and focuses on certain themes such as the
kingdom of God, the power and the authority of Christ, the need to imitate the
example of Jesus.
But when I turned to Paul I was quickly reminded of what I already knew:
that Paul’s writings are not narratives but letters. And because they are letters,
they represent a lively conversation between Paul and his converts in which the
Apostle addresses problems and questions posed by his congregation. For example, will the dead share in the Lord’s parousia if they die before he comes? Has
the parousia already taken place? Can we eat food sold in the marketplace that
has been sacrificed to idols? What is the most important spiritual gift? Will there
be a resurrection of the dead? With what kind of body will the dead be raised?
Must Gentiles be circumcised and do the works of the Mosaic Law to share in the
benefits of Israel’s Messiah?
PREACHING IN A DIFFERENT KEY
53
Because Paul’s writings are letters, preachers must approach them in a different
way than they approach the Gospels. Most importantly, they must pay careful
attention to the manner in which Paul applies the Gospel of Christ’s saving death
and life-giving resurrection to the particular circumstances of his congregations.
Then they can and must do something similar for their own parishioners, even
when the problems Paul addresses seem foreign and strange to them. For the
way in which Paul arrives at his conclusions is as important as the answers he
provides.
For example, Paul always begins by reflecting on what he sees as the central
event of the Gospel—the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—in order to
draw out the implications of that event for the life of the Christian community.
He does not simply order his converts to avoid
immorality. Rather, he reminds them that the
event of Christ’s saving death and life-giving
resurrection has made them members of a
sanctified community. Consequently, it would
Because Paul’s
be incongruous for them to engage in any immorality since their bodies now belong to Christ.
writings are letters,
Put another way, instead of simply telling his
converts what to do, Paul reminds them who
preachers must
they have become in Christ so that they will act
according to their new status in Christ.
approach them in a
Preaching the Gospel according to Paul, then,
is different from preaching the Gospel according
different way than
to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. On the one
they approach
hand, it requires a more explicitly theological
approach that is modeled after Paul’s own
the Gospels.
preaching, whereby the Apostle applies the
Gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection to the
particular circumstances of the Christian life.
Such an approach necessarily deals with questions of sin and salvation, reconciliation and redemption, the destiny of the individual and yes, the future of the world. On the other hand, preaching from Paul
is eminently pastoral, provided that the preacher is guided by Paul’s singular
question: What does the Gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection require in this
particular instance if the church is to remain faithful to its election? What must
the Christian do in this particular instance in order to witness to the Gospel of
Christ? What does it mean in this particular instance to live the Gospel of Christ’s
saving death and life-giving resurrection?
Preaching the Gospel according to Paul, then, is preaching in a different key:
a key that is more explicitly theological and conceptual than narrative, a key that
gives tonality to the great issues of the Christian faith. In the remainder of this
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essay, I will consider four of these issues and offer some suggestions as to how
they can inform our preaching today, even when we are not preaching from a
Pauline text. The issues are (1) the human condition apart from Christ; (2) the
new situation inaugurated by Christ’s death and resurrection; (3) the shape of
the Christian life under the guidance of the Spirit; (4) the hope of the Christian
life in light of Christ’s resurrection.
The Human Condition Apart from Christ
P
aul believes in the goodness of God’s creation (1 Cor 10:25-26), but he has no
illusions about the human condition apart from the power of God’s grace. He
is firmly convinced that there is something awry in the world. Something has
gone wrong. In light of what God has done in Christ, Paul has come to the firm
conviction that all have sinned. All have gone astray. Therefore, all are in need of
redemption. Put another way, Paul believes that apart from Christ humanity
finds itself in a predicament of its own making from which it cannot extricate
itself. Apart from Christ, humanity is under the domination of a power and force
that frustrates every human attempt to do God’s will, even by those to whom the
law of God has been revealed. Paul calls this power “Sin.”
In the opening chapters of Romans, Paul describes the human predicament
apart from Christ. He begins with a description of the Gentile world, and he
notes that even though the Gentiles knew something of the glory of God from
the created world, they preferred to worship the creature rather than the Creator.
This refusal to acknowledge God as God—idolatry—is at the root of all other
sins. It is the original sin.
Turning to the Jewish world, Paul notes that even though the Jewish people
had the advantage of the Mosaic Law, which allowed them to know God’s will,
and even though they possessed the sign of circumcision, which identified them
as the people of the covenant, they were no better off. And so, toward the end of
chapter three, Paul concludes with this dismal assessment:
There is no one who is righteous,
not even one;
there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness,
there is not even one (Rom 3:10-12).
Later, in chapter five, Paul provides a further analysis of the human condition,
contrasting the disobedience of the first human being, Adam, with the obedience
PREACHING IN A DIFFERENT KEY
55
of the new human being, the Christ. Paul affirms that Adam’s transgression
introduced the powers of Sin and Death into the world so that one transgression
brought many to death. In effect, Adam’s transgression inaugurated a history of
sin and death that succeeding generations affirmed and ratified by their transgressions. Consequently, humanity finds itself under the domination of Sin and
Death which Paul presents as powers and forces that ultimately frustrate the
ability of humanity to do God’s will, even when it knows God’s will.
It is not that humanity does not know what God requires. Paul is quite insistent
that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (7:12). But
apart from the power of God’s Spirit, human beings belong to the realm of what
is mortal and corruptible, what Paul calls the realm of the flesh. And so, speaking in the voice of unredeemed humanity, he says, “I am of the flesh, sold into
slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what
I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom 7:14-15). According to Paul’s analysis
of the human condition, humanity is in a predicament of its own making from
which it cannot escape. It is enslaved to the powers of Sin and Death that Adam
introduced into the world by disobeying God. Humanity, apart from Christ, finds
itself in the situation that later theology would call “original sin.” Put another
way, human beings cannot save, justify, or acquit themselves before God. They
cannot reconcile themselves to God.
Paul comes to this conclusion about the human condition on the basis of what
God has done in Christ, reasoning in this fashion: if there was nothing wrong
with the human condition, then why did God send his Son into the world? The
fact that “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4),
shows that humanity was in a predicament from which only God could free it. To
put it in Paul’s words, “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes
through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (Gal 2:21). For Paul, God’s act of
salvation in Christ is the light that reveals the darkness of the human predicament. In that light, Paul looks back at his former righteousness under the Law
and proclaims, “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ” (Phil 3:7). In other words, it is in light of what God has done in
Christ that Paul understands his former life and the human predicament.
Paul’s analysis of the human condition plays a central role in the Gospel he
proclaims, and in the Gospel we should preach. He is firmly convinced that Christ
“gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age” (Gal 1:4). In
Ephesians he (or another writing in his name) writes:
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, . . . were at that time
without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to
the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But
now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the
blood of Christ (Eph 2:11-13).
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In Colossians, Paul proclaims that God “has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1:13). He reminds his audience that once they were “estranged and hostile in mind” toward
God, “doing evil deeds,” but now they have been reconciled to God (Col 1:21-22).
In a word, Paul views the human condition apart from Christ in terms of sin and
alienation. Apart from Christ, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
(Rom 3:23). Apart from Christ, humanity lives in a realm of darkness of which it
is not even aware (Eph 5:8). Apart from Christ, humanity is destined for judgment and wrath (Rom 1:18; 2:5; 1 Thess 1:10).
If contemporary preachers are to proclaim the Gospel according to Paul, they
must make a similar analysis of the human condition for their own day, first for
themselves and then for their congregations. If
contemporary preachers do not understand the
power Sin and Death exert upon their own lives
and the lives of their congregations, they will
not be able to preach the Gospel according to
[O]ne who preaches
Paul. If contemporary preachers do not believe
that humanity, apart from Christ, is in radical
the Gospel according
need of God’s saving grace, they will not be able
to preach the Gospel according to Paul. If conto Paul must be a
temporary preachers cannot see that there is
something amiss in the world apart from Christ,
shrewd interpreter of
they will not be able to preach the Gospel according to Paul.
the human condition.
Preaching the Gospel according to Paul means
beginning with, and analyzing, the human condition in light of what God has done in Christ. In
light of the Gospel, the preacher must then ask: What is the situation of humanity
when it stands apart from the grace of God? How do the powers of Sin and
Death exert their control over humanity today? What must the congregation
know about its own situation so that it will not fall back into the realm of the old
Adam, the realm of Sin and Death, the realm of the flesh? In a word, one who
preaches the Gospel according to Paul must be a shrewd interpreter of the
human condition.
God’s New Creation in Christ
S
ince Paul’s analysis of the human situation is intimately related to his understanding of what God has done in Christ, it is important to be clear about
what God accomplished in Christ. What is new about the human condition now
PREACHING IN A DIFFERENT KEY
57
that Christ has appeared? What has changed? Paul employs a number of concepts to explain the significance of the Christ event. For example, he speaks of
justification, salvation, reconciliation, expiation, redemption, freedom, sanctification, transformation, a new creation, and glorification. I will limit myself to
justification, reconciliation, and salvation.
Justification
By justification Paul means that God acquits us so that we now stand in the
correct and proper covenant relationship to God. A legal term, the verb “to justify” means to declare that the defendant in a court of law is innocent of the
crime of which he has been accused. The defendant is justified because the judge
proclaims that the defendant stands in the correct relationship to the law. When
transferred to the realm of our covenant relationship with God, the concept of
justification means that God acquits or justifies us, declaring that we are innocent and that we now stand in the proper covenant relationship to God.
But what is the basis for this justification? Why do we now stand in the
correct and proper relationship to God? Paul’s answer can be summarized in this
way. Since we are incapable of justifying or acquitting ourselves before God,
God has freely and graciously acquitted us through the saving death and the lifegiving resurrection of his Son. Our response to this gracious act of justification,
says Paul, is “the obedience of faith.” Rather than assert ourselves before God,
we are to entrust ourselves to God through faith in Christ. This faith is an act of
obedience, a total surrender of our lives to God.
Paul affirms that all is grace. Therefore, we are justified on the basis of trusting
faith in Christ rather than on the basis of doing the legal prescriptions of the Law.
And so he writes in Galatians,
We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith
in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be
justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no
one will be justified by the works of the law (Gal 2:16).
Reconciliation
When God justifies or acquits us, God reconciles us to Godself. That is to say,
we are now at peace with God because God has reestablished the covenant relationship we ruptured. God, of course, does not need to be reconciled to us since
God always remains faithful to God’s covenant promises. Rather, it is we who
need to be reconciled to God. Humanity, however, cannot reconcile itself to God.
It cannot decide that it will repair the covenant relationship it has ruptured. This
is why God freely and graciously does what we cannot do. God graciously reconciles us to Godself.
Paul explains this theology of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians when he writes:
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So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed
away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us
to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that
is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. . . .
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:17-21).
The final phrase—“he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God”—points to the divine interchange God
has effected in Christ. The phrase does not mean that Christ became a sinner or
that Christ was sinful. Rather, it is Paul’s way of saying that Christ stood in our
place so that we might stand in Christ’s place before God. Whereas formerly we
were at enmity with God, we now stand before God with a righteousness and
holiness that comes from God.
The present situation of the Christian, then, can be summarized in this way.
We are already justified, we are already reconciled to God, not on the basis of anything we have done but solely on the basis of what God has done for us in Christ.
Because we have already been reconciled and justified to God, we now belong to
God’s new creation in Christ. We live in the sphere of Christ, the New Human
Being, the New Adam, the one who lived in perfect obedience to God. And so
Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has
passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor 5:17). Because Christians
have been baptized into Christ, they are part of this new humanity that Christ
inaugurated by his obedient death on the cross. Consequently, whereas the old
humanity found itself incapable of carrying out God’s will, because it was under
the domination of Sin and Death, the new humanity fulfills the just requirement
of God’s law, not by its own power, but by the power of God’s Spirit.
Salvation
According to Paul, the present situation of believers assures them that they
will be saved. And so he writes in Romans:
Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be
saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having
been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. (Rom 5:9-10)
In these verses Paul makes an important distinction between justification and
reconciliation on the one hand, and salvation on the other. We are already justified and reconciled, but we are not yet saved. However, because we are already
justified and reconciled, we can be confident that we will be saved. Christians then
PREACHING IN A DIFFERENT KEY
59
live between what has already occurred and what has not yet happened: they are
already justified but not yet saved; already reconciled but not yet saved. The fullness of salvation then is a future reality that will only be accomplished at the
parousia and the general resurrection of the dead.
