"Saviours are a dime a dozen"
Dominican Father Augustine DiNoia, undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gave an address in December which was reported by the Catholic News Service. I have just picked it up from Fr Michael Brown's excellent blog Forest Murmurs.
In a strikingly relevant comment, Father observed:
Saviours are a dime a dozen when one fails to grasp what's really at stake. We need to be delivered not just from error, or suffering, or desire, or injustice, or poverty... God desires nothing less than to share his life with us... [Jesus is] not just any Saviour.Fr DiNoia also wisely advised:
In our conversations with young people, we have to avoid the temptation to fudge - to adapt the Catholic faith so as to make it palatable to modern tastes and expectationsThe good Dominican Father's wisdom is proved by experience. It is common nowadays for the question of the lapsation of young people comes up at various group discussions on how we should best rearrange the deckchairs on the sinking barque of Peter before closing the remaining Churches and deputing someone to put out the lights after the last person has left.
Sometimes, I have the actual grace necessary to suggest that we should look around - even in the Western world - and see where there is devotional life among the young, reception of the sacraments, a resurgence of vocations, and a sincere attempt to keep the commandments and live the Christian life. When we have found those groups, associations, summer schools and conferences, we should take a hard and objective look and ask ourselves "What are they doing right?"
The answer will be: devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, love for Our Lady and the saints, emphasis on frequent confession, reverent celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, and a firm adherence to the teaching of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
10 comments:
It really is just easier, isn't it, to be silent when one hears evidently well-meaning folk saying nonsense? just as it is easier not to politely make an observation to the priest after Mass when he has said something really questionable e.g. during his homily or done something very much not Red during the sacred rite: I tend to be such a lazy fellow, tsk. Thanks for noting Fr DiNoia's comments, and for all your own good work.
Youth need the Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the Truth. Watering down the Truth is a sure fire way to lose the youth.
Youth need to be challenged to greatness and that is something the Catholic Church and the message of Christ offers in grand detail.
hanks for this Fr Tim..
Thanks Fr., you encourage us all to befaithful, tell the truth, and not be ashamed of it.
Fr. DiNoia's address was the subject of my weekly segment on Son Rise Morning Show yesterday -- the day of the program's national debut on EWTN Radio. FYI.
As Fr DiNoia points out in the excellent CNS report, we must do everything possible to stand up for the WHOLE Truth of the Gospels and the Church's Teachings, not just parts that we personally prefer, pick and choose, that we think might be more palatable to others or to the young and don't hurt anyone's feelings. We must never cave in to believing falsely that if we pass on a half-baked version of the faith that conforms to the 'spirit of the times' then somehow that will be more readily accepted by others, who after all, trust that we are passing on the Truth and Fullness of the Faith - that is like handing out stones when you posses diamonds. And for that we will be brought to account one day.
The fullness of the Gospels and the Church's Magisterium has been passed down to us ONLY through the monumental efforts of the Saints who suffered incredible hardship, prison, torture and even death so that future generations would know the whole TRUTH.
How easy it would have been to 'fudge' things when the going got tough, in order to save their own lives, but what would we have now? What for example, would Our Blessed Lord's Passion and Death on the Cross mean to us within the context of a 'Faith' that might have been so distorted over time as to accept as some 'moral good' the horror of abortion and euthanasia?
We should always be prepared to stand up for Our Lord and 'tell it as it is' in a way that the person we are speaking to will understand taking into account their particular state of life, so that we are never uncharitable in our approach. This is no less than our Christian duty and never forget that it only takes a few good men to say nothing for evil to prevail.
We have all been silent for far too long - just look at the world around us.
A quote (from a sociologist) in a recent Dutch newspaper report about religious orders in the Netherlands: "You see growth in those orders that emphasize the Pope, the Eucharist and Mary"; "Among the religious there was always a lot of support for progressive movements ... These would lead to an attractive church, these were the future. Well, it seems not"; "not that there's so much growth in traditional orders, but they're the only ones growing at all". If even the sociologists have started noticing, who can still be so deluded as to think otherwise?
Smiley is absolutely right.
It doen't do to fudge the Truth, ever.
Oh, well, say some people, youth wouldn't understand this concept. We must talk to them in their own language.
No, we mustn't ! Youngsters are very quick to see when they are being patronised, and they resent it. And then you have lost them.
Fr. Di Noia has the right idea.
Many thanks for that link, Paul. I have done a post on it and linked to your blog.
Paul says, 'who can still be so deluded as to think otherwise'?
Hmmmm.... I can think of a few in E & W, who shall remain nameless.
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