Earlier this week, I gave a talk at a parish in St. Paul on the importance of formation in the life of a parish. Among the topics I addressed in my talk were the goals of adult faith formation. As I see it, there are at least five related pieces to formation: prayer, knowledge of the faith, moral formation, social justice/missionary spirit and liturgical life/communal life.

Prayer is obviously the fundamental starting point because without prayer, everything just becomes “head” stuff and there is a real risk of not being guided by spirit. Therefore adult faith formation has to include some emphasis on things that will encourage and deepen the prayer life of parishioners, the teach people new ways to pray, and to give them places to share fruits of prayer.

I include knowledge of the faith because lamentably, many people lack a basic understanding of many of the fundamentals of the faith. At the most basic level, we want to encourage people to focus on what it is that we recite every week at Mass in the Creed. The Creed contains the basic irreducible elements of our faith that every Catholic should understand. Yet, many people recite it by rote, giving little or no thought to what they are affirming.

When I speak of moral formation, I mean to include not just the dos and don’ts, but also the bases for the moral choices we are asking people to make. In many ways Catholicism is counter-cultural. Both for parishioner’s own understand and to contribute to their ability to evangelize others, it is incumbent on us to find ways to help people understand the bases for the moral judgments the Church has made.

Social justice…sigh. What I often hear from people in parishes is “you know, people are not all that interested in social justice. My response is always, “tell them to read Matthew 25.” I don’t think one can call oneself Catholic and not care about social justice.” As Catholics, our faith is about who we are in the world. That means that an adult faith formation has to include helping people understand principles of Catholic social thought and how they apply in their lives.

The final goal of adult faith formation is conveying something of the importance of our communal liturgical and other celebrations. As Catholics, our faith is not an individual faith but a communal one. It is important, therefore, to foster an understanding of the communal and liturgical aspects of our faith.

My talk also covered issues having to do with the challenges we face in designing successful adult formation program and the preliminary question of why we should care about formation. But I’d be interested in knowing if others perceive there to be other goals or areas important for adult faith formation to address other than those I have identified.

An article in the November 2 issue of America on pastoring atheists quoted some lines from Dag Hammarskjold’s journal, Markings, that have always resonated with me. Hammarskjold wrote:

I don’t know Who – or what – put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender, had a goal.”

For me it captures something of the reality of the spiritual journey for many of us. There is a part of us that wants everything figured out in advance. We want to know all the particulars, to have all the “i”s dotted and the “t”s crossed. We want to know exactly what it is we are signing onto.

But there came a point where we – perhaps tentatively – said yes, without a whole lot of assurance as to exactly what all the terms and conditions were. Maybe, like Hammarskjold, we couldn’t even really articulate who we were saying yes to or what we were affirming. But we said yes and surrendered to something larger than ourselves, certain that it gave meaning to our lives.

I now have words for the “Who” I said yes to (although I don’t think I did at the first moment I said yes). For me it is yes to God the Father, who created me and gives my life its purpose and meaning. And it is yes to God the Son, who became flesh. And it is yes to God the Spirit, who dwells in us.

You might articulate the Who and the What differently from the way I do. But the yes to an ultimate reality, to a Truth beyond ourselves, to something that gives our life meaning, is something that unites us.

Today’s Gospel from St. Luke is a beautiful parable of God’s love and forgiveness. In response to the complaint of the Pharisees and scribes that he welcomes sinners and eats with them, Jesus asks, “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?” And when he finds it, Jesus says, there will be great rejoicing among the man and his friends and neighbors that he has found the lost sheep.

Now, the reality is that no shepherd in his right mind would do as Jesus suggests. No shephard is going to risk the safety of ninety-nine sheep by leaving them alone to go off and look for one missing sheep. Jesus knew this and he knew his audience would know it as well.

As he so often does, Jesus turns expectations on their head. While the shepherd would easily accept the loss of one to ensure the safety of the ninety-nine, for God each and every one of us is precious. God can’t stand to lose even one, no matter how many others are saved. And so when someone who has been lost returns to the fold, says Jesus, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”

I think we all have times when we feel a little down about ourselves, when we wonder, could God really want me? There are so many others more worthy…more holy…less trouble, etc. (The particulars of our laments may vary, but the thrust is the same.) For those times, this is a wonderful parable to remember. No many how many others stand by God’s side, God wants us there as well. God’s rejoicing is not complete without each and every one of us.

This week was the fourth session at St. Hubert’s in Chanhassen of the Fall Prayer Series I’m offering this Fall at both the University of St. Thomas and at St. Hubert’s. (The UST one has already concluded.) The series is designed to introduce participants to different prayer forms and styles (although even those with some familiarity and experience with the particular styles and forms of prayer can benefit from hearing something they have heard before in a different way).

