Latest / Mentoring In Ministry / S1E12: Dawson, Culture & Catechesis Part 4

Transcript

S1E12: Dawson, Culture & Catechesis Part 4 · Mentoring In Ministry

0:02
Welcome to the Mentoring in Ministry podcast. In each
0:04
episode, we approach various catechetical
0:06
topics from different perspectives.
0:09
Welcome back. I'm here with my dear friend and colleague,
0:12
Jim Gaston, professor of humanities
0:14
here at Franciscan University, and we're discussing the
0:16
multiple complexes of rich, dynamic relationship
0:20
between catechesis and culture. We've hit a number of the
0:24
various aspects of this relationship,
0:26
and what we left off really was the relationship of
0:29
holiness, of conversion to the culture.
0:33
In particular, what I really wanted to get across is just
0:35
simply this point. Conversion
0:37
of the individual is the first and principal point for the
0:41
conversion of the culture. I'm
0:43
thinking here, for example, as Christopher
0:44
Dawson just says so wonderfully regarding
0:46
St. Paul, who in obedience sails to Philippi, and he makes
0:50
three converts. There's a jailer,
0:52
a businesswoman from Asia, a minor, and a
0:54
half-crazed slave girl. It's an odd group.
0:57
It reminds me of my first youth group, actually. Culturally
1:01
speaking, there was nothing, no
1:02
trumpets blasting that day, but somehow kind of under the
1:05
surface, so to speak. The seeds
1:07
were planted so that these three people were the first
1:09
European converts and the entire
1:10
continent. Sooner or later was Christianized, which is to
1:14
say there's a certain egalitarian
1:16
dimension to history. It's not a given. It can't be
1:19
technocratically designed, made
1:21
to perform and progress in a certain way, because holiness
1:25
makes a difference to holiness
1:27
of my life and of your life, and the way we love one
1:29
another in our families and in our
1:31
culture. Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our
1:34
love. That's the opening, right? What we're
1:37
suggesting to ourselves with catechesis of
1:39
a culture is these must flow from that love and reaffirm
1:44
that love and teach that love,
1:46
but ultimately the personal holiness is the beginning and
1:49
without it. As the old saying
1:51
goes, you can't give what you don't have.
1:53
We can talk about the holiness until we're
1:55
blue in the face, but if we don't have
1:57
it, that's a matter of an entirely different
2:00
color. We're talking about the importance of that
2:04
foundational holiness, but that same
2:06
holiness which is based upon love, the love God has for us
2:10
and hopefully the love we have
2:11
for God is that same love, love that must
2:15
be conveyed as you've just indicated with
2:16
St. Paul to the culture at large. In that sense of the
2:20
term, we need to remind ourselves
2:21
that God didn't ask us just to love him.
2:25
He commanded us to love him and he commanded
2:27
us to love our neighbor. We have a law of
2:30
love. We have to follow up. We must be loving
2:33
to society. When we understand culture, particularly
2:37
Western culture that's Christian based, as
2:40
Dawson points out to us and as our theologians and our
2:44
catechists do as well, one of the
2:46
great gifts of that love to the West and to the world is
2:49
this notion of the dignity of
2:51
the human person. That's a huge subject and as you know
2:55
well and takes quite a bit of
2:57
time to unpack and even courses have to be taught to plumb
3:00
the depths of that for students.
3:03
That's the idea that we must love our neighbor and beyond
3:06
that, we must seek to help implicit
3:09
in that love our neighbor to be all that they can and must
3:13
truly be. Everything subspecies
3:17
eternitatis in light of the end. So
3:20
in the West, not only do we love, we love
3:22
our neighbor, we must love our neighbor and we must love
3:25
our neighbor in such a way that
3:27
we try to institutionalize, make socially and materially
3:31
incarnate that love in the sense that
3:35
so much of Catholic politics in the West and so much of
3:38
charitable work of the West all flows from
3:43
this love and this notion of the dignity of the human
3:45
person. In other words, last point I'll
3:48
throw back to you Scott, is this beautiful insight that
3:51
Dawson has for us that is right in front of
3:54
us and we oftentimes miss that Christianity bequeathed to
3:58
the West, this public moral impetus
4:01
that we don't just sit back and as you said so well earlier
4:05
just be subjectively Christian in our
4:08
own way. We must conform ourselves to God and conform
4:12
ourselves to the culture and part of
4:14
this is helping the culture to conform itself as possible,
4:19
charitably and prudently to the vision
4:21
that the church offers it. So we can't just sit back, we
4:24
have to love our neighbor and we have to
4:26
love our neighbor and work with our neighbor to create a
4:28
culture which will support our Catholicism
4:31
and offer us a virtual context in which we can go about our
4:34
Christian way of life. I have to say I'm
4:36
feeling convicted in what you're saying because I want to
4:39
spend more time thinking about how to
4:40
convert the culture and not as much time and energy frankly
4:43
for my own personal conversion.
