SMU Catholic Weekly Blogs

Finding God with a GPS

Did you know maps used to be printed on paper? Yes, really. Great big giant poster-sized folded-up pieces of paper. And if you wanted to find an address on it, you had to flip over that giant piece of paper to look through an alphabetical list of street names printed in 6-point font for a letter-number code which only led to the general vicinity of your desired destination. With the code acquired, you had to flip the map back over and begin a search inside a square inch box for the place you were looking for. Hard to imagine, I know, that anyone would go to that much trouble to find a location.  These days, with the ease of Google Maps and the popularity of GPS, the idea of a paper map seems downright old-fashioned.

C.S. Lewis, in his classic Mere Christianity, uses the image of a map to help make clear the crucial role that learning the doctrines of the Christian faith has in our spiritual life as adults.  He argues that theology, or the study of God, is essential to practical "everyday" faith life.

He puts it better than I, so I’ll let his words speak for themselves:

Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God-experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. [An individual experience of God may be] real, and [is] certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion – all about feeling God in nature, and so on – is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.

As adults, the study of our faith can't simply be limited to defining or defending our Catholic practices.  The study of God, after all, is the study of life. The questions that drive our pursuit of knowledge and wisdom – that keep us dreaming and hoping, the ones that keep us alive – are the ones that fuel our journey through life's bumpy terrain to the very Author of Life. When SMU Catholic offers theological education programs it does so from Lewis’ perspective. We strive to be a welcoming community that asks the big questions about the essential aspect of life and faith. It’s the kind of thing you can’t easily find with a GPS.

The Woman at Bethany

"And during dinner a woman came in carrying an alabaster jar of very expensive ointment…and shattering the alabaster jar, she poured it over his head (Mark 14:3-4)." Marks description of the encounter between the anonymous woman and Jesus at Bethany illustrates the cosmic significance of just one small act of kindness. When the woman broker the alabaster jar and poured the oil on Jesus's head, his disciples and some of the Pharisees berated her for wasting such a lavish gift worth an entire year's wages. Yet the original Greek text of Mark's Gospel relies on the words "kalos" and "agathos" to convey the beauty and honor, the gracious humanity, of the woman's actions. Jesus rebuked his disciples and the Pharisees, telling them the woman's actions would be remembered wherever the Gospel was proclaimed throughout the world.

Sources: Donahue, John R., and Daniel Harrington. Eds. Sacra Pagina Series, Volume 2: The Gospel of Mark. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2002. Pp 383, 387.

Faithful Citizenship

Just as the presidential primary season is heating up, the U.S. Catholic bishops have issued a helpful document that provides a thoughtful framework for participation by Catholics in the political process. The document, issued last November and entitled “The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” can be found in full online at www.faithfulcitizenship.org. Next week, at Mass, we will distribute as a bulletin insert a two-page summary of the document for all to take home for further consideration.

Here, I would like to raise the questions the Bishops raise and address in Faithful Citizenship as a way to get the ball rolling on an ongoing conversation about the responsibility and role of people of faith and religious groups in the political process.

Should the Church weigh in on matters of public policy at all?
Some believe that the Church should stay out of the public square and quit meddling in places it doesn’t belong. Others argue that the Church, by its own missteps, has irrevocably compromised its moral authority and its ability to speak credibly on moral issues.  Nevertheless, we, the Church, have an obligation to offer the insight and wisdom of the Christian moral tradition to the public dialogue shaping society. A robust faith compels us to seek understanding about the truth about human life and dignity. We must offer that understanding to our fellow citizens in appropriate settings and formats and always with the common good in mind. I would hope that we have something valuable to offer after 2000 years of striving to live a life in service to others as modeled on the life of Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit. This is a lofty statement, for certain. We often fall short, but we can act with conviction when our action and participation is motivated by the authentic imitation of Christ’s love for all.