One of the topics at St. Hubert’s that was not part of the UST series was the topic of Monday night’s session – Praying the Rosary. The Rosary is one of the oldest and most popular forms of prayer in the Catholic tradition. It invites us to look at the life of Christ through and with Mary. In the talk I gave at the session (which I intended to record, but neglected to actually hit “record” on the digital recorder), I emphasized the importance of contemplating the mysteries as we are reciting the prayers of the Rosary. This was something important to Pope John Paul II. In his writings he emphasized that the Rosary is not simply a matter of reciting a lot of words, but of providing a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace to allow us to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord. The repeated mantra of familiar prayers frees our mind to reflect on the lives of Jesus and Mary, to consider how these events are lived out in the world and to discern how we are called to respond.

During the session, I also suggested different ways of engaging in contemplation on the mysteries. I then invited the participants to pray with one of the Luminous Mysteries, the Wedding Feast at Cana, after which they shared with each other in small groups the fruits of their contemplation. The handout we used for our in-session prayer is here.

A number of the participants said after that they had not prayed the Rosary in years. Hopefully the session inspired some to spend some time with this form of prayer that John Paul II said “goes to the very heart of Christian life; it offers familiar yet fruitful spiritual and educational opportunity for personal reflection.”

There are many good resources online to learn more about praying the Rosary. One is here.

Paul gives us some tough advice in today’s first Mass reading, which is taken from his Letter to the Romans. The passage starts with Paul speaking of our using the different gifts we have been given, but then moves to instruction intended for all of us. He instructs us love one another and to serve God and then writes

Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly.

A good checklist to see where we are falling a bit short, where we might need God’s assistance. I paused at a few of those as I reflected on the passage, cognizant of where I have difficulties.

The one that really caught me is “Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.” For myself, that is not a great challenge. I have been able to sincerely pray for those who have caused me injury in one way or the other. (It probably helps that, for the most part, the injuries inflicted on me by others have not been severe enough to merit the label “persecution.”)

But as I read the line, I focused on the real challenge for me, on something I think both Paul and God intend to also be implied in the instruction: Bless those who have injured those you love. Bless and do nor curse those who have inflicted serious pain and suffering on those you hold close to your heart. That is a much harder command.

If I’m being completely honest, I have to admit that when someone I love and care about has been injured by the act of another – especially where the act has inflicted serious pain and suffering – what I experience is a lot closer to rage than blessing. And If I’m really being totally honest, I admit there is a little piece of me (the piece I would prefer to keep buried) that wants to lash out at the person who committed the injury, that wants to get back at them for making someone I love suffer. Not a very Christian reaction and I’m not proud of it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it lurks there.

Yesterdy, on All Souls Day, I sat in the little prayer room above the chapel in the law school praying for those who had died. As I neared the end of my prayer, having named various friends and relatives whose death I mourn, I forced myself to include in my prayer someone who in the past inflicted serious pain and suffering on someone I love. It did not come easy. I mouthed words of blessing, but could not feel love in my heart.

So my prayer when I reflect on this passage is: Lord, let me love like you. Let me feel love and blessing toward not only those who are kind and generous and loving, and not only those who have injured me, but those who have injured those I love. Open my heart so that only blessing and never curse flows forth.

Today the Catholic Church celebrates, All Souls, the Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed. The note following the Psalm for the Prayer for the Morning in the Magnificat says that this commemoration “is rooted in the Church’s strong conviction that we, the living, have a serious responsibility in love to accompany with prayer those who have died but who must yet complete the purification preparation every human being needs to be able to dwell in the all-encompassing love of God.”

Perhaps. And certainly on this day, as I do every day, I pray for those who have died. I pray particularly for those who have died in the last year, but also those family members and friends who have died in years past, whose loss I still feel.

But as I reflect on the Mass readings for this day, it seems to me the day is as much about all of us as it is of those who have died. As we pray for our dead, the day also invites us (as we move toward the end of another liturgical year, where so much of the focus is on death) to focus on the reality of resurrection. The first reading from Wisdom tells us that “the souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them” and that “the faithful shall abide with him in love.” One of the options for the second Mass reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans promises that if we have died with Chirst, we shall also live with him and that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in the newness of life.” In today’s Gospel from John, Jesus states firmly that it is the will of his Father that “I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.” In the Communion antiphon for Mass today, we hear Jesus’ strong proclamation of words that so often bring me comfort: “I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies, he will live. Anyone who lives and believes in me, will not die.”

As we move toward winter, the nights are longer, the days are colder, the leaves fall from the trees and much in the garden is dying. But amidst the dark, the cold and the signs of decay and death, is the promise of resurrection. The promise that we will live in union with our God forever.

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of All Saints. It is a day on which (to use the words of the Opening Prayer for today’s Mass) “we rejoice in the holy men and women of every time and place.” For me it is a day to reflect on the saints who hold a special place in my heart, both those who have been canonized by the church and those who have not. Saints like Francis of Assisi, Vincent de Paul and my great-grandmother.

But I also realization that my typical visualization of the communion of saints doesn’t tend to include many other holy people through the ages in whom there is reason to rejoice. I was reading something the other day about one of the most recent to be added to the ranks of canonized saints – Damien of Molokai, the Belgian-born member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who spent a significant portion of his life working among people suffering from Hansen’s disease (leprosy) on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Damien spent his life ministering to them until he himself contracted the disease and died in 1889.

