The meaning of sainthood: To be fully alive in Jesus Christ

The following comes from Archbishop Chaput:

Some years ago a friend told me that she secretly thought of the saints as boring. They smile at us sweetly from holy cards. Their lives can seem implausible compared to people more famous for their vices. And who would really want to be a saint, anyway? As Billy Joel once said, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun.”

But when we come to understand holiness rightly, we see that it’s anything but boring. Sanctity isn’t a matter of sentimental posturing or being nice. Sanctity is about being passionately in love with Jesus Christ.

The saints are men and women who glowed white-hot with the Holy Spirit. They lived fully what Father Richard John Neuhaus once called “the high adventure of Christian discipleship.” And that’s truly what the heart of sainthood is: not a life of legalistic drudgery, but a high adventure.

Think about the women and men we venerate as saintly: Mother Teresa, Francis Xavier, King Louis IX of France, Gianna Beretta Molla, Pier Giorgio Frassati, Catherine of Siena. They lived some of the most compelling lives in history. Their roads were hard. They endured great sacrifices and self-denial. But those sacrifices led to greater love and joy than many in the world have ever known.

If we think about sainthood like that, it can seem like the saints are a special class of people. Sainthood is for people like them, we think, not everyday people like us. And how do you live like a saint if you’re just an ordinary worker, a father or a mother? The good news is that the saints were ordinary people like us. Their “secret” was not something they possessed, but Someone who possessed them.

The saints were men and women whom Jesus Christ made his own. As baptized Catholics, we too have been made Christ’s own. We receive Jesus Christ’s healing mercy and forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation. We eat his body and drink his blood in the Eucharist. We speak with him in moments of quiet prayer.

This love that we receive from Jesus should break out into the rest of our lives. St. Josemaria Escriva put it this way: “When a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God.” This means that even when we fix another family’s plumbing, or fill out their legal paperwork, or drive our kids to soccer practice, we can act with the love of Jesus Christ in the same way that the saints did.

The great second century bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons, once said that “the glory of God is man fully alive.” First and foremost, this refers to Jesus Christ. Jesus shows us what it looks like for a human being to live life abundantly. This means that the closer we are to Jesus, the more intensely alive we become. And the saints are examples of men and women who have lived their lives to the fullest. Because of the love of Jesus, they glow with the glory of God. Because of the love of Jesus, they’re fully alive.

The saints aren’t just our models, though. They form what Paul called “a great cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1). The saints in heaven pray for us on earth, urging us on as we run the race of faith. They offer us hope in two ways. First, they show us that, by God’s grace, heroic Christian lives are possible. Second, they remind us of the destiny God has in store for those he loves. This life is a preparation for eternal union with God in heaven. That doesn’t mean sitting around forever with a pious halo, strumming a harp. Heaven is an eternity of the greatest love we have ever tasted in this life – growing deeper and stronger without end.

This All Saints’ Day, November 1, let’s reflect on what the saints really mean for us. Let’s remember the holy men and women whom we can emulate and to whom we can pray for help and guidance. Jesus said that he came so that we would have life, and have it abundantly (Jn. 10:10).

Let’s pray that we find the courage to seek out that abundant life with the saints. Let’s be women and men of love, witnesses of the glory of the God who makes us fully alive in Jesus Christ. There is no greater joy, no greater vocation.

Archbishop Chaput: Holy Week and the gift of priesthood

The following comes from Archbishop Chaput at Catholic Philly:

Holy Week is the most sacred time of the Christian year. And on every Holy Thursday, priests of the archdiocese gather at the annual Chrism Mass to renew their fraternal bonds and the meaning of their vocation.

The readings of the Chrism Mass have a special beauty and power, and they deserve the attention of all the faithful, not just our priests:

First reading: Is 61:1-3a, 6a, 8b-9
Second reading: Rev 1:5-8
Gospel: Lk 4:16-21

The Bible has dozens of dramatic moments, but the one that arguably matters most is the last line of the Chrism Mass Gospel: “Today, this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” If human history has a center, this is it. If Scripture has a direction and meaning, this is it. All of God’s contact with humanity either leads up to this point, or flows from it. As C.S. Lewis once famously observed, in speaking these Gospel words Jesus is either stating a fact, or he’s blaspheming, or he’s mentally ill. There’s no middle ground. And the people in the synagogue who heard him say the words, understood this very well — which is why they tried to assault him.