I have already said that those who preach the Gospel according to Paul need to
understand the human condition apart from Christ. Now I must add another element. Those who preach the Gospel according to Paul must have a profound appreciation of God’s grace in their lives and in the life of the world. They must
proclaim that they do not and cannot justify and reconcile themselves before
God. They must communicate that they are incapable of saving and redeeming
themselves by what they do, be it their good works, their career, or their life’s
accomplishments. To preach the Gospel according to Paul is to have a profound
sense that all is grace, and apart from God’s grace there is only Sin and Death. To
preach the Gospel according to Paul is to summon people to faith and reliance
upon God, and upon God alone.
This Gospel clashes with many of the values of contemporary society, which
judges people on the basis of what they do and accomplish in their life. For
example, society deems that the most successful person is the most productive
person. It judges people on the basis of what they do rather than on the basis of
who they are. Now Paul could have produced a rather impressive curriculum
vitae. After all, he established Christian congregations in a good part of the
Mediterranean world. But his call and conversion on the Damascus road taught
him that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, . . . what is
weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27). Consequently, he affirms that
Christ is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption
(1 Cor 1:30). To preach the Gospel according to Paul then is to proclaim that we
are justified by God’s grace through trusting faith in Jesus Christ, that God has
reconciled us to himself, thereby assuring us of future salvation.
The Shape of the Christian Life
J
ust as Paul’s analysis of the human situation apart from Christ is closely
related to his understanding of what God has done in Christ, so his proclamation of this Good News is intimately associated with his understanding of the
moral life. The shape of the Christian life is determined by what God has done
for us in Christ. Because we are a new creation in Christ, we can and must live in
a way that corresponds with our status as a sanctified people who have been
elected by, justified by, and reconciled to God.
Unfortunately Paul’s teaching on justification by faith has often been distorted and misunderstood, as if the Apostle were unconcerned about the moral
life. But this is hardly the case. Although Paul affirms that no one will be justi-
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fied in God’s sight by doing the deeds prescribed by the Law (Rom 3:20), he is
quite insistent that those who have been justified and reconciled must live a
morally good life. For example, in Romans, after explaining what he means by
justification by faith, Paul begins his moral exhortation in this way:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present
your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—
what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:1-2).
In a similar vein, after defending his Law-free Gospel to the Galatians, he exhorts
them:
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom
as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one
another (Gal 5:13).
In both instances Paul expects those who have been justified to live a life that
corresponds to their new status. What then is the relationship between Paul’s
moral exhortation on the one hand, and his insistence that a person is justified
by faith, rather than by doing the works of the Law, on the other?
For Paul there is an intimate relationship between who we are and what we do.
If we belong to the old humanity of Adam, the realm of the flesh, then we will
inevitably do the works of the flesh. But if we have been incorporated into the
new humanity inaugurated by Christ—the realm of the Spirit—then we will be
led and guided by the Spirit, and the Spirit will produce its singular fruit in us.
Notice I did not say that we will produce the fruit of the Spirit. Rather the Spirit
will produce its singular fruit within us, which Paul describes as love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23).
In other words, the morally good life is a gift of God’s grace and an act of worship.
Those who have been justified and reconciled to God are no longer condemned to
being conformed to this age because they are no longer under the rule of Sin.
Because they have been transformed by Christ, they can discern God’s will
and do what is pleasing to God through the power of the Spirit at work in their
lives.
This is why Paul tells the Thessalonians that God’s will for them is their holiness (1 Thess 4:3). This is why he exhorts the Philippians to be blameless and
innocent in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Phil 2:15). This is why
he begins his moral exhortation in Colossians, “So if you have been raised with
Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of
God” (Col 3:1). This is why he says to the Ephesians, “Be imitators of God, as
PREACHING IN A DIFFERENT KEY
61
beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us,
a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:1-2). For Paul the morally good
life is a vocation that flows from the new creation God has effected in Christ. The
justified fulfill what the Law requires, not through their own power, but through
the power of God’s Spirit at work in them.
An essential aspect of preaching is to exhort people to live a morally good life.
There is a difference, however, between a moral exhortation rooted in the Gospel of
justification by faith and a moral exhortation that is merely moralism. Moralism
tells people what to do. It presents them with rules and laws and little else. Moral
exhortation rooted in the Gospel first reminds believers of their status and
dignity in Christ. Only then does it summon them to become what they are in
Christ.
To preach the Gospel according to Paul is to remind people of the power of
the Spirit already at work in their lives. To preach the Gospel according to Paul is
to trust in the presence of the Spirit and summon people to live in accordance
with the new humanity established in Christ. To preach the Gospel according to
Paul is to root the moral life in Christ’s redemptive work. This is a different kind
of preaching than most congregations hear today, but it is central to Paul’s
Gospel. For if there is no relationship between the moral life and Christ’s work of
salvation, there is no reason to preach the Gospel of Christ’s saving death and
resurrection.
The Hope of the Christian Life
T
hus far, I have spoken of the past (the human situation apart from Christ
and Christ’s redemptive work) and of the present (how the Christian ought
to live in light of Christ’s redemptive work). It is now time to say something
about the future: the hope of the Christian life, the destiny of the Christian, the
future of the world.
Paul has a great deal to say about the future, not in the sense of predicting
what will happen but in the sense of providing believers with something to hope
for and trust in: God’s final victory over Sin and Death. Paul is firmly convinced
of something that we proclaim every time we celebrate the Eucharist: Christ has
died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. Although most of us readily believe
in the first two parts of this acclamation (Christ has died, Christ is risen), I suspect
we are not so sure about the third part: Christ will come again. After all, if Christ
has not come after two thousand years, how can we continue to hope that he will
come again?
Paul could never think in this way. For him there is an intimate connection between the resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection of the dead that
will occur at the end of the ages, at the Lord’s parousia (his second coming). Con-
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sequently, Paul argues in this way. Since one human being has been raised from
the dead, the Christ, then the general resurrection of the dead has already begun.
And if the general resurrection of the dead has begun, then Christians are
already living in the new age. Consequently, the parousia can occur at any
moment.
Put another way, the resurrection of Christ was not an isolated event that only
affected Christ. It was the beginning of the general resurrection of the dead that
will be completed when Christ returns at the end of the ages. Understood in this
way, Christ’s resurrection has inaugurated the new age, the final age, the age in
which God will effect his final victory over Sin and Death through Christ.
From one point of view, Paul was mistaken. The parousia did not occur in his
lifetime as he hoped. But even though he was
mistaken, Paul was not wrong. What he says
about the relationship between the resurrection
of Christ, the parousia, and the general resurrection of the dead remains true. The resurrection
Compared to Paul’s
of Christ signaled the beginning of the end, the
inauguration of the new age. What Paul says
vision of the end
about the parousia and the general resurrection
of the dead, then, is a profound act of faith and
time, the eschatohope that God’s work of salvation is not finished.
To be sure, the decisive victory was won on the
logical vision of
cross. To be sure, our sins were forgiven by
Christ’s death. To be sure, we have been reconmany contemporary
ciled and justified in Christ. To be sure, we are a
preachers is trite,
new creation in Christ. To be sure, we already
experience the gift of the Spirit and the life of
banal, and anemic.
the new age. But we are not yet finally saved.
We are not yet finally saved, because we have
not been raised from the dead. We are not yet
finally saved, because the powers of Sin and
Death have not been destroyed once and for all. We are not yet finally saved
because the Lord has not returned. But when Christ comes again, the dead will
be raised, and Death will be destroyed. When Christ comes again, he will hand
the kingdom over to his Father, and God will be all in all. When Christ comes
again, the dead will be raised incorruptible, Death will be swallowed up in
victory, and the redeemed will taunt Death, “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55).
Compared to Paul’s vision of the end time, the eschatological vision of many
contemporary preachers is trite, banal, and anemic. Such preachers speak as if
final salvation has already been achieved, as if there is no further need for a final
and definitive victory over evil. They rarely speak of the general resurrection of
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63
the dead, and less often of the Lord’s parousia. They have nothing to say about
the future of the world, and they do not seem to realize that there is a final act of
salvation that has not yet been played out. Such preaching reduces the dramatic
events of the end time to getting into heaven.
Paul’s eschatological vision is broader and richer than entering heaven. In his
magnificent view of the end time, the whole of creation is waiting with eager
longing for the revelation of the children of God (Rom 8:19). Creation groans for
that moment of the general resurrection of the dead when Sin and Death will be
destroyed, and creation will be restored to its original harmony with God.
Paul is a realist. He understands that even though Christ died to rescue us
from the present evil age, the powers of this age are still at work in our lives and
in the life of the world. He understands that Sin
and Death will not be definitively destroyed until
Christ comes again.
Paul’s teaching on the parousia, then, is a way
of affirming that there is a final act in the drama
To preach the
of salvation that is still to unfold. It is Paul’s
way of proclaiming that the last word and the
Gospel according to
final victory belong to God. There is no place
then for pessimism in the Christian life. For if
Paul is to proclaim
God is for us, then who can be against us (Rom
8:31)? If the victory belongs to God’s Christ,
that the powers of
then who can overcome us? Paul is supremely
confident that nothing can separate us from
Sin and Death
God’s love because the final victory belongs to
will not ultimately
God, and we will share in that victory if we
remain in Christ.
triumph no matter
To preach the Gospel according to Paul is to
have a vision of God’s future as rich and as
how hopeless the
broad as Paul’s understanding of the parousia.
To preach the Gospel according to Paul is to
present situation
acknowledge that God’s work of salvation is not
finished. To preach the Gospel according to Paul
may seem.
is to proclaim that the powers of Sin and Death
will not ultimately triumph no matter how hopeless the present situation may seem. To preach
the Gospel according to Paul is to take his teaching on the general resurrection of the dead and the parousia seriously. To be
sure, this is not an easy task. Nor is it simply a matter of repeating what Paul
has said. It means interpreting Paul for a new day. It requires delving into the
deepest mystery of what it means to say, “Christ will come again,” in order to
provide the Christian community with a firm basis for its hope.
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Conclusion
T
hroughout this essay I have advocated preaching the Gospel in a different
key, preaching the Gospel according to Paul. This is not to say that there is
another Gospel different from the Gospel we proclaim when we preach the
Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And Paul’s Gospel surely
does not contradict what we find in those Gospels.
For example, what Paul writes about the human condition apart from God is
what Jesus says about a world that is no longer obedient to God’s rule, a world
that no longer submits to the kingdom of God. What Paul writes about justification and reconciliation is what Jesus says in the parable of the Prodigal Son
about the Father’s lavish foregiveness. When Paul exhorts Christians to live their
lives under the guidance of the Spirit, he echoes what Jesus says about living in
light of the in-breaking kingdom of God. And what Paul preaches about the
parousia and the general resurrection of the dead recalls what Jesus said about
the return of the Son of Man at the end of the ages when the kingdom of God
will come in glory.
But Paul says all of this in a different key. He provides us with new ways to
preach about sin, redemption, the moral life, and the future of the world. He
shows us how to apply the Gospel of Christ’s saving death and life-giving resurrection to the problems of this world. To preach the Gospel according to Paul we
must apply the same Gospel to the events of our day; then we will truly proclaim
the Gospel according to Paul.
Note
1 This article is a slightly revised version of the Mertens Homiletical Lecture the author
delivered at St. Meinrad School of Theology. Scriptural quotations are taken the New
Revised Standard Version.
PREACHING IN A DIFFERENT KEY
65
NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • AUGUST 2005
Classical Rhetoric and the
Contemporary Preacher
Guerric DeBona, O.S.B.
The author, a noted homiletician, invites preachers to consider the practical
value of the ancient art of rhetoric in preparing their homilies and sermons.
Rhetoric’s classical canon reminds preachers of the various steps in the process
of preparing a homily that will enlighten and move the hearers of the Word.
T
he Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) of the
Second Vatican Council reinvigorated the role of the Scriptures within the
Eucharistic Liturgy, “where the treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more
lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s
word” (no. 51). This renewed Liturgy of the Word gave “an exceptional place” to
the role of the ancient homilia or homily as the site for the Christian assembly to
attend to Sacred Scripture and its proclamation of the workings of God in Christ
throughout human history. Later, the USCCB’s marvelous statement on liturgical
preaching, Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly (1982),
would remind us that the preacher is a “mediator of meaning” (7), who interprets
both the Scriptures and the complexities of modern culture in a word of grace
for the Christian assembly.
