As the close of the 2022 Liturgical Year (the “Year of Grace 2022”) we’re taking some time to reflect upon this past year’s theme—the promise of Christmas Eve, “They shall name him ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.” These reflections reconsider what differentiates “sleepy” Catholics from “WOKE” Catholics to assess the degree to which we’ve awakened from our slumber and arisen from our sleep for the new day that was dawning this past year for those who live in the knowledge that “God is with us.”
The focus of these reflections is Jesus’ teaching concerning persistence. Two weeks ago, we reflected upon persistence in prayer and how “WOKE” Catholics do that day in and day out. Last week, we reflected upon persistence in being humble and what that requires day in and day out of those whose desire it is to be “WOKE” Catholics. This week, we’re reflecting upon persisting in evangelization—proclaiming the gospel (the “good news”) to folks on the peripheries especially the “sleepy” Catholics we know—so they’ll experience the fulfillment of the promise made on Christmas Eve—“They shall name him ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’”—by turning away from sin and loving God and neighbor as they love themselves.
The purpose of this evangelization is for “sleepy” Catholics to experience “God is with us” in a culture where many, if not most people have pushed God to the peripheries of daily life.
St. John Paul II called this effort the “New Evangelization,” identifying its three qualities in 1983 as: a new means, new expressions, and a new ardor. It’s aimed primarily at fallen-away Catholics—the baptized who “have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel.” While this effort encourages the “new,” it reintroduces what’s ancient and timeless—the Truth of Christ as it’s communicated in the message of Scripture and Church Tradition. This is the timeless wisdom that’s so much needed in today’s culture but requires, first, that people not fear what’s ancient and timeless…in a world where novelty is the currency.
The New Evangelization needs a special kind of missionary, a person who’s willing to fulfill one’s God-given purpose in life by loving God and neighbor through concrete evangelism. These missionaries are courageous, in tune with the need people have to hear the Gospel’s message today and able to move into those places where they’re waiting to hear it. For example, these saints utilize the new—videos, articles, podcasts, and e-books to proclaim the Gospel on Facebook, Instagram, and the like. They engage people in the subject matter by revealing something novel and exciting about it—an insight into the Truth of Christ—they’ve not encountered previously.
Following the Holy Spirit into the “ever ancient, ever new”—just as the Apostles did—these missionaries invent and innovate for this time and place in history where God has placed them. These missionaries use the culture in which they’re immersed as starting points for authentic conversations about the Truth of Christ. The challenge confronting them is to speak a language that will be heard by those who desire authenticity but doubt that truth exists and deny their thirst for it.
Opposition doesn’t stymie these missionaries. Instead, they persist as they identify where they’re going to interact with these “sleepy” Catholics and, interacting with them, listen attentively not so much to what they’re saying but which it indicates is their need for truth. This “radical openness” isn’t to point out error but to communicate effectively that “God is with us.”
Neither does loneliness stymie these missionaries. While misunderstanding, struggles, and lack of support are nothing new—reflect upon St. Paul’s experience—these experiences call for persistence and the awareness that failure represents one’s love of God and neighbor. This attitude is possible because these missionaries know “God is with us” and their living relationship with God sanctifies their difficulties and failures by challenging them to allow God to fill their hearts. As the aphorism state: “A person filled with ego allows no room for God.”
Seeking to heal the blindness afflicting “sleepy” Catholics, these missionaries invite them to see what they’ve never seen, awakening in them the awareness of something new and unexpected. They use humor, art, and beauty to reveal truth in a new way. Love—loving God and neighbor as they love themselves—transforms the human capacities of these missionaries into God-bearing ones. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once observed:
The New Evangelization is about a profound experience of God. The whole point is entering into profound intimacy with God, sharing the depths of our soul with Him. Are we willing to be known by Him, called by Him, individually claimed by Him? If so, that love will summon a response in us, of our greatness, courage, and action in evangelization.