Christ’s radical claim requires a radical response. The apostles who followed him reconfigured their lives and risked or gave away all that they owned. Joy and fruitfulness come from this kind of discipleship, but very little comfort. Faith is not a leisure activity. And it may become even less so in the years ahead as many people forget their religious roots and drift away from the Church as their home.

Living the Catholic faith, for every committed Christian, is a life of conscious focus and sacrifice. But for priests, whom Christ configures to himself through ordination, this is especially true. The priesthood is a “helping profession” only in the sense that it “helps” to have someone around who’s willing to live, serve, intercede, suffer and die on our behalf. Jesus lived and died for all of us. In like manner, priests are called to live and die for their people in his name. Otherwise the priesthood means nothing.

The lives of our priests have a purpose that no one else can fulfill. As Isaiah reminds priests in the Chrism Mass readings, “God has anointed” them. Anointing is the outward physical mark of a permanent, interior covenant. Priests have a mission to which they must conform their lives; a mission to heal the wounded; offer real and enduring freedom to their people; to comfort the suffering, to restore gladness and glory to those who mourn.

The people who carried the Catholic faith forward in history, who made the culture of beauty, music, art and architecture rooted in the Christian understanding of God and humanity – these generations were taught, spiritually fed, and shaped by priests exactly like the men who minister to us in our local Church. Where there is Catholic faith anywhere in the world, it exists because priests offered their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ and the people God called them to serve.

The crisis of our time is not finally a crisis of resources or personnel or intelligence or talent. God has given us enough of all these things, if we steward them with prudence.

Rather, what too many people lack today is faith. Unbelief is easy, like adultery in a marriage where the spouses have stopped cultivating their love out of indifference or resentment. But it leads nowhere, because faith is the only firm foundation for human hope.

Fidelity can be difficult. But it leads in the opposite direction – to meaning, hope and life. And priests play an irreplaceable role in strengthening the faith of the Christian people.

This Holy Week, as we remember Christ’s suffering on the cross and ready ourselves for the joy of the Resurrection, please also remember our priests. They need our love and support as brothers in the Lord’s work. Thank God for them. Pray for them in a special way. The bond of Christian people and their priests is the strength of the Church in a skeptical world that has never needed the Word of God more urgently.

Junipero Serra and His Witness for Today

The following comes from Archbishop Chaput:

St. Paul once wrote that “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, [then] we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:17-19).

Those are strong words for a happy gathering like this one, on a beautiful day, on a vacation island like Mallorca, in a year dedicated to the virtue of faith.  But they’re exactly the right words to begin our discussion today.  Francis of Assisi was not a man known for his dissembling about the Gospel.  And Junipero Serra, his spiritual son, had the same burning zeal in all things related to Jesus Christ.  The key question facing every Christian in every age isn’t whether the Christian faith is socially useful, or consoles us when we’re sad, or makes us nicer people.  The key question is whether our faith is true.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead – and I don’t mean “metaphorically” rise, as a kind of shared emotional experience of the Apostles; but rise in his crucified body, glorified by his Father – then we’re misleading ourselves with a fairytale.  But if he did rise, then the Gospel is true.  And then all of creation, and the eternity of every living man and woman, depends on Christ’s Good News being preached.  So in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (28:19-20), he’s not merely offering an invitation.  He’s also binding a commission, a mandate, to every one of his disciples.

Francis of Assisi heard the Gospel, and believed, and acted on it.  Junipero Serra heard the Gospel, and believed, and acted on it.  And now for us, the whole point of the Year of Faith boils down to the same questions:  Do we really believe; and if we do, then what are we going to do about it?

This year marks the third centenary of the birth of Father Serra.  He was an extraordinary man.  I don’t think we can properly measure him unless we divide his story into three parts.  So first, I’ll talk about the world he was born into, and what he achieved in it.  Second, I’ll talk about the kind of world we face today.  And finally, I’ll talk about whether and how Serra has any continuing importance for the Church in a very different age.

The context of a person’s life helps to shape its course.  And so it was with Serra.  We know Mallorca today as a very pleasant tourist destination.  Hannibal knew it as a source of warriors; slingers who could kill a man with a stone or a dart at more than 300 yards.

Mallorca was fought over by Carthage, Rome, the Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs and finally Christian Spain.  Serra was born in 1713 into a world without electricity or modern medicine, primitive communications and transportation, and a maximum average lifespan of about 50.  For most people, life was brief and hard.  Death couldn’t be ignored; it was an everyday reality.  The high water mark of Muslim invasion in Europe had been reached and turned back just 30 years before at the Battle of Vienna.  The Great Powers, both Catholic and Protestant, were now locked in a struggle for colonies and souls in Asia and the New World.

