University of Notre Dame – Mysteries and Manners

7 Quick Takes Friday (1/31/14)

January 31, 2014

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I bought a car today!

Yes, the first car I have ever bought!

It was a stressful experience. I have been looking for several weeks for a reliable used car, but everything came together over the last few days. A friend of mine suggested I particularly turn to Mary – “she will take care of you.” So I did.

And she did.

I am so grateful.

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Speaking of milestones, Pope Francis had this to say while addressing representatives from the University of Notre Dame, my graduate alma mater:

The biggest way Notre Dame has done this has been the Alliance for Catholic Education, which is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary this year. As I have written about before, my two years serving with ACE were filled with blessings–and also with the biggest struggles I have ever encountered.

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You should really read everything Pope Francis had to say to Notre Dame. I hope everyone at Notre Dame reads everything he had to say to Notre Dame.

I hope they don’t just hear whatever they want to hear. People have a tendency to do that when listening to Pope Francis.

This is the part I would like the administration to focus on:

Essential in this regard is the uncompromising witness of Catholic universities to the Church’s moral teaching, and the defense of her freedom, precisely in and through her institutions, to uphold that teaching as authoritatively proclaimed by the magisterium of her pastors. (Pope Francis, via Vatican News)

I mean, I don’t want to foist my own personal biased political agenda (albeit backed up by Church teaching) on Pope Francis’ words, but that sounds a lot to me like: Don’t back down on the HHS mandate. Don’t give in. Don’t be like everybody else.

And, even more beautifully:

It is my hope that the University of Notre Dame will continue to offer unambiguous testimony to this aspect of its foundational Catholic identity, especially in the face of efforts, from whatever quarter, to dilute that indispensable witness. And this is important: its identity, as it was intended from the beginning. To defend it, to preserve it and to advance it! (Pope Francis, via Vatican News)

Amen.

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In other counter-cultural news:

I was really inspired by Natalie Grant’s decision to walk out of the Grammys–which, from what I hear, were particularly vulgar and demeaning to human dignity this year.

Best of all, this is what Natalie said on her Facebook page:

We left the Grammy’s early. I’ve many thoughts about the show tonight, most of which are probably better left inside my head. But I’ll say this: I’ve never been more honored to sing about Jesus and for Jesus. And I’ve never been more sure of the path I’ve chosen.
Read more at http://theblacksphere.net/2014/01/christian-grammy-nominee-natalie-grant-walks-grammys/#pVifQ5MBSoDq05kB.99

How beautiful, that she professed Christ and did not, instead, vent her frustration at the antics that prompted her to leave.

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Another example of respectful disagreement and engagement I found particularly arresting this week was Marc’s post over at BadCatholic in response to Rohin Guha’s thoughtful article about the “gay male subculture.” Guha’s lengthy article is rather explicit in places, so be fair warned, but well worth reading if you want to really listen to the perspective of a gay man wrestling thoughtfully with personhood and the dignity of men and women.

Marc’s response at BadCatholic summarizes well what is best in Guha’s article, and then ventures into some very Hans Urs von Balthasar-esque meditations:

For surely every encounter with the particular subject a woman is, an encounter with her as her — a particular Amy or Donna or Martha or Rose — surely such an encounter requires me to offer myself as the particular subject I am. We do not encounter subjectivity by disinterested observation. If we are to encounter the actual person, we have to meet them. We have to throw ourselves in the mix. In short, we have to communicate. But what is communication?

