SMU Catholic Weekly Blogs

A Priest and a Nun walk in to a Barbecue Joint, sort of.

Tonight is a special night at Sunday Supper. The atmosphere will be typically laid back, but you may find yourself sitting next to someone with an extraordinary story. In addition to the delicious catered barbecue banquet – which is reason enough to come – we will welcome men and women who have answered God’s call to serve in a special way as priests and religious sisters. Thanks to the sponsorship of the Serra Club, we are hosting our second annual Vocations Dinner tonight following the 5:00 p.m. Mass. All are welcome.

Whether it has ever crossed your mind or not to dedicate your life in service as a priest or nun, rubbing elbows with those who have and hearing their stories can serve to inspire all of us to ask the question: “What am I living for?” It’s that fundamental question that can open each of us to hear God’s calling in our life. God calls each one of us, not just those who become priests and nuns. We each have a calling, or a vocation.  But how can we know what that calling is?

We hit two basic stumbling blocks when we are trying to listen for God’s calling in our life. First, we think that when God calls us to serve, it will be to do something outside our daily life and interests, like, becoming a missionary in Africa or serving the poor like Mother Teresa. Sometimes that is the case, but most often God calls us right where we are to serve the Gospel mission of healing and reconciliation among our own friends, family and colleagues.  And what’s more, our already-present passions and talents can give us clues into how to do it. In other words, God doesn’t call us to become someone we are not, to do something we aren’t capable of. God calls us to be who we are, right where we are, committed to doing “our thing” in loving service of others. If we do this, it will be impossible to avoid being changed by the transformative presence of God in those we serve.

The second obstacle to hearing God’s call is that we think God speaks only to us, about us. The understanding of vocation in our church is limited to something personal and internal, making the discernment of a vocation to the priesthood, for example, something that is often done in private or in isolation. We each have a role to play in helping one another hear God’s call.  Individually and collectively, we need to develop a habit of affirming one another’s gifts and “calling” each other to apply those gifts in service for the common good.  To become a community that affirms and calls would not only force us out of our self-revolving orbits, but also demand an awareness of the needs of those around us, in and out of the community circle. This way of approaching vocations could help us gain new insight and appreciation of what we celebrate in part in the sacrament of Holy Orders, that is, the sacred stewardship of the community’s human resources.

So join us tonight for a tasty Sunday Supper. You might just leave with more than barbecue on your chin.

Hilary of Poitiers

Hilary of Poitiers was born in the fourth century CE to wealthy pagan parents in Gaul. Latin was the language of Europe's ruling classes in the third century, yet Hilary's family paid for his education in Greek literature and philosophy. At an early age he converted to Christianity together with his wife and daughter. His training in Greek philosophy enabled Hilary to keep pace with the Eastern churches' debates about Christ and the Trinity, and when Arian bishops in Gaul challenged Nicean orthodoxy Hilary combined Greek and Latin rhetoric to argue against Europe's Arian Christians. For this he became known as "malleus arianorum," or "hammer of the Arians," as well as "Athanasius of the West." Popular acclaim made him bishop of Poitiers, and until his death in 398 CE Hilary ministered to his diocese while continuing to refine the connection between Greek and Latin theology on the Trinity.

Sources:"Saint Hilary of Poitiers" http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07349b.htm

My Brain, on Retreat

I’ve got retreat on the brain. Here’s why:

• Around 10 of our students attended the TCU Awakening this weekend. Some of them are likely sitting next to you at the FIVE right now. Ask them how it went. They may not be able to say much more than “It was amazing!” before they start urging you to go next semester. Take their word for it.

• I spent most of my weekend at a camp outside of St. Louis observing how Washington University puts on their version of the Awakening. Why Wash U.? Their campus culture is much like our own: urban, affluent, ambitious. I’m looking to steal their ideas. Our goal is to offer the first-ever Mustang Awakening next Fall. And after all, it was a transformative experience for our own Erin Duffy, a Wash U. alumna. Get to know her and you’ll know what I mean.

• Then there’s our new library in the Upper Room at the Catholic Center which is stocked with books with titles like, “A Retreat with Catherine of Siena, Living the Truth in Love” or “A Retreat with Patrick, Discovering God in All” just to name two of the dozen or so books like these that combine writings from the lives of spiritual guides and saints, biographical information, prayers and questions to ponder.  Each book is broken up in to chapters designed to be easy to read each day in less than 20 minutes. Check one out.