A comment in America magazine asks what someone like St. Damien, whose life seems so difficult to emulate, can say to us. It suggests that “powerful resonances can be heard if we listen carefully,” explaining

What parent is not called upon to minister to a child who falls ill, even at the risk of contracting the same illness? Who is not called to stand with the outcast, with those whom polite society shuns either literally or metaphorically? Who is not called to do works of charity and love that remain hidden from the rest of the world?

We may not all be called to go to a placed far away from our home to care for those with a disease that has always seemed to hold a certain horror for us. But we are all called to care for the sick, the poor, the outcast, the forgotten, wherever we are.

Today is not just about fondly remembering those who we call saints, but about being inspired by their deeds, seeing them as models for our own discipleship.

My friend Frank recently pointed out to me that the Jewish formulation of the “golden rule” is phrased in the negative, in contrast to the Christian formulation. Whereas Jesus says in Matthew, “Do unto others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets,” the Jewish formulation (via Hillel) is, “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah and the rest is commentary; go and learn it.”

I spent some time contemplating the two lines in order to determine what difference, if any, it made to phrase the rule affirmatively, as Jesus does in Matthew, or negatively, as Hillel does.

It didn’t take too long for me to conclude that there is an enormous difference in the two phrasings. If one visualizes a scale from negative 100 to 100, with negative 100 representing hate/bad/sin and 100 representing love/good/virtue, it seems to me that the negative formulation of the golden rule doesn’t do much more than get one to zero; effectively, it says, don’t be bad. The positive formulation, however, is much more likely to move one along the positive side of the scale. That makes the negative formulation a lot easier to live up to.

The reason for that seemed clear to me as I reflected on each statement, especially when I made the reflection personal, by asking in the negative formulation: what do I not want others to do to me; what in the behavior of others towards me make me unhappy; and in the positive formulation: how do I like others to treat me; what in the behavior of others towards me makes me happy?

Asking the negative versions of those questions doesn’t yield much that encourages positive behavior on my part. The negative version seems to me to function more as a check on a particular potential (bad) act than anything else.

However, asking the question in the positive sense has a much different effect in term so encouraging virtuous behavior. If my reflection leads me to identify (as it did during my reflection) that “I’m really touched when someone does something unexpectedly kind for me,” that has the potential to impel me to affirmatively look for some opportunity to do some gratuitous unexpectedly nice act for another that I might not otherwise have thought to do.

Having said all that, what also seemed clear from my reflection was that looking at the two formulations of the golden rule together gave me a much richer sense than looking at either one alone. I’m not entirely sure that I would feel so strongly about the broadly positive nature of the affirmative formulation of the rule had I not been looking at it alongside the negative formulation.

In today’s Gospel from St. Luke, Jesus is dining on the Sabbath at the home of a leading Pharisee. When he sees a man suffering from dropsy, he asks the scholars and the Pharisees whether or not it is lawful to cure on the Sabbath. When they say nothing, Jesus heals the man and then says to them, “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, woudl not immediatley pull him out on the sabbath day.”

We see many examples in the Gospels of such encounters between the Pharisees and Jesus. Over and over again, Jesus chastises their adherence to the letter of the law in circumstances where such adherence runs counter to the commands of mercy and love. Having said that, Jesus is also clear at various times that he has not come to abolish the law.

I happened to read the other day a passage in Saint of the Day, edited by Leonard Foley, OFM and Pat McCloskey, OFM, that I think does a good job of expressing what Jesus so often tried to convey. The authors write:

Legalism can suck the life out of genuine religion if it becomes too great a preoccupation with the letter of the law to the neglect of the spirit and purpose of the law. The law can become an end in itself, so that the value the law was intended to promote is overlooked. But we must guard against going to the opposite extreme and seeing law as useless or something to be lightly regarded.

Our task is to walk a middle ground between ignoring the commands of the law and following the letter of the law so slavishly that we ignore love and mercy. Doing so successfully requires that we act with the wisdom of the Spirit.

Some months ago I came across an excerpt from the writing of St. Augustine of Hippo speaking of love of God. I thought of posting it at the time, but didn’t for one reason or another. I just came across it again, and didn’t want to pass up a second time a chance to share it.

Augustine starts by observing that everything he sees tells him that he should love God. He then asks what that means and attempts to give some explanation.

What is is that I love when I love you? Not the beauty of any bodily thing, nor the order of seasons, not the brightness of light that rejoices the eye, nor the sweet melodies of all songs, nor the sweet fragrance of flowers and ointments and spices: not manna nor honey, nor the limbs that carnal love embraces. None of these things do I love in loving my God. Yet in a sense I do love light and melody and fragrance and food and embrace when I love my God – the light and the voice and the fragrance and the food and embrace in the soul, when that light shines upon my soul which no place can contain, that voice sounds which no time can take from me, I breathe that fragrance which no wind scatters, I eat the food which is not lessened by eating, and I lie in the embrace which satiety never comes to sunder. That it is I love, when I love my God.

How do you answer the question Augustine puts to himself? What is it that you love when you love God?