4:46
Here again we have one of those delicate balances, this
4:48
tension between the necessity of myself
4:51
really committing myself, humbling myself to be transformed
4:55
in and through the church to Christ
4:58
and then to take that whatever grace that is, whatever
5:02
transformation has happened and take it
5:03
out to the world, to take it out to the culture. Always
5:07
remembering I'm bringing Christ to the
5:09
culture, bringing Christ to the world and then going back
5:10
myself and so to speak refilling through
5:12
the sacramental life of the church, re-energizing which is
5:15
I suppose not the best word to use for
5:17
sacramental grace to be re-imbued with God's life. The
5:20
Christian necessarily goes back and forth
5:21
between receiving grace and undergoing conversion and then
5:25
bringing it out to the world which is
5:26
something really that's explicit even in the sacrament of
5:30
baptism. As catechists we're always
5:31
thinking how do you teach not just toward active
5:33
participation in the sacraments but how do you
5:36
teach from the sacraments. So for example when we're
5:38
baptized of course we receive that infusion of
5:40
sanctifying grace. We also receive the obligation to go
5:44
out, we're incorporated into Christ's
5:47
three-fold mission is his triplicate office, priest,
5:50
prophet and king and now we are graced
5:53
and obligated to bring Christ to the world and in a
5:55
particular way as you're saying so well,
5:58
to recognize the dignity of the human person and to serve
6:01
particularly I'm thinking here in the
6:03
kingly office, the participation in Christ's kingly work,
6:06
to root out sin in our own lives
6:08
and then also serve Christ and others
6:12
particularly the poor and that kind of balance,
6:15
that kind of relationship between receiving grace whether
6:17
it be baptism, holy Eucharist,
6:19
reconciliation and then living it out and recognizing
6:22
Christ and others that really
6:23
is the matrix, that's the tension through which individual
6:26
conversion and cultural conversion is
6:29
going to be able to take place and to be able to happen.
6:32
Yeah wellsaid, so I often think of that ad on
6:36
TV, you may recall it, how did it go exactly, a mother with
6:40
some sick children and she turns to
6:42
the camera and says as if she's a doctor with two cookies
6:46
in her hands, take two of these and see me
6:49
in the morning. The reason I mention that is that as
6:53
Christians we can't just come up with a cookie
6:56
cutter, two cookies, here's Christianity, I'm going to love
7:00
everybody in the same way. Oh you
7:04
are a divorced person who's going through pain, have two of
7:07
the same cookies, you over here, oh
7:09
you've got a broken foot, I have a cookie. My point is love
7:15
requires us to see the person for who they
7:18
are and love them in a way that they need to be loved in
7:21
light of their true eternal end.
7:24
We need the grace from the sacraments, from our love, from
7:27
our prayer from Christ to become
7:29
cognizant, to become self-aware so that we can go out and
7:33
love people according to the way they
7:35
need to be loved. And again, this is the important of
7:39
culture, we can't just have one view, one size
7:43
fits everyone. On the other hand, we can't tweak the
7:47
religion, our teachings, the catechetical
7:50
efforts simply to each individual. There's got to be, as
7:53
you said well, a balance there. This takes
7:55
effort. It's one thing to have a nice well-done catechesis
7:59
outlined and it's in my database and
8:01
I can click on my documents and baptism and go give that
8:03
talk to an anonymous whole, as opposed
8:06
to rethinking each and every time I give a talk on baptism.
8:09
Who are the particular audience members?
8:11
What do I know about them? What questions have they asked?
8:14
Where are their pains? But that's love.
8:16
And yeah, and to teach catechetically in light of these
8:20
particular people whom God has given me at
8:22
this particular moment, that's this flexibility, this
8:25
pastoral adeptness, which takes far more
8:27
energy, far more concern, far more steeped in the muck and
8:31
mire of humanity, including our own
8:34
weaknesses and our own failures, and to move
8:36
forward by the grace of God in that. That's
8:38
something altogether different than just
8:40
communicating some information. Absolutely.
