Joseph Stoutzenberger

Know Thyself

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

A professor of mine at Temple University, David Harrington Watt, insisted that it is important in scholarship to let readers know who we are and what has influenced the positions that we are expressing. In my writing, I have always stayed away from talking about myself. If I wrote about, for instance, Catholic morality, I wanted what I wrote to be about Catholic morality and not about me and my understanding of it. I was never interested in blogs, either in writing one or reading those of other people. I tended to stay away from books in which people talked about themselves too much.

Then I was asked by iPub Global Connection publishers to write a series of blogs in conjunction with a book of mine they were publishing. The editor said that a blog should be personal and related to themes in the book. I decided to give it a try. It provided me an opportunity to look back on my life and appreciate how certain experiences shaped my point of view. For instance, my mother raised her six children Catholic. My father, on the other hand, never attended church in his life except for a couple of his children’s weddings. I heard in school that only baptized Catholics went to heaven. I knew my father to be a good man; except for not going to church, I couldn’t imagine any sin he might have committed. The thought of my dad going to hell was totally preposterous to me. When I heard that heaven was reserved for Catholics, it registered as some kind of abstraction that had nothing to do with real life. When Vatican Council II later affirmed that “all people of good will” were members of the people of God, my dad included, I thought, “Of course. Welcome to the real world.”

A few years ago, Bishop John Dolan co-edited a book about Catholicism and suicide. In it, he writes about his own brother’s death by suicide. This personal experience surely influenced his sensitivity to this painful topic. Church teaching declares suicide to be wrong, but Dolan and the other contributors to the book make it clear that it is essential to pay attention to the persons involved. A reality such as a person taking his or her life does not fit neatly into a simple moral pronouncement. Suicide is not an abstract concept but a desperate act by a hurting flesh and blood person.

A woman friend of mine took seriously Catholic teaching on artificial birth control. She followed the natural family planning deemed acceptable by the church to avoid pregnancy. Due to her irregular menstrual cycle, she discovered that only during a few days a month would sexual intercourse be “safe” from possible pregnancy, and even that was not failsafe. Following the NFP method had two results for her and her husband. For one, she became pregnant anyway with a fourth child whom she and her husband welcomed and loved dearly; but it strained the family’s finances and caused her to go to work in the evenings soon after giving birth to supplement the family income. The other children had little time with either parent, and spent a good deal of time on their own, often getting into trouble. A second result of following the method was that there developed tension between husband and wife. She was the one who took her temperature daily, kept tabs of the calendar, and resisted any expression of physical intimacy for fear that it would lead to another pregnancy.

The son of a Catholic friend of mine went away to college. Three months later, the son told his father that he discovered that he is gay and that he has become close friends with another male student. Initially his father disowned his son and told him not to come home for Thanksgiving. By Christmas, the father relented and invited his son home and even said he could bring his friend with him. He stepped back from all the notions of homosexuality that he had harbored and came to see the reality of who his son is, which transformed his perspective on sexual identity.

In all of these situations, people’s perspectives were influenced by their experiences and circumstances. David Watt is right; it’s important to realize that our experiences color our perspective. Whether we admit it or not, truth claims are filtered through the prism of real-life experiences, our own and those of others. Abstractions have their place, but they are not meant to be straightjackets. Real life is complicated. We called another Temple professor a “bread and baloney man.” The joke was, give him a sandwich, and he was happy spending his days and nights pouring over ancient texts. He was brilliant, but we wondered if he might not also learn something by going out in the light of day and mingling with real people. An essential step in the search for truth is probing who we are and what has shaped our point of view and hearing from others about theirs. Hold abstract principles up to the light of reality; balance the objective with the subjective. Real life is meeting. The medieval Sufi poet Rumi offers an invitation to celebrate the richness that comes from openness to diversity and the uniqueness that is always part of real-life experiences: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

What Peaches and What Penumbras!

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Many years ago, I sat in on a class on sacraments at LaSalle College, now a university. During a lunch break, I sat at a table next to an old professor. I’m not sure what his subject area was, but he asked me what I was studying. I told him I was coming from a class about baptism and the Eucharist. He said, “Ah, procreating and eating. Without those, the human species would cease to exist.” I felt as though what he said contained great wisdom, but I wasn’t sure what that was. Eventually, it came to me. Religious practices, such as baptism and the Eucharist, are not an add-on to life. They are a recognition of the sacredness of all aspects of human existence, especially of its essentials.