It’s fair to say that a great majority of people today have turned their back on the “old”—what oftentimes is called “traditional morality.” Today, theft is called “restitution.” Intentional lies are excused as “Pinocchio’s.” Pedophilia is viewed as one of 83 sexual “orientations.” Bodily mutilation of a minor’s body is promoted because God has placed that person in the wrong body. What all this means, in fact, is that people today have turned their back on the source of traditional morality, namely, Natural Law (“do good and avoid evil”).
Critics of Natural Law rightly point out this “law” has never been codified but exists only as an “idea.” Yet that itself presumes a society or nation “writes” this law when, in fact, Natural Law is “etched upon the hearts of humanity” and is knowable by reason. One doesn’t have to believe in God to ascertain the reasonableness of Natural Law. Even little children grasp this concept when they complain that a sibling’s “theft” of a toy is “not fair,” when teenagers express outrage when told an intentional lie that has destroyed the kind of trust that’s the foundation of relationships, or when an adult has sexual relations with a minor and the discovery of this fact is called “perverse” (the root of that word being “truth,” and the word mean “contrary to truth”), and people protest so-called “gender change” operations on minors. No one has to attend one day of school to understand what Natural Law teaches about what constitutes “virtue” and “vice.”
Yet, try to reason with those who have renounced Natural Law. It’s as Thomas Paine observed:
To argue with a man who has renounced the use of...reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
But, is it?
Today’s first reading, taken from the Book of Wisdom, is a compilation of the collective wisdom of the ancient near East from around the fifth century BC. As such, it represents what today would be called a compendium of “secular” wisdom. In this compendium, however, its Jewish author attributed the source of its truthful contents to God.
Concerning the creation of humanity, the author said of God:
For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned. And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?
We shouldn’t overlook what this gem of wisdom conveys because it strikes such a familiar ring: God has created us; God loves us; and, God preserves us. In sum: Without God none of us would exist.
While a wise person understands and patterns one’s days according to this gem of wisdom, it’s more oftentimes than not the case that most of us know and understand it but don’t pattern our days according to its dictates. This provides clear evidence that we’ve become “sleepy” Catholics.
In this sense, we’ve all violated Natural Law in one way or another—what nonreligious people call “vice.” And unless people ensnared by self-chosen vice listen to their hearts—are attentive to Natural Law which resides therein—they’ve doomed themselves to experience unhappiness in this world, as reason attests: People don’t trust a thief or a liar or a pedophile or a physician who mutilates the bodies of minors. If only they were to use their power of reason, what those who violate Natural Law believe will bring happiness would have to admit is that doing so almost infallibly ends in unhappiness.
The Jews codified the Natural Law in the Ten Commandments which God gave to humanity through Moses’ agency. For the Jews, violating a commandment and atoning for it results in God’s blessing in this life and in the hereafter. Not atoning for it results in God’s curse in this life and in the hereafter as well. It’s been said for millennia this is what divine justice requires. As inheritors of this moral tradition, Christians liken Natural Law to “conscience” which they define as “the voice of God within” and call violating its dictates a “sin.”
Yet, that’s not quite what the Book of Wisdom stated:
But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent. But you spare all things, because they are yours, O LORD and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things!
Commensurate with the belief that God has created humanity in His divine image and likeness, wisdom teaches that God loves His creatures—even those who sin. God doesn’t bless or curse them; instead, God spares them His divine judgment because God loves them, overlooking their sins so they might repent.
Just as vice awakens the power of reason to its end—unhappiness in this world—so sin awakens the power of conscience to its end—unhappiness in this world and the next. That’s the primary difference between Natural Law and the Ten Commandments: The former ends in the grave where this world’s justice ends unjustly while the latter has no end beyond the grave because, for those who believe in God, divine justice is eternal.
For this reason, the Book of Wisdom reminded us—consistent with Natural Law—that the unhappiness sinners experience in this world is a rebuke—a warning—that’s introduced little by little to warn and remind us of the sins we’re committing or have committed. The goal of this rebuke? To turn us away from sin and return to God.
