Setting the Stage for "Nones"

 

The discussion turned to the recent kids Vacation Bible Study classes.  I commented on all the space ships and outer space drawings I saw throughout the rooms and hallways of the church.  “I’m sure it’s important to keep young minds attentive by stories and games, but surveys now show that most kids decide by the age 13 that church is a waste of time, and drop out as soon as they can (which is doubly easy if their parents don’t take them there).  “What’s in it for me” is their mentality, and they don’t see anything of interest.  I wish the kid’s Bible Study week was more about teaching the Bible and a relationship with Jesus, and less about fun games.  They grow disinterested in simple games.”

Fortunately, one of the men, a father, had been part of the kid’s week.  He assured me that the parish used a recognized Catholic program which was heavily focused on teaching the faith, and any games were there to help teach. He then gave witness to a few examples of how he personally had seen a lack of virtue among some kids, and lovingly taught them how to love.   I felt a lot better that we were trying to do the right thing for our kids, but I still had doubts if it was enough.

“In my latter years of working, before retiring, I noticed that young employees seemed to contribute less to the company, and to expect more,” I said.  I recalled an annual performance review where I gave a young man an average rating.  He was shocked, and at the same time asked when he would get a promotion.   “Didn’t I do everything you told me to do?” he asked.  I explained how employees are meant to be assets of the company, contributing new ideas, and finding better ways of doing things, and developing new products.  He didn’t understand.  “If you wanted me to do more, why didn’t you tell me what to do?”  He had never been taught to think critically, to analyze, to grow.  “Robots do what I tell them,” I said.  He never really understood.  I think of him as somewhat typical of many younger people today.

But then one of the men in our little group jumped.  “I think the Holy Spirit just showed me how that is the problem with our young people’s faith today.  They are meant to grow in holiness, in faith, and in a closer relationship with Jesus all their lives, but most haven’t been taught that.  They don’t know that they are supposed to grow in faith, to become more like Jesus, until they join Him in eternity.  They learn rules and to go to church on Sunday, and they do those things (or whatever the priest tells them).  But, at some point the culture causes them to ask: “What’s in it for me?”  And, having been taught nothing but rules in the church, rather than the rewards of growing in faith and relationship with God, they don’t see anything there for them, and soon becomes “Nones”.

The culture teaches kids that “your life is about being happy.”  You have “a right” to be happy.  And you --- they are told at a very young age --- are wise enough to decide.  The Christian faith is, however, very clear: You are to grow in love of God and neighbor, all your life.  Your life is not totally about what you want, what makes you happy.  There is work to be done to get both temporal and eternal rewards.  Jesus showed us our lives have a purpose, a reason for which we were born.  He opened the door and showed us how to get to heaven by achieving that purpose.  But, like a good meal, you don’t just throw the ingredients into a bowl and start eating.  There is work to do.  It seems most of our kids have never learned how to work and grow in faith, to continually grow in holiness all their lives.  They don’t see the rewards of a growth in faith, now and eternal.  So, they drop out of any organized religion.

The culture has changed; the teaching of our young needs to change.

Change My Heart

 

I was making the short drive to church, when on the radio I heard a man speak of how he had been Catholic, went to college, and then like all those around him thought his faith unimportant.  He was becoming an OBGYN, and began performing abortions --- a woman’s right.  After two years, he said, a friend asked him to go on a pilgrimage to a place called Medjugorje, in Yugoslavia.  He declined, but a couple of days later his mother asked him the same thing.  So he went, “and on cross hill I suddenly realized all I had ignored as unimportant in faith matters in my life was all true.  And nothing else mattered more.”  He went home and told his co-workers he could never again perform an abortion, and he grew in faith and pro-life advocacy.

When I heard his conversion at Medjugorje story, I cried.  It was my story.  Like him, I fell on my knees there, as in an instant I knew all I had ignored as unimportant was true, and from then on nothing was more important in my life as I, like him, grew in faith.  I am not a medical person; I have never performed an abortion (thank God), but my life impacted many others.  And because God changed my life, I helped Him change the lives of others.  Nothing is more important.  And the song echoed in my brain: “Change my heart, O God; make it ever true.  Change my heart, O God, I want to be like You.”