Try not eating for a couple days and see what happens. The foods we eat are a great gift. The weekly Jewish Sabbath meal and the annual spring-time Passover seder are a recognition of that. During the seder, the youngest person interrupts the meal at different times to ask the oldest person a variation of the question: How is this night different from every other night? The answer is: Because on this night, we were slaves, and now we are free. Each meal is a gift, gives life, and sets us free. Without food, we would wither and die. The Catholic Eucharist is a meal as well, a giving thanks for the bread of life. This spirit of thanksgiving carries over when Catholics pause before eating to say grace before meals. We are blessed by God for the food we are about to eat.

Procreating is essential to human existence as well. I recall a movie not long ago about one young woman who was the last person on earth who might become pregnant because of environmental changes. Keeping her safe was the challenge faced by the movie’s characters. Thankfully, we are not there yet; but it would be perilous if we ever became nonchalant about the birth of another of our species. Baptism is a celebration of life—one particular life as well as life itself. It represents a commitment on the part of family and community to nurture this life into adulthood so that the cycle of life continues.

A secular mindset can miss the sense of wonder that would come from pondering the splendor of the grand interwoven story of existence. Although secularists cringe at the notion of

God, partially because of the misrepresentations of that concept held by many so-called believers, it strikes me that acknowledging “God” is shorthand for recognizing the sacredness of our interconnected world, the ground of our being, as Paul Tillich would say. On the other hand, religions do not bring people to an appreciation of an all-pervasive sacred if they separate what is “religious” from everything else. The Eucharist is not just food for the soul, but a celebration of gratitude for all that nourishes us, body and soul. Baptism is a moment when a gathering recognizes life for what it is, a great gift that needs love, care, and support.

When Nikita Khrushchev, one of the last leaders of the Soviet Union, visited the United States, one thing, in particular, he marveled at was the well-stocked grocery stores that we are used to. Except for when there’s a noticeable shortage of eggs or milk, we take supermarkets for granted. Holy water fonts are placed at the entrances to Catholic churches to remind people that they are entering sacred space. Perhaps we should have visible reminders at the entranceways to grocery stores that we are entering a grand cathedral of food choices. Or we need more reminders of the sacredness of all forms of life around us, perhaps Walt Whitmanesque chants singing the body electric.

Allen Ginsberg has a poem about entering a supermarket in California that brings Walt Whitman to mind for him. He captures something of the wonder of the place in these words:

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of
husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!

We would do well to bring such a sense of wonder to our own commonplace experiences as well as the church services we attend. Birthing, nurturing, lending a helping hand, sharing, gardens and growers, farmworkers, feasts, and simple meals with friends. There is so much to be thankful for and so much to spark wonder if we take the time to look a little closer. Babies in the tomatoes…What a delight to see!

Review of Mystery & Tradition: Thank You!

Review of Mystery & Tradition: Catholicism for Today’s Spiritual Seekers

What about Brokenness?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Have you ever come across a term that you had never heard before, and then it keeps showing up multiple times afterward? That happened to me with the term “gaslighting.” I heard it on a talk show, then I read an article that used the term, and not long after that, the movie with that title was playing on TCM. It appears to mean, say an untruth often enough, and people start to believe it.

That experience happened for me with the term kintsugi. It refers to the Japanese art of repairing (tsugi) broken pottery with lacquer and gold (kin) so that the repaired pottery has new-found beauty, sometimes beyond what it originally had. Once I heard about the practice, I subsequently ran across references to it a few other times. It’s wonderful to hear about something ancient that offers new insight into the human condition.

That pottery repair practice certainly provides material for meditation applied to human life, similar perhaps to the well-known quote from Margery Williams’s The Velveteen Rabbit about becoming “real.”

