Spiritual accompaniment

Coming soon: a new church year. New step in one’s faith?

November 26, 2024

Just as the earth has annual weather seasons, schools have academic years, some organizations have fiscal years, and we individuals have seasons in our lives, the church has a liturgical year – with established seasons.

The church year begins at the beginning of Advent – four weeks before Christmas. The six seasons in the liturgical calendar (each having a corresponding liturgical color) are:

Advent (purple, with one week of pink)
Christmas (white)
Lent (again, purple)
Triduum (red)
Easter (white)
Ordinary Time (green)

The church year lays out a calendrical way to walk through important faith themes.

As we approach a new liturgical year – beginning with Advent – on December 1, how is this important for us as individuals? In watching the Church seasons, we learn about religious themes that have been woven together over Christianity’s history. We collectively travel through faith seasons together. On a personal level, Church seasons and religious holidays provide opportunities for us to journey deeper into our faith experience. When we truly engage in the processes provided in the Church’s liturgical calendar, what I have heard called “the genius of Christianity’s processes” brings us into a deeper relationship with God. Our own inner workings are stirred in such a way that our spirituality broadens, deepens, and matures.

As we enter a new Church year on this upcoming First Sunday of Advent, what aspects of faith can you reflect upon this Advent season? Learning more about Church liturgy? Re-committing to a regular prayer life? Surrendering some aspect of your life to being changed – and improved upon – by God? Being kinder to and of more active service to the people around you?

If you would like to connect with Advent at home this year, print out the Advent calendar provided below for daily Advent thoughts, reflections, and tips.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechis t (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

New book: honor the church volunteers in your life!

November 22, 2024

Churches are many things – religious institutions, places for religious worship, architectural buildings… Churches are also a place of community. Volunteers are integral to the daily functioning of churches and the experience of how church happens.

I have written a book rejoicing in the religious and social contributions of church volunteers. The book is currently at the printer with a scheduled arrival date of December 20, 2024.

Is there a church volunteer in your life? Would you like to recognize them – say, on New Year’s Day? Ordering them a copy of this book is a great way to acknowledge the contributions they make to their faith community and, by extension, to the communities where they live. Pre-orders are being accepted here (you can also learn more about the book at the web page provided)!

Advent is just around the corner!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!).

Book Review: The Sacristy Manual

November 16, 2024

The Sacristy Manual is a how-to read for church volunteers and staff involved in supporting the flow of a church service – liturgists, sacristans, etc.

Really, this book is a good for anyone curious about the set-up and flow of a Catholic mass. Who sets up for mass? What is involved in setting up? What items are needed? What items are kept in the sacristy?

Aren’t masses pretty much the same from week to week? Why a need to prepare? Masses don’t happen in auto-pilot. The doors of the church need to be opened, lights need to be turned on. The liturgical books read by the priest need to be opened to the appropriate pages for that weeks’ readings. The seasonal flow of the liturgy is planned and organized. Candles in the sanctuary are lit (altar servers often do this). Communion hosts need to be set out. Seasonal banners are hung in the sanctuary. If there’s a special liturgy, incense and other special-event considerations need to be prepared. Volunteers are coordinated. Much of the preparation for mass happens in the sacristy.

For anyone interested in a hands-on look at the nuance of mass logistics from week to week, this is a great primer.

Surrendering to God transforming us

October 22, 2024

I was in high school when I was first introduced to surrendering to allowing God to change us. At the time, I was challenged by a particular type of life difficulty. I surrendered that difficulty to God and asked for assistance in having my life change. How I was living in the world did improve. I also developed the rudiments of an expanded prayer life. I still tell the story about my prayer life expanding at that time – I, as an adolescent, grew beyond the basics of childhood prayer (“Now I lay me down to sleep” and literal conceptions of Jesus sitting on a physical throne in the clouds) and saw my prayer life expand incrementally toward more of an interactional relationship with God.

In recent years, I surrendered again to allowing God be present in my life. This time, the surrender was broader. “God change me in whatever ways you want me to be different.” Again, my life is changing. I am experiencing emotional reorganizations that I couldn’t have anticipated – transformations beyond what I would have brought about on my own. More freedom, increased life functionality, some measure of more contentment. Growing commitment to being useful to other people. This came about from a prompting of the Holy Spirit – a moment at a church service in October, 2016 when I felt – and responded to – an invitation to allow God to be more fully present in my life (that story is told here).

God wants to be present in our lives. God wants us to be the people we are meant to be, to be fully alive. In the words of Timothy Radcliffe, “We are all radically incomplete. And, we need each other.” We, with our human limitations, need God’s movement in our lives to become the people who we are meant to be. We move toward being complete when we allow God to be the center of our lives and to act in changing us. Acts 17:28: For in God we live and move and have our being.

Allowing God to become the center of our lives, we cease to be the center of our lives. Ceasing to be the center of our live can feel threatening (“But what about me? I’m all I’ve got?”). It turns out that when we step out of the way, God brings freedom into our lives – we become the people we are meant to be and we become more useful in the world. God loves us!