“WOKE” Catholics understand this and by remaining persistent in prayer and humility, they grow in the awareness of their sin and strive to avoid if not abandon it because they believe in God, the source of their happiness in this world and the next. To this end, “WOKE” Catholics attempt to root each day in God and to avoid the numerous temptations to sin that arise. They conduct a daily memento mori calling to mind their purpose and direction in life: To “do this, in memory of me,” as Jesus taught, by loving God and neighbor as “WOKE” Catholics love themselves.
While “WOKE” Catholics live in “fear of the Lord,” they aren’t afraid of God or God’s just judgment. Instead, they live each day, as the Book of Wisdom taught, in the light of the promise of God’s abiding love and mercy. As St. Paul reminded the Thessalonians in today’s epistle, “WOKE” Catholics aren’t “shaken out of [their] minds suddenly, or…alarmed either by a ‘spirit,’ or by an oral statement…to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.” They look forward to the Lord’s return when “all will be made manifest.”
Not so with “sleepy” Catholics. They know they’ve turned away from God by loving themselves more than they love either God or neighbor. Not persisting in prayer, pride infects “sleepy” Catholics to the point they’re unwilling to admit the truth about themselves and how they’ve conducted themselves in this world. Fearing God and God’s just judgment, they lack wisdom, knowing nothing of God’s abiding love and mercy and how God is overlooking their sins that they may repent.
God is calling “WOKE” Catholics to evangelize these people—the “lost sheep.” Loving God and neighbor as they love themselves, “WOKE” Catholics “discourse of the glory of God’s kingdom and speak of God’s might.” They proclaim that the “LORD is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works.” More importantly, “WOKE” Catholics evangelize as they proclaim that the “LORD lifts up all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.” Lastly, “WOKE” Catholics announce that the day of the Lord is at hand by embodying to those who have turned away from God and wandered to the peripheries the promise of Christmas Eve: “They shall name him “Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”
This proclamation is what “sleepy” Catholics need most to hear: “God is with us.” Living in fear of God and the Lord’s return, they need to hear that God hasn’t rejected them but is overlooking their sins that they may repent.
That represents this week’s challenge from scripture: To persist in evangelizing the “fallen away,” that is, “sleepy” Catholics.
This week, each of us can “do this, in memory of me” by conducting a simple memento mori: To listen to people’s needs.
While this memento mori may sound easy—like having coffee with someone, sitting there quietly, and listening to their complaints about life—it’s far more difficult to achieve than it might appear.
Yes, it requires listening but this form of listening is much more than what psychologists call “active listening” which is to listen and respond to another person to improve mutual understanding. It’s not about defusing a situation and seeking solutions to those complaints but discerning the person’s spiritual and moral need.
That’s psychotherapy not “do this, in memory of me.”
Listening to people express their needs is similar to how doctors listen to a patient’s rendition of one’s symptoms in the attempt to identify the disease. Ameliorating the symptoms not their source does a patient no good in the long run. That would be like giving aspirin to a person whose terrible headaches are being caused by a brain tumor! The goal of this form of listening to people express their needs is to address the source of those needs—the moral and spiritual disease—resulting from having pushed God to the peripheries of their days.
To listen in this way—to “do this, in memory of me”—is to “listen with the ears of the heart.”
- It’s listening to a widow or widower bemoaning the death of a spouse and never seeming to be able to get beyond it. The evil of grief has darkened the heart and pushed God’s light to the peripheries.
- It’s listening to a teenager bemoaning one’s various imperfections and the resulting social rejection. The need to be accepted by others has darkened the heart and has pushed God’s light to the peripheries.
- It’s listening to parents bemoaning their children’s moral and spiritual choices. Believing and perhaps having failed to fulfill the divine responsibility to be a child’s first and best educator in the faith has darkened the heart and has pushed God’s light to the peripheries.
