I did this last year (Here’s one post, with links to all the others.) It’s a way for me to sort through things, retrieve ideas that might work for longer pieces in other spaces, make me feel horrible about my terrible memory (did I write that?) and so on. I don’t include posts on saints or travel here. The saints because I tend to re-run them, no apologies, and the travel posts because they are collected here. Gender-related posts here. Book and movie takes, as well as links to other monthly highlights, at the end of this post.
Lots of travel in June – to England and Scotland. Those posts are here.
There is a temptation, when considering these experiences – the ecstatic concerts (or sporting events), the immersive, interactive games and other kinds of role-playing experiences like cosplay on which people spend untold hours of their time and lots of money – and to think that religion is missing out, in a way. That feeling at the Garth concert? Do you ever get anything like that in church? What the larping and gaming and cosplaying experience adds to your life? Shouldn’t church give that to you instead – or at least, also?
Questions which then can inspire church leaders to either condemn or – more likely these days – jump on bandwagons, something we’ve seen over and over (through history, not just recently) – taking what seems to grab people in the culture, baptizing it, hoping to bring that same kind of engagement, investment, and emotion to the Lord – where it properly belongs, right?
Maybe not. Maybe the better answer is to observe all of this – and whatever it is that people seem to feel connected to and inspired by – and ask questions instead.
So, when consumers of mass media and spiritual seekers and tourists virtually approach the online evanginfluencers expecting and demanding “openness” and “authenticity” and almost claiming a place in their role model’s lives, they’re putting them in a spot. Yes, it’s a spot most of them have cleared out for themselves and settled in, happily, Patreon button at the ready, but everyone has a role to play here, everyone’s responsible in their own way.
Keep saying we’re one body in Christ, sure. Keep saying we take care of each other, that we’re here to help each other to sainthood and holiness.
How is encouraging, expecting, and paying for another person to put their lives on public display as your spiritual food helping them?
As I have said many times, I’m a student of social movements – my graduate work was focused on 19th century feminism and American Christianity – and I am no stranger to the ins and outs and evolution and fractures in any and all movements, including the pro-life movement. In any movement, you will always have disagreements on process, emphasis and goals. In the American pro-life movement, the serious disagreements have been centered on support of legislation and politicians: is supporting half-measures a sell-out or just realistic politics? And of course, a fundamental disagreement about process: should politics or culture be emphasized? You can trace these disagreements back decades.
But there’s never been any disagreement that helping women and their children is central to the pro-life movement. And this is what is so annoying about those in the Catholic world who are busy declaring, Well, ackshually, pro-lifers (eew) you DO know that just because Roe is gone…that doesn’t mean abortion is going to end tomorrow, RIGHT? Ackshually….you DO know that the REAL work starts now, right?
They were handing out cards to those on the street (and there were a lot – this was one of Oxford’s main streets on a busy Sunday afternoon) – cards which explained what this was all about, with contact information.
As Pope Benedict said on nearly every occasion of a Corpus Christi procession during his papacy – this is a moment in which we do what we are called to do all the time – take Christ out into the world that needs Him so badly. Taking that one, very small step further – of actively inviting and engaging the curiosity and interest witnessing the procession might inspire – is, yes, brilliant.
But do you know what else these homilies had in common, aside from being just good, substantive, practical and oh yes, under fifteen minutes long?
They were both written.
Oh, there were moments in which the homilist did a bit of improv and added a thought or two, but for the most part, both seem to have kept to what they had written.
I’ll be honest. I’ve never heard an off-the-cuff homily that was worth a dime. I know that homilists can be all Oh, the Holy Spirit will guide me and it will be awesome…but real talk here. Most of the time, guys…it’s not. The risk of meandering self-indulgence is super high if the homily isn’t written down and presented pretty much exactly as planned.
Charlotte was Both 