 “The fruit of sacramental life is both personal and ecclesial. For every one of the faithful on the one hand, this fruit is life for God in Christ Jesus; for the Church, on the other, it is an increase in charity and in her mission of witness" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1134).
I am a liturgical - and sacramental - junky. Whether it be when the organ plays, the incense burns, wooden crosses process or babies cry- I love being part of liturgies! But my love of liturgy does not end with the communal gathering or the symbolic signs. Rather, the reason I love liturgy is that I believe, as Fr. Aidan Kavanagh, OSB, a liturgical theologian, put it, “liturgy is doing the world the way the world was meant to be done.” In the liturgy we are participating in the life of God. We are entering into, and living within, the eternal circulation of the Trinity’s love! But what does that actually mean? It means that we are not simply attending a gathering. We do not show up to another building for another event. It is not a lecture or a show. Rather it is a transformation of ourselves with our God, who is love, so we can go out and witness to that love and act out of it. This is why I love liturgy. It calls me out of myself. It shows me God acting in all things and then sends me out to be his hands and feet. Liturgy connects me to the Body of Christ and reminds me that I am to care for that body. It shows me that the world can be used to glorify God and that the world itself, being God’s creation, is a symbol of His active presence in my life. David Fagerberg, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, illustrates this thought saying, “Water could be a sign of God’s love if I gave a cup of it to someone who is thirsty, but not if I use up on my golf course the water he needs for his vegetable patch.” Liturgy reminds and shows us how to act out of love, not pride; to live out of hope, not despair; and to be guided by compassion, not self interest. Pope Francis affirms that we must be a living Church: a Church for the poor, a Church that acts. He emphasizes that, “Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the Word in body as well as spirit.” We encounter, learn and receive Christ in the Liturgy in order that might know Him and act as His Body for the world. This Sunday we must remember that we are participating in something that goes beyond the building, the preaching and the music. We must remember that we are encountering Christ and he is teaching us a way that asks us to share in his mission of building the kingdom of God by acting out of the truths of love, justice, kindness, and peace. Pam Tremblay is a collaborator with the Catholic Apostolate Center. She currently works at St. John's University in Queens, NY as Resident Minister for Social Justice.
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 “God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide”
–Gaudium et Spes, 39 Pablo Picasso "Dove of Peace" As I was growing up in a small seaside town north of Boston, I never once said, “I want to be a social worker someday.” Yet, here I am, one month shy of a Master of Social Work degree from Boston College. Like many other professional degree curricula, all accredited social work degree programs require significant fieldwork. My field education gave me the opportunity to work as a Legislative Advocacy intern with the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. My projects have included significant outreach to drop-in centers and shelters for young adults experiencing homelessness in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As a young Catholic woman educated in human service design, delivery, and evaluation, I typically approach social problems with an eye of strategy, compassion, and determination. For the first time in my early career I have, however, added a layer of personal connection and relevance to my work. Not only are the groups that I am working with brothers and sisters of the greater universal family, but also they are my peers. Most of the young adults I have worked with this year balance schedules similar to my own, including school, relationships, work, high transportation costs, and family frustrations. The biggest difference between me and my peers that I met during this project is that these are young adults unaccompanied by a guardian or parent and experiencing homelessness. My responsibilities while performing outreach work and legislative advocacy has included visiting drop-in centers and shelters for young adults to encourage them to share their story in order to call for more action to support them. The young adults I work with are between the ages of 14 and 24 years old and many have experienced inconsistent and insufficient housing for their entire lives. Thousands of young people in Massachusetts alone are experiencing homelessness as they sleep on couches, in parks, under bridges, in emergency rooms, in shelters, and in one case, behind a dumpster near a restaurant, because it was warm. Many of them have shared their experiences with me. In these sessions as we channel experience into testimonies, my peers, my friends, my inspirers, whatever you call them, they have opened their souls to me. Many of them have experienced such degrees of physical and emotional abuse through neglect, sexual assault, and violence. Some have grown up watching their parents sell and use illicit drugs and alcohol. More than a third of the population has been abandoned or abused specifically because of their identification as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. Many have participated in risky sexual behavior and drug trafficking as a means to get a “safe” space to sleep for the night or something to eat that day. Even more are supporting younger siblings, finding ways to use any money they make to buy necessities for their siblings. In their 1986 Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching the US Bishops write; “In pursuit of concrete solutions, all members of the Christian community are called to an ever finer discernment of the hurts and opportunities in the world around them, in order to respond to the most pressing needs and thus build up a more just society” (126). As a Catholic woman concerned with building the Kingdom of God through fighting for a better and more equitable world, I am passionate because my peers, the thousands of unaccompanied youth in Massachusetts, are fighters. Most of the young people I met with are attending community college; they balance class schedules with their shelter schedules. They work tirelessly at minimum wage jobs to support their younger siblings. They have found new families in their fellow youth experiencing homelessness. What stays with me is the amazing resilience of the human spirit. In each of these encounters with my peers we laughed and joked and even with the moments of anxiety, angst, and sadness there was a spirit of Hope. Pope Francis in his Homily for Palm Sunday tells us, “Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let hope be stolen! The hope that Jesus gives us.” These brother and sisters that I met, even in the midst of immense struggle and abandonment have not given up, have not let their hope be stolen. Because of their witness I will continue to fight for a more just society until it is that we dwell in the place God created where justice abides (Gaudem et Spes, 39). Led by the Holy See and our Holy Father Pope Francis, let us come together to care first for our neediest and preserve in our diligence to serve! Samantha Alves is working toward a M.S.W. at Boston College and currently works for the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.  I hope everyone has been enjoying the best season of the year! While secular Christmas music and decor can be nice (and luckily, because they’re ubiquitous), I am referring to the liturgical season of Advent. My friends believe Advent to be my favorite time of year because it typically needs considerable defense against the encroachment of the Christmas season, and I am happy to defend it. We need Advent. In my last post, I stated that if we don’t make time to consider consciously what vision we want to move towards, we’ll never move towards it. Advent is the season during which the Church encourages us to do just that.