At the same time, Europe was experiencing an explosion of wealth, discovery and human knowledge without precedent in history.  The backdrop of Serra’s life thus had the texture of intense religious and political competition, and huge economic expansion.  So he really did live at a pivotal moment in the history of our Church and culture.

Serra’s life story is well known.  But a few details are worth remembering here.  He was born Miguel Joseph Serra in the Mallorcan town of Petra.  He entered the Franciscans as a teenager and took the name “Junipero,” after the early friend and companion of St. Francis.  Serra had a supple, inquisitive, brilliant mind combined with tremendous personal energy.  He became an accomplished theologian and philosopher.  He had a successful career as a university lecturer and scholar until the age of 36, when he felt a calling to the missions and left for Mexico.

Early in his Mexican service Serra suffered a leg wound, probably a snake or insect bite, that pained him for the rest of his life.  But he still walked thousands of miles in his mission work with the native peoples of Baja and Alta California.  He founded Mission San Diego de Alcala – the first mission in the modern state of California – in 1769 at the ripe old age of 56.  He went on to found eight more California missions personally.  He also developed the system that would eventually include 21 California missions spanning hundreds of miles and many thousands of native converts to the Catholic faith.

In his years of mission leadership, he fought many times with military and political leaders in New Spain who sought to abuse or exploit the Indian population.  He could be a demanding father to his native converts, but he was fierce in defending their dignity from the colonial authorities.  He also had remarkable organizational skills.  He was a shrewd manager of the missions’ material resources.  He identified and cultivated his own successor years in advance.  And he introduced products like grapes, lemons, oranges, sheep and cattle that later became key to the state’s agricultural economy.  He died in 1784, at the age of 70, at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel.  Today both state and federal authorities in the United States honor his memory for the impact he had on the development of modern California.

Serra’s life can be summed up in the qualities that set him apart.  First, he had humility.  As an adult, Serra was a respected man of learning; a revered and comfortable university professor.  He put all that aside — in a century when 36 was middle aged — for a life of uncertainty and hardship on the other side of the world.  That’s humility.  Second, he was a man of audacity.  I almost said “courage,” and Serra certainly had courage.  But courage is too small a word.  Serra had courage married to imagination, confidence and ambition; an ambition for God, not for personal glory.  That’s audacity.  That’s the kind of courage that transforms lives and history.  He also had foresight in his planning,endurance in making those plans happen, political skill in dealing with authority, and superior leadership ability with a very limited mix of people and resources under brutally difficult conditions.  That’s a kind of genius.

He also had one other quality that animated all the others: a zealous Franciscan faith.  But we’ll come back to that later.  Meanwhile I want to turn to the second part of our task in measuring Serra the man.  And that requires us to understand the pastoral terrain we face as Christians right now, today.  We should probably start by realizing that some of the same civil authorities that once happily honored Father Serra with statues in Golden Gate Park and the U.S. Capitol building now work even harder to restrict the freedom of American religious communities, force the Church out of public debate, and impose same-sex “marriage” as the law.  Father Serra gave his life to the task of bringing the Gospel to the New World.  But the “new world” we actually have in A.D. 2013 is alien to almost anything Serra could have imagined.

Blessed Pope John Paul II saw the outline of our new “new world” more than 30 years ago.  And following his lead, the Church has been calling Catholics to the work of a “new evangelization” ever since.  But there’s a natural human tendency to attach magic powers to slogans, which then replace serious thought and effort — as if saying the slogan, or talking about it, actually makes mission work happen.  In practice, the words “new evangelization” are overused and underthought.  Unless we reconfigure our lives to understanding and acting on it, the “new evangelization” is just another pious intention – well meaning, but ultimately infertile.

Read the rest here!

Archbishop Chaput: Ten ways to deepen our relationship with God

The following comes from the Catholic Philly:

Over the years I’ve heard from many good people who want a closer relationship with God.  But they’re stymied by what they perceive as God’s silence.  What they often mean, without knowing it, is that they’d like God to do something dramatic in their lives; something with a hint of Mt. Sinai that proves his credentials.

But God typically doesn’t work that way.  He’s not in the theater business.  God wants to be loved and even in a sense “courted” – which means that we can’t be passive partners in the relationship.  We need to pursue God as we would the persons we love.

So as we make our way through these last weeks of ordinary time before Lent, here a few steps – in no particular order – that can help us draw closer to God.