Yet, the restoration of the homily and its discursive form poses potential problems. Indeed, this invitation to discover a user-friendly, “conversational” preaching idiom presents difficulties with structuring the homiletic text, often losing
hearers in the process. Kenneth Untener’s Preaching Better (1999) asserts that the
Guerric DeBona, O.S.B., is associate professor of preaching at St. Meinrad Seminary
and School of Theology and coauthor of Lift Up Your Hearts, Homilies for the “A” Cycle
(Paulist Press, 2004) and author of Fulfilled In Our Hearing, History and Method in
Christian Preaching (Paulist Press, 2005).
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congregation often finds Sunday preaching a jumbled, disorganized array of different ideas that never seem to go anywhere, much less to deliver what Untener
calls a single “pearl of great price.”
We need a kind of rhetorical armature for our preaching; such a template
would help craft a language for the vital, triadic relationship that exists among
the listener, the preacher, and the text. For centuries, the classical rhetoric of
Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and later, St. Augustine, provided preachers with a
five-step procedure to guide the “activity of the orator”: invention, arrangement,
style, memory, and delivery. This process underlying the so-called “perennial
rhetoric” shaped the efforts of the practitioners of later Christian oratory as
well. With modifications gleaned from the conciliar and postconciliar documents,
these rhetorical strategies offer an organizing tool for producing the homily, a
functional checklist for preaching. My discussion here applies not only to the
Sunday liturgical homily, but also to preaching on any occasion involving a
group of faithful listeners, a biblical or catechetical text, and a preacher.
Invention
B
eginning with Aristotle, classical authors have acknowledged the crucial
importance of inventio. As the word implies, invention is the activity of unearthing new ideas or arguments (in Greek: topoi ) that form the persuasive backbone of the speech-act. The activity of invention becomes the bedrock, the
genius, and originality of the oration. In Book II, Chapter 23 of the Rhetoric,
Aristotle listed twenty-eight universal arguments that the orator could deploy in
order to persuade an audience. Although the precise function of the liturgical
homily is not to plead a case rhetorically, understanding normative topics such
as the “contemplation of opposites” or “induction” remind the preacher of the
assembly’s role as a group of hearers. The faithful do not require argument as
much as what Fulfilled in Your Hearing calls “words to express their faith.” Thus
we might say that discovering the “topics” for the Sunday homily ought to be a
process that sustains and generates a wealth of ideas, insights, and perspectives
about the readings for the sake of the liturgical assembly. Moreover, the process
of inventio or finding the ideas for a homily should be protracted over a period of
days, occurring well in advance of the preaching event itself. Invention thrives
on time and prayerful meditation and reflection. Permitting the invention to
evolve slowly is especially crucial for gaining more and more potent, fresh observations about a familiar passage; therefore, its practice is vital for addressing
the needs of the parish Sunday assembly over a period of several years.
What does the process of inventio look like, then, not so much as a persuasive
argument but as a rhetorical tool for better preaching? It may be useful to think of
the discovery of topics for the homily as dialogical—a friendly conversation—
CLASSICAL RHETORIC AND THE CONTEMPORARY PREACHER
67
between three living entities: the biblical text, the contemporary cultural/
pastoral context, and the Holy Spirit.
Reading the Lectionary passages several days before they are to be preached
provides time for our hearts and minds to ruminate on them; we might jot down
images or ideas that we associate with the text that surface throughout the
course of the week. Certainly, the practice of lectio divina (“holy reading”) works
well in helping the preacher discover the hidden resources of the text. The
Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber referred to the text as a “Thou,”
suggesting an honored, personal relationship with a significant other. Before we
can speak about the text, we must allow the text to speak to us. If the text is not
speaking to us, perhaps we need to ask it deeper questions.
Secondly, the current context of ministerial
and social involvement is critical for engaging
in ideas or topoi for the homily. Christian preaching mirrors the Incarnation when the Word is
made visible in human history once again to
If the text is not
men and women in the everyday world. The Old
and New Testament texts inform our ongoing
speaking to us,
relationship with our brothers and sisters, which,
in turn, gives life to the text that we have been
perhaps we
engaging. Such personal encounters help the
preacher to formulate fresh topics that address
need to ask it
the contemporary culture and the pastoral
environment; these emergent ideas answer the
deeper questions.
question “So what?” that might be raised about
the level of meaning of the Lectionary text for
the hearers. The homily will speak to the culture
if we have encountered a unique set of human lives, all the while meeting the
Word of God in lectio divina.
Finally, every text that is preached must be prayed into being: listening to the
voice of the Lord in prayerful meditation helps to energize new ideas and
insights. A quiet time of listening for the working of the Holy Spirit becomes the
principle resource in the lively production of ideas. In the course of salvation
history, the Holy Spirit has guided the graced, symbolic encounter of the community of faith with the Scriptures. As we read, pray over, and study the Word of
God, that same Spirit can be invoked in the simple prayer, quietly repeated:
“Come, Holy Spirit.”
Although the uncovering of topics begins early in the homiletic process, the
discovery of new ideas ought to continue throughout the course of the week,
ending with a dialogue with the scholarly community by consulting biblical
commentaries; the contributions of biblical scholarship are then integrated into
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the process of invention, remembering that Fulfilled in Your Hearing says that
we are to preach “not so much on the scriptures, as from and through them” (20).
Arrangement
T
o my way of thinking, most failures in preaching composition happen at
the level of arrangement or dispositio, the stage in which the homily is
organized. It is absolutely crucial to attend to the discipline of a well-crafted
arrangement, since the dispositio orients itself specifically for the assembly of
hearers. While listening, the congregation reassembles the homily as they have it
fulfilled in their hearing, and the success with
which they do so depends greatly on how the
homily has been ordered and arranged. Why
this stage tends to frustrate the preacher is quite
[P]reaching
simple: we are not used to writing for a body of
listeners, but for an individual hearer. Our life
communicates
of learning in its earliest stages has been guided
by one-on-one writing encounters; I write for
differently than
a single other—a teacher, a friend, a coworker.
But preaching communicates differently than
writing.
writing. To acknowledge that the homily is to be
unpacked, discovered, and deeply heard by a
group of people goes a long way to improving
the arrangement of preaching material. David
Buttrick’s studies in the phenomenology of preaching, for instance, have demonstrated that people in a gathering will respond differently to language—always
slower, for instance—than they would as individuals.
Classical rhetoric emphasized dispositio as an important task of the good
orator, since knowing how to arrange the ideas that emerged from the process of
invention is foundational to persuading an audience. But beyond the strength of
rhetorical argument, how we experience the dynamics of narrative can also
inform our understanding of the preaching process. In the Poetics, Aristotle said
that the arrangement of material makes up the very plot itself. Narrative progression and sequence must be ordered in such a way that the listener is engaged
in a process that has a beginning, a middle, and, then, builds to a climax and,
finally, resolves itself in an ending. The same could be said for the homily, as
homiletic theoreticians such as Eugene Lowry and others have pointed out in discussing “narrative preaching.” Lowry’s The Homiletic Plot (2000) identifies progressive narrational stages in the homily, a sequence of events that moves the
audience through a story-like process. Narrative preaching does not mean that
CLASSICAL RHETORIC AND THE CONTEMPORARY PREACHER
69
the homily must contain a story, of course, only that it functions as one, moving
from exciting opening, through suspense, to climax and closure.
Reflecting an awareness of its listeners, a homily may then be effectively
arranged as a narrative: from the very beginning of the text, the preacher should
have in mind an intention regarding where the text is going; the homily has a
trajectory, like a plot in a story. Unfortunately, according to Untener, people often
experience preaching as a series of scattered, sometimes interesting, ideas or
stories, but without the organic unity that narrative might provide. Grasping the
homiletic plot and moving the congregation along in an intentional process from
beginning to end provides a unified structure that is listener-centered. Using a
series of stories, even if they are interesting, or simply commenting on the biblical texts, even if they are accurate and intelligent, misses the point. Those stories may be fine
in a phone conversation, but not in preaching to
a group, which needs to be guided and directed
quite formally and intentionally.
[W]ords: they are
Mystery novels and Hollywood feature films
hook the audience from the very beginning and
there not just to
keep readers and spectators involved until the
end. The clues take us, together with Detective
take up space or
Lord Peter Whimsy or Hercule Poirot, through
a baffling labyrinth and finally a disclosure,
simply inform,
solving the murder. Then again, Dorothy Gale
ventures to Oz, but we know she will return bebut to shape
cause “there’s no place like home.” Aware of our
and transform.
origins and destiny as God’s creatures, we are
ourselves part of a divine story, a narrative of
salvation history, which continues to be plotted
by the Author of life. In shaping the homily as
narrative, we participate and reflect in language and symbols our life on earth.
Through a unified text, a good homily orders the topics absorbed at the invention
stage and moves the congregation to closure, that is, to thanks and praise at the
Eucharistic Table.
Practically speaking, this second stage results in an outline that shapes our
ideas into a form accessible for the listener. The preacher might imaginatively
picture the assembly while organizing the material, the way some playwrights
visualize their prospective audience. “How are they responding?” “Are they with
me?” “Where am I taking them?” are all valuable questions that guide the
homilist and honor the listener. Secondly, economical language strives for textual
unity; it may be painful, but eliminate phrases and ideas that do not move the
text forward. Rid the text of phrases that scatter the subject, even if it means
placing that favorite saying on an index card for another homily. Lastly, consider
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that the overall strategy of the homily should be narrative insofar as the listener
participates in every sentence as a kinetic progression toward a solution and
closure.
An important consideration in this context is to make sure that the introduction really pushes forward and leads directly into the body of the homily. Many
preachers spend altogether too long on the introduction, discussing this and that,
or recalling a personal event or encounter; such lengthy “introductions” lack a
destiny and true purpose, which is to launch the body of the text. Imagine that
after every few sentences of the homily the congregation is saying to themselves,
“Tell me more!” and not “Where is he going with this?” That is narrative suspense. That keeps the plot going. Moving the text ahead and striving for organic
unity begins with the utterance of the first sentence. When arranging the text, it
cannot be overstressed that the homily exists for the sake of the people of God.
If the words of the preacher go unheard, then that text might be likened to Jesus’
parable of the seed sown on rocky ground: it dries up, rather than grows up.
Style
A
ntiquity distinguished certain modes of style, categorized under the heading of elocutio. These are usually termed the low, middle, and high elocutions. The Roman orators knew that these styles would be useful, depending on
the function of the oration. The low or plain style was best for teaching (docere);
the middle or moderate style for delighting or pleasing (delectare); the high or
grand style to motivate or persuade audiences (movere). Americans tend to value
plain speech and might use middle or high rhetorical conventions less frequently,
perhaps even as a parody of highbrow culture. In Book III of De Oratore, Cicero
associates conversational, or plain language, with vivacious speech. Hence, the
kind of informal language featured in Christian preaching might be thought of
not so much as casual but as personal, enthusiastic, and practical—the kind of
vernacular Jesus practiced when preaching the parables.
When it comes to style, it might be useful to consider the enormous range of
discursive language available to us in popular culture and acknowledge the complexities that exist in this range of communications. People listen to advertising
or the nightly news day after day. Youth groups participate in their own generational language system, to say nothing of listening to hip-hop and rap music. We
increasingly find ourselves among many multicultural dialects in this country.
What kind of style will best fit the moment of preaching? A youth leader engaged
in catechetical preaching would do well to know that the style appropriate to a
large assembly of adults will most likely not be terribly effective in the milieu of
youth culture. The insights of classical elocutio remind us of the intrinsic value
of words: they are there not just to take up space or simply inform, but to shape
CLASSICAL RHETORIC AND THE CONTEMPORARY PREACHER
71
and transform. And as Cicero stresses in De Oratore, the good speaker ought to
cultivate an individual style in the selection of words, while possessing a broad
range of knowledge.
Another classical author, Quintilian, advised in Book Five of Institutio oratoria,
that language should be plainly understood, correct, and elegant. Choosing just
the right word or expression will improve preaching greatly. Preachers might
pay close attention to wordsmiths, writers who attempt to shape people’s minds
for a living. Listen carefully to commercials on television, expressions in print
ads. Why did this particular word make the product more attractive? What are
the code words deployed by commercial and political language that are most persuasive? Writers from Henry James to Natalie Goldberg continually urge that,
when it comes to description, the more specific and colorful the better. Here,
again, preachers should aim for a rhetoric conducive to preaching rather than
argumentation. The Good News is preached, not manipulated. Preachers nevertheless compete for the attention of those who have been bombarded by countless clever words and expressions every week in the mass media. Preachers,
above all people, should be aware of the power of language, since we are
enabling the faithful to imagine a vision of the kingdom of God. Invariably, the
question of preaching style is going to grow more and more complex in the years
to come. The insights of Carl Andrew Wisdom, O.P., in Preaching to a Multigenerational Assembly (2004) speak intelligently to the variety of congregations
emerging in the church and the preaching strategies available in order to sow the
Word more fruitfully in the culture of diversity.