8:42
That is the incarnation. It's you, the individual, or you,
8:46
the catechist, sitting there, standing
8:49
there, looking and saying, " I have to convey. I've been
8:51
called to convey certain important things to
8:55
these people here, but I want to understand who they are,
8:59
understand who I am, understand as best
9:03
I can who he is, and become self-conscious
9:06
and draw these three together in a sense. "
9:10
We can't love in the abstract. We
9:12
can't convey love in the abstract. It's
9:17
this amazing process whereby each of us learn to love by
9:24
loving, and it's only by loving that we
9:27
learn to love. I think we come back again full circle. We
9:31
keep touching on this inculturation and
9:32
the importance of culture. This is why, by the way, as you
9:34
know, we have a major here at
9:35
Franciscan University, a catechetics major, which has been,
9:38
frankly, wildly successful. We have many,
9:41
many, many students who come, and they also
9:43
typically do a double major with theology,
9:45
because theology, in a particular and unique way, informs
9:48
everything that you need to know
9:51
as a catechist regarding divine revelation. Our catechetics
9:54
majors are usually theology majors,
9:57
and they're trained, of course, to
9:58
understand the faith and how to hand on the faith.
10:02
If I had my druthers, I would require every catechetics
10:05
major to take one of your cultural
10:08
courses, perhaps your humanities and Catholic culture 201
10:13
course. I'd like you, if you wouldn't
10:14
mind just speaking a little bit about the major that you
10:16
yourself established, which has been,
10:18
frankly, again, wildly successful, highly popular,
10:23
especially with our very, for lack of a better
10:25
word, kind of elite students. It's a rigorous program. Can
10:29
you talk a little bit about the
10:30
academic study of culture as an academic discipline, and
10:34
perhaps in conjunction with that,
10:36
the actual major which you've established and the goals of
10:39
that particular academic study?
10:40
Be pleased to. That program was designed in a sense of a
10:46
combination between the great
10:47
tradition of the church and its own culture, its own
10:51
ecclesial structure, the whole nine yards.
10:54
It's an attempt, really, to offer a solid Catholic liberal
10:57
arts education that's cognizant of the
11:00
history of the church and its theology and
11:03
philosophy, but all kind of wrapped around
11:05
the vision of education proffered by Christopher Dawson.
11:08
Dawson's at the center of this liberal
11:11
arts program that we've developed over the years, and then
11:14
what we've done is pretty much follow
11:16
Dawson's suggestion that modern education has become too
11:19
specialized. It no longer focuses
11:22
upon anything that's really metaphysical or transcendent.
11:25
Everything's materialistic and
11:28
scientific and the like, and we've tried to develop a
11:31
program based upon, really, centuries of Catholic
11:34
liberal arts and the very best of philosophy and literature
11:37
and theology and the like, but add this
11:40
integrative element of culture as Dawson would have it.
11:44
It's a four-year program, and what we do is we
11:46
convey these key principles in the first year, and then in
11:50
the second year we begin to march the
11:52
student once they have an idea of what they're looking at
11:54
or what they should be looking for.
11:56
We march them chronologically through the history of the
11:58
west, sophomore years the ancient world and
12:01
the medieval world to some degree, and then
12:04
the junior year is the medieval on into the
12:06
Renaissance and the Reformation, the senior year is the
12:08
French Revolution, if you will, the modern
12:10
world, and the idea is very much what we've been talking
12:13
about right here today, what you guys do
12:15
so well in your own catechetical program, and that's try to
12:19
convey to the person the true dignity of
12:22
humanity, that is a holistic person in light of their
12:27
eternal vision of reality thanks to our Lord
12:30
in such a way that to become self-conscious, aware of the
12:34
complexity of reality, that it's
12:37
holistic, we don't just look at things through politics or
12:41
economics or through my own subjectivity,
12:43
we'd be humble, we step back, and as Dawson's point was
12:46
over and over again, the only real true
12:49
object of study for man is culture. You have to go and look
12:54
at the totality of it, just like we
12:56
ought to look at the totality of another human being, where
12:59
they're from, their background,
13:01
everything about them and not just compartmentalize them.
13:05
So this is what we do, and we've been doing
13:07
it now for 27 years. You were one of my very first
13:11
graduates and you were an excellent student,
13:13
and I'm very proud to see the work you've done over the
13:15
years in so many facets, including most
13:18
importantly the catechetical program. It's kind of you. It
13:21
strikes me that the goal of handing on the
13:22
faith, the goal of transmitting divine revelation is the
13:25
same as the goal of studying the culture,
13:27
which is to help a person to understand who they are by the
13:30
grace of God, where we've been as a
13:32
community and where we're going as a community.
