Archive for james martin sj

A Franciscan Celebrates the Feast of Ignatius Loyola

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on July 31, 2012 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Having grown up in a military family, being born on a Navy base in Florida while my father, a Marine Corps Officer, was in flight school, I have always had something of an appreciation for Ignatius Loyola, his personal story, and his military-like organization skills. An injured combatant — a canon ball to the leg sounds like something right out of the Hunger Games, but is true no less — Ignatius found himself captivated by the story of Jesus Christ and the lives of the saints while he recovered from his injuries. It was during this time that he had what hagiographers will describe as “his conversion,” his turning away from his previous life toward more of a life in Christ. He went from living for his own glory, to striving always and to do all things For the Greater Glory of God, the motto of the Society of Jesus.

One of the things that I most appreciate about Ignatius was his ability to synthesize the spiritual threads of influence that came to him from the various traditions that inspired his conversion. While it sounds like an insult to suggest that Ignatius didn’t offer a whole lot of originality in his Spiritual Exercises, what is meant by this is to say that he made seeming disparate points of wisdom in the Christian spiritual tradition come together in such a way as to speak perennially to generations to come.

So many people today have been shaped and informed, sometimes without realizing it, by Ignatius’s vision of forming a life of prayer. Insights like the goal of striving to find “God in all things” or the daily “examen” are helpful frameworks and lenses through which women and men continue to shape their daily worldviews. The structure to prayer and Christian living that Ignatius provides has helped to transform the way hundreds of thousands of young people, especially, engage the world around them.

But of all the things that Ignatius popularized in his Exercises and in his lived example, I most appreciate his focus on the Christian Imagination. This should come as no surprise from someone who wrote a book titled Dating God and continues a blog by the same heading. I think that the imagination should play a huge part in the life of every Christian, every person who is striving to recognize God’s Grace in his or her life.

Although St. Bonaventure, the thirteenth-century Franciscan, theologian, and Doctor of the Church, promoted a similar use of imagination in the spiritual life in his lesser-known treatise The Tree of Life (something the late medieval scholar from Fordham University, Ewert Cousins, noted in his work), it is Ignatius who made it a constitutive dimension of the Exercises and therefore a popular and accessible way to get into this way of prayer. Here are a few examples from the Third Week of the Exercises:

While the person is eating, let him [sic] consider if he saw Christ our Lord eating with His Apostles, and how He drinks and how He looks and how He speaks; and let him see to imitating Him…

It belongs to the Passion to ask for grief with Christ in grief, anguish with Christ in anguish, tears and interior pain at such great win which Christ suffered for me…

One doesn’t simply strive to “imagine” as if you were reading a book or hearing a story for your own entertainment, but to take that experience of the Holy Spirit working through the human capacity to imagine and use it as a way to see how Christ would act in a situation and follow the model of the Lord in one’s own life. In a sense, like Bonaventure before Ignatius on imagination in prayer, Ignatius anticipates the popular phrase “what would Jesus do?” that comes some three-hundred years later as it first appeared in Charles Sheldon’s 1897 book In His Steps.

There is so much more wisdom that Ignatius leaves us today. For more, I recommend three excellent and relatively recent books that you should check out.

The first is the newest, Mark Mossa, SJ’s Saint Ignatius Loyola: The Spiritual Writings – Selections Annotated & Explained (SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2012). This is a handy little collection of Ignatius’s writings and some wonderfully insightful notes and comments by Mark along the way.

The next is Kevin O’Brien, SJ’s The Ignatian Adventure: Experiencing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in Daily Life (Loyola Press, 2011). This is a heftier book, one designed especially for college-age people who are looking for a meaningful and accessible way to study and embrace the Exercises in everyday life. Kevin is the director of campus ministry at Georgetown University, so his writing style is informed by that experience.

Finally, last but not least, the best-selling The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (HarperOne, 2010), by James Martin, SJ. This is perhaps the most popular book on Ignatian spirituality currently on the shelves (perhaps even more than the Exercises themselves!). Jim, in his usually humorous and accessible way, delivers a very approachable guide to seeing how the wisdom and writings of Ignatius and the Ignatian tradition can speak to the everyday experience of Catholics, Christians and even non-Christians.

To all my Jesuit friends, colleagues, and acquaintances — Happy Feast Day!
And St. Ignatius Loyola, Pray for Us.