When I communicate I express my subjectivity — my hidden, interior thought — through my objectivity — through my words and my body language — and thus I lead my listener to encounter my entire person, which is a synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity. Communication is the revelation of subjectivity through objectivity, and thus requires a subject. (BadCatholic)

For Marc, the problem’s Guha’s article presents lies in trading in one (stereo)type for another: “gay” (and what that has come to mean) for “queer” (since it does not mean everything ‘gay’ has come to mean). The problem, though, is that in both cases, the human person is considering himself in the wrong way– from the outside in, as it were, instead of the inside-out:

How then, can we communicate, we who are happily estranged from our subjectivity, taking refuge from its loneliness in over-accentuated objective traits — or from our infinite responsibility before God, depending on what rubs your metaphysics the right way. How can we share express our interior if we are entertaining the illusion that our exterior life is our interior? It takes a person to encounter a person, and if we are going to encounter women as people, if we are going to love our neighbors at all, we must first begin the terrible task of holiness, of living as precisely the person we are, shirking the delight and ease and irresponsibility of living as a type. (Ibid)

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Speaking of communication and intersubjectivity…

My students finished reciting their poems in my Coffee House/classroom. A lot of them did very well, and even surprised me.

One girl in particular stood out. She memorized a poem that is four pages long and somewhat unconventional – more in the “slam poetry” genre than anything else. I will give you the link to Janette Ikz’s own recitation of the poem, which is powerful.

But somehow, hearing this from a sixteen year old sophomore was even more powerful:

And yes. She memorized the whole thing.

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And, ahem, Notre Dame, take note.

My beloved undergraduate alma mater is featured over at National Catholic Register: “University of Dallas Renews Catholic Identity.”

A taste:

Added the University of Dallas president, “Enrollment has never been higher, and revenue has never been higher. And we are joyful about our fidelity to the Catholic faith.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/university-of-dallas-renews-catholic-identity/#ixzz2s1rjIrU7

Catholic identity is, and I would venture to say, always will be, a struggle for universities. But I am proud to call the University of Dallas my intellectual home, and I am thankful for the amazing education I received there.

7 Quick Takes Friday (1/24/14)

January 24, 2014

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Obituaries usually make me feel sad. This one made me feel really happy. It’s an obituary all of us can aspire to having someday.

You should read it:

“If you’re about to throw away an old pair of pantyhose, stop.”

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I am a recent alum of the University of Notre Dame. Although I have not developed the same love for the school that I probably would have if I had attended as an undergraduate, I do love her a lot. Notre Dame is a wonderful place. It’s one of the few Catholic universities that still cares about being Catholic.

Moreover, I remember being surprised and pleased when Notre Dame lead the charge on the HHS Mandate back in 2012…

…but it looks like the university is giving in after all, for the time being:

“Today, the university advised employees — myself included — that its third-party administrator (Meritain Health) would be in touch about the ‘free’ services — which include abortifacient drugs and devices,” noted Gerard Bradley, a professor at the Notre Dame School of Law, in a post on National Review’s Bench Memos.

“[T]he university could refuse to ‘certify’ its conscientious objection to the TPA, thus holding back on the trigger necessary for Meritain to initiate coverage,” said Bradley, who expressed regret with the university’s apparent decision to sign the self-certification form authorizing a third-party administrator (TPA) to provide the mandated services.

“The reasons for doing so would be, as Notre Dame asserted in its formal complaint in the local federal court, that so ‘triggering’ the coverage would be tantamount to facilitating abortions in violation of the university’s Catholic beliefs,” added Bradley, who noted that the Jan. 2 announcement “implies that the university has indeed pulled that trigger.” (Joan Desmond, National Catholic Register)

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The South Bend Tribune has even more sad news, that several ND students have sought to fight the University’s lawsuit because they are “very much in need of contraception” and “hopeful that they would finally be able access it,” according to Ayesha Khan of the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

Shearer points out, with an incisive response:

They [the students] are privileged to attend a university with a distinctive Catholic identity, and one would assume that, given their admission and the effort expended seeking legal counsel from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, they have both the intellect and resources to locate one of the two local Planned Parenthood clinics, either of which would be happy to help them with their contraceptive needs. Should they not wish to avail themselves of that organization’s services, a visit to any public health clinic or a general practitioner will likely result in a prescription for “the pill” which may then be procured at a quite reasonable cost at any given Walmart or Walgreens. Any notion that they “would finally be able to obtain access to it” (contraception) only in the event of university provision of it is absurd.