How does the Church help Catholics Address Political and Social Questions?
As the title of the document states, the Church primarily guides the faithful by helping them develop well-formed consciences. Conscience is a judgment that recognizes through reason that a concrete act has moral dimensions. It sounds simple, but each of us is called to a lifetime of forming our conscience as we grow in wisdom and knowledge, as we are enlightened by the teaching of Christ and as we serve his mission through the Church. Conscience is aided by prudence and acted upon with courage in our attempt to do good and avoid evil. In that way, our participation in society cannot be characterized by lobbing single-issue criticisms from the back bench, but rather by engaging actively with others in the complex frontline struggle to alleviate suffering in our corner of the world. Not only do we have a responsibility to speak out against anything that threatens human life and dignity – abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, genocide, torture, racism, for example – we have an obligation to do something about it. The moral choices we make – in the voting booth, the marketplace, or in family life – must be made in an effort to work toward the protection of human life, especially among the weak and vulnerable, and the restoration of justice for all.

Next week's bulletin insert will also explore seven key themes that have emerged from our search for a consistent means of applying these principles of participation in society and politics.  Often referred to as Catholic Social Teaching, they provide a “consistent ethic of life” that prevents us from oversimplifying issues and compels us to appreciate the complexity of life lived with others.

Women Martyrs

Women played a crucial role in the spread of Christianity throughout the Greco-Roman world and the Near  East. The Gospels and Paul's letters name women who served as church deacons, community benefactors, and missionaries. Biographies of the saints abound with stories of Christian women martyred by Roman authorities. Some of the Eucharistic prayers in the Roman Canon date back to Latin liturgical texts penned in North Africa during the third and fourth centuries. The prayers include petitions to the earliest martyrs. Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, and Anastasia are women martyrs listed alongside prominent male martyrs such as Stephen--the first Christian martyr--and Ignatius of Antioch.

Sources: The Maryknoll Sunday Missal

Think Catholic

The Theta house across the street from the Catholic Center has a banner that hangs from its second floor balcony that says "Think Theta". I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I know a few Thetas and it seems like it should be a good thing.  For a long time, we’ve wanted to hang our own banner in front of the Catholic Center as a response, of sorts, that says something clever like, “Think Catholic” or “Go Roman” (as in, “Go Greek”).

What would it mean to Think Catholic, anyway? No, it’s not an anti-Greek slogan or anything like that, or even a subtle claim to be an alternative “club” to join.  In fact, it helps to consider that the word “catholic” means “universal”.  Universal hardly implies exclusive or sectarian.  To Think Catholic means to think broadly, fully, expansively.  To Think Catholic means that what we believe about Jesus applies to every nook and cranny of our lives and world, not just the religious or spiritual parts.  To Think Catholic means that God sees you as the Beloved no matter where you find yourself, even whether you acknowledge that love or not.

To Think Catholic means that how we act on our beliefs, through Mass and the Sacraments, in service and in study has global, even cosmic ramifications.  In other words, to Think Catholic, is the opposite of the self-centered “Me and Jesus” spirituality that is typical of a culture that champions individualism above all else and seeks a “god” that is more personal life coach than Creator of All That is Seen and Unseen. When we make God pocket-sized we do so at the expense of authentic life lived with and for others.

This semester, challenge yourself to Think Catholic in class, in relationships, in rehearsal, at practice, in chapter meetings, at work, with your family.  But don’t forget: you can’t Think Catholic alone. That would be an oxymoron. To Think Catholic is a way of life. Authentic life is shared life. That’s why SMU Catholic offers small groups and other ways to connect with those who are seeking to become everything God made them to be. That is, to Think Catholic is to Live Catholic.  If we all did that, then we wouldn’t need to hang any banners at the Catholic Center – we would all become walking, breathing ones.

Prosper of Aquitaine

"Lex orandi lex credendi" ("The rule of prayer is the rule of belief"). For Catholic Christians, "lex orandi lex credendi" celebrates living Tradition in the form of the liturgy, breathing life into God's self-communication that triumphs over time and space to reach us in our own era. Church historians credit Prosper of Aquitaine with coining this important axiom in the fifth century while he was a student of St. Augustine of Hippo. Prosper's adage captures the essential Catholic belief that the liturgy--the Church's collective prayers, our sacraments, and our public rituals--expresses our adoration, gratitude, and supplication to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in unity with the Holy Spirit. In the liturgy the Church reaches into the beating heart of Jesus Christ and his Church to emerge clothed in the will of our creator communicated to us in prayer, sacraments, and symbols. 
Sources: Richard P. McBrien. Catholicism. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994