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“Speak with warmth and with devotion, with simplicity, candor, and trust... The words need to be inflamed, not through yelling or oversized gestures, but rather through inner feeling; it needs to come from the heart rather than the lips... The heart speaks to the heart, and the tongue speaks only to the ears.” Sermons are good if they change the lives of those who hear them."
Saint Francis de Sales was famous among his contemporaries for his holiness, which was also expressed through good manners. “His biographies speak of Francis as a perfect gentleman with everyone, whether they were noble, learned, or simple people,” says Father Scudu, “a man who always had a smile for the people he spoke with, who treated everyone with kindness and friendliness; who, when arguing with his Protestant adversaries, never used harsh, threatening, arrogant, or humiliating words. His adversaries came away from Francis perhaps unconvinced by his theological arguments, but won over all the same by his always-respectful behavior.” He himself summarized the importance of good manners in his own pastoral work, saying: “You attract more flies with a drop of honey than a barrel of vinegar.”
But what did Francis de Sales know? He had only gone in on foot, by himself, and re-evangelized an entire area of alpine France where every Catholic church had been padlocked for 60 years because its ruler was Protestant. He was only a bishop and the man whom, his generation - the "generation of saints" who began the Catholic revival that transformed France and whose effect lasted 150 years - regarded as the greatest living saint. He is only a Doctor of the Church.
Frances de Sales didn't have to deal with idiots in comboxes. What could he possibly have to say to us? After all, someone out there on the internet is wrong!
This new UK book on apologetics looks great. Based upon the experience of the ordinary Catholics who made themselves available to the media during Pope Benedict's visit to Britain, Catholic Voices: Putting the Case for the Church in the Era of 24 Hour News, can help us with an approach and skills that win "hearers, not arguments."
It combines arguments and facts with practical media skills, hearing the ‘question behind the question’ and listening for the ‘positive intention’ behind the criticisms. It gives insider tips on how to present arguments clearly, compellingly and concisely in a quick-fire atmosphere.
"The teaching and practice of the Catholic Church are summarised, the reasons for them explained, and the objections against them teased out.
The treatment is urbane, respectful of journalists and of the media to which they belong. In each case attention is paid to the positive values that underlie both Catholic teaching and the objections raised by its critics. The eirenical character of the presentation flows from the simple principles of good communication enunciated in the book. They are based on respect due to partners in conversation and on recognition of the positive values that animate them. Respect enables differences to be explored in a way that generates light, not heat, speaks to the heart as well as the mind, is compassionate, and focuses on winning people rather than winning battles. Respect for truth entails respect for those who seek it, despite disagreements with the positions they take."
"We have very strong growth among Pentecostal movements. That is a new reality worldwide, which is almost the second largest [Christian] movement after the Catholic Church. Actually we should speak of a Pentecostalization of ecumenism."
I've been tracking it as best I can but only became aware last week of the stunning acceleration in the number of converts from Islam to Christianity that has taken place over the past decade. As in a half million Bengali Muslims who have become Christians, 300,000 among North African Berbers, 350,000 in Iran and more in the Iranian diaspora. Not to mention the explosive T4 movement in Muslim areas of China. Based upon what I was reading last week, it seems that there must be at least one million Muslim Background Believers in the world now, which in world history terms is absolutely unprecedented. 90-95% of these conversions have occurred over the past 20 years, most in the past decade!
Because of the historic distrust and vast cultural differences between "historic" Christians and these brand new Christians, we are seeing the development of two separate forms of Christianity in the Muslim world. Some of these new Christ-followers are not baptized, some are.
It is not impossible to envision a point where there will be more "new" Christians from Muslim backgrounds than "historic" Christians living in the traditional Muslim world. Another unprecedented challenge in the area of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue.
Today is the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The resources for prayer on the Vatican website were composed of representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and Old Catholic and Protestant Churches active in Poland.
THE THEME FOR THE YEAR 2012 is an encouraging one.
“We will all be changed by the Victory of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(cf. 1 Cor 15:51-58)
Pope Benedict's catechesis today was challenging:
Benedict XVI explained that the Second Vatican Council “placed the ecumenical search at the centre of life and of the Church’s work.” It is up to “the responsibility of the entire Church and of all the baptised, who must augment the partial communion that already exists among Christians until achieving full communion in truth and charity,” he added.
