Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 20 October 2024

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

As you might know, the week before last, I participated in an ecumenical forum for a group now 20 years in existence, Christian Churches Together. At the CCT Forum, 40 different denominations were present, and the topic was the Holy Spirit and what the Spirit is saying to the churches. How do we authentically share what we hear from the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit does not deny himself to anyone who asks.

Here are the three statements and leading actions that concluded our week together:

1. The Holy Spirit anoints each individual, not for their own sake, but toward communion. The charisms of each must be identified and acknowledged to build up the Body of Christ to full stature, each and every person equally. To deny this Spirit in the other is the cause of division: you are somehow less than I. This is the systemic problem of racism, genocide, discrimination and colonialism. Action: We must trust that the Holy Spirit can do/is doing / will accomplish this work of perfecting us toward the transformation into divine nature, or theosis, of all people. This positive anthropology needs to be introduced as a light into the darkness of our world.

2. We must hold each other accountable to this sacred trust. “Who but the Church can help us understand history as the People of God?” asked a bishop of the Church of God in Christ at Mason Temple in Nashville. If we aren’t writing our own stories they will be rewritten by others. We must preserve this truth/history for our youth who desire to know it and connect more deeply in community. Action: We must witness to, and record the truth which forms the narrative of our history, and our identity in faith.

3. We must affirm the process of receptive ecumenism which we have experienced together this week. (Receptive ecumenism is a dialogue for the sole purpose of listening intently to, and receiving the truth spoken by others about themselves so that we may grow together. It is basically what the Church calls the synodal process.) This week, we have focused on the Spirit, we have listened better and trusted more than any forum before. It is an effective method of dialogue and we have used the model more effectively and grown into, and with each other. Action: Commit to bringing this method of dialogue to our own community and between communities after we return home.

So let’s start with ourselves. I propose this question for your dialogue in your homes and gatherings: Why is the number of Christians (Catholics) declining? Why are so many of our children losing heart and leaving? Why have so many people simply given up? (This is a question that people of all religions are asking.)

I was having a conversation with a colleague just recently. He said that he has been wondering about the reason so many people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion, who claim to be “spiritual” but not “religious.”

He said to me, “I wonder sometimes if I am ‘religious’ but not ‘spiritual’?” The silence that followed was itself a dialogue, so much to say and not really knowing how to say it.

What if we have not given an example to others of the Spirit that must necessarily form the foundation of our religious practice? Religious rites aren’t rites of passage or gestures that define us in some sort of cultural way. But isn’t that how they often define the life of the Church, really, in our practice?

An onlooker who might be uncatechized, or poorly catechized, who is watching us might interpret an empty observance of rites and laws without the exchange of love responding to God’s outpouring of love as nothing more than hypocrisy. Not attractive, the shell of religion might seem to most to be an empty, superfluous (even dishonest) waste of time – especially for a person who is seeking a living relationship with the Divine who they might glimpse is seeking them.

I’ve talked about this before: is the Church – is our community – based on compliance? Or commitment? Going through the motions, frankly, just gets old. Some people may have superpowers of slogging through it for years, but that isn’t what Jesus is asking of us. He wants our hearts, he wants us to have life, his life, to the full. He wants to turn our discipline into discipleship so that the truth, beauty and goodness we have found in him goes out to all the world.

He wants us to listen intently to and receive the truth he is speaking to our hearts so that we may grow together, first with him, then with one another. Commit first to bringing this method of dialogue into your own life of faith. Maybe we will discover together that our being in God together is the most precious part of life.

The Lord be with you,