Ultimately, the use of style, like the arrangement of ideas, is going to depend
largely on the assembly and its particular cultural conditions. It must be acknowledged that the language of preaching is under considerable suspicion in
the age of pluralism. Our society offers options and menus rather than sound
teaching or biblical insights. Preaching, then, needs to resist two extremes: becoming too overbearing and patriarchal on the one hand, or too relativistic and
bland on the other. The faithful come to hear God’s Word in order to make sense
of their lives and give thanks to God in Christ. They do not wish to hear condescending, turgid platitudes, or canned theological expressions. At the same time,
God’s people, the baptized, await a healing, teaching moment so that they might
continue to fulfill their Christian destiny and promises. Preaching style ought to
challenge as well as invigorate.
Memory
T
he use of memoria is perhaps the most dreaded activity of a speech-act;
it has its origins in the most ancient forms of oratory. Memory was a key
component in the oral culture of ancient Western civilization, as stories were
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passed down from one generation to the next. The Desert Fathers and Mothers
used to commit to memory not only passages of the Bible, but the entire Scripture! Until recently, memorizing not just a speech but various texts of English
literature and the Bible were a standard component of elementary and secondary education. Memorizing patristic homilies was a typical practice in early
Christian oratory.
The underlying significance of memory in oration is obvious enough: once the
topics for the homily have emerged, been arranged, and then, finally, written in
suitable language, the homiletic text needs to be owned. For some, that may
mean memorizing. Others, however, may wish to use a manuscript because saying just the right word is very important. Regardless of whether a homily is
memorized word for word, if the preacher is just
mouthing ideas that have not been internalized,
the whole event will appear flat and inauthentic.
I ask my students in the Introduction to Preaching class to have a text prepared, to take it with
There is a world of
them to the ambo if they would like, but to
really preach it, not read it. There is a world of
difference between a
difference between a homily that is preached
and one that is simply read. Before executing a
homily that is
homily, preachers should have a clear intention
of what they are doing as bearers of the Word.
preached and one
Much of the homily will be preached through
words, but a significant portion of the Good
that is simply read.
News is witness. An applicable analogy is found
in acting. When actors memorize their lines, the
process liberates them to take on the character
more fully, and engage with other characters on the stage. Similarly, when the
homily is intentionally owned and internalized, the faith experience of the
preacher emerges in both language and gesture, and a full preaching experience
engages the listener. Freed from a “script,” preachers can more directly encounter
both the biblical text and the world of the assembly, providing a greater witness
to the Gospel.
A useful exercise at this point is to transform the finished preaching text back
into an outline. Although this strategy is not memorizing the text, it serves
several purposes: it helps to review the principle ideas or topics; it enables the
preacher to see if the arrangement of the text is coherent, and moves and organizes itself around the listener; it allows for a conversational language style,
perhaps spontaneously, to break through. This “second outline” may not differ
immensely from the first one, when the preacher was arranging ideas and topics,
but the outline at the end of this process is exponentially different from a sketchy
pattern of ideas jotted down a few hours before preaching. This latter style of
CLASSICAL RHETORIC AND THE CONTEMPORARY PREACHER
73
preaching “off-the-cuff” may amuse and entertain, but it does not do justice to
either the biblical text or the congregation.
Delivery
T
he last of the five activities of the orator is called pronuntiatio or simply,
“actions.” A poorly delivered homily brings frequent complaints from
parishioners. Any speech is going to sink or swim depending on the ability of
the speaker to communicate the language effectively through voice and body.
Unfortunately, a preacher might have ingenious ideas that are well arranged and
in magnificent language, but if the homily is
rushed or inaudible, the entire speech-act fails.
The reasons for a dysfunctional delivery may or
may not be the fault of the individual preacher.
[I]f we claim “faith
Poor sound systems in parish churches or parish
centers contribute to an inability to hear preachcomes by hearing,”
ing well. Furthermore, the faithful are increasingly influenced by a kind of carnival culture,
what are we saying
one whose bread and butter hinges on entertaining. Entertainment through spectacle, in one
if we don’t make
form or another, makes up the way people live
their lives from Good Morning America to
homiletic performance
Oprah to “reality” TV. To imagine that several
hundred listeners are going to appear for an
a priority?
hour on Sunday and be enlivened by a preacher
who barely speaks above a whisper, together
with bad posture, a flat tone, and wooden
gestures, is naive. Years ago, seminarians were
often required to take several classes on voice production. Much of this public
speaking preparation has unfortunately fallen away because of the increasing
demands in other areas of seminary education. Yet if we claim “faith comes by
hearing,” what are we saying if we don’t make homiletic performance a priority?
Delivery can always be improved and even the best preachers could benefit
from practicing their presentation aloud. There are a number of books on the
market available for improving voice production. Simply reading a poem aloud
in an empty church can help develop an ear attentive to word production and
enable a preacher to become accustomed to self-evaluation and self-monitoring
during the preaching moment. Furthermore, “delivery” means attending not
only to the quality of the speech—its sound production, articulation, and expression—but also to the nonverbal messages that take place during the homily.
We also know that those involved in public speech have always placed great
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value on body language. The ancients were on to something that we have verified over the last fifty years in communication theory. Most communication,
strikingly, happens by nonverbal gestures.
Videotaping the homily and examining it later continue to be effective tools.
Actors and musicians watch and listen to their rehearsals. The famous pianist
Glen Gould said that he learned more from listening to his recorded practice
sessions than from anything else. Also, asking some listeners for honest feedback to the preaching event will almost certainly be a concrete way of evaluating
delivery. “What did you hear?” remains a seminal question. After all, those who
are the listeners form the partnership with the preacher and that relationship
should exist in ongoing creative and critical dialogue.
Delivery will also be contingent on the worship space. Is this a big church with
1500 people, or a small parish of 150? The commonsense rule of thumb is that
the bigger the church, the bigger the gestures and the greater the volume and
expressiveness of the voice. Also, the preaching will have to adapt to the congregation. Obviously, if one is preaching catechesis for a group of fifth graders in a
school auditorium, the use of animated gestures will go a long way in getting the
message across. Finally, with the increasing number of foreign-born priests
preaching in this country, courses in accent reduction are often needed. Wellenunciated English, with appropriate volume and intonation, is imperative for
having preaching reach all those in the Christian assembly. Respect for Christ’s
assembly means that good delivery must be a priority for all preachers.
Conclusion
C
lassical rhetoric has much to tell us these days and can contribute to the
quality of expression in contemporary Christian preaching. Being so keenly
aware of the hearers of the word, orators from the past can help us even now to
speak to the Christian listener. The rhetoric of preaching exists to engage the
Word for the sake of others. In the end, we know that all fruitful preaching
requires a thoughtful meditation on topics, an arrangement of our ideas into
a structure that suits the contemporary listener, the use of language that is
authentic and appropriate, and a presentation that offers a fully embodied performance. And we should never, never be persuaded otherwise.
References
Aristotle. Poetics: A Translation and Commentary for Students of Literature. Trans. Leon
Golden and Commentary by O. B. Hardison Jr. Tallahassee: University Presses of
Florida, 1981.
CLASSICAL RHETORIC AND THE CONTEMPORARY PREACHER
75
________. The Rhetoric of Aristotle. Trans. Lane Cooper. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall, 1960.
Bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry. Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily
in the Sunday Assembly. Washington, D.C.: USCCB, 1982.
Buttrick, David. Homiletic: Moves and Structures. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987.
Casey, Michael. Sacred Reading. Liguori, MO: Triumph Books, 1995.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore). Trans. James M. May and Jakob
Wisse. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium). In The Documents of
Vatican II. Ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. Piscataway, NJ: New Century Publishers, 1966,
133–78.
Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1986.
James, Henry. Literary Criticism, Vols. 1 and 2. Ed. Leon Edel. New York: Library of America,
1984.
Kennedy, George A. A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP,
1994.
________. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to
Modern Times. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
Kepnes, Steven. The Text as Thou: Martin Buber’s Dialogical Hermeneutics and Narrative
Theology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1992.
Lowry, Eugene. The Homiletic Plot: The Sermon and Narrative Art Form. Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.
Quintilian, Marcus Fabius. On the Teaching of Speaking and Writing (Institutio oratoria).
Trans. John Selby Watson. Ed. James J. Murphy. Carbondale and Edwardville: Southern Illinois UP, 1987.
Untener, Ken. Preaching Better. New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1990.
Waznak, S. S. Robert. Introduction to the Homily. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.
Wisdom, O.P., Andrew Carl. Preaching to a Multi-generational Assembly. Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 2004.
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NTR
SIGNS
OF
THE
TIMES
Scott C. Alexander
John Paul II and Catholic-Muslim Solidarity
In many ways the afternoon of Saturday, April 2, 2005, was a typical one in the
Alexander household. My wife was out
running errands, my son was working on a
history paper, and I had taken a break
from writing to check my e-mail. It was a
little after 2:30 pm (Central Time) when
I received a message from a Muslim colleague and dear friend. His message was
one of “condolences” and “deep sympathy” on the occasion of the death of Pope
John Paul II. At the time, I thought nothing
of the significance of the fact that the first
news of the Pope’s passing reached me, a
lifelong Roman Catholic, via the heartfelt
concern of a Muslim. My immediate reaction was to send off a quick message to my
friend thanking him for his kindness, and
then to rush downstairs to the television in
order to break my fast from the obsessive
and repetitive coverage the major television networks were giving the Pope’s
“imminent demise.” I was able to watch
barely ten minutes of the news coverage
about the Pope’s death before it started. It
began slowly, like a trickle, and soon grew
into a flood: telephone call after telephone
call from Muslim friends, colleagues, and
associates from all over the United States.
Some were calling as individuals, and some
were representing important regional and
national Muslim organizations. Each one
of them wanted to extend his or her condolences and sympathy to me personally, to
Catholic Theological Union where I teach,
and to the church, as a whole, on this occasion of grief and loss.
An Extraordinary Gesture of
Compassion and Friendship
By itself, this flood of telephone calls, to
be followed soon by a flood of e-mails and
letters, was extraordinary, but not entirely
surprising. What was extraordinary was
the fact that Muslims decided to reach out
to Christians in this way, despite a long history of confrontation and tension. There
has certainly been enough suffering of one
people at the hands of the other that it is
difficult for either Christians or Muslims to
find their way beyond the horizons of centuries of mutual antagonism. For Muslims,
in particular, memories of the Crusades,
the first of which was instigated and
preached by one of John Paul II’s predecessors in the Chair of St. Peter, are still as
Scott C. Alexander is associate professor of Islam and director of Catholic-Muslim
Studies at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. He is the editor of the forthcoming
Sisters: Women, Religion, and Leadership in Christianity and Islam (Sheed and Ward,
2005).
S I G N S
O F
T H E
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searingly painful today as the events they
recall are historically distant. Then there
are the fresher memories of the involvement of Catholic and other Christian
missionaries in the more historically
proximate experience of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century Western colonialism
and imperialism. And then there is the continued involvement of Evangelical Christians in the even more proximate U.S.-led
invasion and occupation of Iraq. Although
many Muslims can distinguish between
the relatively indigenous Catholic presence
in Iraq and the current practices of our
Evangelical sisters and brothers in the
region, the opportunistic proselytism of
the latter besmirches the name and endangers the welfare of all Christians living in
the Muslim world. In other words, in light
of palpable memories, both old and new, of
Christian antipathy toward Islam, an outpouring of Muslim condolences upon the
death of a pope can genuinely be described
as “extraordinary.”
Two things, however, were completely
unsurprising about this outpouring of condolences. The first was that John Paul II
was “on the radar screen” of so many Muslims. After all, John Paul II was not only
history’s most widely traveled Roman pontiff. He was also the first pope to travel extensively in the Muslim world and whose
addresses to Muslims invited the attention
of mass media that could and did broadcast his image and his words quite literally
“to the ends of the earth.” The second
reason I was completely unsurprised was
that, by making these calls and sending
these e-mails and letters, my Muslim friends
and colleagues were simply interacting
with their Catholic friends and associates
in the same way they would interact with
any other individual or community in need.
To put it another way, in expressing their
condolences, my Muslim friends and colleagues were simply being good Muslims;
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they were acting out of a deeply ingrained
and profoundly Islamic sense of compassion, as well as out of a deeply ingrained
and profoundly Islamic sense of the divinely
ordained duties inherent in all human relationships.
