Christianity – Page 4 – Spiritual accompaniment

What Christians Believe

December 26, 2024

A woman I know started telling her co-workers that she attends church. She hadn’t told her co-workers about this in the two years she’d been working at her job. Her co-workers were surprised that a surprisingly normal and intelligent person such as her attends church. “So,” her co-workers would ask her, “Are you one of those Christians who believes that the Earth is only 3,000 – 6,000 years old?” and other such questions. “No,” she would reply, “Of course not.” She would point out in these conversations that The Big Bang Theory was formulated by a Catholic priest…..

So, what DO Christians believe? While some aspects of this question varies from one denomination to another, Christian leadership did come together in the year 325 in Nicea (a then-Greek city in what is now Iznek, Turkey) to specify precisely what Christian do believe. (I learned recently that ruins of some of the local Nicean architecture that existed at the time of the council in 325 still exists – I’d love to visit and see the remains of the architecture).

Christianity grew out of a historically oral tradition and Jesus’s followers thought in the decades following his death and resurrection that he was going to return in their lifetimes; thus, no one started writing what is now The New Testament for several decades. While it would be tempting to think now – 2,000 years later – that Christian belief in its’ current state has been statically known and accepted since the time Christ was alive, there was a lack of established Orthodoxy in the early days of Christianity. Thus, the need in the year 325 to communicate clearly what the Christian Church believes.

Join A Parish Catechist on Saturday, January 4th (8:00 am Pacific) or January 7th (7:00 pm Pacific) for a Zoom educational session about the specifics of “What Christians Believe” via the Nicene Creed. Sign up (register) here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084CA4A629A3F4C43-54130811-faith#/

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!).

Religious liturgical seasons and the faith experiences of individuals

December 14, 2024

With Christmas just around the corner, I have been pondering how to follow up on my previous post about the liturgical year and our faith journeys as individuals (the image above is a visual representation of Christianity’s liturgical seasons). In my last post, I wrote “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.”

There is a deep spiritual beauty in the flow of the church’s liturgical seasons that stirs us.

There’s also a question of whether one’s faith journey is expected to be organized around the liturgical seasons. Is Advent automatically when we should be prompted toward anticipatory hope (i.e., us looking forward to the Saviour’s birth)? While the established liturgical seasons offer rich faith development opportunities for us, each of us are also experiencing our faith journey at times and in ways that are specific to our own lives. For example, I’ve written about my re-conversion experience here; my re-conversion experience began unexpectedly in October, 2015 – during Ordinary Time. Similarly, I meet people who arrive at churches because they feel compelling faith stirrings that propel them into church pews. In the last couple of years, I have journeyed with several individuals who arrived at churches because they felt stirrings in which God was reorganizing their emotional lives in fruitful and amazing ways. They arrived in churches at times when they felt prompted by the workings of the Holy Spirit – not in accordance with a specific liturgical season.

Journeying with people whose inner lives are being transformed by the Holy Spirit is a blessed journey. Individuals having such experiences can’t be identified by looking for some outer clue (i.e., “look for the person where a specific color shirt standing at X location”). Rather, encountering people having such experiences requires talking with people – often, strangers – and listening to what they have to say (and, being attentive in looking for people having such experiences). People often want to talk about these experiences (I did!). Often, efforts to talk about such experiences can involve clunky or disjointed communication. We are all on our own journey toward a deeper relationship with God and it can be hard to articulate our own person encounter with the divine – especially if someone is new to such experiences. What I am finding is that there are ways to “talk around” such experiences – verbally acknowledge a person’s experience (“I recognize that you are having a profound inner experience”) and being present with the person. Reflectively find ways – even if the ways feel superficial – to compare notes on their and your faith journeys. Communicate joy that a person is experiencing a spiritual transformation.

What matters about liturgical seasons and our individual faith journeys? It matters that each of us be intentional about being on a faith journey. It matters that we respond to promptings of the Holy Spirit (those unexplainable inner promptings that come along occasionally). It matters that we be attentive to our inner experiences and look toward an ever deeper relationship with God (it can be tempting in today’s frenzied world to avoid one’s inner experiences). It matters that we learn to better love God and love our neighbor (putting faith into practical action in the aspects of our lives beyond our own internal experience). Engaging with religious liturgical seasons provides a communal structure for deepening our faith experience and for walking with each other in faith.

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!).

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!

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.

Acknowledging our sins at mass: The Confiteor

July 27, 2024

At Catholic masses, we acknowledge our sins at the beginning of mass:

The Confiteor

I confess to almighty God,
and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and what I have failed to do,
through my faults, through my faults, through my most grievous faults;
therefore I ask the blessed Mary ever-virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you my brothers and sisters
to pray for me to the Lord our God

–

We all know that we’re imperfect – part of “The human condition.” Lately, I’ve been commenting “If anyone is wondering about human sinfulness, just turn on the evening news” (i.e, human sinfulness is reported on daily!).

Our human imperfections are not viewed universally as caused by sin or by human brokenness. Some would argue that while we humans aren’t perfect, calling us sinful has an unnecessary harmful emotional effect; some counter-argue that an alternate and better route to improved well-being is that human effort is all we need to overcome our imperfections: social training, psychological and social supports, a good family environment, and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Thes things, in and of themselves, are all important and good (and, arguably, not enough).

Again…..turn on the evening news. We humans do plenty wrong. The longer I sit in pews, the more convinced I am that we’ve inherited a sinful nature (Adam and Eve, the apple….). However, this view isn’t one for keeping us down (“I’m unredeemable, horrible!”). Rather, there’s freedom. When we surrender and allow God to work in our lives, God redeems us. Allowing God to transform us is an unequivacal path to becoming better people.

Several years ago (2016), I surrendered in prayer to allow God to do whatever he wanted in me. This occurred after a re-conversion experience in which I felt God’s love….. Yet, part of me was apprehensive. “What’s God going to do to me (or in me?)?” In hindsight, this fear was ridiculous. God is love, God loves us, God wants the best for us. What exactly did I think that a loving God was going to do “to me” or “in me?” Now that I’ve had some time following that surrender, I’m seeing the result of God working in me. I am becoming happier and I am starting to be nicer to other people. Pretty good results.

As time unfolds, I am also finding deeper meaning in confessing The Confiteor at mass. Confessing publicly that we have sinned is an acknowledgement of our human imperfection and an education into who we are and Church teaching. Further, such public confession has social value. When we acknowledge together that we are all sinners, then we have to forgive one another – none of us holier (above our neighbor in the pew next to us), nor can we condemn the person in the pew next to us. Further, we call others to pray for us while we also pray for everyone else. The Confiteor is a great prayer!

Join A Parish Catechist’s Zoom call on Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm Pacific to discuss topics of faith – such as the Nicene Creed and The Confiteor. Small group sharing is one of the ways we broaden and deepen our faith. You are welcome: Zoom sign in passcode is 898 322 8983 .