A morality and spirituality for our times
Guest Columnist
By Msgr. FRancis x. Meehan
It was just a small surge, a longing, a desire, something within me. It came out of the blue. I was attending a conference of the Catholic organization, “Pax Christi.” They met in Philadelphia this July — people from all over the country, people trying to live Jesus’ Word of Peace (Pax). The speaker of the moment was Arturo Chavez, a man who combined social wisdom with a deep devotional spirit.
At one point he asks this: “How do we strengthen our faith, grow in holiness, live joyfully and hopefully in this time?” In print, now, this question may seem just prosaic; but on this night, his very devotion caught us up in a new awareness, a new hope.
When I came home that night, I reflected: Chavez’s talk seemed to just fit — fit, that is, the times we live in. We do not live in the 1960s, 70s, or 80s. Each time has its call: Today, work for justice and peace — alone— will not do. Pro-life work — alone— will not do. No issue — alone — is enough. More than ever, we must add a deep faith, a devotional sense, a vibrant prayer life. Only these will give heart to all movements, issues, social caring.
It is, now, the first decade of the 21st century. There is taking place a serious moral and spiritual deterioration. It cries out for a new type of wisdom, something we might call a “both-and” wisdom: Even as a Church people, we have tended to be too “either-or.” One group is devotional; one group is oriented to justice and peace, one group is pro-life. But on this night, a young man, Arturo Chavez, brings to us both a prophetic social analysis, and, at the same time, fervently invites Our Lady of Guadalupe into our gathering. He is all about “both-and.”
One reaches into history for a model. I think of Thomas More. Like so many women and men saints, he combined both a deep interior life and an opening out to public issues. In Robert Bolt’s drama on Thomas More, there is that moment when More awaits his execution. His daughter, Meg, visits him in the Tower of London. She begs him not to play the hero, to go ahead and sign Henry’s Oath of Supremacy. Thomas is stung. He pushes back. He speaks of how the times are not ordinary; and he ends his response by tenderly letting his beloved “Meg” know that at this time we must “stand fast a little.”
More’s “stand-fast-a-little” says so much about our own need “to stand fast” against the many deteriorations of our time. We could all name so many: the loss of faith, a deep moral drift, experimentation on embryos, nuclear weaponry renewed, cluster “bomblets” that later explode in children’s faces, sexuality’s loss of home and family. Each one’s list must include our desire to be a more reconciling, prayerful people.
A prayer comes to mind — a prayer that the Holy Spirit will help me follow through on surges such as the one that came to me that night, these promptings of the Spirit that move the young and the old, priest, religious and lay. O Lord, teach us the answer to Arturo Chavez’s prayerful question: Teach us “how to strengthen our faith, grow in holiness, live joyfully and hopefully.” And, in these times of ours, how “to stand fast a little!”
Msgr. Meehan is a former teacher and pastor who now helps in Spiritual direction for students at St. Charles Seminary.