Book Review: The Search for the Twelve Apostles

October 17, 2024

I took a recent interest in “Early Christian Literature” – Christian literature written after the time of Paul. I was rather surprised to not find a systemic overview of the early centuries of Christianity.

I then happened upon this book, The Search for the Twelve Apostles by William Steuart McBirnie, Ph.D. The author spent decades traveling to the Holy Land, Europe, etc. to find and visit places where the twelve apostles spent time and to study their lives.

As I read this book, I am finding the topic interesting. The author starts the book with a description of his trips to places where the apostles spent time and his own discovery that not much is written about the early centuries of Christianity.

The chapters dedicated to each apostle are written in a rather dry academic style, but I don’t fault the author – I appreciate his effort to write about the lives of the apostles. I am glad to be learning where each apostle likely spent time.

Book Review: Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place

October 11, 2024

I just took a break from reading another book to read (re-read?) Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.

When I recently happened upon a copy of The Hiding Place, I thought “Yes, I read this.” Perhaps I did read it in high school or in my twenties. I decided to read it again – this time for its’ Christian insight. As I read it this time, I didn’t remember the details of the book. If I read it before, I think I probably read it as a historical account of WWII.

The book absolutely is a historical account of WWII and of a family who participated in Dutch resistance. It is also the account of a family who deeply put their Christian faith into practice.

Most evenings, I pick up the latest faith book I am reading to read a few pages before I go to sleep. Last night, I finished The Hiding Place and then found myself unable to sleep because of the distress of reading about the horrors in Germany’s concentration camps. I was also compelled – as the author intended – about the author’s conviction that we are compelled to forgive. At the end of the book, she wrote of spending time after the war – and after being released from Ravensbrück concentration camp – helping WWII survivors to heal and educating people about forgiveness (prompted significantly from her sister’s witness on this topic before dying). At the very end of the book, Corrie Ten Boom wrote of encountering a guard from Ravensbrück where her beloved sister Betsy perished. Forgive even him? She had to reach deep into herself to try forgiving, then ask God to help her forgive. Ten Boom wrote compellingly that it was God who made it possible for her to forgive.

For anyone trying to live a life of faith, this book is a must-read. Corrie Ten Boom absolutely challenges us to go farther than we think we can in putting our faith into practical practice.

The detours we take from God’s love

October 1, 2024

When I was teaching baptism prep classes for parents and godparents who come to have their child baptised, I would explain that baptism is a grace that frees us from original sin. “Why, though,” a very kind grandmother asked me (in another type of class), “do babies need to be freed from original sin? Babies don’t hurt anybody. Babies are good.” Understandable question.

I would tell parents and grandparents in baptism prep classes that the longer I am alive, the more convinced I am that we have inherited original sin from Adam and Eve. “Has anyone here [at baptism prep classes] never done anything that we shouldn’t do? We all do stuff we shouldn’t do. I’m increasingly convinced that original sin makes sense to explain our behavior…..And…. God’s grace – including the grace we receive at baptism – makes it easier for us to not do the things we shouldn’t do.” …..In time, I came back to the kindly grandmother and suggested that perhaps the grace of baptism is like the inoculations we receive against medical illnesses – vaccinations help us to not get physically ill and God’s grace helps us to not sin as much. The kindly grandmother accepted that explanation….. (caveat: I am not a theologian. I later checked with a pastor to make sure I wasn’t off the mark with the vaccination analogy. He said that he wouldn’t have used that analogy, but that I’m not theologically wrong).

……. The esteemed Dominican friar Timothy Radcliffe has stated, “We are all radically incomplete.” God is complete (whole, holy….), we aren’t. Understood rightly, this reality is freeing – it frees us into a healthy right-sizing and right relationship with God. We are who we are.

…….Yet, in our incompleteness and tendency toward sin – and as very beloved children of God – we humans have the ability to come up with some screwball ideas. Yesterday I was confronted very directly with one of my screwball ideas. I’ve been walking around with this screwball idea for decades and failed to recognize it as such (it’s my own personal screwball idea…. We’re all capable of coming up with screwball ideas). Ugh…. Over the last couple years, I’ve been taking online classes from Franciscan University’s Catechetical Institute (if you’re looking for some online religious ed classes, these are very affordable and useful courses). A few days ago, I started another class – this one about discerning what we’re suppose to be doing with our lives vocationally…. As I did the homework, I was to answer some questions, reflect on the course content. Boom – I got hit square between the eyes with two incongruities. On the one side, I know without a doubt that God loves me. On the other side, I was thinking about a personal circumstance in which I stubbornly apply the above-mentioned mental idea I’ve been clinging to for decades. Ka-pow! I suddenly recognized that my self-constructed idea I’ve been clinging to for decades is incongruent with the vocation content I’m learning in class and incongruent with God’s love for me. In an unhealthy way, I saw yesterday that what I’m now calling my “screwball idea” says that I’m “impossibly – therefore stupidly or uselessly – incomplete” rather “radically incomplete.” “Stupidly or uselessly incomplete” is NOT the same thing as radically incomplete. In being radically incomplete, we can accept God’s love – God love us brings us to the good place where God wants us to be. Very different than uselessly incomplete – perceiving ourselves as such happens only as a result of our own human distortions.