First, start by listening to him.  Faith isn’t a 12-step action program.  Nor is it an algebra problem that needs to be “solved.”  It’s a love affair.  As with a spouse, the most important thing we can do is to be present and listen.  This requires the investment of time and focus.  If a spirit of impatience or pretending to listen doesn’t work with your spouse, why would it work with God?

Second, cultivate silence.  We can’t listen when our world is filled with noise and toys.  C.S. Lewis often said that noise is the music of hell.  Our toys – those things we choose to distract us – keep us diverted from focusing on the main questions of life:  Why are we here?  What does my life mean?  Is there a God, and if so, who is he, and what does he ask of me?

Third, seek humility.  Humility is to the spirit what material poverty is to the senses: the great purifier.  Humility is the beginning of sanity.  We can’t really see – much less love – anyone or anything else when the self is in the way.  When we finally, really believe in our own sinfulness and unimportance, many other things become possible: repentance; mercy, patience, forgiveness of others.  These virtues are the foundation stones of that other great Christian virtue: justice.  No justice is ever possible in a spider’s web of mutual anger, recrimination and hurt pride.

Fourth, cultivate honesty.  Complete honesty is only possible for a humble person.  The reason is simple.  The most painful but important honesty is telling the truth to ourselves about our own motives and our own actions.  The reason honesty is such a powerful magnet is because it’s so rare.

Modern life is too often built on the marketing of half-truths and lies about who we are and what we deserve.  Many of the lies are well-intentioned and not even very harmful — but they’re still lies.  Scripture praises the honest woman and man because they’re like clean air in a room full of smoke.  Honesty allows the mind to breathe and think clearly.

Fifth, seek to be holy.  Holy does not mean nice or even good, although truly holy people are always good and often – though not always — nice.  Holiness means “other than.”  It’s what Scripture means when it tells us to be “in the world, but not of the world.”  And this doesn’t just miraculously happen.  We need to choose and seek holiness.

God’s ways are not our ways.  Holiness is the habit of seeking to conform all of our thoughts and actions to God’s ways.  There’s no cookie-cutter model of holiness, just as piety can’t be reduced to one particular kind of prayer or posture.  What’s important is to love the world because God loves it and sent his Son to redeem it, but not to be captured by its habits and values, which are not godly.

Sixth, pray.  Prayer is more than just that portion of the day when we advise God about what we need and what he should do.  Real prayer is much closer to listening, and it’s intimately tied to obedience.  God certainly wants to hear what we need and love and fear, because these things are part of our daily lives, and he loves us.  But if we’re doing the talking, we can’t listen.  Note too, that we can’t really pray without humility.  Why?  Because prayer requires us to lift up who we are and everything we experience and possess to God.  Pride is too heavy to lift.

Seventh, read.  Scripture is the living Word of God.  When we read God’s Word, we encounter God himself.  But there’s more: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Georges Bernanos and so many others – these were deeply intelligent and powerful writers whose work nourishes the Christian mind and soul, while also inspiring the imagination.  Reading also serves another, simpler purpose: It shuts out the noise that distracts us from fertile reflection.  We can’t read The Screwtape Letters and take network television seriously at the same time.  And that’s a very good thing.

By the way, if you do nothing else in 2014, read Tolkien’s wonderful short story, Leaf by Niggle.  It will take you less than an hour, but it will stay with you for a lifetime.  And then read C.S. Lewis’ great religious science-fiction trilogy – Out of the Silent Planet,Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.  You’ll never look at our world in quite the same way again.

Eighth, believe and act.  Nobody “earns” faith.  It’s a free gift from God.  But we do need to be willing and ready to receive it.  We can discipline ourselves to be prepared.   If we sincerely seek truth; if we desire things greater than this life has to offer; and if we leave our hearts open to the possibility of God — then one day we will believe, just as when we choose to love someone more deeply, and turn our hearts sincerely to the task, then sooner or later we usually will.

Feelings are fickle.  They’re often misleading.  They’re not the substance of our faith.  We need to be grateful for our emotions as God’s gifts, but we also need to judge them in the light of common sense.  Falling in love is only the first taste of love.  Real love is both more beautiful and more demanding than the early days of a romance.

In like manner, a dramatic “road to Damascus” style conversion doesn’t happen to most people, and not even St. Paul stayed on the road very long.  Why?  Because in revealing himself to Paul, Jesus immediately gave him something to do.  We know and more deeply love Jesus Christ by doing what he tells us to do.

In the real world, feelings that endure follow actions that have substance.  The more sincere we are in our discipleship, the closer we will come to Jesus Christ.  This is why the Emmaus disciples only recognized Jesus in “the breaking of the bread.”  Only in acting in and on our faith, does our faith become fully real.