Photo: Stock

3 Comments »

Fr. James Martin, SJ’s #WhatSistersMeanToMe Campaign

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on April 26, 2012 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Here is an excerpt from Fr. James Martin’s guest column on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” page. Like so many others, Fr. Martin has been reflecting on his gratitude for women religious in his life and has been encouraging others to do likewise. You can read more inspirational reflections on twitter by following this new hashtag of gratitude. He acknowledges how some very negative critics — who consider themselves Catholics in good standing, including one notoriously vitriolic and oftentimes disrespectful priest who has a rather loyal following online — have attempted to hijack the hashtag of gratitude to harass the LCWR and others in support of the more-than 80% of United States women religious who are affected by the latest news. Read the entire column below to learn more.

Last week, on the day when the Vatican released the results of its investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80 percent of women’s religious orders in this country, I received emails from several Catholic sisters. All described themselves as saddened, stunned or demoralized by the Vatican document, which severely criticized the LWCR in a number of areas.

Catholic sisters are my heroes. They have been my teachers, spiritual directors, mentors, bosses and friends. I can barely begin to describe the admiration I have for these women, many of them now in their 70s and 80s, and for what that they have done for God, for the church, for what Catholics call the “people of God,” and for me.

When I was a young Jesuit working in Nairobi, Kenya, for example, two elderly Maryknoll sisters patiently listened to my worries about living in the developing world, shared some of their own experiences of years in ministry in remote villages, and encouraged me to “push on,” as they say in East Africa. When my father was dying of cancer ten years ago, one Religious of Jesus and Mary sister took a four-hour train ride to visit him in the hospital for an hour, stayed overnight at a nearby convent, and the next morning took the train home, for another four-hour journey. When I thanked her, she thanked me for the “honor” of letting her come. And during a difficult spiritual crisis, one Sister of St. Joseph helped me to find God in the midst of my doubts, and was even able to get me to smile. “God did all the work,” she said, when I thanked her, “not me.”

In the wake of the Vatican document, my sister friends, some nearing the end of their lives, seemed to need a word of gratitude. The very least I could do was to show some support in a small way–on Twitter. (Of course I had written about my admiration for them before, but it seemed that it was a particularly good time for praise.) Besides, gratitude is always in season…

To Read more, go to: “What Sisters Mean to Me.”

For an earlier story from the Huffington Post on the same topic, go to: “Rev. James Martin…“

Photo: University of San Francisco

4 Comments »

My Laugh With the Saints: ‘Between Heaven and Mirth’ a Must-Read!

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on November 7, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Those who know me best know how much I like to joke around and laugh. I’m what you might call a jokester or a goofball, one who enjoys cracking up and cracking others up in the process. Some people, though, are not particularly fond of my sense of humor. For example, when I was in college and worked as a staff photographer and then photo editor at the college newspaper. Each semester we’d have a banquet to celebrate another season’s published work. It was a time to relax, a time to be proud of our hard work and a time to tease one another for our idiosyncrasies. This last part of the event came through in the awards that the editorial board would give to each other (think “The Dundies” from NBC’s The Office). Well, for several semesters in a row, I was the proud recipient of the “Beating a Dead Horse Award” for my frequent over-use of jokes and repeating (ad nauseum it would appear) things I thought were hilarious. I just can’t let a funny time go unacknowledged or celebrated (some things never change!).

Some people find it bizarre that a Franciscan friar would enjoy laughing and joking so much (and, by the way, there are many religious and priests who fall into this category). Many folks just think that religion is “too serious” and, rather literally, “no laughing matter.”

This is where Fr. James Martin, SJ, enters the scene. The best-selling author of many books, including the highly acclaimed My Life with the Saints (Loyola, 2006) also in translation Mi Vida Con Los Santos, and Culture Editor at America magazine, Martin has written a book that seeks to challenge this misconception about the place of joy, humor and laughter in the spiritual life. His new book, Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life (HarperOne, 2011), is a must-read!

I’ve been meaning to read this book for a few weeks now and I’m delighted to have had the chance to finally get to it. Martin’s writing style is, as always, approachable, humorous and entertaining. In many ways I couldn’t help seeing this book as something as the “next in a series” to My Life with the Saints (hence the pun title of this post) — Martin suggests as much in explaining the origin of this project.