Birth control of all sorts is readily available in this area, from multiple venues at a cost, in general, which imposes little to no burden upon the user, thus not requiring denigration of the values of the institution to which they are supposedly committed in intellectual, if not spiritual, harmony. (Shearer, “Student’s Role in Notre Dame Lawsuit Utter Nonsense”)

You should read the entirety of Shearer’s excellent response here.

For better or worse, Notre Dame is in many ways the flagship of Catholic universities. She is wealthy and influential. When Notre Dame speaks, people listen. She carries a huge responsibility to be faithful to her mission, “the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake,” and to the “basic inspiration from Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom and [to] the conviction that in him all things can be brought to their completion.” (ND Mission Statement)

I hope that the leaders of Notre Dame will be faithful to that mission, and to encouraging all members of the university to be faithful as well.

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Over at Cosmos in the Lost, Mr. Rosman says, “Writing really is a process of discovery, a form of thinking. You don’t know what you’ll end up writing until you actually sit down and write it.”

I love this – and I repeat this idea all the time to my students. Flannery O’Connor put it this way: “I write to discover what I know.”

I was especially intrigued by the title of Mr. Rosman’s post: “Everything Under the S(u/o)n: Von Balthasar’s and Milosz’s God Metaphors.”

If you know me, then you know that Hans Urs von Balthasar is one of my favorite theologians. I wrote my theology thesis about his work in Theo-Logic.

Go read Rosman’s post to find out what those God metaphors are.

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Richard Wilbur notes that metaphor is the grounding of human language and thought–which is partially why metaphor is so essential to poetry. If you think about it, many of the everyday phrases we use to describe reality are, in fact, metaphors. We don’t notice this anymore because some metaphors have become so common they don’t even seem figurative or poetic:

“I need a minute to digest what you’ve said.” Thinking:Eating

“Keep your eyes peeled!” Eyes: Fruit? Potato?

“That’s music to my ears!” Some statement: music

“That assignment was a breeze!” Assignment: breeze

“She broke his heart.” Heart: Something delicate and breakable, like china.

“They didn’t want to acknowledge the elephant in the room.” Elephant: awkward truth

See here and here for more examples.

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Father James Martin, SJ, is always showing up on my Facebook newsfeed and making insightful statuses about prayer or suggesting interesting articles like this one over at America magazine:

“Truth and Truthiness: What Catholic Catechists Can Learn from Stephen Colbert”

A taste:

Stephen Colbert has figured out how to reach people, and Catholic educators should take notice. […] Fans of the show do not just tune in for a laugh, turn off the TV set at show’s end and forget about it. They take action based on what they hear, and our culture has been changed as a result. (Patrick Manning)

Really great article that even brings in Saint Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine.

As a very imperfect teacher, what Manning says really resonates (uncomfortably) with me. I’m not Stephen Colbert–but it is the Stephen Colberts of the world who reach their audiences and effect change. They entertain, instruct and persuade.

All good teachers do this. You can’t really get around the entertaining part, either.

Especially in a high school classroom.

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Speaking of high school classrooms, my classroom is going to be transformed into a coffee shop next week! Complete with coffee. And donuts. And tea. And yes, you may bring in muffins. Yes, breakfast burritos are okay, too. No, you may not come in dressed as a beat poet with a black beret. You have to stay in uniform. Yes, as I said before, coffee is okay. Yes, Starbucks too.

My students will be reciting their poems on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So if you could spare a prayer for them, it would mean a lot to me.

Memory and Faith

July 14, 2013

I just graduated yesterday from the University of Notre Dame Alliance for Catholic Education program. These past two years have been, by far, the most challenging experience of my life. But I’ve been having trouble thinking about it all, or making sense of what has happened to me. Yet graduations are times for memory and telling people all the wonderful things you have learned and all the amazing ways you have changed.