- It’s listening to a spouse bemoan the state of one’s marriage and wishing they’d never married. Lust for something better in this imperfect world has darkened the heart and has pushed God’s light to the peripheries.
- It’s listening to people who have soured on life. Bitterness has darkened the heart and pushed God’s light to the peripheries.
The list of gripes, complaints, and frustrations is seemingly endless yet each reveals revealing a human being who feels alone and whose heart is filled with the darkness of narcissistic self-pity. That’s the disease and the only power forcible enough to empty it of this form of narcissism—a heart that’s filled up with ego—is the power of God’s love as Jesus taught it…“I will be with you until the end of time.”
“Active listening” can do nothing to bring light into that darkness because the only source of healing is God’s light. “WOKE” Catholics who “do this, in memory of me” dedicate each day to the New Evangelization. They formulate a plan concerning how they will offer the “good news” in a way those whose hearts are filled with darkness have never heard it expressed and, as the light breaks through the darkness that day, they experience “God is with us.”
Yes, this is how Jesus remains with humanity until the Lord’s return.
While “WOKE” Catholics commit themselves to fulfill that promise by practicing the New Evangelization, they prepare to “do this, in memory of me” by knowing what Jesus would say to those people. Of course, this requires reading, understanding, and being capable of applying what Jesus actually did say to people whose hearts were darkened by narcissism! This form of evangelizing isn’t a matter of being able to answer the question “What would Jesus do?” but of being able to answer the question “What did Jesus say?” Skillfully applying this ointment to a heart darkened by narcissistic self-pity by shining the light of the Truth of Christ into it—what Scripture and the Church teach—healing will evidence itself as gratitude emerges from whence once flowed a torrent of gripes, complaints, and frustrations.
The question, of course, is: “How am I to ‘to this, in memory of me’ this week?”
This requires, first, identifying one person whose heart has been darkened by narcissistic self-pity. This is a person who has continuously griped, complained, and expressed frustration about the same thing practically every time you’ve ever visited with this person…to the point it has become the predictable “same old, same old.”
Then pray for that person as St. Paul did for the Thessalonians:
We always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith, that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, in accord with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.
Then make it a point, second, to visit with this person. Knowing what’s going to be said—the same old, same old—listen this time with the ears of your heart. The goal is to discern what the source of the darkness is.
Following the visit, third, return to the gospel—the good news—and identify a situation in which Jesus listened to someone with the ears of his heart and discerned the same darkness:
- Was the person deaf—incapable of hearing what needed to be heard?
- Was the person blind—incapable of seeing what needed to be seen?
- Was the person lame—incapable of standing up for the truth?
- Was the person mute—incapable of stating the truth?
- Was the person busy about many things—incapable of centering oneself upon what’s truly important each day?
Discerning the darkness accurately, what did Jesus say to this person? How might you phrase that today to address that person’s moral and spiritual need effectively? The answer to this question represents your ministry plan—the pathway to moral and spiritual health for that person.
Then invite yourself into that person’s house—as Jesus invited himself into the house of Zacchaeus to bring salvation to it—and listen this time with the ears of your heart to all those complaints about life. Then, be sure to say what Jesus did say…in today’s language.
While this attempt to evangelize may not eradicate the disease at first, this intervention will change the direction of the conversation by casting some light into the darkness. Offering this moral and spiritual “lifeline,” it’s now up to this person to make a decision regarding whether to continue wallowing in darkness or to awake from one’s slumber and arise from one’s sleep to the new day that’s dawning upon those who center their lives in love of God and neighbor as they love themselves by “doing this, in memory of me.”
If we persist in this evangelical effort, perhaps one day they will sing with the Psalmist:
I will extol you, O my God and King,and I will bless your name forever and ever.Every day will I bless you,and I will praise your name forever and ever.
As disciples whose desire it is to live as “WOKE” Catholics, God has called each of us to evangelize others to the “good news” that “God is with us.” And, in this way, Jesus continues his saving mission across the millennia…the “Son of Man [who] has come to seek and to save what was lost.”
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