This book had its genesis a few years ago when I began to give talks based on a book called My Life with the Saints, a memoir telling the story of twenty saints who had been influential in my spiritual life. In a short while I noticed something surprising. Wherever I spoke — whether in parishes, colleges, conference, or retreat centers — what people want to hear about most was the way the saints were joyful people, joyed lives full of laughter, and how their holiness led inevitably to joy. To a degree that astonished me, people seemed fascinated by joy. It was almost as if they’d been waiting to be told that it’s okay to be religious and enjoy themselves, to be joyful believers. (2)

He goes on to explain that part of this hesitance toward embracing the joy of faith and spirituality might stem from the fact that so many religious leaders, what Martin calls “professional religious people,” are dour, somber, serious-looking (and acting) people. Yet, Martin points out, there is this abundance of history and material from our Christian tradition that contradicts this perception of the inappropriateness of joy, humor and laughter in the spiritual life.

Drawing on the wisdom of many voices (a very welcome feature of the book), Martin presents sound scholarly and historical evidence, exegesis and interpretation about the place of levity and joy in Scripture and prayer. One of my favorite examples of this occurs early in the book when Martin (hilariously) retells the story of the Prophet Jonah. I remember taking a graduate exegesis seminar course at the Washington Theological Union four years ago during which the Scripture professor highlighted exactly what Martin brings out so well — nearly every movement in the Jonah narrative is ridiculously funny! Yet, so many people overlook the humor of the inspired Word of God in how Scripture conveys Revelation. It’s ok to laugh!

This carries over to our models of Christian living, the Saints. Martin asks the question: “So why does the popular imagination overwhelmingly think of the saints as grumpy, or at least overly serious?” To which he responds:

Well, if all traces of humor have been removed from our understanding of Jesus’s personality, and if the Christian tradition has had a good deal of its natural humor leeched out, and if “real” religion is supposed to be serious, then the saints, the models par excellence of Christian life, are, not surprisingly, portrayed as the most serious Christians of all. In short, if religion is supposed to be gloomy, then the saints must be depicted as the gloomiest of all men and women. (71)

Yet, as Martin keenly highlights at every turn, religion is not supposed to be gloomy and therefore the models of how to live Christian life to the fullest really shouldn’t be portrayed that way. To illustrate this truth, Martin uses the example of St. Francis of Assisi. He highlights Francis’s at-times bizarre behavior and the way in which he and his fellow Friars embodied the moniker “holy fool,” striving to live joyfully for Christ.

In one chapter, Martin develops a list of “11 1/2 reasons for good humor,” among these are counted evangelization, humility, recognition of reality, prophetic speech, courage, healing and others. Each of these sections helps build the case for the value of humor in religious life. For me, it seems so obvious: who doesn’t like a funny person? Humor indeed attracts and religion should be attractive. This doesn’t ever mean that one should make fun of religion, but it does mean that religion and spirituality are not intended to be vacuums of joy, humor and laughter.

One of the things about this book that keeps the attention of the reader so well is the variety of chapter styles. While some of the early chapters are more traditionally structured, others, including the last few, take unique and creative shapes. Chapter Seven, for example, is a series of questions and answer (the last of which is: “Father Martin, Do you Want to hear a joke?” — “Only if it’s a good one!”). The book also contains lots of sidebars throughout that offer stories and jokes to both illustrate and entertain.

As with his The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (HarperOne, 2010), Martin has made a real effort to make this book as accessible to all people — not just your run-of-the-mill Roman Catholics or other practicing Christians — as possible. Included on many pages are footnotes that clarify and explain terms and ideas that might not be all-that familiar to many readers. While at times it gets a bit distracting for those who already know, the effort to reach a wider audience and help spread the word that religion isn’t supposed to be a sad affair quickly makes up for any inconvenience of minor distraction. One of the greatest assets of this book is the very thorough index at the back, which includes all the entries you’ll ever need to find this or that Scripture passage or author reference.

This is a book I highly recommend. For those who are already familiar with Fr. James Martin’s work, you will not be surprised by the quality of this text. For those who aren’t yet familiar with his writing, pick up Between Heaven and Mirth – I’m sure it won’t be the last one of his books you read.

There were several times when I laughed out loud reading the book. The rest of the time I must have just had this smirk on my face, because it’s that sort of entertaining.

