SMU Catholic Weekly Blogs

St. Anthony of Egypt

Once when Greek philosophers tried to impress St. Anthony with their knowledge, St. Anthony said to them, "Which is older, the book, or the wisdom it contains?" Anthony was born to wealthy parents in a town near Cairo, and on his twentieth birthday he renounced his family’s affluence and became a contemplative. At first he practiced fasting, prayer, and works of piety at home, but after a while he retreated to a monastery in the Egyptian desert. Soon pilgrims flocked there to imitate his contemplative lifestyle. After he moved to an abandoned Roman fort on a mountain near the Nile River, his followers built a whole colony of monasteries there, systematizing and recording his guidelines for monastic life. Many of the orthodox bishops at the Council of Nicea (325 CE) were Egyptian Christians, and they invited Anthony to attend and assist them in the debates against Arian bishops who claimed Jesus Christ was not God. Athanasius of Alexandria, who played a pivotal role in the orthodox victory at Nicea, penned a biography of Anthony.

Sources: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01553d.htm

A Spirit of Responsible Gratitude

Today at the 5pm Mass, as we launch the What Would You Do student-giving campaign, I wanted to reflect briefly on the motivation behind this new initiative. On its surface, the effort is a fundraiser with a modest goal of $4000.  All the monies raised will go to support student programs, events and Mass.  The funds will go a long way to helping sustain our commitment to providing an excellent Catholic education, formative spiritual experiences and a welcoming community at SMU.

But ultimately the What Would You Do campaign is about something much bigger than raising a few thousand dollars.  What Would You Do is the first action we’re taking toward cultivating in our community a spirit of Responsible Gratitude.  Responsibility and gratitude are at the heart of Catholic stewardship. It is about more than giving a donation or taking care of a building.  Catholic stewardship is about receiving God’s gifts with grateful hearts and taking care of them responsibly, hence Responsible Gratitude.  Responsible gratitude always leads to sharing what we have been given lovingly and justly with others. 

The gifts of God that we are called to be stewards of include far more than our material possessions. These gifts include:

• Your faith, hope, love, and joy
• Your family love and relationships with others
• Your intelligence, talents, and skills
• Your imagination, compassion, and vision
• Creation in all its splendor

The Catholic Bishops of the United States characterize stewardship as an “invitation to help change the world”. They put the challenges and rewards of a spirit of Responsible Gratitude this way:

It is an incredible challenge to live in imitation of the life of Christ. We all face obstacles, opportunities, and challenges, living in a fast-paced environment with many responsibilities. Our spiritual hunger does not always get a chance to be nourished through prayer and action.

However, a clear sense of purpose—nourished by the Eucharist and our rich Catholic tradition—opens the door for us to actively commit to a life of gratitude and responsibility; to thank God for his endless gifts, and then to decide what we can do to help the world.

The rewards of Catholic stewardship include:

• Making a difference in other’s lives
• Becoming an active member of a fulfilling Catholic community
• Discovering talents inside you, waiting to be used
• Letting go of your worries and setting realistic goals in your life
• Experiencing the amazing increase in God's presence that comes with a partnership with the Lord

So today as you discern your response to What Would You Do, consider the invitation to support SMU Catholic as a first step toward answering the greater call to live with a generous spirit of Responsible Gratitude.

Saint Christopher

The origins of the St. Christopher story are obscure and stretch back to the period when Christianity began to replace paganism in the European countryside. Tradition tells us that a large man, or a perhaps a large hominid of some sort, converted to Christianity and decided to dedicate his life to Jesus Christ. The man retreated to the countryside to live as a contemplative, and one day a small child appeared and asked the man to carry him across a fast-flowing river nearby. The further the man waded into the river with the small child on his back, the heavier the child grew, nearly drowning him when he reached the middle of the river. Thoroughly perplexed and mystified, the man inquired who he was. The child responded that he was Jesus Christ carrying the weight of humanity and the whole world. The Christ-child gave the man the Greek name Christopher, meaning "Christ-bearer," and ever after Christians have venerated St. Christopher as the patron saint of travelers.

Sources: “Catholic Online.” http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=36

Is It Really Lent Already? Yup.

    This week, we will observe Ash Wednesday with three masses throughout the day and around campus.  With the arrival of the Lenten season, it’s time again to tuck away our liturgical Hallelujahs and decide what gets given up this year. Will it be chocolate? cheeseburgers? Facebook?

I have gone back and forth on the whole “Give up something for Lent” idea.  I don’t believe in treating the Lenten tradition of sacrificing, or fasting, as a type of Catholic New Year’s resolution. For a long time, I was one of those who thought, Don’t just give up something, Do something positive instead! Doing something positive can be something like volunteering or making it to Mass every week.  I still believe that, but doing something is not a substitute for sacrificing something else.

To understand this, it’s helpful to first consider the three ancient practices associated with Lent: prayer, almsgiving and fasting. In fact, these three practices are inseparable from one another and form the backbone of the Christian life year-round, not just for the six weeks of Lent.  When we take the three practices together, it becomes clear that when it comes to giving up something (fasting) versus doing something positive like volunteering (almsgiving) and/or committing to regular times of prayer, it is not an either-or proposition. In fact, fasting only finds its full meaning and power when it is lifted up by what St. Augustine called its two wings: prayer and works of mercy (almsgiving).
   
Now that we see these practices as a spiritual package deal, then maybe for Lent we can commit to practicing all three around a single theme. Take for example, the theme of violence.  Commit to pray a little each day for peace in war-torn parts of the world. Join the weekly tutoring effort in Vickery Meadow to help kids, most of whom have come to the U.S. fleeing violence in their native lands. Give up violence-drenched media: TV, movies, video games. This is just one example of how it might work if you examine your life and search your heart in prayer for a “theme” for your Lenten practice. I challenge you to come up with your own. If you do, I pray the Holy Spirit will bless you with the fruits of your desire to grow closer to God this Lent through a conscious commitment to follow Jesus in prayer, fasting and works of mercy.

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