A Surprising Expression
of Solidarity
There was, however, one element of this
overwhelming expression of compassion
and friendship that was both extraordinary and surprising. The Muslims who
spoke to me about John Paul II spoke not
only of my loss and the loss of the church,
but of theirs as well. In the words of
Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Syeed, Secretary
General of the Islamic Society of North
America: “Muslims will always cherish the
late Pope John Paul II for his interventions
in the wars of Lebanon, the Persian Gulf,
and Bosnia. His strong vocal opposition
signaled that the Catholic Church does not
identify itself with the interests, cultural
ideologies, and wars of any nation.” In the
words of a local Muslim leader in Chicago,
“I can only [imagine] how immense a loss
it is to the Catholic community. . . .
[E]qually great is the shock to the rest of
the world that benefited from his spirituality, moral uprightness, and bold stand on
issues of morality and human rights.”
“With [his] passing,” wrote yet another
Muslim leader, “the world has lost a flame
that warmed and guided the multitudes.
During his final hours, the world witnessed
a man who passed away as he lived—with
dignity, honor, respect, and total surrender
to God.”
To put it simply, these Muslims were
reaching out to their Catholic sisters and
brothers, not only in compassion and
friendship. They were actually going one
important step further. To use a term that
was at the heart of John Paul II’s teachings
about justice and peace in “the human
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family,” one can safely say that these
Muslims and the many more whom they
represent were and are reaching out to
Catholics in solidarity. What these
Muslims were and are saying is that they
not only understand John Paul II’s vision
for Christian-Muslim relations, but they
embrace it as well.
In Nostra Aetate, a document which
marks a revolutionary shift in Catholic
approaches to “non-Christian religions,”
the fathers of the Second Vatican Council
sounded the call for Christians and
Muslims “to work sincerely for mutual
understanding and to preserve as well as
to promote together for the benefit of all
[humanity] social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom” (no. 3).
John Paul II dutifully heeded this call,
and, to a significant degree, dedicated his
papacy to its implementation. With the
implicit, and in some cases explicit encouragement of this Pope, Catholic-Muslim
dialogue has gradually become a feature of
the established religious landscape in
many parts of the world. Not only has the
Vatican entered into an official dialogue
with al-Azhar University in Cairo, one of
the oldest and most prestigious in the
Muslim world, but Catholic bishops’ conferences in places as widely diverse in
sociopolitical context as the United States
and the Philippines, Australia and Nigeria,
and Indonesia and the U.K., have been
involved in expanding dialogue and cooperation between Christians and Muslims
for almost two decades, and in some cases
even longer.
In the U.S. alone, a major center for
“Muslim-Christian Understanding” has
been established at a major Catholic
university (i.e., Georgetown University in
Washington, D.C.) and a program in
“Catholic-Muslim Studies” has been established at the nation’s largest Catholic
graduate school of theology and ministry
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(i.e., Catholic Theological Union in Chicago).
In this past year, CTU’s program has enjoyed financial support from three of the
five major Islamic centers in the greater
Chicago area. It has also welcomed two
Muslim scholars as adjunct professors of
Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, and
is celebrating the accomplishments of its
growing constituency of Muslim students
and graduates from places such as Thailand, Indonesia, the West Bank, and Turkey.
In addition to Georgetown and CTU, there
are also more than a few smaller Catholic
universities, particularly those which find
themselves with a growing Muslim student constituency (e.g., the University of
Saint Thomas in St. Paul, MN), which are
beginning to explore the establishment of
programs in Catholic-Muslim dialogue and
understanding.
Without a meaningful and sustained
Muslim outreach of solidarity, none of
these efforts would have made it much
past their respective infancies. Given this
extensive Muslim outreach of solidarity, I
should not have been in the least surprised
by what my Muslim friends and colleagues
said about John Paul II and the degree
to which they embraced his vision of
Christian-Muslim relations. What felt like
a surprise was really my own epiphany
that John Paul II had indeed managed to
create a global ethos, as modest and
tenuous as it may be, of sincere CatholicMuslim solidarity.
Is Change Really Taking Place
at the Grassroots Level?
On the Second Sunday of Easter and the
Feast of Divine Mercy instituted by John
Paul II, I found myself as a guest in the
studios of Radio Islam, a Chicago-area
call-in radio talk show. The show’s producers had decided to preempt their weekly
Sunday arts show to devote an entire
program to the memory of John Paul II.
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Within the context of a discussion of the
impact John Paul II has had on ChristianMuslim relations, the first caller asked
what I thought of the opinion of many
pundits whom he had heard suggesting
that, while the Pope had said and done
some “nice things about Christians and
Muslims learning to get along better,” this
has had very little impact “at the grassroots level.” I told the caller that I thought
this would depend on how one defined the
“grassroots.” If, as some would have it, the
increasing number of people who are regularly participating in dialogue events are,
by definition, “elites,” then I suppose the
cynics are right. If, however, the “grassroots” includes college students planning
campus dialogues, Catholic and other
Christian parishes asking me to help build
ties with the local mosques, a group of
suburban Christian and Jewish senior citizens who want to learn more about Islam,
and a retired professor of anesthesiology
and grandmother who seems to spend
every waking moment (if she ever sleeps
at all) organizing dialogue events as simple
as dinners at her home and as complex as
interfaith dinners at conferences with tens
of thousands of attendees, then the cynics
must be wrong.
What the Future Holds
Astute critics may contend that a portrait of growing Catholic-Muslim solidarity is an easy portrait for an American
Catholic to paint. This is the case, they
would say, because it is in the best interests
of American Muslims to reach out to their
Christian neighbors in friendship and solidarity. Some would even underscore the
sad but true reality that, in a post 9-11
world, the very survival of Muslims in the
Western diaspora depends on it. But what
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about those many parts of the Muslim
world, they would ask, where Christians
and Christian communities are vulnerable
to scorn, discrimination, persecution, and
violence at the hands of their Muslim
neighbors? Where are the expressions of
solidarity here? There can be no doubt that
the call of Nostra Aetate for ChristianMuslim solidarity is infinitely more a sober
challenge to be met than it is an intoxicating dream coming true.
As Catholic theologian Robert Schreiter
reminds us, in those places in the world
ravaged by centuries of colonialism and
interreligious conflict and violence, injustice has to stop and history has to be reremembered in order for any kind of
reconciliation between Christians and
Muslims to take place and any movement
of solidarity between the two to take root.
In the meantime, however, the politics of
human solidarity are essentially, like any
other politics, the art of the possible. In
those societies, such as in the U.S., which
are fortunate enough to be free from the
legacy of a long history of mutual
mistrust, the robust efforts at ChristianMuslim solidarity must continue to grow.
In those societies where mutual animosity
is high, even the most modest efforts in
dialogue must continue to lay the foundation of hope for a future of reconciliation
and solidarity, as distant as it may sometimes appear to be.
As I sit writing this, the cardinals are
coming to an end of the first day of the
conclave that will elect John Paul II’s successor. By the time this essay is published,
Rome will have a new bishop and the
Catholic Church a new universal pastor.
May God grant him the vision and courage
to continue John Paul II’s commitment to
Catholic-Muslim solidarity as a sine qua
non of the solidarity of the human family.
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CHURCH HISTORY
Amanda D. Quantz
When Everything Old Is New Again
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Church History
In 1999 I received a copy of William
Dalrymple’s book, From the Holy Mountain:
A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium as
a Christmas gift. It concealed itself in my
bookshelves for several years but resurfaced in a moment of serendipity. At the
time I was researching the impact of the
Byzantine style on images of the suffering
Christ in the West. I was intrigued by the
fact that Dalrymple’s travel journal told
stories that intersected with the trade routes,
Crusades, councils, papal politics, and
socioeconomic developments that I had
been studying from a strictly theological
perspective. His book helped me to see
beyond the christological significance of
these topics, to the social and missiological
importance of images of Jesus. Dalrymple’s
travelogue has been the single most valuable creative resource for my courses in the
history of world Christianity.
From the Holy Mountain is, above all,
a journalist’s assessment of the state of
Christianity in the Middle East. However,
the author also has an acute, historical perspective and great insight into ordinary
events. His itinerary, for example, was determined by a desire to trace the footsteps
of a little-known sixth-century Byzantine
monk named John Moschos as recorded in
The Spiritual Meadow. Dalrymple illustrates the history of Christian Turkey,
Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt through
vivid stories told by the people he meets
along the way. Through their eyes he describes images, monasteries, hermitages,
and holy figures, as they exist today compared with the honored position they held
during the halcyon days of the Byzantine
period.
Dalrymple captures the reader’s attention by reporting what he sees, hears, and
feels during his encounters with Christian
places and people. His imagination helps
him to connect stories from the immediate
present and distant past. This technique
struck me as an important tool for students
training for ministry, who must be prepared
Amanda D. Quantz is assistant professor of the History of World Christianity at the
Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and, along with Gilberto Cavazos, translated
Loving the Church: Scriptural Meditations for the Papal Household by Raniero
Cantalamessa (Servant Books, 2005).
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to name the treasures of the Christian tradition, and to discern their significance for
the modern world.
A Collaborative Model for a
Multicultural Church: The History
of the World Christian Movement
Dale Irvin, Scott Sunquist, and the
scholars associated with the History of the
World Christian Movement book project
strive to communicate the fact that church
history has never been a series of isolated
chronicles of past events, regardless of
how the stories have been told. Like
Dalrymple, they recognize the authority
and vitality of believers’ experiences.
They value the individual’s or group’s
capacity to convey skillfully the meaning
of the practices, devotions, memories,
anecdotes, conflicts, and communions that
have shaped the history of each local
church. The gift of this project is the
authors’ conviction that those who share
pieces of the language, culture, worldview,
piety, and struggles of their ancestors can
most authentically describe the significance of their lives and work. What I first
learned from Dalrymple, I am now growing into through my involvement in the
History of the World Christian Movement
project: that church history is an array of
events that are either remotely or proximately related to the present. As Christian
historians, we keep one eye on the future,
while recognizing that the past never really
evaporates.
In the planning stage for volume two of
Irvin and Sunquist’s book, several colloquia
were convened for the purpose of discussing
issues around imagination, culture, race,
class, and gender in writing church
history. These gatherings took place in
California, New York, and Malaysia, and
included scholars from countries as
diverse as Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Pakistan,
and Singapore. Each meeting was marked
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by sincere efforts at interdenominational
collaboration. With each objective, metanarrative, or ecumenical issue, the foundation for our discussions was the real, often
painful stories of the members of the Body
of Christ. Gradually we are growing in our
understanding of how each community is
an ecclesiola in ecclesia (i.e., a little church
within the church), and the fact that we
are responsible for what we include and
exclude in our storytelling.
Walking a Tightrope or
Academic Artistry?
While the church history curriculum at
Catholic Theological Union is polycentric
by design, I wanted to offer courses that
would utilize resources that exemplify the
diversity of customs and cultures of world
Christianity. Integration would require a
multicultural, intertextual approach to the
tradition. I found help in the poetic, architectural, narrative, hagiographical, iconographical, and musical resources that
encourage students to revisit their perceptions of the Christian tradition.
As I was preparing to teach “Byzantine
Influences through Church History,” both
Dalrymple’s book and the model embraced
by Irvin and Sunquist were at the forefront
of my mind. Drawing on his own experiences and the authority of local people,
Dalrymple makes subtle yet pointed observations about the state of Christianity in
regions where the church once flourished.
In one incident, he arrives at the ancient
church of Hagia Eirene in Istanbul. Delighted to find the doors unlocked, he tries
to enter but is swiftly turned away for
security reasons. He is told that Turkey’s
top models are posing for a beauty contest
inside the church. A single, incisive observation completes his commentary: “Hagia
Eirene is the worst possible place to have a
beauty contest: it is dark, gloomy and
badly lit.”
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From the Holy Mountain discerns issues
of mission and migration, the roots and
gradual uprooting of Christianity, and the
force with which serenity becomes chaos
when cultures collide. Its protean function
helped me to introduce the interdisciplinary structure of my course on Byzantine
church history. Dalrymple’s colorful descriptions, wit, devotion, and literary
acumen captured and held the students’
interest. And, inadvertently, they learned
church history. Following Dalrymple’s
itinerary, the students became familiar
with the theology, culture, and topography
of the Byzantine landscape. Having read
his accounts of Byzantium, then and now,
in conjunction with excerpts from Moschos’
The Spiritual Meadow, time collapsed in a
way that the history of Byzantine Christianity emerged as a diorama depicting the
fidelity, weaknesses, and resilience of a
holy people. Two additional texts that
served as commentaries on this dramatic
narrative are Byzantine Art by Robin
Cormack and A Concise History of Byzantium by Warren Treadgold. I also relied on
two new books by John McGuckin for their
fresh perspective on Byzantine history:
The Westminster Handbook to Patristic
Theology and Standing in God’s Holy Fire:
The Byzantine Tradition. The latter is
thoroughly interdisciplinary, with chapters
such as “The Beauty of God: The Byzantine Theological Aesthetic” and “God’s
Singers: The Byzantine Poetic Tradition.”