During our commencement retreat this past week, Father Lou DelFra, our ACE chaplain, gave us a beautiful homily to help us process our experience. For our retreat, he chose one of my favorite Gospel readings, the story of the two disciples walking to Emmaus.

So my thoughts here are largely inspired by Father Lou’s words and a few passages from Pope Francis’ recent encyclical, Lumen Fidei.

As you know, the two bewildered disciples are leaving Jerusalem, overcome by the horrific events they have just experienced. The Lord was crucified. All of their hopes have been dashed. They are struggling to interpret their experience of the past three years with Jesus. When the Lord, whom they do not recognize, begins walking with them, they are shocked to discover that He hasn’t heard the latest news. He begins to interpret these events for them in terms of the Scriptures, and, fascinated, they beg him to stay with them for the night. Yet they only finally recognize him “in the breaking of the bread.”

Father Lou reminded all of us that our experience on retreat, which involved the famous ACE “paired walks,” was very much like that of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. We were likewise trying to make sense of all that we have experienced, and perhaps we were having some trouble doing that.

Because for every triumphant teaching story I can tell you, there are a dozen more that do not involve visible triumph. For every miracle I saw, there were a dozen more crucifixions that had no apparent resurrection. Let’s be real here. One of my students was involved in some kind of attempted murder, and is on the run, and I still don’t know what happened to him. There was another I struggled with my entire first year, who suffered terribly from psychological challenges, whom I was never really able to reach and who is gone now. I don’t know what will happen to her either. There are kids who failed my class and who, despite my efforts, did not really seem to improve over the two years. And then there are the kids I know I did not try hard enough with, who slipped through the cracks.

As much as graduation is about our accomplishments in ACE, and the stories we love to tell each other, and the students we love to remember, it’s also about all the failures and the situations we would rather not recall.

But Father Lou’s message to us was simple—don’t be afraid to remember them. Don’t be afraid, over these next weeks, months, and years, to try to make sense of it all. Father Lou seemed strangely confident that we would find Christ there if we looked for Him—that we would see He had been walking with us the whole time, even when our “eyes were prevented from recognizing him.”

I love that in Pope Francis (and Pope Benedict’s) encyclical, they express how closely tied together faith and memory are:

Yet this remembrance is not fixed on past events but, as the memory of a promise, it becomes capable of opening up the future, shedding light on the path to be taken. We see how faith, as remembrance of the future, memoria futuri, is thus closely bound up with hope. (9, Ch 1)

Faith as memory is therefore linked to hope that sheds “light on the path to be taken.” Father Lou, as well, seemed to suggest that if we had the courage to remember our experiences—all of them, the good and the bad—that we would find Him there and He would tell us where to go next.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus tried to remember and understand. In the Eucharist, their eyes were opened and Christ showed them the real meaning of what had happened—and thus they were able to run back to Jerusalem to share their memories with the others. And the Church has been doing this ever since. She shares her memory of Jesus with us, and because Jesus gave her the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist (“do this in memory of me”), we can trust her memory of Him.

Obviously my thoughts are still forming on all of this, so I’ll just end with the beautiful words of the encyclical that I recognize not only as applying to the universal faith, but to my own personal faith that He has been there with me in ACE—even if I still cannot recognize Him.

Language itself, the words by which we make sense of our lives and the world around us, comes to us from others, preserved in the living memory of others. Self-knowledge is only possible when we share in a greater memory. The same thing holds true for faith, which brings human understanding to its fullness. Faith’s past, that act of Jesus’ love which brought new life to the world, comes down to us through the memory of others — witnesses — and is kept alive in that one remembering subject which is the Church. The Church is a Mother who teaches us to speak the language of faith. Saint John brings this out in his Gospel by closely uniting faith and memory and associating both with the working of the Holy Spirit, who, as Jesus says, “will remind you of all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). The love which is the Holy Spirit and which dwells in the Church unites every age and makes us contemporaries of Jesus, thus guiding us along our pilgrimage of faith. (38)