Monthly Archives: October 2023

The Silent Request

I am rereading the remarkable Religious Potential of the Child, and was stopped short by this sentence which begins the third chapter.

“The adult who accepts the silent request of the child: “Help me to come closer to God by myself,” must choose the way to give the child the help [he or she] asks for.” (page 33)

Whoa!

And, I wonder if this is actually the silent request of all to show up in a given faith community.  

What would it mean to prioritize attentiveness to this longing?  How would the church change?

I think we would become like a network of spiritual directors, with individuals becoming deeply curious about the silent request of their neighbor and responding with excellence to it.

Free Will

In college, I recall discussing “human free will” as a sort of a given, an endowment that we are born with, like our bones and muscles.

The mystics and behavioral economists, though, show us that this is hardly the case.  The freedom of our will is only a potential within us and something that, with grace and intentional work, we can slowly actualize.  

That is, so much of what I think are “my actions” are only reflexive reactions, based on my mental and physical makeup, my past conditioning, my environment.  I have been programmed, by nature and by nurture, to do certain things.  The path to freedom, then, consists in accepting the (occasionally brutal) grace of seeing the particulars of this reality, and accepting this “learning to see” as a daily process and discipline.  

Then, when we are able to love in ways that do not compute, we can know that we are on the path of freedom.

Turning Two

Sorin Starts a School is turning two!  

It’s been a pretty fun two years, making connections with communities for whom the book is a gift and receiving the news of its Moonbeam award.

To celebrate, we’ve made a curriculum guide for Sorin Starts a School in order to make it easier for educators at Catholic schools and parishes to plan lessons that lead to the heart of our tradition and to the charism of the Congregation of Holy Cross.  

Here is the link to download the guide. Please share it with your educator friends!

And below is an intro video for the guide.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjfcCnoSG6s?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=900&h=507%5D

The Hypocrite’s Preamble

I recently heard someone deeply committed to the mitigation of climate change begin an interview with the following.

“Regarding climate change and the alignment of my actions with what I know I should do, I want to acknowledge that I am and have been a hypocrite. And I also think that in the West we are largely all hypocrites. Now, with that acknowledged, lets focus on how we can do better together.”

Whoa!

I think this “hypocrite preamble” is immensely helpful. Many fears hold us back from acting as we ought, and chief among them is being outed as a hypocrite… fear of the voice (from within or without) saying:

“Well who are you to do something and speak up! You are at fault for x, y, and z!”

But! If I have already acknowledged this, privately and publicly, I am freed from that fear and able to move forward.

And this works for all sorts of things where we try to hide from the fact that we are not perfect. Of course I am not perfect at (insert anything I do). Saying this out loud helps me be less reactive about this reality and to respond with compassion and growth.

(This is one more reason I love and appreciate the Penitential Rite at the beginning of the liturgy.)