    When I hear “retreat” it often conjures up negative images of icebreakers at 8th grade lock-ins or smoky campfires and musty bunk beds. Or even worse: someone asking me to talk about my feelings.  More than anything, restless soul that I am, I resist the idea of “retreating” altogether. Why should I retreat, back down, surrender when I want to move forward, advance, get ahead? In our go-go-go culture, the idea of getting away on a retreat seems downright ancient.
    And that might be the point. It is ancient because God has wired each of us up with the inherent desire for the Good Life. The problem is that our idea of the Good Life is up for grabs. There are plenty of conflicting opinions on what makes the Good Life so good and even more theories on how to get it.  What can make a retreat so powerful is its ability to help us hit the reset button in our lives, clear out the competing images and inclinations. When we take the time to hear each others’ personal stories, open up to someone new, experience the true freedom that comes from letting go we catch a glimpse of the Good Life the way God intends it. A retreat helps by giving us a tiny sample, a hint of what could be. It gets us into a new rhythm, even if just for a brief time. But that rhythm is meant to be played with others back in the Real World, not left and longed for in the retreat world. Getting away helps us find it, getting together helps us keep it.

St. Thomas More

The life of Thomas More demonstrates how faith empowers us to decide what is right, even in the face of deep uncertainty or confusion. More enjoyed meteoric success in English politics during an epoch when the Reformation and contact with the Americas radically altered European power structures and institutions. When Parliament reconfigured English law so that the king became head of the church—allowing Henry VIII to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon—More joined the small group of prominent laity and clergy who raised voices of protest against their monarch. More was stripped of his office, imprisoned in the tower of London, and executed in 1535.

Sources: MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation: A History. New York: Viking, 2003. Pp92-93.

 

10/11/07

, an LCD projector, sound system and a screen will accommodate most technological needs for presentations or movie nights. Just about everything in the room is on wheels making it ready for everything else we haven't thought of yet, too.

A central feature of the room is its small lending library of titles chosen to help everyone from the moderately curious to the majorly confused (I'm usually both) continue asking big questions about life, God and how we fit together. Here are some examples of what you'll find, just to name a few of the 200 new titles:
A Retreat With C. S. Lewis: Yielding to a Pursuing God
Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
Does the Bible Really Say That? Discovering Catholic Teaching in Scripture
What Jesus Said and Why It Matters Now
When a Catholic Marries a Non-Catholic
Facing Forgiveness: A Catholic's Guide to Letting Go of

10/11/07

I am thrilled to finally announce the completion of a project that has been long in the planning and even longer in the dreaming. This Wednesday, SMU Catholic will officially dedicate the new Theological Education Resource Center at the Neuhoff Catholic Student Community Center. Thanks to the generous support of three charitable foundations and many individuals, the "Upper Room" as its already being called, is now home to an inviting and versatile atmosphere designed to accommodate many of the faith-learning and faith-sharing programs sponsored by our community on campus.

Don't take my word for it. Please come see for yourself. All are invited to join in the dedication of the Upper Room on Wednesday, October 17 at 4:00 p.m. A short program will include a prayer of blessing and expressions of gratitude for all involved in making this happen.

The space is decked out in warm tones and bright light perfect for quiet study, group meetings, and our weekly /101/ mini-courses. New computer

Upper Room now open

I am thrilled to finally announce the completion of a project that has been long in the planning and even longer in the dreaming. This Wednesday, SMU Catholic will officially dedicate the new Theological Education Resource Center at the Neuhoff Catholic Student Community Center. Thanks to the generous support of three charitable foundations and many individuals, the “Upper Room” as its already being called, is now home to an inviting and versatile atmosphere designed to accommodate many of the faith-learning and faith-sharing programs sponsored by our community on campus.

Don’t take my word for it. Please come see for yourself. All are invited to join in the dedication of the Upper Room on Wednesday, October 17 at 4:00 p.m. A short program will include a prayer of blessing and expressions of gratitude for all involved in making this happen.

The space is decked out in warm tones and bright light perfect for quiet study, group meetings, and our weekly /101/ mini-courses.  New computers, an LCD projector, sound system and a screen will accommodate most technological needs for presentations or movie nights. Just about everything in the room is on wheels making it ready for everything else we haven’t thought of yet, too.

A central feature of the room is its small lending library of titles chosen to help everyone from the moderately curious to the majorly confused (I’m usually both) continue asking big questions about life, God and how we fit together. Here are some examples of what you’ll find, just to name a few of the 200 new titles:
•    A Retreat With C. S. Lewis: Yielding to a Pursuing God
•    Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
•    Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy
•    The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
•    Does the Bible Really Say That? Discovering Catholic Teaching in Scripture
•    What Jesus Said and Why It Matters Now
•    When a Catholic Marries a Non-Catholic
•    Facing Forgiveness: A Catholic's Guide to Letting Go of Anger and Welcoming Reconcilation

The Resource Center and its library represent a vital supplement to our life together.  After all, the study of our Catholic faith is really the study of our life together – a life focused on following Jesus in the midst of our everyday blessings and challenges. None of these books have all the answers but many are filled with the kinds of questions pondered since Jesus called the first disciples, ones sure to lead us to a life richly and authentically lived.