So allow me to profess my love for this season. This profession might seem fairly theologically-minded, but I’m a firm believer that thoroughly theological reflection is often eminently practical - when we reflect on our vision, our subsequent actions reflect whether or not we truly envision something important. Looking forward to Christmas alone is the small-minded view of Advent. Yet somehow, it’s the view that even this well-catechized Catholic girl espoused until college – and I don’t think I was alone. Certainly, Christmas is one thing for which we’re preparing. Through our Christmas liturgies, we want to adequately remember and celebrate the miraculous divine self-emptying gift that is the Incarnation, and as always, the salvation that resulted from it. Most Advent calendars and other such aids help us towards this goal. However, when I listen to the Advent liturgies, I hear a different exhortation. The first Sunday alone, we heard of eternal justice, power and great glory, and were told, “Your redemption is at hand.” Even if I listen just to the Lord’s Prayer, the first half expresses our hope for the fulfillment of several things which the original Christmas enabled. These Scriptures point me toward the greater reality for which we are currently preparing: the eschaton, or the reign of God on earth. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the eschaton. The Kingdom of God is here already? But not yet? It is “at hand”? What does this language of faith mean? Simple. In one of his homilies on Ezekiel, Pope Gregory the Great compares the joy we have now to the joy in store: “The fire of love which begins to burn here on earth, flares up more fiercely with love of God when he who is loved is seen.” Already, we can welcome the fire of Christ’s love into our hearts. But not yet - that love gets inexpressibly better. Advent is a season of hope, and the true beauty of hope is that we believe one day it will be fulfilled. The greatness of Advent is that eventually it will become obsolete. Take a minute with me this Advent to think about our vision, the Kingdom of God; All injustices will be made right. We will be living with God, in a world without end. We will no longer get in our own way and separate ourselves from Him. We will glorify Him as we should. There will be no holds barred from His all-encompassing love. This is what we wait for. This is our hope. This is the reality of which Advent reminds us, provided we don’t skip past it. How can we be anything but joyful? Laura Berlage serves as an Echo Faith Formation Apprentice in the Diocese of Camden, NJ  Decisions made in the voting booth are deeply personal and reflect a combination of our experiences and beliefs. And as Catholic American citizens, now is a critical time. The outcome of the presidential election will have far-reaching consequences and it is our responsibility to seriously consider our choice of leaders and policies that will guide our nation and our state.
Catholic voters are once again caught between their desire to participate in civic life and the choice of candidates for elected office falls short of a vision of the common good as rich and full as Catholic social teaching presents. Consequently, many have become subject to the mentality that being Catholic and politically active are incompatible. But this is not so. Catholics are called to understand and accept the Church’s teaching as a means of becoming more engaged in political life. It may be challenging, but it is something we have to wrestle with. At an address this past month, Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia said, “We believe in the separation of Church and State, but that is not the same thing as separation between faith and politics. Faith is what we believe, politics is how we act.” He advised Catholics to “apply the principles of Catholic social teaching – such as the common good and subsidiarity”, to their voting decisions. We have the duty as citizens to participate in our own governments for the sake of the common good. By not doing so, we abandon the political process and risk unjust laws being formed. Poorly formed legislation and leadership may come about anyway, but it should not come about as the result of Catholics disregarding the process. Casting an informed vote is one of the best things we as Catholic citizens can do for our country. It is the duty of citizens to contribute – along with the civil authorities – to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity and freedom. “The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity" (CCC 2239). And so as Catholic citizens, we enlighten and develop our consciences as citizens in accordance with the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. One straightforward and immediate way Catholic voters can make a meaningful contribution to public discourse is to draw the larger public’s attention to issues that are essential to Catholic social thought. The most essential of these is the dignity of every human person and each one’s basic right to life from conception to natural death. Respect for human dignity has an essential role in the respect of all human life, especially the fundamental right to life. It is a natural principle that is supported by our beliefs; it is our faith, as His Holiness states in Porta Fidei, that “opens our eyes to human life in all its grandeur and beauty.” As Catholic voters, we have to see ourselves as bridge builders. According to Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, and Chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace for the USCCB, “The Catholic vision is one of collaboration, not coercion, among individuals, governments, businesses and other institutions.” Voting in this election is not based on profit or having a winning ideology. Our “Catholic vision” is one that creates an environment in which all people can develop and ultimately flourish. Along with tens of millions of fellow citizens, I urge you, Catholic voters, to cast your ballot today. Commit yourself to creating conditions that fully respect the dignity God has bestowed upon all of us. Our political responsibility doesn't stop at the polls this Election Day. We must always respond to the social issues, locally and nationally, that affect the dignity in which we are all created. Sarah Morris is a senior Politics major at The Catholic University of America. |
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