Another appealing feature of Dalrymple’s
historical travelogue is its self-communicative assortment of photographs. There is,
for example, a picture of a woman named
Lucine, who is the last Armenian in
Diyarbakir, as well as snapshots of the
monastery of Mar Theodosius near Bethlehem, where John Moschos lived, and the
Basilica of St. Symeon Stylites in Syria.
These and other photos prompted questions about social justice, Israeli-Palestinian
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relations, and early Christian monasticism.
We were often rendered silent by the
stories that depict suffering communities
that were once thriving. The Eastern Christians who still feel the effects of the schism
of 1054 elucidated the tragic history of
Byzantine-Roman Catholic relations. It
became clear that, for the Orthodox, this is
not a remote event that precipitated the
Crusades. These accounts also prepared
the students for the mixed reception they
received at the Byzantine liturgies they attended. The Eastern liturgical styles, architecture, and piety that the students read
about became three-dimensional, immediate, and experiential during their site
visits. All of these resources helped the
students to confront issues involving
Byzantine-Catholic relations in a twentyfirst-century context.
Church History in the
Service of Ministry
Since one of the course goals was to
convey the relevance of church history for
students preparing for ministry in the
church, the plight of modern Christians in
the Middle East became a significant part
of our discussions. Dalrymple effectively
demonstrates the need to understand the
soil in which cultures are rooted if ministers are to work for a fruitful harvest of
justice in the modern world. With his practical concerns and journalistic integrity,
his goals are similar to those of historians
working in the area of world Christianity.
Through a variety of fields, such as ethics
and pastoral care, students return to the
questions of interreligious dialogue, mutuality, and reconciliation throughout their
programs. The interdisciplinary, historical
perspective they acquire introduces the
breadth, complexity, and challenges that
characterize the rewarding ministry they
have chosen.
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References
Cormack, Robin. Byzantine Art. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
Dalrymple, William. From the Holy
Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of
Byzantium. London: Flamingo, 1998.
McGuckin, John. Standing in God’s Holy
Fire: The Byzantine Tradition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001.
______. The Westminster Handbook to
Patristic Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.
Treadgold, Warren. A Concise History of
Byzantium. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
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Donald Senior, C.P.
Preaching Mark
Readings from the Gospel of Mark
dominate year “B” in the Lectionary, which
begins this Advent, and present the church
with a powerful vision of Christian life. Although we cannot be certain about the circumstances surrounding its composition,
it is likely that this Gospel was written in
and for a Christian community that had
experienced dangerous suffering, probably
at Rome under the persecution of Nero,
and the tone of the Gospel reflects that
community’s struggle for meaning in the
midst of its losses. Three major motifs
course throughout the Gospel story: the
mission of Jesus, his passion and death,
and the portrayal of the disciples of Jesus.
I will offer some thoughts on each.
The Life-Giving Mission of Jesus
First of all, Mark presents the mission of
Jesus as a fundamental struggle between
the power of life, which is a gift of God’s
Spirit, and the forces of evil and death that
are ultimately intent on destroying human
life. That struggle is dramatically staged
in the opening scenes of the narrative.
Jesus of Nazareth comes from Galilee to be
baptized by John, and as he rises up out of
the waters of the Jordan, he is suffused
with God’s Spirit and a “voice from heaven”
declares that he is indeed God’s Son, the
Beloved (1:10-11). So identified, Jesus, the
Spirit-filled Son of God, is thrust by that
same Spirit into the desert, the traditional
place of testing in the biblical saga, and
there wrestles with (and ultimately overcomes) the power of evil (1:12-13).
This dramatic, near-mythic scene sets
the tone for the rest of Jesus’ ministry as
portrayed by Mark. Jesus, the beloved Son,
is so filled with the power of God’s life that
he is able to overwhelm even the power of
death. In the first several chapters of the
Gospel, where Mark narrates the public
ministry of Jesus, most of that struggle
takes the form of Jesus’ healing ministry.
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ healings are nearly
all exorcisms, that is, lurking beneath the
surface of human pain and suffering is
ultimately the power of death itself that
the Bible views as an unwanted evil. The
first chapter of Mark is a string of Jesus’
healings, beginning with the expulsion of
a demon from a man suffering in the synagogue of Capernaum (1:21-28) and climaxing in the cleansing of the leper, a disease
Donald Senior, C.P., is president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago,
professor of New Testament Studies, and a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
His most recent publications include 1 Peter (Sacra Pagina series, 2003) and Invitation to
the Gospels: Donald Senior on Matthew (Paulist, 2002).
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that in the biblical world signified death
itself (1:40-45).
Thus, Mark presents Jesus here and
throughout the Gospel as the champion of
life, liberating human beings from the grip
of death, showing extraordinary compassion through his healing touch, and restoring broken bodies and shattered spirits to
their God-given dignity as human beings.
The power of life flows out from Jesus,
confronting death and restoring life (see,
for example, the outpouring of life from
Jesus in the story of the woman with the
hemorrhage in 5:30).
This vision of Jesus’ mission, which
Mark sees as the continuing mission of the
disciples of Jesus (see 3:13-19; 6:7-13), still
has strong resonance for us as a Christian
community today. It is evocative of the
“civilization of love” that was a favored
theme of the writings of Pope John Paul II,
a vision of human life and human society
that is to counter a “culture of death” that
tramples on human dignity and human
rights.
The Death of Jesus as the
Summit of His Mission of Life
A second powerful and comprehensive
motif in Mark’s Gospel is its focus on the
passion of Jesus. Right from the start of
the Gospel story, the reader is alerted to the
eventual death of Jesus. Jesus’ ministry begins as John the Baptist is arrested (1:14;
see also the story of the death of John in
6:17-19). After a string of conflicts early in
the mission of Jesus, his opponents conspire to kill him (3:6). And from the midpoint of the Gospel story in Mark, Jesus
begins to instruct his disciples that he
must go to Jerusalem and there face hostility and death (see the passion predictions
in 8:31; 9:31; 10:32-34). Martin Kähler’s
often quoted description of Mark’s Gospel
as a “passion narrative with a long introduction” is merited.
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The key to the meaning of Jesus’ death
for Mark can be found in a key text near
the end of Jesus’ fateful journey to Jerusalem. As the disciples are about to enter
Jericho and begin the ascent to Jerusalem,
Jesus instructs his followers: “. . . the Son
of Man came not to be served but to serve
and to give his life in ransom for the many”
(10:32). The death of Jesus is not a meaningless miscarriage of justice but a profound expression of the ultimate purpose
of his mission of life. Jesus dies because
of the way he lived—a life poured out in
service: healing, confronting evil, and
speaking the truth.
The context for this key saying of Jesus
drives this point home. As in the earlier
passion predictions, Jesus’ words are met
with incomprehension on the part of his
disciples (see below). In this instance, James
and John ask for positions of honor at
Jesus’ side. In response, Jesus reminds all
the disciples that their use of power and
prestige must be in contrast to that of the
world: “You know that among the Gentiles
those whom they recognize as their rulers
lord it over them, and their great ones are
tyrants over them. But it is not so among
you; but whoever wishes to become great
among you must be your servant, and
whoever wishes to be first among you
must be slave of all” (10:42-44).
For Mark’s Gospel the death of Jesus was
an act of “diakonia” or service, not service
in a debasing, servile way but a genuine
act of self-transcendence, an act of love on
behalf of the other. When Mark describes
Jesus’ death in his passion story, he underscores its radical, complete character. Jesus
wordlessly breathes his last, giving his all
for the sake of the world (15:37). In that
noble act, the centurion at the cross recognizes the presence of the divine: “Truly
this man was God’s Son!” (15:39).
Thus, for Mark’s Gospel the Cross represents a fundamental human ethic of power
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that is to characterize the community of
Jesus and put it in contrast to the accepted
norms of society. The Christian is endowed
with power, but this is not a power to be
used in dominating or oppressing others,
but, in the manner of Jesus himself, is to be
used to free human beings from the shackles of death and to engender life.
Mark’s Portrayal of the
Christian Community
In each of the Gospels, the manner in
which the evangelist portrays the disciples
and the other characters who respond to
Jesus gives us a glimpse of the Gospel’s
vision of the Christian community. Modern biblical scholarship has underscored
the emphasis Mark’s Gospel seems to give
to the weakness and even the failure of the
disciples of Jesus within the Gospel story.
In the opening chapters, during Jesus’ public ministry, they fail to understand the
meaning of his parables (4:13) and are
baffled and confused by many of his most
dramatic miracles (e.g., 6:51-52). On the
road to Jerusalem they fail to comprehend
his warnings about his impending death
(see the passion predictions cited above).
And most abject of all, in the passion story
itself, the Markan disciples betray, desert,
and deny Jesus.
While this portrayal of the first followers of Jesus is admittedly grim, it is not
the whole story. While their weakness is
glaring, these same disciples are chosen by
Jesus and given a share in his mission
(1:16-20). Jesus patiently teaches them and
leads them to Jerusalem. And alongside
the disciples’ example of obtuseness and
human weakness, there are other characters in the gospel who point the way to
authentic discipleship. The sick recognize
Jesus’ power and seek healing from him.
Bartimaeus asks Jesus for the power to see
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(10:51). A scribe genuinely seeks the truth
and is praised by Jesus (12:28-34). A widow
gives “all her life” to the Temple and is
blessed by Jesus (12:41-44). A woman in
Bethany recognizes who Jesus is and that
he is on his way to death. She lavishes
tender love on him, anointing his body for
burial, and, in turn, Jesus praises her (14:39). A Roman centurion confesses Jesus as
the Son of God at the moment of his death
(15:39). Joseph of Arimathea, a member of
the council that had condemned Jesus,
buries Jesus with dignity (15:43). And some
women who had come up with him on the
journey from Jerusalem stand vigil at the
cross and ultimately become the first witnesses to his resurrection (15:40-41; 16:1-8).
These cameo characters demonstrate
that the church is a “mixed” community, a
human community capable both of abject
failure and breathtaking heroism, a community where both betrayal and fidelity
coexist.
Perhaps for this reason, Mark has cast
the story of Jesus as a “journey,” a timetested biblical metaphor that has become a
powerful symbol of Christian existence.
The church is not a finished product, as we
know all too well, but a human community
still struggling on its way to God. That,
in fact, is how Mark’s Gospel ends. The
angelic messenger who meets the women
at the tomb reminds them of Jesus’ words
at the Last Supper—“I will go before you
to Galilee and there you will see me” (16:7).
The church as portrayed in Mark’s Gospel
is entrusted with the mission of giving life
but it itself needs healing and reconciliation. Even though weak and failing, the
disciples are also entrusted with Jesus’
mission to the world.
In a time when the church has known
crushing failures and is uncertain of its
future, the Gospel of Mark offers strength
and encouragement.
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R E V I E W S
In Whom We Live and Move and
Have Our Being: Panentheistic
Reflections on God’s Presence in a
Scientific World. Philip Clayton and
Arthur Peacocke, eds. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2004. Pages, v + 322. Paper,
$35.00.
Reviewed by Ilia Delio, O.S.F.
Washington Theological Union
The efforts to understand the God-world
relation today in view of contemporary
science and theology undergird this collection of essays from a symposium sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.
According to Sir John Templeton, the quest
to comprehend ultimate reality requires
dialogue between scientists, philosophers
and theologians, and his generosity continues to make possible such dialogue, as reflected in this collection. The editors, Philip
Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, are two outstanding scholars of science and religion
whose expertise is evident in the shape of
this comprehensive volume on the meaning and implications of panentheism.
The word “panentheism” is a modern invention as several authors point out. It was
formulated in 1829 by the German idealist
philosopher Karl Christian Friederich
Krause, who used the term to speak of the
immanence of God apart from classical
theism. This volume attests that “panentheism” has come to represent a middle
path between the two extremes of the doctrine of God, namely, classical theism, and
pantheism. In its broadest definition,
panentheism means “that the Being of
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God includes and penetrates the whole
universe, so that every part of it exists in
Him”; however, God is more than the world
(5). This broad definition underscores a
wealth of complexities to sort out. Philip
Clayton writes that “this book . . . is an
invitation to wrestle with some very complex historical and conceptual issues, based
on the sense that the immanence of God,
God’s involvement with history, and the
responsiveness of God to the world must
at all costs be preserved” (256). The multidisciplinary approach of this work reflects
Clayton’s invitation.
