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Daily Scripture

+ 7th Week of Easter

Much ado about nothing or, is there something to it?

Readings: Acts 19:1-8 Psalm 68:2-7 John 16:29-33

Paul traveled through the interior of the country and down to Ephesus where he found some disciples. He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They answered him, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” [Acts 19:1-3]

Depending on one’s sacramental theology and pastoral practice, this text has been variously interpreted. For example, those who work with the RCIA (catecheumenate) hold that the sacrament of Confirmation should be administered with Baptism as it was in the early Church. It is one of the sacraments of initiation—Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. The Eastern Rite of the Roman Catholic Church has retained the tradition of administering all three at Baptism. Yes, the infant receives a small piece of the Eucharist bread. And so in the Eastern Rite, there is no formal celebration of First Holy Communion at the age of reason or Confirmation by the bishop at whatever age the local diocese has determined the age of maturity appropriate for Confirmation. All three sacraments are administered shortly after birth.

Others feel that the celebration of First Communion and Confirmation at a later age ensures the participation of youngsters in parish religious education programs – at least until Confirmation. In this case, many Catholics view Confirmation as the completion of or graduation from religious studies.

In recent years I have become convinced that the RCIA folks and the Eastern Rite Catholics have it right. All three sacraments of initiation should be administered together. First Holy Communion and Confirmation have become more social than spiritual. I do not mean to suggest that there is no connection or that there should be no celebration after sacramental ceremonies but for many, the accent is on the wrong syllable.

The path from Baptism to Christian maturity is life-long and the benchmarks for progress are not easily measured by grouping children by age or grade level for a period of preparation that is largely academic.

This is not to suggest that religious education is optional. Faith development is unique to each person within the context first of family and then of parish. Religious education / formation is intended to provide insight into faith development at an age-appropriate level.

Catholicism has become ‘child-centered’ the result of which, we have an adult population whose religious and spiritual development stopped at Confirmation.

The celebration of Eucharist is the primary setting for faith formation. Religious education is a necessary component but detached from Eucharist, it remain just another subject to master.

Of course this all assumes that the parish celebration of the Eucharist is truly inclusive and meaningful rather than just an empty ritual. The parish at worship should be a rendition of a community of faith that strives to live its faith ‘in the town square’ as I mentioned in Sunday’s homily.

Notwithstanding my commitment to religious dialogue, I do believe that effective dialogue is based on the assumption that although both parties are knowledgeable about the topic. Though they may have different perspectives, they are not based on ignorance of the subject.

We need a better butterfly

Monday October 20, 2008

By Joan Chittister
National Catholic Reporter, Kansas City, Mo., Oct 20 2008

Sometimes it isn’t just one thing, sometimes it takes a confluence of things to make the invisible visible and the dark light. Things like butterflies and somebody else’s mortgage and Irish bookies and attitudes all coming together, at once, and apparently independent of one another. But, underneath, not really isolated or unconnected at all. In fact, together, they say something very important to us all.

If you were wondering what “globalization” really means, for instance—before, that is, you found yourself living in the middle of it—the answer lies in all of the above. A piece at a time. All leading to more of the fullness of the definition of that reality than any one of them alone might suggest.

“The Butterfly Effect,” according to the work of physicist Edward Lorenz in 1961, is the awareness that a slight change in one part of a system can cause cataclysmic effects in another. Depending on other conditions in the atmosphere, “One flap of a seagull’s wings,” he said, “could change the course of the weather forever.” Bird wings on one side of the globe, he went on, can cause or avert a hurricane on the opposite side of the globe. That’s an interesting concept at best when considered in a science lab. It’s a potentially devastating one when practiced in politics.

The point is clear: One false systemic step on one side of the globe can bring down systems a world away. And it has. And that is globalization.

The lab exercise is only too clear now. Even here.

A default on a home mortgage by the neighbor who was never vetted for the loan seems to have little to do with me until it becomes clear that every fourth house on the block, as one man told me on a return flight from Newfoundland last week, is repossessed as a result of it. Now the corner store and two industries in that town are on the brink of closing for lack of business and his own house value and business plans are also now in jeopardy in the process.

On top of all that, Irish bookies this week simply declared the U.S. election over and paid off their debts with congratulations to the winners. The world clearly thinks it has as much a stake in the U.S election as we do, enough to risk money on it—as they have on our banks, our stock market and our economic policies.

Finally, when I tried to have a conversation several years ago with two young men, one in finance, the other in insurance, about the rising U.S. debt and the financial bubble in which we had staked our common future, one explained to me patiently that nothing could happen because “we have the strongest economy in the world,” and the other one told me with gusto that what I didn’t understand was that “debt was good!” Debt, he instructed me, “makes money.”

Well, for some, maybe. But not for all. Debt does not make money for the worker whose jobs will be lost as companies close because of it. It does not make money for nations around the world whose economies are tied to ours and whose own infrastructure will suffer as a result of it. It does not even make money for banking systems everywhere built on debt and now drowning in it. Most of all, it will not make money for families who will have to choose between food and education for their children as their jobs dry up and costs rise and their wages disappear.

The butterfly in this system is the next president of the United States who, no matter who he is or what he promises these next three weeks, will be faced with the reality of what can be done and must be done two months after that.

No matter what he’s saying now.

The advantage is that the country wants change—and they are going to get it. How much change is yet to be seen.
The problem is that the country expects change—big change and fast. How little change it will abide is yet unclear.
But one thing is sure: Heaven help the president who does not or cannot produce it in necessary measure. Not simply for our sake but for the sake of those on the other side of the world who also had nothing to do with the collapse.

There is one other butterfly in the ointment, however, more worrisome than the first. This one is in Korea where a financial researcher in Seoul was fired [2] for saying that “people made unwise financial decisions because they were too greedy.” His company called that an “individual view out of line with our institute’s original purpose.” Indeed. Isn’t that where the problem started in the first place and haven’t we all had enough of that already?

Yahoo filed that story under a category called “odd” news. Not any more.

If the explanation of the present economic meltdown is true, institutional greed isn’t odd anymore, it’s standard. And those who saved rather than spent without collateral, are about to pay for it.

From where I stand, a new president is going to have to change more than the system. He’s going to have to change the very attitudes that are at the foundation of economic institutions around the globe. It might be a good idea to start with greed and debt and over confidence. And when he’s done with that one, he might want to do something about changing a legacy of war and torture and American imperialism-and the notion of a monarchial presidency, as well. At least for starters.