This is why prayer for unity “must then be an integral part of the prayer life of all Christians, in all times and places, especially when people from different traditions come together to work for victory in Christ over sin, evil, injustice and the violation of human dignity.”
Benedict XVI reminded faithful that “since the birth of the modern ecumenical movement, over a century ago, there has always been a clear awareness of the fact that a lack of unity among Christians prevents a more efficient announcement of the Gospel, because it destroys or jeopardizes our credibility. How can we give a convincing testimony if we are divided?”
And if it is true that “as far as the fundamental truths of the faith are concerned, there is far more that unites us than divides us,” “divisions over practical and ethical questions do remain, spreading confusion and mistrust, weakening our ability to pass on” the Gospel.
In this sense, according to Pope Benedict XVI, ecumenism “is a great challenge for the new evangelisation, which will be more fruitful if all Christians together announce the truth of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, and give a joint response to the spiritual thirst of our times.”
I may be the last person on the planet to hear about this - but the majority of the chocolate consumed in this country involved slave labor at some point in its production. Because the Ivory Coast is the largest cocoa producing country and 90% of the cocoa there is grown with slave labor. 100,000 children are thought to be involved in the Ivory Coast. CNN has an excellent detailed expose: The Human Cost of Chocolate.
There are a number of websites that monitor various chocolate brands for their involvement in slavery. But the simplest standard seems to be buy 1) fair trade or 2) organic.
The book manuscript on parish-based evangelization is done. I sent it to my editor at Our Sunday Visitor last week. The original plan was publication this June but we'll see.
Since I only had 5 months to get it done, I worked 12 + hours a day, 7 days a week except for Christmas and when I was already scheduled to be on the road. So, no time for blogging.
Here's a taste from Chapter 3 "The Weight of My Neighbor's Glory"
The presence of a significant number of disciples changes everything: a parish’s spiritual tone, energy level, attendance, bottom line, and what parishioners ask of their leaders.
Disciples pray with passion. Disciples worship. Disciples love the Church and serve her with energy and joy. Disciples give lavishly. Disciples hunger to learn more about their faith. Disciples fill every formation class in the parish or diocese. Disciples manifest charisms and discern vocations. They clamor to discern God’s call because they long to live it. Disciples evangelize because they have really good news to share. Disciples share their faith with their children. Disciples care about the poor and about issues of justice. Disciples take risks for the Kingdom of God.
The Holy Spirit is planting charisms and vocations of amazing diversity in the hearts of all his people. Like the graces of the sacrament, they are real but they are not magic. Just as the gifts of children must be fostered deliberately and with great energy by parents if their children are to reach their full potential, so vocations must be fostered by the Church. In this area, we are not asking for too much, we are settling for too little. God is not asking us to call forth the gifts and vocations of a few people; he is asking us to call forth the gifts and vocations of millions. Our problem is not that there is a shortage of vocations but that we do not have the support systems and leadership in place to foster the vast majority of the vocations that God has given us. Most fundamentally, when we fail to call our own to discipleship, we are unwittingly pushing away the vast majority of the vocations God has given us.
So far, no culture shock at the missions congress I'm attending. The majority of people came from outside the country and its a sea of black heads. But one thing I and my friend agree on: the tremendous different in tone. This is a gathering of highly committed evangelical/Pentecostal missions types and many major leaders that I've heard of for years are here.
And they repeatedly say things ...like "God is doing amazing things, stupendous things over the past 10 years. Things only dreamed of before in the 2,000 year history of Christianity. We are an incredibly blessed generation to be living to see this."
They live in the same world that Catholics do. But they see if with totally different eyes. As they see the 50 years since 1960 with different eyes. they are focused on the incredible growth of Christianity in the global south while we are fixated on the decline of the last remnants of Christendom in the west.
And the flying car is there with its creator Steve Saint. It can fly for 3 hours and drive 450 miles.