Ninth, nobody makes it to heaven alone.  We all need friendship and community.  A friend of mine who’s been married more than 40 years likes to say that the heart of a good marriage is friendship.  Every successful marriage is finally about a deep and particular kind of friendship that involves honesty, intimacy, fidelity, mutual sacrifice, hope and shared beliefs.

Every successful marriage is also a form of community.  Even Jesus needed these two things: friendship and community.  The Apostles were not simply Christ’s followers; they were also his brothers and friends, people who knew and supported him in an intimate way.  All of us as Christians need the same two things.  It doesn’t matter whether we’re a religious, layperson, deacon or priest, single or married.  Friends are vital.  Community is vital.  Our friends both express and shape who we are.  Good friends sustain us.  Bad friends undermine us.  And that’s why they’re so decisive to the success or failure of a Christian life.

Tenth and finally, nothing is more powerful than the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist in leading us to the God we seek.  God makes himself available to us every week in the confessional, and every day in the sacrifice of the Mass.  It makes little sense to talk about the “silence of God” when our churches are made silent by our own absence and indifference.  We’re the ones with the cold hearts – not God.

He’s never outdone in his generosity.  He waits for us in the quiet of the tabernacle.  And he loves us and wants to be loved wholeheartedly in return.

If we’re willing to give that love, these steps will lead us to him.

Brandon Vogt Interview with Archbishop Charles Chaput

The following comes from Brandon Vogt:

The family has always been central for Christians. The Catechism describes it as the “the original cell of social life,” Catholics pay great homage to the Holy Family, and recent popes have taken up the topic, from Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

But among Catholic leaders, the family is receiving more attention today than perhaps at any time in the last century. The boost started during last year’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family. Discussions about marriage and the many challenges families face today pervaded the Church. The discussion continues this year as we move toward the Ordinary Synod on the Family, scheduled for October 2015.

However, in between the two Synods awaits the World Meeting of Families, which will take place September 21-25, 2015 in Philadelphia. Held every three years and sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, the World Meeting of Families is the world’s largest Catholic gathering of families.

Each World Meeting of Families has a theme, and this year it is “Love Is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive,” emphasizing the impact of the love and life of families on our society. The event always generates great excitement but will garner special enthusiasm this year thanks to Pope Francis, who will be attending the event during his first visit to the United States.

Today, I have the great pleasure of interviewing Archbishop Charles Chaput, archbishop of Philadelphia and official host of the World Meeting of Families. We discuss the upcoming event, the greatest challenges families face today, and how the Pope’s presence will uplift Catholics throughout America.
 

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BRANDON VOGT: Let’s start off with a simple question. What is the World Meeting of Families? Where did it originate and why is it important?

ARCHBISHOP CHARLES CHAPUT: St. John Paul II founded the World Meeting of Families in 1994, building on the success of World Youth Day in Denver and other cities globally. It takes place every three years in a different nation.

The purpose is simple but vital: to help people deepen their Christian understanding and experience of family life. If the family is the foundation of society, and of course it is, then strengthening family life is the surest guarantee of a healthy culture.

BRANDON: The theme of the 2015 “World Meeting of Families,” in Philadelphia, is “Love Is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive.” What does that mean?

ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT: The theme borrows from those great words of St. Irenaeus: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” Men and women are most fully alive when they love as God loves, deeply and unselfishly, and for most people the path to that kind of love is through marriage and family.

Read the rest here.

Archbishop Chaput: Pope Francis is Coming to Philadelphia!

From Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia:

Dear Friends,

Today is one of great joy for our Archdiocese, our City, our Commonwealth and our country! It was a privilege to be in the presence of our Holy Father this morning in Rome when he announced to the world that he will be with us in Philadelphia next year for the World Meeting of Families. 

This moment is an historic and exhilarating one for all of us to share. It is the answer to the countless prayers of so many people who have asked God to guide Pope Francis to Philadelphia, the culmination of many months of hopeful anticipation, and the fulfillment of my own confidence that the Holy Father would grace us with his presence next year. It will mark his first ever visit to the United States of America as pope and he will be only the fourth pope to visit our nation. Words cannot sufficiently express how overjoyed I am by this most welcome news and I know so many of you share that feeling. These are the kinds of emotions that have one source—the true love of Jesus Christ filling our hearts. 