I know of many people who have studied their way into the Catholic faith.  I know of some who have prayed for God to enter their lives or the lives of a loved one, and He did. I didn’t study, nor did I pray or know anyone who prayed for me.  Yet, God in His love and mercy changed my heart, in a little village in Yugoslavia.

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And later this morning, I read from a letter to the Corinthians, by St. Clement, pope:

It is our duty then to be eager to do good, for everything is from God.  He urges us, who believe in him with all our heart, not to be idle or careless in any good work.  Our boasting and confidence must rest in him.  Let us be subject to his will…. Beloved, how blessed, how wonderful are God’s gifts!... What then are those gifts that are in store for those who wait for him?  Only the most holy Creator and Father of the ages knows their greatness and their splendor.

We should then strive with the greatest zeal to be found among the number of those who await him, so that we may share in the promised gifts.  How will this be, beloved?  If our mind is fixed on God through faith, if we are diligent in seeking what is pleasing and acceptable to him, if we fulfill what is according to his blameless will, and follow the way of truth, casting away from ourselves all that is unholy.

Change my heart, O God …

Salt

 

You are the salt of the earth.  But what if salt goes flat?  How
can you restore its flavor?  Then it is good for nothing, but to
be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

St. John of Capistrano (Feast Day October 23) wrote: “Those who are called to the table of the Lord must glow with the brightness that comes from the good example of a praiseworthy and blameless life… Their upright lives must make them like the salt of the earth for themselves and the rest of mankind.  The brightness of their wisdom must make them like the light of the world that brings light to others.

Speak out when the time is right; do not hide your wisdom.
Preach the word, persevere in the task, both when convenient
and inconvenient; correct, reprove, summon to obedience,
but do all with patience and sound doctrine.
--- Sirach 4:23-4; 2Tim 4:2

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The above readings (amidst a little quiet prayer time) opened my mind to see an old Gospel passage in a new light.  When I had previously read about salt going bad and being useless, I thought how in Biblical times salt was used as a preservative (it still is in today’s canned goods), and when salt went bad, food spoiled.  So. I interpreted the Bible as saying I need to read the Bible and pray (continually get new salt) so my faith doesn’t go bad.  I saw salt as likened to a growth or renewal in faith.  But now I see more.

Salt also makes one thirsty for more.  Drinking salt water will never quench your thirst; you want more.  Good evangelization, good homilies, good faith writings are salt to me --- a good thing, and they make me thirst for more.  But bad evangelization, homilies, not reading faith writings will let my faith die of thirst.  Salt can also be considered as something which opens a new existence or insight, like when salt is put on ice; it melts it and makes it safer.  Good uses of salt can soften hardened hearts.

The epitome of bad salt was Lot’s wife, who turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back with yearning on the city of Sodom.  Yearning for evil, rather than going forward to the good, leads to death.

The salt we need to yearn for is the love of God; because when we yearn for love of self we can never get enough, and so we die.  Sometimes it is hard to yearn for the good salt, it feels like the salt put on an open wound.  We want to scream in pain when the salt is applied, but the salt destroys infection, a critically important life-saving thing.  Even when it’s hard to take, we must take the salt.

“You are the salt of the earth.”  The words were spoken to the Apostles, but they are meant for us also.  We are meant to evangelize with our lives, not to just preserve others, like meat preserved with salt, but to create a yearning in them for more, to melt hearts to crave the love of God.

Speak out when the time is right.  Preach the word … when convenient
and inconvenient.  And do all with patience.

I thought living a good life consisted of tossing seeds as I walked righteously for others to see, and then for God to nourish and grow the seeds.  But I now see spreading salt is important also, perhaps more important, and so I need to grow in faith and understanding, to make sure the salt I spread doesn’t grow old.  Sunday church alone isn’t good enough.  I need to grow in faith and grow in the opportunities for it to be spread to others.

And what if I don’t grow in faith?  Then it is good for nothing, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

Be the salt of the earth.  Spread the Word, even as you grow in it.  Don’t seek the love of self the world sows, or you will get lots of salt, as did Lot’s wife.