New Podcast series
Veni, Sancte Spiritu! Come, Holy Spirit!
This is the theme for Life Teen, Inc., and thus for all their Summer Camps. Last week I was priviledged to host a whole week, delivering the HS as best as I could. The fine folks at the camp (looking at you, J.P.) recorded many of my talks and turned 'em into mp3 files so that I could share with you all through my podcast just what I have been up to.
The first one is the opening talk of the week, so there is a lot of invitations being extended to people who may not want or be ready for a relationship with the living God. We go easy on them because we don't want to push people away right off the bat. Faith is a big deal. We ought not to assume that everyone is open and ready to "go deeper" or "lean in" to it.
Liturgical Catechesis
The new and corrected translation of the Roman Missal is coming at Advent to a parish near you. This means that the changes in wording, call and response, will be a difficult and lengthy process of adjustment. There are already a bunch of people who are angry that it is even happening at all. Catholic publications and secular press alike have expressed reservations or have outright attacked the new translation and warned against its widespread use.
I think such concerns are way overblown in every way except one. This could actually be a smooth transition, a teachable moment, and a great source of renewal in the English speaking world were it not for that one thing that concerns me.
I just don't think the Catholic Church in America is all that great with liturgical catechesis.
Heaven and Catechesis
Talking about Heaven is not all that fashionable these days, and I am not sure that Hell has ever been fashionable to talk about (except in the odd-ball crowds).
Recently, Rob Bell, a famous evangelical preacher, author, and all-around good guy, has caused some controversy with his new book, Love Wins, which many suppose he is positing a "universalist" view of the afterlife, which is just a fancy theological way of saying that, in the end, Hell will be empty and everyone will be in Heaven.
Whether or not it holds is outside the point of this post.
People have started talking about Heaven and Hell and their importance in communicating the Faith. I am loving this new conversation. Heaven and Hell are crucial in evangelization, and I want to share some thoughts on the matter.
I am a nerd for Catholic morality, made so by the works of Fr. Servais Pinckaers, a Swiss moral theologian who wrote the book Sources of Christian Ethics, whereby he placed the desire for happiness and the Beatitudes of Christ back in their proper place in Christian morality, which is prior to the Commandments.
CCE Syndrome
In doing youth ministry over the years I have encountered two identifiable syndromes that have spread to varying degrees within my youth groups.
The first is "Catholic School Syndrome", which is a disease of the intellect that equates a living faith with a passing knowledge of the subject of Theology. God is reduced to a multiple choice answer on a test.
The second disease, one of the heart, is "CCE Syndrome", which affects the ability of public school kids to find any joy or excitement in their once-a-week faith formation program. CCE Syndrome prevents the teenage will from taking delight in the things of Heaven because they are immersed in the worst of the earth. CCE Syndrome is typically contracted through the lack of emphasis placed on a personal, living faith in God, replaced with a moldly monologue of religious instruction concerned with facts about God and Church history.
If the God of the Universe was madly in love with you, wouldn't that affect you somehow? It is a form of apathy, just like Catholic School Syndrome.
Here are some ways to smack it down.
evangelization, the youth, and the Theology of the Body
Today I am giving two talks to the youth of Connecticut at their second annual "Youth Explosion" rally. I'm joined with the ever-talented Ike Ndolo Band, who I have never worked with before, but have run into in the ministry field many times.
I was asked to present to the teens in two thirty minute talks an overview of Pope John Paul II's famous Theology of the Body (TOB). Now, these talks spanned years and fill up a rather large book, and have produced book shelves full of commentaries trying to understand and apply his ideas.
...and I have two thirty-minute sessions to get it all in.
Evangelization always being my thing, I want to approach this talk from that perspective and not just give them a thorough check-list summary of TOB's main points. The catechesis needs to be there, but it needs to be framed through the lens of invitation, linked with a basic proclamation of the Gospel, and shown that this is the path to human happiness.