The book is divided into three main sections. The introductory article by Michael
Brierley on the “panentheistic turn in modern theology” is an interesting overview of
panentheism in contemporary theology.
The author discusses some of the nuances
of panentheism with regard to language,
and the metaphors accompanying this
term. Part One concerns historical and contemporary panentheistic interpretations of
the God-world relation. The authors in this
section offer valuable historical background
on the meaning of panentheism. Niels
Henrik Gregersen’s article is informative
for those who are unfamiliar with the
varieties of panentheism and helps to sort
out the hermeneutics of understanding
this term. Part Two incorporates scientific
perspectives on the God-world relation.
Notable scientists involved in science and
religion such as Paul Davies and Arthur
Peacocke, among others, explore panentheism from various scientific perspectives
such as time, teleology, and the emergence
B O O K
R E V I E W S
of consciousness. Part Three examines
theological perspectives of the God-world
relation both from the Eastern Orthodox
and Western Christian views. Here we find
the rich ideas of Byzantine theologians
such as Gregory Palamas and Maximus
the Confessor, and insights from contemporary western Christian theologians,
illuminate panentheism in view of divine
energies, theosis, relationship, wisdom, and
process theology. A concluding chapter by
Philip Clayton is enormously helpful to tie
together the wealth of ideas in this volume.
Clayton’s constructive systematic evaluation summarizes panentheism according
to the various authors, and one begins to
see how this generic term is refined through
the lenses of different theological perspectives from which we glean insight into the
challenge of understanding divine action.
This book is informative and insightful
for those interested in understanding
panentheism, particularly in view of evolutionary cosmology and the new science
today. It is not a primer on panentheism
but it can readily serve as valuable reading
for a course in science and religion or simply
for those who are engaged in questions of
divine action. Offering an integrative approach to the question of panentheism, the
contributors of this volume remind us that
relationship is fundamental to the universe,
and dialogue is the fruit of relationship.
A Theology of Compassion:
Metaphysics of Difference and the
Renewal of Tradition. By Oliver Davies.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.
Pages, xxii + 376. Paper, $37.00.
Reviewed by Daniel P. Haggerty
St. Mary’s Seminary and University
Oliver Davies is Reader in Theology at
the University of Wales, Lampeter. A The-
B O O K
R E V I E W S
ology of Compassion seeks to “repair” an
ontological tradition that has languished
since Kant. On the one hand, Davies moves
beyond postmodernism’s wholesale rejection of modern metaphysics as ontotheological, arguing contemporary Christianity
“demands an ontology.” On the other, he
embraces postmodernism’s valorization of
founding narratives and develops a metaphysic from the logic of Scripture.
Davies argues contemporary realities
such as the horror and violence of the
Holocaust require not a rejection of metaphysics but the development of a new
fundamental worldview that takes more
seriously the reality of other beings.
Precisely as the preeminent dialectical encounter with the Other, Scripture provides
contemporary Christianity the founding
narrative for such a worldview.
Davies develops his metaphysics and
theology of compassion from three central,
organizing sources: from the divine selfnaming in Exodus 3:14, where God’s presence in the world is identified with God’s
compassionate acts; from the self-emptying
(kenosis) of Christ in Philippians 2:5-11;
and from the compassionate resistance of
two extraordinary Jewish women who
suffered the violence of the Holocaust, Etty
Hillesum and Edith Stein.
Davies argues that developing an ontology of the other, an ontology of difference,
requires a “renewal of the language of
being”—mediating the relation between
self and other. Davies founds a renewal of
the language of being on the dominant
linguistic theory of today, namely, pragmatics.
The book is divided in two parts. Part
One develops an ontology of difference in
contradistinction from the entire history of
classical and European metaphysics as
“narratives of existence.” Davies proposes
repairing the tradition with the “kenotic
ontology,” or ontology of otherness,
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disclosed in Scripture. In Part Two, Davies
develops a new language of being from the
ontology of otherness. The language of
being mediating the relation between self
and other is based on “the structure of
revelation as communication.” Davies
shows how traditional notions of revelation are modeled upon classical linguistics’
fairly narrow view of language whereby
the divine Word is conceived of as “a single,
atomic unit, self-sustaining in itself.” Turning instead to contemporary pragmatics,
Davies commends a picture of Scripture
as the dynamic “communication of a conversation.” By placing “conversation” at
the heart of Christian revelation, Davies
grounds a fundamental and systematic
theology of compassion on social and
interpersonal relationship.
Davies’ excellent and important book
might be strengthened in two related ways.
First, he might connect his use of pragmatics for understanding the language of
Scripture with the body of contemporary
semantic research that sees naturalism as
ontologically preferable to every other
theory. Second, Davies would do well to
connect his vision of a distinctly ethical
Christian ontology as a founding narrative
in an age of violence with contemporary
analytic metaphysics and its irreligious
commitments to science. While Davies
argues the encounter with other world religions poses a greater task for reflection
than confrontation with secular modes of
living and believing, it seems urgent, to
this reviewer at least, to bring any technoscientific worldview that makes no claims
to ultimate value and meaning into a conversation that takes seriously the reality of
other beings, and the horror of mass
violence.
I plan to use Davies’ book, along with
Being and Essence (Aquinas) and Being
and Time (Heidegger), as one of three main
texts in a course on metaphysics for semi-
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narians. Like Davies’ book, the course
requires as prerequisite at least a working
knowledge of the history of Western philosophy and postmodernism. For theology
students, well-prepared pre-theology students, and theologians, Davies provides a
major and expansive work in fundamental
and systematic theology that is genuinely
innovative and highly stimulating.
Lift Up Your Hearts. Homilies for
the “A” Cycle. By James A. Wallace,
C.Ss.R., Robert P. Waznak, S.S., Guerric
DeBona, O.S.B. New York/Mahwah, NJ:
Paulist Press, 2004. Pages, xi + 337.
Paper, $18.95.
Reviewed by Gerald Sloyan
Professor Emeritus at Temple University
The important feature of this collection
of pulpit proclamation is that they were
written out. Whether the text reached the
lectern or ambo is of no consequence. The
preachers knew exactly what they wished
to say, neither more nor less. The homilies
were undoubtedly edited after delivery,
which was the case of all the great homilies that have been preserved. Usually it
was a trusted hearer or the amanuensis of
a Chrysostom, an Augustine, or a Bernard
who gave us the text in summary of an
hour-long exposition of a biblical passage,
later to be edited by the preacher. The final
editing of these shorter communications
has included an ingenious typographical
device, namely, of setting each sentence
and those that constitute a natural paragraph as a distinct unit. This helps the
reader to determine whether the argument
flows logically, for a homily is a persuasive
argument or else it fails of its purpose.
Two features follow these homilies delivered in parish churches, or, in one case, in a
monastery: a set of three “Questions for
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Reflection,” and three “Other Directions for
Preaching.” The first are addressed to individuals, only occasionally “as a community” or “as a church,” the second sending
preachers to another exploration of the
readings than the one that has gone before.
The three preachers are wide readers,
each with reading habits different from the
others but all with a breadth of reading
and remembering. One or other will refer to
a television, play, or movie incident making
in the aggregate for rich citation and allusion. All have access to one good newspaper and a second of lesser journalistic
quality, an opportunity not available to
many preachers in a land of pared-down,
syndicated wire stories and the sound
bytes of nightly news. The three give
evidence of sharing fully in the lives of
their hearers in the contemporary culture
at its best and at its worst. There is never
any talking down to the assembly as if the
hearers were not attempting to live the
same life in Christ as the homilists. That
life is always presented as the ideal. This
means that the hortatory character of the
homilies is by indirection, the sole effective
way to invite to a conviction or a course of
action.
If there is a shortcoming it is that the
hearers are not referred to early and often
as the church in prayer and in life but as
individual members of it. By and large, the
biblical word and the commentary derived
from it are overtly directed to the eucharistic meal of which it is a part, the very
purpose of preaching in this setting. A
heartening number conclude in the Pauline
manner with the expectation of the coming
of Christ in glory. Occasional experiences
or reflections of the preachers are recorded
but there is no tiresome anecdotage. The
perpendicular pronoun is not featured.
When a phrase or more in the Bible is
referred to, whether from a lection just proclaimed or another place, all three preachers
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R E V I E W S
show a proper grasp of Holy Writ, letting
one passage speak to another or others.
A few disappointing features must be
mentioned. In this Matthew Year, selections from that Gospel after the feasts of
the Holy Family, Epiphany, and Baptism of
the Lord occur almost uninterruptedly from
the Third Sunday of the year to the feast of
Christ the King. This provides homilists
with the opportunity, whenever they preach
on the Gospel pericope, to situate it in the
overall project of this evangelist. The specific character or argument of Matthew’s
Gospel never comes through, leaving worshipers forever puzzled by the harshness
of its polemic and primary purpose.
Disappointingly brief though the Pauline
lections are in the Lectionary for Mass,
some cry out for treatment at homily length.
This does not occur or indeed any sustained exposition of the Apostle’s thought.
Similarly, no First Testament reading in itself is the basing point for full exploration.
Each of the preachers, pausing to explain
what an evangelist means in a particular
passage, shows himself at home in the text
of the Bible. The twofold omission noted
above is a failure to “open up the treasures
of the Bible more profusely” that Sacrosanctum Concilium (the Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy §51) hoped for.
The council document, surely the most
important of the sixteen, restored the term
“homily” to the Catholic vocabulary, defining it as an “exposition of the mysteries of
faith . . . from the sacred text” (§52). James
Wallace and his colleagues have provided
preachers and others who pray the texts of
the Lectionary with “rich fare from the
table of God’s word” (§51) in the form of
many and profound reflections, with ideas
and illustrations, on the day’s feast or season. The biblical fare is served, but not
nearly in as lavish portions as would be
the case if these absolutely splendid sermons had been homilies in the true sense.
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In Many and Diverse Ways: In Honor
of Jacques Dupuis. Edited Daniel
Kendall and Gerald O’Collins. Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 2003. Pages xiv + 290.
Paper, $30.00.
Reviewed by Donald Buggert, O.Carm.
Washington Theological Union
One area of Catholic theology that has
undergone much development since
Rahner’s “anonymous Christian” theology
and the Second Vatican Council’s openness
toward the world religions is the theology
of religious pluralism, whose central question is the positive role of the religions in
the one divine plan of salvation centered in
Jesus Christ. One of the major contributors
to this field of study, necessitated in our
day by the reality of the global village, is
Jacques Dupuis, S.J., a Belgian Jesuit, who,
prior to becoming a professor at the Roman
Gregorian University in 1984, spent thirtysix years in India where he came into contact with the great religions of Asia and
became the official theologian for the
Indian Bishops’ Conference and an advisor
to the Federation of Asian Bishops’
Conferences. From 1985 to 1995 he was a
consultor for the Pontifical Council for
Interreligious Dialogue and was the primary author of “Dialogue and Proclamation” published in 1991 by this Council and
the Congregation for the Evangelization of
Peoples. As coeditor of the seven editions
of The Christian Faith, a collection of the
church’s doctrinal statements, Dupuis was
of course quite familiar with the church’s
teachings. Given this background, it came
as a great surprise to many when, in 1998
at the age of seventy-four, he was notified
by the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith that he was under investigation
for his 1997 groundbreaking work Toward
a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, in which he articulates his position of
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“inclusive pluralism,” the position that
maintains the positive role in God’s plan
for humanity which the “other” religions
play while at the same time also unambiguously maintaining the universally
causative significance of Jesus Christ for
salvation. Three years later, in 2001,
Dupuis, whose health by this time had
been deleteriously affected by the Roman
investigation, was informed by the Congregation that the book contained no doctrinal
errors but only ambiguities. He was not
asked to change a single line in subsequent
editions of his work.
