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My Minecraft Persona
Homily for the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist
Passing on the Catholic Faith – what we’re doing isn’t working
If you have any interest in Religious Education and passing on the Catholic Faith to the next generation, you need to read this post. Fr. Simon nails the problem with current RE programs and Catholic schools: they’re not working. The Catholic Faith is not being passed on to the children and grandchildren of our parishioners. Sure, they’re being taught the teachings of the Church, and they’re receiving the Sacraments, at least First Confession, First Communion, and Confirmation.
The problem is: they’re not receiving the Faith. We’re not evangelizing them. How many have made it a habit to regularly (by regularly, I mean at least once a month) receive the Sacraments of Eucharist and Confession after their First Holy Communion and Confirmation? How many develop a great love for the Mass and the Eucharist, and wouldn’t miss Sunday Mass for anything (even High School sports)? How many truly desire a relationship with Christ, and seek opportunities for prayer and reflection on the Scriptures? How many joyfully desire to follow the Church’s teachings, both easy and difficult, out of love for Christ and His Church? Finally, how many are boldly proclaiming their love for Christ and desire for the salvation He promises to their family and friends?
In most communities I’ve seen, the answer to all those questions is essentially none. There might be a handful of kids in any parish that truly develop any excitement for the Catholic Faith and seek to follow Christ with their lives, but that group is an extremely small percentage of kids who go through religious education programs. Worse, it seems that percentage is growing smaller. In this parish, the majority of kids who attend Wednesday Religious Education classes do not attend Sunday Mass. The kids receive their one hour of “church class”, and that’s all they get.
This is not good. This is not healthy. This is not passing the Catholic faith on to the next generation. We are not evangelizing the children in our parishes and communities, because we are not showing them what it means to be Catholic, and the importance of Christ in our lives.
So, what’s the answer? I don’t know, but I think Fr. Simon is on the right track. Instead of worrying about cramming the teachings of the Church into kids’ heads, we need to be showing them by our lives how those teachings are important to us and how they help us to draw closer to Christ. Example: instead of being satisfied by telling kids about the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we need to restore a reverence for the Blessed Sacrament in our actions — especially in front of the Tabernacle — and share how important receiving Our Lord is in our daily lives. In other words, we need to walk the walk before they’ll listen when we talk the talk.
To make one thing clear: this will fail if we try to water down the teachings of the Church to make them more palatable. The teachings of the Church are exciting, powerful, challenging, and life-giving, but become dull, powerless, simplistic, and lifeless if we minimize them or try to explain them away. The Catholic faith is attractive if it is first lived in its fullness, then taught in its fullness without excuses or compromises. We trust in God’s mercy, but we don’t demand it by flaunting what He revealed through His Son.
So, what do you say? How do we truly pass on the Catholic faith, and make disciples of the children in our parishes?
Homily for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Using Electronic Devices in the Liturgy
Recently, the bishops in New Zealand issued a letter stating that iPads and other electronic tablets are not to be used to replace the Roman Missal in the celebration of the Mass. Over the last couple days, it’s received some attention from blogs like Thomas McDonald’s God and the Machine and Deacon Greg Kandra’s The Deacon’s Bench.
Now, it’s very clear for those who know me or have read my blog for some time that I’m a computer geek. I make no attempt to hide this fact. I have an iPad and an Android smartphone, as well as several computers (including a classic Commodore 64). I follow trends in the tech world, and try to figure out how to use them to the Church’s advantage.
With my geek cred established, it might come as a surprise that I agree with the New Zealand bishops. Electronic devices, like iPads and smartphones have their place within the Church, and should receive wide use by people at all levels for the work of the Church, but the celebration of the Mass is one place where we should be reticent about bringing these forms of technology into play.
The written word is an important aspect of our worship, so much so that the books used for the celebration of the Mass should be high-quality, durable, and beautiful. There should be a permanence to the books used at the altar and ambo, because the words we speak at Mass are truly the Word of God. Words have power, and the Word of God spoken during the Mass have the power to make Christ present in the proclamation of the Scriptures and in His Real Presence through the Words of Institution.
The Word of God is permanent, existing for all eternity, and became incarnate through Our Lord taking on human flesh through the Blessed Virgin Mary. For this reason, it is fitting that the texts used for the celebration of the Mass be permanent and tangible through the use of books dedicated for the celebration of the Mass, and not transitory and intangible data on an iPad screen. So, for the purposes of celebrating Mass, I agree that electronic devices should not replace the Roman Missal.
I do believe there are places for electronic devices outside of the actual celebration of the liturgy. For at least 2 years now, I have used an iPad to display my homiletic notes while I preach the weekend homilies. I’ve found this to be a good use for the iPad, especially since it is a lot less wasteful than printing up the notes on paper – I’d estimate that I’ve saved well over 100 pieces of paper in that time. It also allows me to occasionally record the homily for later publication over the blog (as I did last weekend).
I also agree with Thomas McDonald that e-ink devices could easily replace the throw-away missals that nearly every parish uses. (Catholic publishers, like Our Sunday Visitor, Word Among Us or Magnificat, are you listening?) Instead, the parish buys a dedicated “plug server” and the required number of dedicated e-ink readers (think non-Fire Kindles). The server is connected to the Internet, and communicates with the readers over a dedicated wi-fi link.
When a parishioner picks up the e-ink reader, it connects to the server and grabs the entire text of the Mass. I especially like Thomas’ idea of having the hymns right in line. No more page flipping or announcing, “Please join in hymn #XXX.” Think of a custom-made worship aid at every Mass without the hassle. Just tell the server what hymns to add for the day, and it does the rest, including downloading the daily readings directly from the publisher. It would also eliminate the confusion that comes with the necessary separation of the ordinary and propers of the Mass in current missals.
So, Catholic publishers who might be willing to take this on, I’ll take 150 e-ink readers and a couple of the servers, but I’ll keep the Roman Missal and Lectionaries in the sanctuary.
Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Technology and the Spiritual Life
Technology is a wonderful thing, and the human ability to create and use new technologies is a gift from God. However, I have become increasingly concerned about my own use of technology, especially computers and Internet-based technologies. It struck me that it is far too easy to get absorbed in things like social networking and games, which then allows our spiritual life to be neglected.
Turns out I’m not the only one who feels this way. In fact, I’m in good company. As our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, said in his Urbi et Orbi message on Christmas 2005: “men and women in our technological age risk becoming victims of their own intellectual and technological achievements, ending up in spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart.” This quote is in the book The Environment, which is a compilation of quotes and documents from Pope Benedict dealing with environment issues.
If you’re like me, it’s easy to find hours to spend on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc., but struggle to find even a few minutes to set aside for prayer. When we don’t pray, our spiritual life suffers. The challenge for us is to turn off the computer, the TV, video games and smartphones so that we can make time for prayer. Technology is good, prayer is better.