St. Jerome

Eusebius Hieronymus, also known as Jerome, was born to a wealthy family in Roman Dalmatia. His family's affluence paid for an excellent education in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In 382 CE he became secretary to Pope Damasus, who urged Jerome to make a revised translation of the Bible. Jerome translated the Old and New Testaments directly from the Hebrew and Greek texts, producing the "Vulgate," named for the "vulgar" (everyday) Latin of Jerome's era. The Vulgate became the standard text for the Catholic Church. Before dying in 420 CE Jerome participated in major theological debates, relying on his intellectual gifts to argue against the Arian heresy as well as to defend the cult of the saints, clerical celibacy, and the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.

Sources: McBrien, Richard P. ed. The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1995. Pp 689-690.

Will You Let Me Be Your Servant?

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He relied to him, “You have answered correctly, do this and you will live.” But because he wanted to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Luke 10:27-29 If you’re a regular attendee of the Five, you’ve probably heard the choir sing one of our favorite songs, the Servant Song. In part, it goes like this: “Will you let me be your servant?/ Let me be as Christ to you,/Pray that I may have the strength to/Let you be my servant, too.” It’s a song that’s mostly about serving the people around us from day to day, but every now and then, we have a chance to go out of our way to serve others. This fall break, SMU Catholic will once again go on an urban plunge into Vickery Meadow. Vickery is a neighborhood of Dallas with a high refugee and immigrant population, where most of our social justice efforts are focused. More than just a traditional community service trip, the focus of Urban Plunge is not so much on volunteer work as it is on simply getting to know the residents of the neighborhood, so that we can better serve them in the future. Just like in the song, the trip is a chance to serve others as well as be served. In the end, we learn just as much (probably more!) from the people we encounter than they learn from us. The four days include helping a newly arrived refugee family settle in to their new surroundings, volunteering at a local school, and attending mass at a local parish. We sleep in an apartment in Vickery owned by Catholic Charities, and don’t return to the SMU campus until the four days are over. It’s easy to forget while we’re there that we’re only a few miles down the road from ‘home’, and when we stop to remember this, it makes everything we experience that more powerful. If you’re interested in joining us this year, come to the info session tonight after Sunday supper to find out more.

Will this be on the test?

If I had to take one, my guess for the most frequently-asked question in any classroom on campus would be: “How long does the paper have to be?” Have you ever asked that one? I have. It’s the first day of class, new semester, the professor has just passed out the syllabus. I rifle through the pages, past the “learning objectives”, gloss over the book list (there goes another one hundred and fifty bucks), and search for the paper assignments, looking for most important detail: length. If it’s not in black and white on the syllabus, my hand is in the air before you can say “is that single or double-spaced?”  My heart goes out to the optimistic professor who holds out hope for that one student who shows up in class for the sheer joy of learning. Yeah, right!  Tell me what I have to do to get my “A” and will this stuff be on the test?

We make the same mistake with God, asking How much is enough? What is the minimum I have to do in order to enjoy favor with God? What do I have to do to get on God’s good side?  We reduce life together with God to a list of minimum requirements. In our admirable but misguided attempts to do the right thing we limit God to the role of a moral judge giving out grades based on our behavior and activity. When we do that, we can’t help but begin to see ourselves in those terms: I am what I do. From there it’s a short jump to: God only likes me when I am doing “good” things. When we put God in this box, we end up with questions about how “far” we can go before something becomes wrong or sinful.  Where do I draw the line when it comes to sex? Is cheating wrong if it doesn’t hurt anyone else?

Jesus’ message to us today in Luke’s Gospel tells us we’re missing the point when we base our relationship with God simply on carrying out our responsibilities. The basis of our relationship to God must be in our grateful response to God’s unconditional, unearned love for us.  Like the servant, what ought to motivate us to carry out our duties – do the right thing – is the awareness of our own belovedness in the eyes of an ever-present God, who gives to us, without regard to our accomplishments, all that we have: our faith, our life, our purpose and our responsibilities, not because we have earned them, but because it is the very nature of God as the Master Creator and the Giver of Life. The stunning, liberating, sobering truth is this: Nothing you and I do today, tomorrow or the next day, can increase God’s love for us yet nothing we do can ever diminish it, either.  And, yes this will be on the test.