In Many and Diverse Ways is a collection of eighteen essays in honor of Jacques
Dupuis edited by two Jesuit confreres,
Daniel Kendall, professor of theology at
the University of San Francisco, and
Gerald O’Collins, professor emeritus of the
Gregorian University as well as close
friend and theological advocate of Dupuis
during the Roman investigation. The
essays consist of tributes to Dupuis and
theological reflections upon, inspired by, or
in some way related to his theological work
dealing with religious pluralism. The list
of contributing authors is most impressive; for example, Franz Cardinal König,
Avery Cardinal Dulles, Archbishop Michael
Louis Fitzgerald, Michael Barnes, Claude
Geffré, Francis Sullivan, and Gerald
O’Collins himself, who contributed a
masterful defense of Dupuis showing how
anchored in the tradition and magisterium
itself Dupuis’ positions are. O’Collins likewise provides a very helpful explanation of
key terms and distinctions misunderstood
or overlooked by Dupuis’ critics; for example, the difference between a distinction
and a separation, and hence the distinction
but not separation of the pre-incarnate
and Incarnate Word. The volume provides
two very useful bibliographies; one presents Dupuis’ own writings and the other
a bibliography of materials relating to
B O O K
R E V I E W S
Toward a Christian Theology of Religious
Pluralism.
Dupuis, indeed, has merited such a praiseworthy volume that recognizes and celebrates his lofty theological achievements,
his significant contributions to the area of
interreligious dialogue, and his faithful
service to the church. Each essay in this
volume renders him due justice and fitting
praise. I very highly recommend this work
to both theologians and students of theology interested in interreligous dialogue
and the theological questions raised by
Christianity’s encounter with the world
religions. Reading these essays will undoubtedly lead one to the very rewarding
experience of reading Dupuis himself. It will
also undoubtedly raise the question of why
Dupuis was ever “suspect” in the first place.
The Ministry of Communion.
By Michael Kwatera, O.S.B. 2nd ed.
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004.
Pages, vii+ 40. Paper. $3.95.
The Ministry of Hospitality.
By James A. Comisky. 2nd ed. Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 1989, 2004.
Pages, vii+ 40. Paper. $3.95.
Reviewed by Virginia Sloyan
Takoma Park, Maryland
I take Communion to two women in my
parish. Both are in poor health. When I ask
Caroline how she’s feeling, she always
says—quite apart from what she may have
endured the previous week—“I’m blessed.”
She’s told me many times what she means
by that: not only is she thankful for being
alive, for her large, multigenerational family and for me, her good friend, but for the
larger church that embraces us both and
that takes the form, in her life and mine, of
Washington, D.C.’s Nativity parish.
B O O K
R E V I E W S
The focus of The Ministry of Communion and The Ministry of Hospitality is, of
course, the two ministries themselves, but
thankfully the respective authors view
them in their proper context—namely,
church—an approach that may be said to
“bless” their readers.
I sensed throughout the pages of both
pamphlet-sized books that I was in good
hands. While praising the efforts of lay
ministers profusely, neither author makes
the mistake of portraying liturgical ministers as so special that they breathe an air
not enjoyed by the whole assembly (who of
us cannot recall holding in awe two thirdgrade classmates who did everything for
the teacher?), nor as persons who have
been granted lifetime tenure: they will be
replaced by others who no doubt will model
their actions, and so the books’ guides are
important (THEY may enjoy tenure).
In his practical suggestions for “Being
and Giving the Body of Christ,” Kwatera
leaves out few details. Most readers—
apart perhaps from new candidates for the
task—will have experienced or heard them
before, but repetition here is a good thing:
“Look in the communicant’s eyes,” “Touch
the communicant’s hands gently,” “Speak
the words reverently and wait for their
response.” What may be new for some
readers are the pastoral reasons given for
performing actions in a certain way. I was
eager to see what the author would say
about Communion in the hand vs. Communion on the tongue. (Why do we so
rarely hear about this, or about Communion processions, or ways of praying after
having shared the bread and cup in our
churches on Sunday?) His observation at
this point, one of the most lyrical in the
book, clearly shows his preference for
Communion in the hand, which is perhaps
the answer I was looking for: “There is
something especially beautiful about helping people to receive Communion in the
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hand. Romano Guardini has written that
‘the soul’s chief instruments and clearest
mirror are the face and hands. Even hands
that are permanently soiled (like a
mechanic’s) are beautiful: they testify that
a person’s livelihood can be seen in the
hands, hands that receive the Lord’s saving
touch and our reverent one.”
Careful. Reverent. Casual. Relaxed.
Prayerful. The words run through the text
like children skipping through their
backyard. Which leads me to the only
reservation I have about The Ministry of
Communion. What we do during these
sacred moments is—should be—joyful.
And how do we do that—apart from hymn
and spiritual choices? I don’t think I know,
but it could be a wonderful opener for a
group studying this splendid handbook.
I opened to page 24 of The Ministry of
Hospitality first, and this caught my eye:
“As pastor, I tried to be around at the beginning of class . . . of as many sessions
[of “Basic Catholicism”] as possible. . . .
I was there to pour the coffee or punch, to
share conversations, to answer questions,
or just visit.” This pastor doesn’t need to
explain to us what serving is or what sign
value means. Yet he does. Practitioners
should not approach this small book with a
“we-already-do-this-at-our-parish” attitude.
Its value lies not so much in what is proposed to convey hospitality during the
celebration of the liturgy and all the activities and actions that mark a parish but,
like Kwatera’s book, how and why certain
things are done.
Every suggestion either leads to the
liturgy or flows from it. Laypersons (pastoral associates) share in every aspect of
parish life. If polls were taken of the various parishes described here, I would guess
no respondents would indicate having had
feelings of manipulation or force or even
discomfort while in the parish. Comiskey’s
conclusion explains why that may be:
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“Christian hospitality flows out of the
good news that Christ is in you and Christ
is in me. . . . Hospitality brings a Christlike charm and delight to every ministry in
which we serve and every action that we
perform.”
Praying the Scriptures. By Demetrius
R. Dumm, O.S.B. Collegeville: Liturgical
Press, 2003. Pages, xi + 187. Paper, $8.95.
Reviewed by Joseph Wimmer, O.S.A.
Washington Theological Union
This book reflects Fr. Dumm’s teaching,
preaching, and meditating on God’s holy
word for nearly half a century at St. Vincent
Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Its
style is simple and there are no footnotes,
so one might be tempted to pass over this
jewel in search of a more substantive treatment of the many issues addressed, but to
that person’s loss. Dumm asserts unapologetically that the central event of the Old
Testament is the Exodus, and that the
Resurrection is its New Testament counterpart. Both are the work of God and manifest God’s fundamental will for our
liberation and salvation. Faith is our response, itself a gift of God, as is our ability
to pray. The old, pre-Chalcedonian doxology sums up the reality of prayer succinctly: We pray to the Father, through the
Son, in the Holy Spirit.
Dumm begins by noting that, of all creatures, only humans often don’t know why
they are here. God’s mighty deeds of creation, Exodus, Resurrection, and Final Revelation provide the answer, and the words of
the Bible allow us to meditate on these
great works of God and respond with feelings of awe and prayers of praise. Readings like Deuteronomy 32 with its image of
“eagle’s wings” capture the euphoria of
freedom that the Exodus event continues
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to inspire. Reflection on the Resurrection,
which has “profound implications for . . .
the lives of all who are part of human history” (p. 16), encourages us to overcome
being dominated by secular definitions of
success and to lead lives that have value in
far richer ways. Called to covenantal
partnership, we prepare for the finality of
God’s great revelation at the end time by
responding in word and deed to God’s
loving initiative.
The next chapter urges humility and
honesty as essential to prayer, together
with an attitude of listening, openness to
the Holy Spirit, and being “still” before the
Lord. All these are abundantly illustrated
from the Psalms and other biblical texts on
prayer. Stories about great biblical figures
within their own contexts inspire us to
gain insights from them about God’s will
for ourselves. In chapter three, the author
treats different types of prayer such as
thanksgiving, petition, and trust, with emphasis on the example of Jesus’ thanksgiving at the tomb of Lazarus, his petition
at the Garden of Gethsemane, and most
importantly, his underlying intimacy with
the Father.
Chapter four is all about the Eucharist,
its significance and especially its power as
event. In the eucharistic celebration we
recite the Lord’s Prayer and call God “Our
Father,” a term that encompasses love of
God and neighbor, and makes concrete the
abstract ideas of present grace and future
glory. The following chapter considers the
other sacraments as forms of prayer that
accompany us throughout the stages of
our life, and explains lectio divina, seeking
God through the inspired word. On reading
the Bible the soul reaches out to God, listens intently, and is not satisfied with the
details of exegesis, but looks for the meaning of God’s word for each of us today
with our present concerns. Dumm takes
this opportunity to explore the delicate
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theme of “religion beyond ritual” (p. 126).
The goal of lectio divina is to use the Bible
and go beyond it, into a relationship so profound there is no further need of words.
The sixth and final chapter is about
praise, with Mary’s “yes” and Magnificat
as a guideline. Under this rubric Dumm
views a whole panoply of prayers by
Abraham, Moses, David, the Prophets, and
even Wisdom figures such as Tobit and
Judith. Prayer in the Acts of the Apostles,
the letters of Paul, and the book of Revelation manifests the guidance of the Spirit.
A short conclusion reminds us to unite
prayer and service with an abiding
presence in the Lord. An index of biblical
passages rounds out the work.
Attentive reading of Praying the Scriptures can be most beneficial. Repeated calls
to find God in the Bible, and to go beyond
its words, inspire the reader with encouragement and hope. One has the distinct
impression that the author speaks from
personal experience.
The Ecumenical Future. Background
Papers for In One Body through the
Cross: The Princeton Proposal for
Christian Unity. Edited by Carl E.
Braaten and Robert W. Jenson. Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004.
Pages, viii + 237. Paper, $24.00.
Reviewed by Caren C. Stayer
Washington Theological Union
In 2003, sixteen Catholic, Orthodox, and
Protestant theologians and ecumenists
published In One Body through the Cross:
The Princeton Proposal for Christian
Unity, the result of three years of discussion sponsored by the Center for Catholic
and Evangelical Theology. The Ecumenical Future contains fourteen background
papers that helped in the development of
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their statement. The collection stands out
from the vast literature on ecumenism because its authors share the conviction that
the modern ecumenical movement has
gone off track. In One Body claims that by
the 1980s, “[t]he ecumenical movement’s
earlier focus on ‘salvation history’ was . . .
being replaced by . . . ‘care for the planet,’
and a corresponding emphasis on Life and
Work concerns over those of Faith and
Order and Mission and Evangelism” (para.
17). The essays in The Ecumenical Future
discuss some of the wrenching issues
holding us back from the visible unity in
faith and order that the authors desire.
Their hope for visible unity raises many
questions, which I can only touch upon
here. Interestingly, the Princeton Proposal
was open to some form of papal guidance,
and called the pope “the only historically
plausible candidate to exercise an effective
worldwide ministry of unity” (para. 65). In
J. Robert Wright’s essay “The Possible
Contribution of Papal Authority to Church
Unity,” he discusses the joint AnglicanRoman Catholic International Commission
and its production of a document called
The Gift of Authority, which spoke of the
role of the Roman Pontiff in positive but
problematic terms (141).
Visible unity also raises the question of
social action. The editors clearly state their
complaint that the modern ecumenical
movement “subordinates matters of faith
and doctrine to social and political
agendas” (Ecumenical Future, viii). Yet,
for example, P. Mark Achtemeier’s essay
explores the parachurch movement, Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), as a
possible model for ecumenical cooperation.
An explicit part of ECT’s agenda includes
working “to found politics, law and culture
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upon a substantive understanding of
moral truth, to establish religious freedom
against the claims of secularism, to
advance the protection in law of unborn
human life, [and] to secure substantive
moral formation and parental choice in
education” (191). Achtemeier may be right
that such a program would draw in those
alienated by the perceived liberalism of
the ecumenical establishment, but the
reader can hardly be faulted for wondering
if the issue is really the subordination of
doctrine or the “correctness” of the social
agenda.
It is refreshing to see two prominent
Orthodox writers involved in the project.
John Erickson has given us a characteristically incisive essay on the tensions between the historical and eschatological
church, while Vigen Guroian addresses
himself to the Orthodox Churches, calling
upon them to set an example of unity by
turning away from nationalism.
Many of the essays engage difficult
and interesting topics, including Brian E.
Daley’s look at patristic structures promoting unity, Susan K. Wood’s discussion of
modern Roman Catholic ecclesiology, and
Michael Root’s discussion of the unity we
have and the unity we seek. Throughout,
there are interesting meditations on the
idea of “mere Christianity” and questions
about what, if any, unity existed in the first
millennium. I myself enjoyed R.R. Reno’s
conclusion that the only hope for the ecumenical movement lies in a turn to spiritual poverty (71). The Ecumenical Future
and the companion In One Body through
the Cross are important reading for anyone
interested in an ecumenism that stresses
visible unity of the churches, high Christology, and evangelism.
B O O K
R E V I E W S