A hallmark of Pope Francis’ ministry has been a genuine love for all people of good will and he has maintained a keen focus on the many diverse challenges that families face globally. I’ve loved and admired him since we first met at the Synod for the Americas in 1997. I know that the Holy Father’s charisma, presence and voice will electrify our gathering. Regardless of confessional differences, billions around the world have been drawn to this pope. Our gathering in Philadelphia is open to all who have a generous heart. It has the power to transform, in deeply positive ways, not just the spirit of Catholic life in our region, but of our entire community. It will be a moment unlike any other. 

As I’ve said many times before, Pope Francis’ presence will bring all of us – Catholic and non-Catholic alike – together in tremendously unifying and healing ways. We now eagerly anticipate Pope Francis’ arrival in Philadelphia next September. We will be ready and we will welcome him joyfully with open arms and prayerful hearts! Let us all raise our voices in thanksgiving to almighty God for the gift of Pope Francis and for the Holy Father’s decision to come to Philadelphia.

Archbishop Chaput: Economic Justice and Pope Francis

The following comes from Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. at Catholic Philly:

Speech at the Napa Institute, San Francisco, Calif.
July 26, 2014

I’m a Capuchin Franciscan, and I’ve often found that people think of Francis of Assisi as a kind of 13th-century flower child.  St. Francis was certainly “counter-cultural,” but only in his radical obedience to the Church, and his radical insistence on living the Gospel fully — including poverty and all of its other uncomfortable demands. Jesus, speaking to him from the cross of San Damiano, said “Repair my house.”  I think Pope Francis believes God has called him to do that as pope, as God calls every pope.  And he plans to do it in the way St. Francis did it.

Pope Francis took the name of the saint of Christian simplicity and poverty. As he’s said, he wants “a Church that is poor and for the poor.” In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, he grounded this goal in Jesus Christ, “who became poor, and was always close to the poor and the outcast.”  That’s a very Franciscan idea.

The Holy Father knows poverty and violence.  He knows the plague of corrupt politics and oppressive governments.  He’s seen the cruelty of human trafficking and other forms of exploitation.  He’s seen elites who rig the political system in their favor and keep the poor in poverty. When we Americans think about economics, we think in terms of efficiency and production. When Francis thinks about economics, he thinks in terms of human suffering. We’re blessed to live in a rich, free, stable country.  We can’t always see what Francis sees.

I think it would be a mistake to describe him as a “liberal” — much less a “Marxist.”  As I told the Italian newspaper La Stampa in an interview some weeks ago, words like “liberal” and “conservative” don’t describe Catholic belief.  They divide what shouldn’t be divided.  We should love the poor and love the unborn child.  Service to the oppressed and service to the family; defense of the weak and defense of the unborn child; belief in the value of business and belief in restraints on predatory business practices — all these things spring from the same Catholic commitment to human dignity. There’s nothing “progressive” about killing an unborn human child or allowing it to happen.  And there’s nothing “conservative” about ignoring the cries of the poor.

Before we go on, I should make a couple of obvious points about Francis. The first is that not everyone’s happy with him. G. K. Chesterton said that every age gets the saint it needs.  Not the saint people want, but the saint they need; the saint who’s the medicine for their illness. The same may be true of popes.

John Paul II revived the spirit of a Church that felt fractured, and even irrelevant, in the years after the council.  Benedict revived the mind of a Church that felt, even after John Paul II’s intellectual leadership, outgunned by the world in the public square. Francis has already started to revive the witness of a Church that, even after John Paul II’s and Benedict’s example, feels as if we can’t get a hearing and that we’re telling a story no one will believe.

Again, not everyone is pleased with Francis. Chesterton said that saints are so often martyrs because they’re the kind of antidote the world mistakes for poison. The website Salon recently ran an article complaining about the good press Francis has gotten.  It argued that “The new sexist, nun-hating, poverty-perpetuating, pedophile-protecting homophobe is the same as the old sexist, nun-hating, poverty-perpetuating, pedophile-protecting homophobe … . [I]t is ludicrous to suggest that a man who denies comprehensive reproductive health care (including all forms of birth control including condoms and abortion) and comprehensive family planning is a man who cares about the poor of this world.”

Some on the political right have attacked him in words almost as strong, though for different reasons.

What Francis says about economic justice may be hard for some of us to hear.  So we need to read the Holy Father’s writings for ourselves, without the filter of the mass media. Then we need to open our hearts to what God is telling us through his words.

Read the rest here.

Archbishop Chaput on Corpus Christi

The following comes from Archbishop Chaput:

This week the Church leads us from one great solemnity, Trinity Sunday last weekend, to another, Corpus Christi Sunday, on June 22.  Both feasts teach us something beautiful about the God we profess and the life he invites us to lead.