The last three lines of the book are well-worth quoting, because I think it’s advice that all should follow very closely: “So be joyful. Use your sense of humor. And laugh with the God who smiles when seeing you, rejoices over your very existence, and takes delight in you, all the days of your life” (236).

Amen.

2 Comments »

Friends of God and Prophets: Happy All Saints!

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on November 1, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Today is an awesome day for several reasons. As a child I always loved the day after Halloween — November 1st — because that meant that my birthday was exactly two-weeks away. For the last ten years or so, that hasn’t been all that important (although I do still like the month of November — I’m a Fall Season sort of person). The other reason today is awesome is the Solemnity that we celebrate in the Church calendar — the Feast of All Saints.

I am of two minds about the way that the Church separates today’s celebration and tomorrow’s — All Souls — because I am a firm believer that, following the language of St. Paul, we are all saints in communion with one another through Baptism into the Church, which is the Body of Christ. Today seems, on one hand, to be a little too ‘exclusive’ because it recognizes those who are officially listed in the canon of saints. Yet, on the other hand, there is something about collectively holding up the models of Christian living the saints we recognize as models of Christian living. St. Bernard of Clairvaux highlights the value of this example and inspiration the saints provide in his Sermon 2:

Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to swell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints. But, our dispositions change. The Church of all the first followers of Chris awaits us, but we do nothing about it. The saints want us to be with them, and we are indifferent. The souls of the just await us, and we ignore them.

It was in talking with one of my professors at the Washington Theological Union not too long ago that the idea that twofold understanding of the saints’ relationship to us outlined by Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ — namely, as both patrons and companions — can help make sense of the All Saints/All Souls split. All Saints is the celebration of the Communion of Saints in terms of the patronage model, while All Souls is the Church’s recognition of the companionship model. I’m not sure if I entirely buy the split, preference always seems to go to the canonized saints over the anonymous or lesser-known companions in Christ.

In her essay, “A Community of Holy People in a Sacred World: Rethinking the Communion of Saints,” (New Theology Review 12 [1999] 5-16), Johnson encourages us not to focus so much on the patronage model that has become the de facto mode of approaching the Communion of Saints, but to remember that the Communion of Saints is far richer and broader than those canonized. “The point is that corporately, inclusively, without discrimination, the whole living Church is a communion of saints” (6).

It seems, following the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, Johnson — who wrote Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints –supports my reluctance to embrace the demarcation of All Saints and All Souls:

The Church is not divided into saints and non-saints. Vivified by grace, every woman, man, and child, in whatever diverse circumstances and of whatever race, class, ethnicity, sexual persuasion, or other marker that at once identifies and divides human beings, participates in God’s holy life… the holiness of ordinary persons in the midst of ordinary time needs to be ever more strongly underscored if people are not to be robbed of their heritage and their true identity (7).

The Jesuit author James Martin, SJ, who wrote the hugely popular My Life with the Saints (Loyola Press, 2006) — still one of the books I most often recommend to people — recently wrote a piece in America Magazine about the importance of emphasizing both patron and companion models of the saints in a healthy tension, rather than swinging to one extreme or the other.

When it comes to devotion to the saints one must hold in tension their dual roles as patron and companion. An overemphasis on one destroys the saint’s humanity, renders their earthly lives almost meaningless and negates their roles as models, examples and companions as Christian disciples. An overemphasis on the other makes their new lives in heaven meaningless, renders the tradition of intercession irrelevant and negates their current place in the communion of saints.

However we strive to hold the tension between patron and companion in our image of saints, we should always remember that we are each intimately part of the Body of Christ, connected to one another beyond space, time and all things that would otherwise separate us in our world. It’s nice to know that we walk with companions who are also friends of God and prophets, as we work to be the same for others. Likewise, when we pray Ora pro nobis, we should remember that we can similarly offer our prayers for others.

Happy feast day!

Photo: Ira Thomas

1 Comment »

Ministry Online: A Necessary Norm, Not an Exceptional Practice

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on June 28, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

I was delighted to see Jim Martin, SJ’s recent article in America Magazine titled, “Status Update: How Well is the Church Reaching Out to People in the Digital Age?” My delight stems from yet another affirmation of something that I’ve advocated — here and in non-digital venues — for some years now. Namely, the pastoral and theological presence of ministers of the Church online is not simply a curious exception to the “real-time” norm, but must become a second-nature presumption in a digital age. If we are called to preach the Gospel at all times and meet people where they are, then we must go to the asynchronous (and increasingly “faster-than real-time”) internet and the virtual spaces where so many of today’s people spend their time. We must venture into the web, offering a Christian voice in a largely consumer-driven virtual-world.