I'm off in the morning to Los Angeles. Only this time to attend a conference that I signed up for last January - back when I thought that I never had any commitments right after Thanksgiving! It is a large, high level evangelical Congress on global evangelism called Call2All that is being held at the Long Beach convention center. I haven't spent time in this sort of environment since I became Catholic so I expect to be challenged and experience a bit of culture shock. I'm going with a friend and collaborator who is also bi-cultural (former Baptist). Even with the book looming over me, this should be fun and a real learning experience.
For instance, they have a whole track about something that Catholics NEVER talk about: Orality. What they mean by that is that 70% of the world population learns primarily through oral means rather than written means - even if they are literate. In fact, they have a category called "secondary orality" by which they mean literate westerners - even college grads - who are still oral learners in their hearts and never read a book again willingly once they have finished school. As they point out, these people need to be evangelized and discipled differently but almost all the methods used by evangelists currently are those of people who learn through written materials. So solar powered audio Bibles, anyone? Creative story-telling, etc. Very interesting. I'll post more as the week goes on.
I am profoundly grateful to God and to many people, including all who read this blog and are collaborators with us this Thanksgiving. So I thought I'd share some inspiring gratitude thoughts:
“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.” — G. K. Chesterton
"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." - G. K. Chesterton
“Thou that has given so much to me, Give one thing more–a grateful heart; Not thankful when it pleaseth me, As if thy blessings had spare days; But such a heart, whose pulse may be Thy praise.”
– George Herbert
“If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.” — Meister Eckhart
"Gratitude brought me into the church and that gratitude grows, and the first word my heart will utter when I face my God is 'Thanks'." - Dorothy Day
'Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.' I Chronicles 16:34
Here's a cool Thanksgiving link for children or anyone interested in what really happened at the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving (which was not the very first Christian Thanksgiving in the New World). From the living history museum at Plimoth Plantation.
The numbers are designed to get your attention. The only problem is that 1) the numbers are wrong and 2) in any case, the numbers don’t mean what VI apparently thinks they mean. Because there are tens of thousands more Catholics every day but it still isn't good news.
Ah globalization. VI identified a mysterious source, Analisis Digirtal (!), as the source of the report. Analisis Digital turns out to be an online news source from Uruguay. But the Status of Global Mission is in fact, published in English by the evangelical Protestant Center for Global Christianity headquartered at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in the US. This report has been issued annually for at least 20 years. At least that is how long I’ve been consulting it.
So apparently, the 2011 SGM was translated from English into Spanish, picked up by Analisis Digital and then VI, translated into Italian and then back into somewhat quixotic English and a few things got lost in translation. Since there’s nothing like going directly to the source, here’s the link to the original.
Now for the Errata:
As you can see, the number of Catholics added to our rank every day is estimated to be 31,000, not 34 thousand as reported by VI. Just to be clear, the overwhelming majority of this group of new Catholics has joined us through natural biological growth, not conversion.
Here’s the information you need to grasp the significance of these numbers.
The SGM estimates that 234,000 additional human beings are added to our planet every 24 hours. The Catholic contribution of 31,000 is just 13.25% of the total which is significantly lower than our 16.5% “cut” of the human population. In other words, our slice of the global human pie is shrinking, not growing.
83,000 additional Christians are added every 24 hours. Catholics make up almost exactly half of the Christians on this planet in 2011 but our portion of the growth is only 37.3% - far below what it would need to be to sustain us at 50%. 56.6% of all Christian growth comes from the heirs of the Reformation. Our share of the global Christian pie is shrinking, not growing.
The Atlas of Global Christianity (produced by the same group that maintains the Status of Global Mission) estimates that the global Catholic population will only make up 45.5% of all Christians by 2050.
Catholic per annum growth is only 0.98% while that of historic Protestant groups is 1.68% and that of Independent Christians is 2.33%. Independent Christians have the fastest growth of any religious group on earth and are the only religious group growing faster than Islam. The majority of Independent growth is through conversion rather than birth.
As you can see from my comment below, Independent Christians are wildly diverse. We have got to get over our easy assumptions that they are all stupid and venial (while patting ourselves on the back about how smart and noble we are to have the good taste to be born Catholic or to have converted.) Some of these people are very impressive by any standards. Take a look at this post which I did last Easter about one of the impressive ones.
Intentional Disciples Blog