When we earnestly walk in faith, these moments come along – opportunities to grow and allow God to help us shed our human distortions. God loves us and wants to help us become the people we are meant to be!

Argument in the Confessional (but, God loves us)

September 22, 2024

I went to confession this weekend.

It seemed to get off to a bad start when I reported that “the last time I came to confession was during Lent…..” The priest replied, “Oh, it’s been awhile….” (“Geesh,” I thought, “it’s only been about six months….Yeah, I know, we should attend monthly or when we really make a mess of something – whichever comes first – but still…… And, what’s up at this parish? I’ve noticed that most of the people who come here for confession are men. Are men and I the only sinners who show up here? What”s up with the demographics?”).

I then verbally moved into “I’m here because….” I don’t know about you, but I tend to show up in the confessional with my story line prepared. Having a story line prepared happens – at least in part – because I don’t like going to confession. I dread it. I have confessed to other parishioners that I usually walk to confession – walking to confession gives me the opportunity to kick the sidewalk on my way there.

We’re not suppose to call it confession any more. We’re suppose to call it reconciliation. We get reconciled with God. I actually know that – both as a theological idea and from experience. And, I know from experience that going to confess….ciliation actually results in me growing in faith, getting closer to God. …….. Still, I usually walk to the church so that I can kick the sidewalk on my way there.

When I told the priest what I was there for, he responded with “God loves you very much. Etc.” (he provided some empathy). “But,” he said, “What you’ve told me isn’t actually a sin. Have you done anything that’s actually a sin [i.e., you are in a confessional]?”

My mind went a bit sideways for a moment……. I then told him, “What I’ve told you about has the very real potential to turn into # – which is very definitely a sin that the church frowns upon. I thought it would be better to come here before this turns into #.” The priest ended up agreeing with that. And, he ended by telling me again that “God loves you very, very much….and can you pray a Lord’s Prayer before you leave the church?”

“Yes, I can pray a Lord’s Prayer before leaving the church” – which I did. I then went home, rather with the feeling that I’d just had an argument about what I had confess…..ciled.

A couple of hours later, the the matter of “#” became reconciled in my life. I began to feel lighter and had an opportunity for the relevant circumstance to be improved upon. And, yes, God does love us very, very much.

Going to reconciliation really does grow us in faith (despite my continuing kicking of sidewalks).

Book Review: Be healed (Bob Schuchts)

September 16, 2024

I was given a copy of this book: Be healed – A guide to encountering the powerful love of Jesus in your life (author: Bob Schuchts).

Because the book came to me with a recommendation from someone I respect, I started reading it with positive anticipation. I then got a few pages into the book and wondered, “Is this book along the lines of the old revival meetings in big tents? Can I get through this book?” I set it aside while I read another book.

When I came back to the book, I found that yes – this book resonates, meaninfully. The thrust of this book is such:

God loves us and wants us to be healthy and whole.
Healing in our lives happens when we allow God to love us. This requires a relationship in which we allow God into our lives.

A book worth reading!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechis t (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

Our perception of God, God’s love for us, our responsibility

August 15, 2024

A pastor told me a few months ago that humanity’s effort to describe God can be compared to God as being like a circle with our limited human efforts to describe God merely approaching various touching points of the circle; often, he said, without our descriptions actually touching the circle – let alone ever grasping the entire circle. We shouldn’t fret about the imperfections of our descriptions. Rather, he indicated, we should continue with our efforts as best we can.

I thought of that description when I took the photo (above) – an orange sunset shining through window shades onto my living room wall. Left to ourselves, we live in some measure of darkness (Fr. Timothy Radcliffe: “We are all radically incomplete”). At the same time, God loves us. To the degree that we allow God into our lives, we experience some of the light of God’s love for us (due to our finite capacity, we probably only sense some of that love, as if filtered sunlight making its’ way through the shades)!

Prayer, of course, is a significant aspect of how we allow God into our lives – how we experience a relationship with our God who loves us. Prayer is not meant to be a uni-directional monologue of us sending our thoughts, feelings, requests, or rote prayers to a Santa-God. The fullness of prayer is one in which we engage in a two-way, in-person relationship with our parent-God who wants to have a loving, engaging relationship with us and who wants to help us become the people we are meant to be.

In addition to God loving us, it is our job to love one another and to do what we can to shed light into the lives of our fellow humans (see the passage below from Matthew 22:34-40). Martin Luther King said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question: What are you doing for others?” Loving other people and taking care of God’s children is what we are here to do.

The “60/40” plan prescribed for marriages is a principle that all of us can actually apply in our relationships with everyone so as to be the loving people we are meant to be. If each of us spends 60% of our time focusing on what we can do to be of service to the people around us and only 40% (or less!!!) of our time thinking about our needs, then everyone wins!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

Accompanying you in your faith journey