Fr. Jim makes a good point right out of the gates: while most Catholic (and by extension, other Christian communities) organizations have a website, few update their internet presence with any reasonable regularity.

The bad news is that more than a few Catholic sites are unimaginative, difficult to navigate, full of dead links and look like they have not been redesigned since the Clinton administration. In the print world, magazine editors are encouraged to redesign every five years. On the Web, reinvention happens more frequently. If the medium is the message, then the message is that the church is often a laggard. More lamentable than the appearance is the content: while church sites are repositories for information, they are often nothing more than that. While Mass times and donor information are important, a good Web site requires more than just raw facts. As philosophers might say, these are a necessary but not sufficient condition for stickiness.

Most good Web sites are updated daily. If they want young eyeballs, then this is done several times a day. And good Web administrators post not just text but video, podcasts, slideshows and interactive conversations. If not, he or she should not be surprised by a lack of visitors. Those who wonder whether it is really possible to update sites daily would do well to remember that there is plenty going on in our church, so it is not hard to be creative: point viewers to international church news they might not otherwise see; upload videos of Catholic speakers; link to articles from your favorite Catholic magazines (hint); point to new (or old) Catholic art; and post the latest Vatican press release.

He moves to address some of the most common retorts the skeptical offer those who, like me and Fr. Jim and others, insist that this web presence is not optional. The first is the classic “I have no time” argument. Guess what? Everybody has 24-hours in a day. I regularly get asked “where do you find the time?” concerning my blogging, writing, speaking, studying, etc., to which I have to respond “you have to make the time.” Plain and simple. The same is said to those who want to be more physically active, go to the gym, start a new hobby and so on (remember that New Year’s resolution?). You cannot “find” time, you must make this or that thing (including internet ministry) a priority and therefore preserve the time. In other words, discipline.

Martin addresses what he (and the “kids these days”) call the “haters,” those vitriolic and largely anonymous bloggers and commenters out there who border on libel and see their mission as the orthodoxy police as ordained from on high. Such folks are often incredibly unqualified to make the remarks they spew, but nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that dialogue and web presence means that you have to be savvy in responding to all sorts of readers. How one handles such instances — often with the need to develop some tough skin — is very important.

He goes on:

Does the church seriously want to reach young people? I mean people who are really young—not just under 50, but under 25—young men and women in college or high school. The church longs to reach the young, but is it willing to speak not only in the language of young people, but in the modes they use? Or does the church expect them to come to it and speak, as it were, in its own language?

Jesus, after all, asked his followers to go to the ends of the earth, not just to places where they felt comfortable. And Jesus did not sit around in Capernaum waiting for people to come to him. Sometimes people came to the house where he was staying; more often, he went to them. And more important, Jesus spoke in a language that people understood and used media that people found accessible.

The conclusion Martin draws is clear: if Jesus were alive today (something I pondered in an article about the theological concept of Koinonia in the Digital Age back in a 2010 issue of the journal Review for Religious) he would likely be found online, because his mission was to reach out to others, especially those on the margins. I can assure you that the increasingly aging population at your parish’s daily mass does not qualify as the marginal in this context and you do not need to blog or tweet for them.  But the unchurched and the young are online and if you’re not willing to go out to reach them, as Jesus would have it, then who will?

Leave A Comment »

Vatican Response: “A Christian Never Rejoices”

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on May 2, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

The Catholic News Service has reported that the Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, has released the following statement on the occasion of the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden:

Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions for this purpose.

In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion  for the further growth of peace and not of hatred.

May we live these words and take them to heart. So many people, including very dedicated religious men and women, are allowing themselves to be swept up by the fervor of the ostensible catharsis in the killing of Osama Bin Laden. I agree with Fr. Jim Martin, SJ, “I am glad he has left the world.  And I pray that his departure may lead to peace.” Yet, both he and I also agree in his closing words, echoing the words of the Vatican today: “But as a Christian, I am asked to pray for him and, at some point, to forgive him.  And that command comes to us from Jesus, a man who was beaten, tortured and killed.  That command comes from a man who knows a great deal about suffering.  That command also comes from God.”