13:35
Academically, what strikes me about this study of
13:37
culture is it's interdisciplinary, which is you have to
13:40
know something about place, that you said
13:41
place, work, leisure, ideas. You have to have some sense of
13:45
geography, some sense of economics,
13:47
some sense of the role of arts in the community for handing
13:50
in the faith, and you have to be really
13:52
astute with various types of philosophy. It takes a
13:55
well-rounded interdisciplinary study, and
13:58
catechetics too is certainly interdisciplinary. My sense in
14:03
the theology field is that in some cases
14:05
and in some places, it's become hyper-specialized to see
14:08
the tree at the expense of the forest,
14:10
which is to say, for example, the disciplines of theology,
14:13
each of which is important in its own
14:14
right, scriptural studies, liturgical studies, moral
14:17
studies. But it can come to the place where,
14:19
" Gosh, I only do. Hebrews 11, that's my area of expertise.
14:23
That's what I know. " The role and
14:25
goal is every discipline of theology is mutually
14:28
informative, and the catechist has to have a sense
14:31
of each of these disciplines in order to arrive at a way of
14:35
conveying the faith and all its rigor
14:37
and vigor based on scripture directed towards a moral
14:40
imperative. Frankly, in some sense,
14:43
catechetics is, I don't want to say derided, but it's seen
14:46
as a bit of a lesser discipline, in part
14:48
because it is interdisciplinary. Perhaps it's a jack of all
14:52
trades, but perhaps a master of none.
14:54
But the way I've seen relationships within the study of
14:58
catechetics, the importance of it being
15:00
interdisciplinary, including, of course, all sociological
15:03
studies, psychological studies,
15:04
all of these, so to speak, tertiary disciplines bear on
15:06
catechetics. The study of culture
15:09
academically also is necessarily interdisciplinary. And one
15:14
of the great foundations that you've
15:16
provided for your students coming out of the study of
15:19
Dawson and culture is how to see
15:20
relationships, causal relationships, the importance of
15:23
interdisciplinary study that helps a person to
15:25
think critically. Right. You just made the point, forgive
15:29
me if I don't quote you exactly, but in
15:31
some sense of the term, you were making the point, were you
15:34
not that modern catechesis is somewhat
15:36
derided because it has become interdisciplinary. On the
15:39
contrary, I think that's exactly what it
15:41
should have been all along. I see catechesis, this is not
15:46
my field, mind you, but in a sense,
15:49
I see you right there in the middle, right? We started off
15:52
with our notions of lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
15:59
are you not in a sense right there in the middle? I mean,
16:04
we have our Lord, we have the teaching and
16:06
thinking and reasoning out of our Lord and that middle
16:09
ground between how we're supposed to
16:11
incarnate our faith in our everyday life. So you play an
16:15
incredibly important role. I see myself
16:17
more than not over on the life side offering sustenance to
16:21
you and I somewhat see, and again,
16:23
this is your field, correct me if I'm wrong, the theology
16:26
in a sense over on the other side, but
16:28
catechetics is tasked with a very difficult, very difficult
16:32
situation of trying to make those two
16:33
worlds meet. Yeah, that is the key to make faith meet life,
16:38
to make the profession of the creed
16:39
meet the cultural dynamics and the need
16:41
and the thirst for conversion that we find
16:43
in the world today. And what it strikes me finally
16:45
regarding the academics of catechetics and culture
16:49
and the actual practice of evangelization
16:51
and conversion is again, as you just said,
16:54
it's holistic. You have to see the whole, you have to see
16:57
the whole force, the whole person,
16:59
and all of the dynamics between faith and grace in order to
17:03
really practice catechesis. Let's
17:05
pause there for a moment and we'll come back for our final
17:08
thoughts and our conclusion on why
17:09
cultural academic study and catechesis itself is
17:14
necessarily and primarily at its very basis incarnational.
17:19
Thank you for listening
17:20
to this episode of Mentoring in
17:21
Ministry. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and
17:24
YouTube @ the Catechetical Institute
17:26
or join our online community of catechists at
17:28
franciscanathome.com/guild. Link
17:31
to all of those in the show notes. This podcast is an
17:34
outreach of Franciscan University of
17:35
Steubenville's Catechetical Institute.