Like Jews and Muslims, Christians believe that God is one.  There is no other god but God, who made all things from nothing; who is infinitely greater than and different from us; and who is utterly independent of his creation.  When we call God holy we mean what the Latin word sanctus or the Hebrew word kadosh means – God is “other than” us, and our human understanding, unaided by God himself, can never fully grasp his essence.

But Christians also believe that God speaks to us through Scripture and the wisdom of the Church, and that the words from the First Letter of John – “God is love” (4:8,16) — are quite literally true.  God’s nature, his “oneness,” is a communion of love among Father, Son and Holy Spirit; one God in three divine persons, whose love creates and sustains all things.  Thus, while the nature of God is a mystery, it’s not an entirely foreign one:  Every loving human family – the unity of father, mother and child — reflects, in a small and partial way, the nature of God himself.

There’s more.  Christians believe that God is not merely transcendent but also immanent.  God became man in Jesus Christ.  He took on our flesh.  Therefore Christianity is incarnational.  God created the human race, but then he also entered it out of love to redeem us.  He loves each of us not only as a maker, but also as a father and brother.  This constant, tangible presence of God personally in our midst is renewed in every Mass.  The Eucharist is more than a symbol or a metaphor or a commemorative meal, although it’s all those things, as well.  Rather, it’s the living flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

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Love is our mission: The family fully alive

The following comes from Archbishop Chaput:

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of making public Pope Francis’ theme for next year’s World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia:  Love is our mission: the family fully alive. The theme was inspired by the words of the early Church Father, St. Irenaeus, who said that “the glory of God is man fully alive.” In like manner, the glory of men and women is their capacity to love as God loves. And rarely can that love be lived out more intimately and fruitfully than in the family. 

As we begin the “heavy lifting” to prepare for the World Meeting of Families and a possible papal visit, it’s a good moment to pause and reflect.

Every moment of every day, a mother and father are teaching and guiding each other and their children, while witnessing about their love to the world beyond their home. The structure of marriage — if lived faithfully — naturally points a man and woman outwardtoward the world, as well as inward toward one another and their children. As Augustine once said: “To be faithful in little things is a big thing.”

Simply by living their vocation, a husband and wife become the most important living cell of society. Marriage is the foundation and guarantee of the family. And the family is the foundation and guarantee of society.

It’s within the intimate community of the family that a son knows he is loved and has value.  In observing her parents, a daughter first learns basic values like loyalty, honesty and selfless concern for others, which build up the character of the wider society. Truth is always most persuasive, not when we read about it in a book or hear about it in a classroom, but when we see it incarnated in the actions of our parents.

Marriage and family safeguard our most basic sense of community, because within the family, the child grows up in a web of tightly connected rights and responsibilities to other people. It also protects our individual identity, because it surrounds the child with a mantle of privacy and personal devotion. Most of the laws concerning marriage in our culture were originally developed precisely to protect family members from the selfishness and lack of love so common in wider society.

The family is the human person’s single most important sanctuary from mistaken models of love, misguided notions of sexual relationships and destructive ideas about self‑fulfillment. All these painful things, unchecked, can be a centrifugal force pulling families apart.

Love is a counter-force. Love is the glue both for family and society. This is why love is the fundamental mission of the family. It’s why the family must be a sanctuary of love. We most easily understand love when we, ourselves, are the fruit of our parents’ tenderness. We most easily believe in fidelity when we see it modeled by our father and mother.

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Francis of Assisi and Western Catholicism

The following comes from Archbishop Chaput:

I want to start with a simple statement of fact.  All Christian life is a paradox.  What I mean is this.

In Isaiah 55, God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts [higher] than your thoughts” (8-9).  Then in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, “You therefore must be perfect, [even] as your heavenly Father is perfect” (5:48). 

Scripture tells us that God is utterly different from us, vastly higher than us.  Then it tells us to become like him.  Therein lies the paradox.  The task seems impossible.  And yet weknow it to be possible.  We know it through the witness of the saints.  In Hebrew, God is called hakadosh, “the Holy One,” with the word kadosh meaning holy.  Our English word “saint” derives from the Latin word sanctus, which means the same thing: holy.  Holy does not mean “good,” though holy people are always good and often – though not always – nice.  St. Jerome was certainly holy and good, but “nice” might not be the first word that springs to mind in remembering him.