It is not easy. But we must constantly recall our vocation as those Baptized into the Body of Christ and not lose sight of what it means to be human beings created in the Image and Likeness of God.

Photo: Stock

1 Comment »

Fr. Jim Martin, SJ on (Blessed) John Paul II

Posted in The Papal Watcher, Uncategorized with tags , , , , on April 27, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

“I am a liberal Catholic.  I am also an admirer of Blessed John Paul II,” begins the recent blog entry by Fr. James Martin, SJ, on the America magazine “In All Things” blog. The full title of the post is, “A Liberal Liking of Blessed John Paul II.” Reflecting on the seeming opposition that being a “liberal Catholic” and a “JPII admirer” presents, Martin offers some sound reasons for why the more speedy beatification may in fact be just what is needed. Among the reasons are the clear will of many Catholics around the globe who began declaring JPII a saint at his death and that a verified miracle through JPII’s intercession has already been confirmed.

But perhaps the most compelling and insightful comment that Martin notes, a remark that ostensibly comes directly from Pope Benedict XVI, is that the beatification or canonization of a person is not an affirmation of that person’s actions in an office or role as an administrator as one might have it.

But the emphasis on the personal life is an important one.  The church beatifies a Christian, not an administrator.  In that light, John Paul II clearly deserves to be a blessed and, later, a saint.  Karol Wojtyla certainly led a life of “heroic sanctity,” as the traditional phrase has it; he was faithful to God in extreme situations (Nazism, Communism, consumerism); he was a tireless “evangelist,” that is, a promoter of the Gospel, even in the face of severe infirmity; and he worked ardently for the world’s poor, as Jesus asked his followers to do.  The new blessed was prayerful, fearless and zealous.  He was, in short, holy.  And, in my eyes, anyone who visits the prison cell of his would-be assassin and forgives the man is a saint.

Very good point. I believe this is something that all Christians would do well to recall, particularly as we view one another — especially those in civil administration, such as politicians — that if a Pope should not be judged on the merits and mistakes he made as the Church administrator par excellence, then we need to likewise be more aware of the need to judge other administrators on their individual holiness too.

Photo: USA Today via Society of Jesus

Leave A Comment »

‘It’s Beginning to Shop a Lot Like Christmas’

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on December 27, 2010 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Christmas greetings to all! I realize that I’ve been a bit slow to post these past few days. That’s all due to the travel and family celebrating that goes on this time of year, something that has been really great. Last night I was able to spend some time with some of my friends from high school. The husband and wife whose house was the location for said hanging out are both high school music teachers (we played guitar hero and Glee Karaoke) and my friend Steve is a law and social work graduate student.

At one point Steve and I were lamenting the seeming increase in materialism and consumerism this holiday season. While this sort of thing has been ramping up for some years now, it was noticeably saturating this Christmas. What does one do to address such flagrant antithetical strains of thinking and behavior during a time set aside for recalling the entrance of God into the world (on the religious end) and celebrating the love of family and friendship (on the more secular end)?

This is not a new question, yet there seems to be little solace by way of anecdotal evidence in our culture. With concern for the so-called “war on Christmas,” which is the catch-all and still amorphous phrase used to describe many things but most often refers to the removal of “Christmas” from the public vocabulary of a secular state, much ink has been spilled. Perhaps one of the better commentaries on this matter comes in the form of the Jesuit James Martin, SJ’s HuffPo piece on this subject titled, “The War on Christmas is Over…and Christmas Lost.” In this article, Martin does a good job illustrating the shift in public grammar associated with the season of Christmas. But what really captures my attention, and speaks directly to the heart of the struggle about which Steve and I commiserated, is this line from Martin’s piece:

This was also the year when many Christians I know, who still celebrate the Birth of Christ, began to dread the season, to the point where they asked themselves an uncomfortable question: Is the one day that is still (more or less) reserved for religion (Dec. 25) worth the two months that precede it?…

For one thing, many Christians (and non-Christians) now feel completely overwhelmed with the demands of the consumerist holiday. Not news, you say? Well, the difference now is that the pressure to buy, decorate, spend, send, mail, bake, prepare, party and plan, which used to be confined to ads for a few weeks after Thanksgiving is now a two-month bacchanal in newspapers, television, radio, your mailbox, your smart phone, your email, and on the web. Anything digital (and what is not these days?) is an opportunity for an ad placement. The push to buy is everywhere and anytime. What has changed is the omnipresence of the consumerist offensive.