It doesn’t happen all at once…You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Years ago, I visited the family of friends of mine in Taiwan. The host honored us by serving tea in a teapot that had been in her family for generations. The tea itself was also very old and rare. My first thought was, shouldn’t this pot be in a museum or kept untouched in a locked cabinet? Imagine if it broke while serving tea to a clumsy American such as myself! Then I realized that life doesn’t happen in museums and never-opened cabinets. Living, becoming real, always brings with it the danger of being broken. Kintsugi and The Velveteen Rabbit remind us that there is beauty in brokenness. The cracks and aching joints that come from giving ourselves to others, carrying around that helpless child all those years, and stepping out of our comfort zone to get involved when we would prefer to keep our distance, results in beauty beyond the pristine beauty of locked-away artifacts.

Traditional Christian theology says that “suffering is redemptive.” Jesus redeemed us through his suffering. I suggest a more accurate understanding is that Jesus gave himself out of love for others. That’s what was redemptive. Granted, his active care for others led to suffering; that’s the nature of life in the pursuit of becoming real. The central message of Christianity is that the love of God becomes real when it is poured out and broken. Those times when Jesus would have wanted to stay out of trouble, go off on his own, and mind his own business became redemptive because he put his life on the line instead. His giving of himself, which admittedly brought on suffering, gave a golden hue to his existence and to the brokenness of the world itself. Imagining God as a broken pot is not one that comes naturally. The cracks filled with gold are the tears, the emptying, the vulnerability, and the compassionate reaching out that results from getting involved and loving. That’s the “real” Christian God described in the bible and embodied most especially in the person of Jesus himself. We wouldn’t see the golden radiant beauty of God except for Christ on the cross.

Sanctuary or Supermarket: Where Is the Church?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

When I was deciding to undertake writing a book exploring the basics of Catholic faith, I looked at other books that claimed to be doing the same thing. I was struck by two omissions that I found in many of them. For one, “the church” essentially means the institution—the Catholic Church and its leaders, past and present. For another, many such books avoid the topic of morality or, at best, mention it briefly. The problem with these omissions is that they overlook where, how, and among whom Catholicism is largely lived out in the world today.

A little over a decade ago, Father Robert Barron, now a bishop, wrote a popular and engagingly written book to accompany a video series called Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith. The book and video series are filled with images of churches and religious art. Early in his book (page 3), he talks about the central teaching of Catholicism, the Incarnation, which he calls the enfleshment of God. God continues to be enfleshed in the Church. He lists how, for him, that enfleshment is present through the Church today: in the sacraments, in the Liturgy, in the work of theologians, in the governance of popes and bishops, in the saints, and in Catholic art. What’s missing? How about the everyday, commonplace expressions of love happening in families, in friendships, in schools, in businesses, in supermarkets, in the simple exchanges Catholics make throughout their lives?

The everyday, commonplace expressions of love happening in families, in friendships, in schools, in businesses, in supermarkets, in the simple exchanges Catholics make throughout their lives.

I recently had the honor of serving as a Confirmation sponsor for my grandson. After the ceremony, many of the boys headed off to their CYO (in Philadelphia, Catholic Youth Organization) basketball game. Confirmation was quickly forgotten, but before the game, players and coaches gathered at center court to recite the Hail Mary, followed by asking the blessing of the patron saints of the two parishes facing off against each other. This little ritual may seem mindless and pro forma for Catholic activities but think about it. The coaches, who volunteer their time three or four evenings a week, spoke words of praise and encouragement as players shuffled in and out and made sure that sportsmanlike conduct prevailed despite the hard-fought game. Their passion was basketball and the young boys they coached, but if pushed and explained, they would hesitantly admit that Christ was present through them and in the gym as much as in the church next door. Across the river, in Camden, New Jersey, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital publishes a monthly calendar displayed throughout the hospital. It contains thoughtful reflections for each day and is called “God-Spotting: Finding God in the Everyday.” It serves as one more reminder that those who work at the hospital in whatever capacity are the enfleshment of God.

Those who work at the hospital in whatever capacity are the enfleshment of God.

