You've Gotta Talk About It!

"Today we need a Church capable of walking at people's side, of doing more than simply listening to them..." - Pope Francis 

Throughout the ages people have asked questions of great importance to their lives, such as: is there a God? Who is He and what is He like? What reasons are there for believing in Him? When you do come to believe in Him, where do you go from there?  Is religion really necessary? Many people are still asking these questions and just because you or I may have already sufficiently answered these questions for ourselves does not mean that we can't or that we shouldn't discuss these questions with those who have not answered them.  In fact, it seems vital that this discussion should happen, because often people are drawn to faith in Christ through the witness of faithful and authentic Christians. 

Discussion about the divine, faith, and religion can be called "dialogue." A dialogue is a conversation between two or more people. That means listening to what another person says, but it also means responding. As Christians, we are called to dialogue with other people. This is the heart of the New Evangelization!  This is what it means to preach the Gospel. It means we cannot stand on a soap box on the street corner like the Pharisees and speak just for the sake of hearing ourselves talk without any real understanding of who we are talking to. No, we must engage people in the grocery store, at the gas station, at the bar, and on the internet.  We must listen to their stories, but we must, as Pope Francis says, do more than simply listen. As Christians we must reply in charity to the questions and lives of the persons we encounter every day. We must not be afraid to engage in casual conversation about the topic of faith. The faith of others may be sparked by this and our own faith can only be sharpened and strengthened by the challenges presented to it by the culture.

In order to be able to enter into conversation with other people, we have to meet them where they are at. We need to be able to enter into the culture and encounter people right where they are and still remain faithful in our witness to Christ. One way in which we can begin to meet people where they are at is through the social media. It is something that a vast number of people use everyday. Blogging, as Mark Shea points out in the chapter on blogging in The Church and New Media, has a great potential to begin dialogue because of its conversational tone and interactive possibilities. Readers can engage and respond to the material they are reading and authors can continue the discussion almost immediately. (It is a far cry from when you wrote a letter to the newspaper and waited weeks for a response...that is, if you ever got a response.)  There are some great Catholic bloggers out there who do just this: write for the purpose of engaging people in conversation about topics of faith. Check out Marc Barnes, for example. 

However potent social media may be, I have found in my own short life that face to face interactions with other human persons are the most fruitful form of dialogue. No matter what, there is a disconnect that happens when a social medium is used to communicate. Much is lost without the tone of voice and the facial and body expressions that are part of a face to face interaction between persons. So while I firmly believe that social media can be used effectively in the New Evangelization and that it should be used, I also believe that it is only a springboard. Nothing can beat a conversation with that person on the airplane or in the driver's license bureau. Do not be afraid! Go out into the streets and proclaim the love of Christ present in your heart! But don't forget to listen. This is not a soap box or a "holier than thou" competition...it is an opportunity to walk together with other persons up the mountain of faith.

Climb EVERY Mountain!

The iron cross at the top of the Kirchenstein.

Phew...it's been a while, hasn't it?  It has turned out to be harder than I thought to set aside time every week to write even a short blog post.  Not that there is a lack of anything to write about here.  It is simply that there are so many things to do!  (And also that when I get back from traveling on the weekends all I want to do is sleep).  

So thank you for patiently waiting for this post.  I hope you enjoy it.  This event originally happened about 2 or 3 weeks ago....

Well folks, this past Sunday I climbed my first mountain.  It was glorious!  I don’t think I can accurately describe the beauty or the thrill of climbing a mountain.  And pictures definitely don’t do it justice either.  But here goes nothing.

My friend and I left the Kartause around 1pm and walked across town to where the path starts.  It begins as a sidewalk between two houses and then there is a staircase leading up to the beginning of the trail.  This part of the hike was really easy.  The trail goes very slowly upwards and there is a lot of zigzagging back and forth across the mountain.  Seriously, if you just went straight up it would be a lot faster (but probably more difficult).  We took our time walking up, stopping to look at the view a few times…and we thought it was beautiful!  But we didn’t know that there was more breathtaking beauty to come. 

After about a half an hour we reached a “peak” called the Kirchenstein.  It is a huge rock with an iron cross on top.  You can look out and see all of the town and the valley spread out before you.  That was the breathtaking view.  We were very blessed because it was a beautiful and clear day with a little bit of sunshine!  (The sun doesn’t shine as much here as it does at home, probably because it is snowing most of the time).   My friend and I enjoyed the beauty of the view and soaked up the sunshine.  But we hadn’t reached our goal (the book), so we kept moving – onwards and upwards.

A view of Gaming from the mountain.  

Now the going got tough.  We started going more steeply uphill and in a few places we were crawling on our hands and knees.  There were spots along the trail where there were almost no trees and we could see everything on both sides of the mountain, including more beautiful mountains in the distance.  After about another thirty-minute hike we finally reached the book!  There is a metal box hanging on a tree, which holds the book.  After signing it (and looking through it to find the names of students who signed it before us) I said a little prayer at the shrine there.  Then my friend and I looked for our household name, which was carved in one of the trees in the little grove there.  We finally found it and took a picture. 

A view from the ridge of the mountain, before we actually reached the book.

After this we began our long descent to the bottom of the mountain.  But it actually didn’t take that long because… after we were about halfway down we decided to just slide down the mountain on our bottoms!  It was fun because the snow was so deep! 

At the end of the day we were exhausted, but content. 

Me with the iron cross.  Isn't the sunlight over the mountains beautiful?

52 Blog Posts...and Other Things

This year I have (once again) made the resolution to post on this, my blog, once a week.  And I think that there is a much higher chance that I will actually follow through with it this year, because I am beginning to enjoy blogging, even if no one ever comments on what I write (hint, hint).  It also gives me motivation to continue to improve my writing.  In other words, by December 31^st I plan to have written at least 52 blog posts.

I have changed the look of my blog (again).  Not really sure if I like the way it looks yet, but I think I will keep it around for a little while and see if I get used to it.  Originally I wanted to have a background with a travel theme, but all of the travel themed backgrounds I could find were a little too cheesy.

Right now I am working on applying for a summer job at a Catholic camp.  The application is challenging me to take a deeper look at why I am Catholic and at who I am as a person.  This application is much different than the one I submitted a few months ago for an RA position at my school and is challenging in a different way.  But the jobs have similar goals: to help every person I encounter become the best person they can be – a saint.  What makes me qualified to help people do that?  Nothing – except that I am also trying to become a saint. 

Surprisingly, this week really has not been too crazy.  But that being said, it has been stressful.  More stressful than I realized, until I picked up my new glasses today and thought they were the wrong ones…after I got home.  So I went back to the eye doctor to double check.  It turned out that they were the right ones, but the pair that I originally tried on was a different shade because the color lot of the plastic was different.  The ladies at the eye doctor were kind enough to switch out the lenses since I liked the coloring of the model frames better.  That’s what I get for ordering variegated glasses frames!  The whole ordeal made me realize that I’m more stressed about this going abroad thing than I thought. 

Finally, I will be saying "auf wiedersehen" to you all until after I get settled into the Kartause.  I won’t be posting again until I am in Austria!  Pray that all of us studying abroad this semester have safe travels.