Holy means “other than.” It means different from the world; set apart from the profane; sacred.  The saints are ordinary men and women — persons with every kind of talent, weakness and personality — who took a different path, one step at a time, away from the routine habits of the world.  They fell in love with God.  They followed him.  They conformed their lives to him in simple ways that became extraordinary ways.  And now their example and their intercession give us hope that we can do the same.

I mention all this because my job today is to talk about “St. Francis and Western Catholicism.”  I’m a Capuchin Franciscan, so I’m happy to do that.  But I want to do it by posing three questions:  Who is Francis, this pope?  Who was Francis, the man of Assisi?  And after 800 years, what, if anything, can a man from the Middle Ages teach us about being alive and free and human?

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"Preach the way you live!"

 The following comes from Archbishop Chaput via Whispers in the Loggia:

“If we truly seek conversion, community and solidarity, we need to be completely frank with one another. But in doing so, we should also take heart from the fact that people will continue to have a deep hunger for God. With good teaching and good pastors, they will continue to hear the voice of Jesus Christ, and they will respond.

The nature of being a “good pastor” is what I want to focus on today. We preach best, and teach best, by our personal example. Anything which enables us to do that is good. Anything which prevents us from doing that, is not. Each one of us wants to minister to God’s people more fruitfully in the new millennium. But I believe this requires us to change — as individuals and as bishops.

We need, first of all, to become simple again. By that I mean, Gospel simple. Jesus loved simplicity because it allowed Him to immerse Himself in the essential things of His Father’s business. I believe we are in danger of losing that Christ-like focus as bishops.

Our hemisphere has become a culture of noise, confusion and complication. We are a distracted people, both North and South, and we are now also a distracted Church. We have plans and committees and projects and staffs. All these things are important in their proper place. But at the end of the day, are we apostles. . . or are we executives? And what do our people really need: managers. . . or pastors?

My concern is that the structures of today’s diocesan life too frequently prevent the very thing they were meant to help: a bishop’s direct contact with his people. Obviously, good stewardship requires skilled management of our resources. But it is too easy today for a bishop to abdicate his missionary zeal to others, and become a captive of his own administrative machinery. This runs exactly counter to the example of Jesus and the first apostles.

We bishops need to be much more radical in our own Christian vocation. By “radical,” I mean oriented toward the root. Charles Borromeo once said to his priests, “Be sure you first preach by the way you live.” The synod’s instrumentum laboris is, in some ways, too gentle toward all of us. Many of the problems we face as shepherds are not programmatic or resource-driven. They are problems of faith. Too often, those of us in the Church—and even we bishops—simply do not believe deeply and zealously enough.

Today, throughout our hemisphere, many of our people have found consumer capitalism to be much more appealing than the Gospel. Capitalism is a machine that works. It gets results. This is important, because as our economies and cultures interlock, consumerism and the practical atheism it breeds are now common problems throughout our hemisphere.

Yet the hunger for God persists in every human heart, even when it’s buried under consumer goods. And too often, we are not feeding that hunger as effectively as the fundamentalists and other evangelical Christians. I understand the frustration of my Latin American brothers very well when they talk about the invasion of aggressive religious sects into their countries. I face many of the same pastoral problems in northern Colorado. Hundreds of my own people leave the Catholic faith every year to join these fundamentalist groups.

The Church throughout our hemisphere needs to recover her original spiritual fire, which these groups now so successfully copy. We need to lead people back to the fullness of Jesus Christ, which can only be found in sacramental community and especially in the Eucharist. But how can we accomplish that? If we really want conversion, community and solidarity for the Church, we need to seek those things first within and among ourselves as brothers.

I have a great devotion to Charles Borromeo because he is very much a saint for our time. Like St. Toribio of Lima, he was a force for authentic reform in an era of tremendous change. We need to be the same.

You will recall that the printing press changed the nature of our discourse about God 500 years ago and became the engine of the Protestant Reformation. That was the terrain of Charles Borromeo’s life. In exactly the same way, the new information revolution will fundamentally affect our language of faith and truth.

These new media tools are the building blocks of a new global mentality and culture. They are a new way of knowing and expressing things, which we misunderstand at our peril. They are also creating new issues of justice — the information “haves” and “have nots” — which the Church urgently needs to speak to.

This is the terrain of our lives. Today, we have an opportunity to serve as witnesses of Jesus Christ in the midst of this “new reformation.”

That is the test of this millennial moment for all of us here. That is the fabric of the New Evangelization.”

--Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap.
Archbishop of Denver (1997-2011); Archbishop of Philadelphia (2011- )
Intervention at the Synod of Bishops for America
Vatican City
November 1997