One of the war’s hidden casualties has been the ability of religious people to resist the commercialism and keep the day holy. The one who decides not to engage in an orgy of gift-giving, who eschews two months of bargain hunting, may feel like a spoilsport. You’re not buying gifts? You’re not sending cards? You’re skipping parties? Scrooge.

So very, very true.

Steve and I echoed this final cry in Martin’s article during our discussion last night. Steve noted that in his line of work, in the legal field, his friends and family generally presume he has a significant disposable income and so to not shower lavish gifts each year might be perceived as miserly at best or an affront at worst. I shared that as a Franciscan friar, I know that my brother friars and I complain about the increasing consumerism and materialism of what should be a high holy day, yet find ourselves capitulating to the pressure to not appear, to borrow Martin’s reference, like a “scrooge.”

I love my family and friends very much and, generally, I like giving them books and gifts that I think they will enjoy and appreciate. However, that is not the problem I have with the Christmas season these days. Instead it is the compulsory sense of gift-giving, the increased pressure and expectation that comes with the season. This is Not what Christmas is about, nor is it at all aligned with Jesus’s own words and deeds.

Yes, one of the four Gospel accounts mentions gift-giving magi, but those were gifts for the Christ child. What do we give Christ during Christmas? As Martin points out, Christ has all but been totally removed from the generic gift-giving season of “holidays” celebrated by corporate America now.

I seem to think that a better gift at Christmas would be to do what Jesus would do for others. I can’t really see Jesus “busting doors” on “Black Friday” as a sign of his love for humanity. But I can see Jesus serving the poor, sharing what he has with others, looking out for those forgotten, abandoned or abused, even sacrificing his own life for others.

While I will likely crumble under the increasing pressure to buy, buy, buy next year, I hope to hold out as long as I can to protest in any little way possible the obscenity that such consumerism has wrought on one of Christianity’s holiest days. Perhaps the first step to re-sanctifying this celebration is to really live out Advent. See you November 27, 2011!

Leave A Comment »

‘A Prayer When I Feel Hated’ by James Martin, SJ

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on October 9, 2010 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Written a few days ago in light of the recent tragedies of young LGBTQ teenagers committing suicide, this prayer by Jesuit Jim Martin was published today on the Huffpo. James Martin, SJ is an editor at America Magazine, the National Catholic Weekly, and a regular contributor to The Huffington Post.  I have included the text of the prayer below for your sharing.  This prayer nicely complements my thoughts and feelings about the suffering these boys and young men have been facing.  For more on those reflections, go to “Reaching Out to Love One Another.”  May God give us the strength to reach out to those in need of our love and acceptance.

“A Prayer When I Feel Hated”

Loving God, you made me who I am.
I praise you and I love you, for I am wonderfully made,
in your own image.

But when people make fun of me,
I feel hurt and embarrassed and even ashamed.
So please God, help me remember my own goodness,
which lies in you.
Help me remember my dignity,
which you gave me when I was conceived.
Help me remember that I can live a life of love.
Because you created my heart.

Be with me when people make fun of me,
and help me to respond how you would want me to,
in a love that respects other, but also respects me.
Help me find friends who love me for who I am.
Help me, most of all, to be a loving person.

And God, help me remember that Jesus loves me.
For he was seen as an outcast, too.
He was misunderstood, too.
He was beaten and spat upon.
Jesus understands me, and loves me with a special love,
because of the way you made me.

And when I am feeling lonely,
help me remember that Jesus welcomed everyone as a friend.
Jesus reminded everyone that God loved them.
And Jesus encouraged everyone to embrace their dignity,
even when others were blind to that dignity.
Jesus loved everyone with the love that you gave him.
And he loves me, too.

One more thing, God:
Help me remember that nothing is impossible with you,
that you have a way of making things better,
that you can find a way of love for me,
even if I can’t see it right now.
Help me remember all these things in the heart you created,
loving God. Amen.

Leave A Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 396 other followers

%d bloggers like this: