Smell Like the Sheep; Make God Your Escape Key

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Pope Francis has a knack for metaphorical speech. So far his best may be noting that shepherds should get so close to the ewes and rams that they “smell like the sheep.” One archbishop told me he was trying to work that into advice for new priests in his homily at their ordinations but hadn’t figured out how. Maybe he worried that the pungent image wouldn’t fit at an illustrious ritual or might draw laughs, but it certainly was worth consideration.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York at World Youth Day used metaphor as he spoke about how God moves people. He told the crowd, "We want a microwave, but God works like a crock pot." That message sticks with you, like dog hair on a couch in the den.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley used metaphor and simile. In a Q&A session at World Youth Day he quipped that witnessing to your faith in a secular society isn’t easy. “Being Catholic in Boston is a contact sport,” he said. That’s not only memorable; its incongruity makes it funny. On the Eucharist, he said, not going to Mass is like being a branch cut off from the vine. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what that branch eventually becomes.

Scripture relies on such literary devices: God’s love is like a mother’s love from Isaiah 49:15, and our relationship with Jesus is like the branches to the vine, John 15.  One image gives us comfort; the other says gently hold on.

Word pictures that make for memorable homilies do not come easy. Reflection on God present in today’s world might help us develop some modern ones.

When I am in pain can I ask God to be like the computer escape key: take it all away?

Should I consider God to be like the Wi-Fi that I search for:  unseen but there?

Is God like my mobile device, always with me?

Is a favorite prayer is like a favorite cookie, a source of comfort.

One goal of the U.S. bishops this year is to improve homilies at Mass. Homilies and music are integral to helping people experience God’s presence. A priest once told me that if I want to introduce someone to the Catholic Church I should look for a parish with good preaching, good music and well-read Scripture, in that order. Reaching people through their senses comes first. There is much to be said for ambiance, why Catholicism uses smells and bells to lift us to God.

Some years ago a young priest asked me to critique his weekend homilies. With opinions about much, I agreed quickly. I couldn’t do it however. I didn’t know what to say because I couldn’t figure out how I’d do better. I gained a new appreciation of the preacher’s challenge. Since then I’ve heard some really good homilies and recognize that solid metaphors enhance them. But I’d sure hate to be a homilist coming up with one every day or even every week. It would be like finding a literary image in a haystack of words or an oasis in a desert mind. It might have to come from the sounds of silence.

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

When Your Phone Becomes Your Prayer Book

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Many media snickered when the Vatican announced that people who followed the World Youth Day pilgrimage via social media could derive the same spiritual benefits earned by those present in Rio de Janeiro for the international church event. Were they worried that it made a spiritual effort too easy?

Certainly tuning in on social media is a far stretch from the work of Chaucer’s pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales. But from the church’s standpoint, social media allows World Youth Day to include those who could not travel to walk alongside the youth on pilgrimage.

Going social media follows the church’s tradition of keeping up with the communications arts. No surprise here. In the mid-eighties, the Vatican announced people could receive the pope’s Urbi et Orbi (To the city and to the world) apostolic blessing on Christmas and Easter via TV without standing in St. Peter’s Square. Earlier in that century the church moved into the then new medium, radio. Guglielmo Marconi considered the inventor of the new medium, launched Vatican Radio in 1931. The worldwide service now airs in 47 languages. Voice of America went on the air in 1942.

To bring the Gospel into people’s lives, the Church has no choice but to engage with contemporary media. Given what some consider the usual glacial movement of the Holy See – when you’re 2,000 years old, why hurry? – the Church has entered social media with lightning speed. After all, the World Wide Web only took off in the mid-nineties. Facebook was born in 2004; Twitter in 2006.

The church searches for ways to use media for its mission. For those who want a few moments with Scripture, for example, the U.S. bishops accommodate them with daily readings and a meditation on them via www.usccb.org/bible. For those who want to spend more time with daily prayer the Irish Jesuits have Sacred Space at www.sacredspace.ie. Such media aids have replaced the prayer books of a generation or more ago. For many, iphones have become prayer books. One may not find the same religious sensory appeal in holding an iPad as in holding a Bible, but that downside may be offset by the accessibility to Scripture found on the Web.

Church entrepreneurs have developed apps for everything from the rosary to the Divine Office. (Caution: Don’t judge someone looking at his phone before Mass – he may be praying the Liturgy of the Hours, as the Office is called.)

Pope Francis tweets virtually every day with challenging and inspiring messages. USCCB shares them via USCCB Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s a spiritual boost from the man who is charm the world with his down-to-earth spirituality. It’s also a connection with the Vicar of Christ.

Believers accept the fact that God is everywhere. It shouldn’t surprise us when God shows up in social media.

(CNS Photo/Gretchen Crowe)

World Youth Day: Twenty Years Ago

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Twenty years ago this August Denver hosted World Youth Day, the first time the world event took place in the U.S. As WYD director of communications, I was on a core team from Washington with Father Dennis Schnurr, WYD executive director and now archbishop of Cincinnati, and Paul Henderson, WYD director of programming and now director of planning and communication operations at the USCCB. We’ve remained friends, with the kind of friendship borne of going to war together.

When I speak about WYD, I compare it to an elephant, one you gently prod to move where you’d like it to go, but knowing at any moment it could overpower you. If we knew how big WYD would become, we would have been afraid. With blissful ignorance, we set off for a fun adventure.

Though founded in Rome in 1985, WYD hadn’t quite caught on. The Vatican thought that holding the event in the USA would establish it. They counted on the immense media presence and U.S. ingenuity and organization. Their confidence was well placed.

As a reporter in Rome, I had traveled with Pope John Paul II. But sitting on a plane with him was a far cry from organizing media for an event to draw about 2,000 journalists and setting up a structure for TV and radio coverage. Early on, I took my concerns to Tim Russert, enthusiastic Catholic and host of NBC’s Meet the Press. With an analysis reflective of a man used to working within walls of power, he explained how to work with the media. “You own the pope, so you’re in charge,” he said.

Now if you want to be empowered, convince yourself you own the pope. When TV producers would balk at our plans, I would remain calm because, as Russert had assured me, I owned the pope. Russert also offered the help of veteran NBC special events producer Bob Asman, who had just organized the TV pool coverage of the Democratic National Convention in New York City. “We’ll call him the ‘secret missionary for God,’” Russert laughed. Asman so impressed the TV stations in Denver that had formed a consortium to deal with the largest event they’d ever known, that they hired him almost as soon as they met him.

When Catholic youth heard about WYD, they responded in force and surprised the bishops. Youth begged to go to the church event instead of church leaders begging them to go. Bishops who traveled with them found it life changing. It was a booster shot for the shepherds to be surrounded by energetic sheep. Their enthusiasm caught reporters up short. Media geared up for protests, but they never materialized. When one reporter asked a girl about her feelings on birth control and abortion, she told him teen-style, “Get a life!” The days were for prayer, not protest. The Washington Post reported the event was like Woodstock, with all of the good and none of the bad of the 1969 rock concert at a farm in the Catskills.

When I returned home, I had WYD on my mind. I must have overdone it because a friend told me one evening as we went down to Washington’s Union Station that all I talked about was World Youth Day. “I’m sure it was wonderful for you,” she said, “but let it go.” When we got to the station, a teenager bounded toward me across the Main Hall. “Hey, Sister Mary Ann,” he shouted. “Remember me? We met at World Youth Day. It was great.” My friend laughed, “Case closed,” she said, “I guess it was an event to last a lifetime.”

What's In (Chanting) a Name?

Pope Francis had some gentle words of correction for the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Pentecost vigil. He took issue with people making the pope the focus of the event:

"Jesus. What is the most important thing? Jesus. If we push ahead with planning and organization, beautiful things indeed, but without Jesus, then we are on the wrong road. Jesus is the most important thing. I would like to take the opportunity now to make a small, but fraternal, reproach, among ourselves, alright? All of you in the square shouted out: 'Francis, Francis, Pope Francis' ... But, where was Jesus? I want to hear you shot out, "Jesus, Jesus is Lord, and He is in our midst.' From now on, no more 'Francis,' only 'Jesus.' Alright?"

(Hat tip to Vatican Radio, Salt + Light Media and others who brought this quote to our attention.)

This isn't the first time Pope Francis has asked this. He made a similar appeal to young people in St. Peter's Square on April 21. And it would seem the pope faces an uphill battle with World Youth Day, an event noted for its wall-to-wall papal name chanting, looming in Rio de Janeiro this July. But that's not Pope Francis' fault.

Jesuit Father Norman Tanner notes that the papacy has faced a growing cult of personality ever since Pius IX (1846-78) became the first pope to be photographed. The phenomenon crested in the made-for-television persona of John Paul II who met cheering crowds every step of the way as he circled the globe. In contrast, the shy and retiring Benedict XVI downplayed this image. John Thavis and other Vatican watchers have noted that the former pope looked visibly uncomfortable when crowds chanted his name. Even his surprise resignation seemed designed to draw a line between the man and the office.

Pope Francis has continued the trajectory, styling himself mostly as "the bishop of Rome," eschewing the luxurious trappings of the office and adopting this "He must increase, I must decrease"/from-the-visible-to-the-invisible approach.

Not long after his election, Pope Francis told the story of a layman who worked in the archdiocesan curia in Buenos Aires who would say "Jesus" before heading out to work. When then-Cardinal Bergoglio asked about this, the man said that saying the name of Jesus made him feel strong and ready to work, knowing Jesus was by his side. And now Pope Francis is urging Catholics to follow this man's lead and fix their gaze on Jesus.

The benefits of focusing on Jesus are almost too obvious and too extensive to mention, but here are a few tangential thoughts:

• Non-Catholics who see a crowd chanting a pope's name might think this earthly man has somehow displaced Jesus Christ as the one being adored.
• Ecumenists have long championed a model of dialogue with other Christians in which both parties focus as much as possible on Jesus because, like spokes approaching the hub of a wheel, they're closest to each other when they're closest to Christ.
• The Church has made the personal encounter with Christ the central thrust of the New Evangelization and the Year of Faith, recognizing that in encountering Christ, people find true faith.
• Catholics encounter Jesus Christ in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, which the Second Vatican Council calls the "source and summit" of the faith.
• The Catechism of the Catholic Church says praying the name of Jesus is to invoke him and call him within us (2666). 

So yes, Pope Francis is probably onto something. And now, a whole blog post about the pope later, this writer had better take the message to heart too: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

Holy Thursday Holiday

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

We're off work Thursday and Friday at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, USCCB president, gave us Thursday off in honor of the election of Pope Francis.  Good Friday always has been a holiday here. I hope giving us Holy Thursday as a day off continues. It is not a holy day of obligation, nor is Good Friday for that matter, but Holy Thursday is special to me. It celebrates the institution of the Eucharist, which lies at the heart of our Catholic faith. Maybe my warm feelings for the day go back to when I was a kid taking part in Holy Thursday processions and later as a teenager visiting churches to pray at beautifully decorated altars of repose.

A few years ago a young adult who wasn't a churchgoer asked if she could go to Mass with me on Holy Thursday. I said sure, but wondered why the sudden fervor. Come to find out that Holy Thursday was a big day when she was in college because students involved with campus ministry at  her school followed the Mass of the Lord's Supper with a pizza party. I am sure there was some connection to the meal in the Upper Room with the disciples, a shared supper among close friends. My young friend couldn't articulate it, but she knew the day was special, even if Sunday Mass was not at that point in her life.

Pope Francis will continue the custom of leading the Stations of the Cross at Rome's Colosseum on Good Friday. The Vatican has released the prayers he will say at http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2013/documents/ns_lit_doc_20130329_via-crucis_en.html. The Vatican selects different groups of people annually to write the prayers. This year young people from Lebanon wrote them.

We're still debriefing after the papal transition. We've asked communications direrctors who were with us in Rome to come here in May for a post-up. It's not hard to get people to come to Washington in the spring. We're looking ahead too -- to the Catholic Media Convocation in Denver in June and World Youth Day with Pope Francis in Rio de Janeiro in July. Working to spread the Gospel can be fun.

Have a blessed Triduum and a happy Easter.

Archbishop Sartain Takes it to the Mountaintop

A high point of the already towering program for World Youth Day 2011 was Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain's talk at Theology on Tap to English-speaking pilgrims. Co-sponsored by the National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association (NCYAMA) and the Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth office of the USCCB, the archbishop's talk could have come at the conclusion of World Youth Day rather than the eve of the pope's arrival; his message focused on the everyday realities awaiting pilgrims when they returned home.

He urged them not make unfavorable comparisons between the euphoria of World Youth Day and their other experiences, particularly experiences of their faith lives. He recalled the Apostles, who literally experienced the highs of some "mountaintop moments" only to have Jesus warn them not to tell anyone. (Archbishop Sartain stopped at this point to read a Gospel account of the Transfiguration.) In short, the archbishop explained, a follower of Christ should not become fixated on the highs of the Gospel at the expense of the rest of the Christian message and lifestyle.

In an effort to help pilgrims build a solid faith practice on the heights of their World Youth Day experience, the archbishop then offered a reflection on how to grow in a relationship with God, complete with a handout for them to take home.

So here's the resource for use by the rest of the Church:

Growing In Our Relationship With Christ

(A few simple steps)

Archbishop Peter Sartain

How does one strive to know the Lord? How does one become God's intimate friend? Perhaps these simple points will help.

• Speak to God. Carrying on a conversation with God in prayer, the same kind I have with close friends, gives me a chance to tell him what's in my heart and on my mind. As in all friendships, honesty is required. Why lie to God?
• Listen to God. Prayer is much more than getting things off my chest. It also involves quietly giving God the opportunity to respond. As St. John of the Cross once remarked, God speaks his everlasting Word in silence. In our noisy world, we must not forget that silence can be much more intimate than speech.
• Read what God has to say. This is another way of saying, "Read the Bible." The bible recounts what God has revealed to us about himself through creation, history, prophecy, and most especially through the Son, his perfect self-revelation. And as Rabbi Abraham Heschel once wrote, the Bible is also God's book about man. We learn both about God and about ourselves by opening the Sacred Scriptures.
• Learn the faith. Faith has an objective component: the truths we are to believe. By studying the Church's teaching, we give heart and mind to God.
• Become true disciples of God's Son. The Father sent the Son so that we could abide in the deep intimacy they share. "Father, they are your gift to me... I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them" (John 17:24, 26). Jesus is The Way, and giving our lives in discipleship takes us to the bosom of the Father.
• Commit yourself to a life of conversion. Being a disciple of the Lord Jesus involves allowing his grace to go to work in me -- to transform me more and more into Christ himself. This is entirely the work of grace, but God calls me to cooperate with grace. I am called to discover my sinfulness and repent. I am called to accept the gift of God's merciful forgiveness. I am called to change what needs to be changed in my life. I am called to do good and avoid evil, to relinquish habits and ways of living which are not compatible with faith in Christ and thus not compatible with Christ's living presence in me. The goal is to say, with St. Paul, "For to me, life is Christ!" (Philippines 1:21)
• Call on the Holy Spirit. From the beginning to the end of time, whenever the Father sends the Son, he also sends the Spirit, because their mission is inseparable. The Spirit keeps us faithful and makes intimacy with God possible.
• Seek out the presence and action of God. The sacraments are the public worship of the Church, but they are first and foremost the work of Christ. If we want to know God better, we look for opportunities to be where he is at work, especially the sacraments of Eucharist and Penance.
• Love the Mother of God. As the first disciple, the Blessed Mother gives us the best example of giving oneself to God, and she is our powerful intercessor. She presents our need to Jesus ("They have no more wine") and directs us to him ("Do whatever he tells you").
• Make friends with the friends of God. Reading the lives and writings of the saints reminds us that we are surrounded by great witnesses who insire us to live faith to the full. Likewise, surrounding ourselves in daily life with friends who share our love for God helps us stay the course.
• "Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart," wrote Abba Poeman. Poeman was referring to the fact that we often amue ourselves and spend our time with things -- entertainments, conversations, etc. -- which can never nourish us because we were made for greater things. That which seems harmless on the surface can gradually erode the quality and depth of our commitment to the Lord.

Don’t you know kids aren’t interested in the Church?

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York says being “a bit over the age limit” doesn’t deter him from seeking “this opportunity to grow closer to Christ.” This testimony by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ president closes our “Bishops Energized for WYD series.” May all who have journeyed to WYD in Madrid have a faith-filled experience and a safe return home.

I’m going to World Youth Day first as a pilgrim, to be with our Holy Father, with fellow Catholics, and to grow in my own faith. Even though I’m just a bit above the age limit, I know that I will be moved by this opportunity to grow closer to Christ.

Secondly, I am one of over two hundred bishops from around the world who have been named “bishop-catechists,” and I am happily anticipating being able to share the message of Christ and his Church with English-speaking pilgrims from around the United States and around the world. We bishops have been asked to concentrate on St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians focusing on the theme, "Planted and Built Up in Jesus Christ, Firm in the Faith."

What do I hope the youth in my diocese and from the world get from participating in WYD? Simply put: to grow closer to Christ, to conform their lives to His Life. I also hope those attending will be confirmed in the faith, strengthened in their missionary zeal, inspired by the universality of the Church, and, on returning to New York that they will begin a new stage in their journey with the Lord in bringing the joy of the Gospel to every aspect of their work and personal life back home and with their friends.

I think all attendees will bring their own unique, personal gifts to World Youth Day—but especially those that are characteristic of youth: a zeal and energy for the faith that is contagious.

Those coming from New York will be young professionals from every aspect of our culture here: from the arts, film, theater, fashion, media, finance, and law, among others. New Yorkers will bring all of the natural gifts that they have in these professions, and unite them with the similar gifts of millions of other pilgrims from every nation, culture and background around the world.

My first World Youth Day was Denver, in 1993. I was profoundly moved by the impact that World Youth Day had on vocations. One of my responsibilities when I was rector of the North American College was to read the spiritual biographies of the young men who were to be seminarians, and I was struck by how many identified attending a World Youth Day as a turning point for them to answer God’s call to the priesthood. And the impact is not just vocations to the priesthood and religious life, which were plentiful. World Youth Day has also had a tremendous impact on the vocation of marriage and family as well.

George Weigel recounts how, when Blessed John Paul II first suggested the idea of World Youth Day, many of his advisors told him, “Forget it. It’ll be a flop. Don’t you know kids aren’t interested in the Church? It will never work, never catch on.” But what did John Paul do? He responded with his characteristic, “Be not afraid”—and of course, it was a tremendous success. World Youth Day will probably be seen as a turning point in the history of the Church. It is a vibrant, visible witness of our faith and an opportunity to grow in the faith and to meet the face of Christ in our fellow pilgrims.

World Youth Day: Life-Changing Moment with Pope Benedict

World Youth Day this year is in Madrid, Aug. 16-21, and almost 30,000 young people from the United States alone will participate. Thousands others can join the virtual World Youth Day on Facebook, www.facebook.com/virtualworldyouthday.

I have affection for World Youth Day because I was on the leadership group that launched the event in 1993 in Denver. Pope John Paul II founded World Youth Day in 1985 as a biennial event starting in Rome, with subsequent meetings in Buenos Aires; Santiago de Compostela, Spain; and Czestochowa, Poland. When the event did not catch on worldwide, Vatican organizers asked the U.S. bishops to host it in America. They thought that U.S. media might give it the profile it needed. Were they ever right!

This was a new experience for the church in the United States. Bishops met a from-the-ground-up movement. Instead of leaders urging youth to participate, they found youth all but demanding to go. Many in the hierarchy were taken aback. What the youth sought was unusual and unprecedented. Some lay leaders questioned bringing raging hormones together and said we were looking for trouble. Fortunately, the U.S. bishops decided to take the risk.

In Europe the event had been designed for young adults; minors were discouraged from attending. The U.S. bishops, who from experience with Catholic schools and religious education programs recognized potential in this group, successfully argued for lowering the minimum age for attendees from 18 to 16, and added the component of youth leaders to head delegations.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was asked to organize the three-day event and initially guesstimated about 60,000 youth would be interested. In a few months, local organizers presented the bishops with a budget problem. About 120,000 young people had registered for the event in the first few months alone.

The thousands of participants changed the bishops’ view of young people. Until then, the bishops had seen youth as the church of tomorrow. After they met them together, they began to refer to them as the church of today. Idealism en masse offered hope. The young people brought out the best in one another and in the adults privileged to be with them.

Before the event, media reported the trite but seemingly eternal story of a church divided. But, when media got to Denver, that story wasn’t there. Graying editors at home demanded to know what youth thought about birth control and abortion. Some reporters dutifully interviewed people along these lines. The youth were incredulous. We’re not talking about things like that, youth replied. One exasperated coed told a reporter, “Get a life!” Another reporter for a newsweekly advised his editor that the youth weren’t talking about his issues. In fact, they weren’t fighting with the church at all. When World Youth Day concluded, the Washington Post reported that it was like Woodstock, with all of the good and none of the bad of the 1969 rock festival.

Pope Benedict was elected in 2005, just months before World Youth Day was to be in Germany. Youth from around the globe cheered when the German pope said he would continue the world meeting and see them in Cologne.

World Youth Day brings youth and the pope together. There is no other world leader or even national leader who has made such an outreach. The pope challenges youth, before politics, church or otherwise, can jade them. He calls them to deepen their relationship with Jesus, recognize that they are in a family comprised of a mix of languages, nations, color and even religious beliefs. World Youth Day helps them realize they have a personal relationship with Jesus at the same time it expands their concept of community beyond a coterie of friends, or even of the parish. It can be life-changing and, with its emphasis on peace and world community, world-changing as well.