Surely, Barron would agree that Catholicism and the Incarnation extend beyond church walls. However, by not making that case more explicit in concrete situations, he runs the risk of reinforcing the popular perception that “the Catholic Church” exists in popes and bishops and theologians, and sacraments that are not connected to the lives most Catholics live. Church buildings and sacramental practices are meant to remind us of the holiness that surrounds us. Barron does write about Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day, and the Catholic Worker Movement in his discussion of the last judgment scene in Matthew, chapter 25. (It seems that Dorothy Day is the one layperson who must always be included in any discussion of modern Catholicism. What is seldom mentioned is that she found her greatest joy in spending time with her granddaughter, as many older Catholics do.) However, in his treatment of saints, Barron discusses only four women, all of them religious sisters, two of whom were actually cloistered Carmelite nuns. Here in Philadelphia, unfortunately, the monastery of the Carmelite nuns on North Broad Street was recently shuttered, while CYO basketball continues to thrive. And there are many Catholic women and men, married and unmarried, inspired by their faith, who serve as teachers, healthcare workers, and volunteers in service organizations. The Church Barron writes about is antique and inconsequential unless connected to where the great majority of Catholics are.

In the Index to Barron’s book, there are no entries for the words morality, conscience, or natural law. There are multiple references to sin but in a general, symbolic, or abstract way, such as in his lengthy discussion of Dante’s depiction of hell and purgatory in his Divine Comedy. He does not speak to the concerns of the young couple wanting to have a family but who are struggling getting pregnant, or the teen trying to navigate the epidemic of anxiety and depression plaguing our society today. At least not directly. Barron’s enthusiasm for all things Catholic is certainly commendable and comes through vividly and powerfully in his books and videos. While I am sure that Barron would say that, indeed, Catholicism speaks to everyday concerns, not to do so explicitly runs the risk of reducing Catholicism to what Gerald O’Collins calls in Catholicism: A Very Short Introduction, “at best merely cosmetic decoration” and misses the heart of the faith, lived out today in gyms and supermarkets as well as in our churches.

What Does It Mean to be Anti-Racist?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

When Ibram X. Kendi, a fellow Temple University Ph. D., published How to Be an Anti-Racist a few years ago, I immediately got the point. Someone can say, “I am not racist,” or “I harbor no animosity toward members of other races.” Given conditions in the world today, that is not enough. If you truly claim to be not racist, it is necessary to look for ways that people are hurting because of their race and seek ways to change policies and practices that are discriminatory and hurtful.

I had a student at Holy Family University who had graduated from the Baltimore, Maryland, school system. He was clearly bright and spoke well about the material discussed in class, but he seemed to lack sufficient reading skills and writing skills to do well in coursework. I asked him, “Didn’t you have to read textbooks when you were in high school?” He told me that the textbooks at his school were hand-me-down, outdated textbooks donated by suburban school districts that students were not allowed to take home for fear that they would never be returned. He said that his school was not sufficiently staffed to offer extra tutoring in reading and writing, so most students struggled to get through on their own.

I had another student, also black and on the basketball team, who graduated from the Louisiana school system. He said that in his state, public schools had an overwhelmingly black student population. White families who could afford it sent their children to “Christian” schools, whose population was overwhelmingly white.

In Philadelphia, the majority of public school students are black. For a long time, Catholic schools offered a safe haven for most Catholic white children to attend predominantly white Catholic schools so as to avoid the inferior public schools. Poorer black children were left to attend the public schools, where extra services were needed but seldom available. A system of charter schools now also offers a way to avoid the general public schools and attend schools that are de facto predominantly white. No schools say that they discriminate against anyone because of their race. However, Catholic schools are predominantly Catholic and white. Recently, thanks to the generosity of some wealthy Catholic business leaders, Catholic entities have taken steps to offer free or inexpensive quality education to children living in poor neighborhoods, and they have met with a great deal of success.

The U.S. Catholic bishops identified racism as a sin as far back as the 1970s. They had in mind not just the prejudices of individual people but the systemic racism that results in members of certain races suffering hardships and lacking opportunities simply because of their race. Systemic or institutional racism is measured in statistics such as infant mortality rates, accessibility to grocery stores where affordable healthy food choices are available, average wages, and school supplies. No one wants to be a statistic, but real people are hurting or lack power and privileges represented by statistics. Problems are intertwined. What’s to prevent poor black people from moving out of crime-ridden, drug-infested, run-down neighborhoods to safer suburban ones, often just a few miles away? Many poor Irish and Italian people did. Maureen O’Connell addresses this issue in her book Undoing the Knots: Five Generations of American Catholic Anti-Blackness. In it, she gives expression to one of Ibram X. Kendi’s principles for being anti-racist: embrace being uncomfortable.

I recently saw the reality O’Connell describes firsthand. I went to a swim meet at a beautiful private country club. As I heard the names of the children participating, I noticed that most of them had Irish names. The young staff serving food and drinks were mostly black. I couldn’t help but think that the Irish members of the club would have been the servers and servants just two generations ago. Would the black workers have the same opportunities available to them?

Hearing the stories of my two students who received an inferior quality education was discomforting. What might I do in response if I aspire to being anti-racist? How might it affect my teaching, and what might Holy Family do to address this reality of American society? Unless discomfort leads to action, we remain awash in guilt and shame or denial—never healthy places to be. Hearing stories helps. Sharing stories helps. Having a goal helps—to create an equitable society where no one is left out.

Woke Catholicism

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

For a few years now, I have been working on writing an overview of Catholicism. While reading and researching Catholic perspectives on the bible, church, sacraments, and morality, I was also reading news reports about priests’ sexual abuse of minors and bishops who covered up abuses without reporting them to proper authorities. In a report about priest abuse in Pennsylvania, I discovered that the principal and chaplain at the high school I attended were on the list of committing “credible offenses.” Three priests who taught at one time at the university where I taught had also been dismissed from active ministry because of abuse accusations. I felt as though the book I was writing was about Catholicism as an ideal, while there existed a separate and different Catholicism that was real. It is hard to reconcile the church as the unsullied bride of Christ with the reality that the church was being represented at times by very flawed and, indeed, sinful people. With each damning headline, the church looks more and more like the prophet Hosea’s unfaithful wife, Gomer. Like Hosea’s, our faith is being tested every time church leaders misrepresent the severity of the problem.

I realized that I could not write about “Catholicism” without recognizing the reality of sexual abuse that has taken place in the church in the recent past and today. I looked at other books that described themselves as offering an introduction to or an overview of Catholicism. None that I found addressed this dark side of Catholicism. They spoke of the role priests and bishops are to serve in the church, without acknowledging that ministering to the faithful was at times being distorted into abusing the faithful and scarring them for life.

The response to clergy sex abuse that was commonplace for years reminded me of the conversation going on in the United States about “woke” and “anti-woke” movements. In the 1990s, some African-American commentators talked about the need to be informed, educated, and conscious of societal injustices—being “woke.” An essential element of wokeness was to look for injustices that may be ingrained in society and its institutions. The movement advocating wokeness led to a backlash. Some politicians proposed that seeing systemic injustices in society was anti-American, a denunciation of the wonderful structures that exist in American society that should not be questioned. Talking about injustices, even such clear-cut examples as the enslavement of Africans before the Civil War, was upsetting to white children who would feel bad about it but were not responsible for it. Wokeness also came to be seen as advocating for some groups on the fringes of American society whose identity and lifestyle ran counter to what many believed were traditional Christian values. School children should be shielded from learning about non-heterosexual persons; it could lead to third graders, for instance, questioning their own sexual identity. Should students in the lower grades be asked whether they wanted to be called he, she, or they?

Anyone familiar with how psychological therapy works knows that not addressing a problem is never a path to healing. There has been sickness in the church when it comes to priestly sexuality and abuse, just as there have been injustices in American society. Even children can’t help but wonder why so many black people live in poorer sections of our cities and not so many in wealthy suburbs. When all of a sudden, Father Jim no longer shows up for Mass anymore, parishioners naturally begin to imagine the worst. Saying “Let’s not talk about it” isn’t helpful to anyone’s psychological health, children or adults. In the same way, bishops seeking to avoid scandal by not addressing the real scandal of men abusing children while hiding behind the mask of their priestly garb was not healthy or helpful for anyone.

Catholicism needs a “woke” campaign, calling for everyone in the church to be educated, informed, and conscious of problems such as abuse. Part of that campaign is to look for possible systemic causes for problems and systemic solutions. Perhaps it’s time to consider not restricting priesthood to celibate men, for instance. Surely, given the extent of the problem of abuse by church workers, we are well beyond blaming “a few bad apples.” And the coverup approach has only led to more people getting hurt. Church leaders have taken some steps to employ a woke approach to matters of sexuality, clerical identity, and healthy interaction among the diversity of people who populate our world. Unfortunately, the non-wokeness about these matters for so long has muted their voice when speaking out against societal problems that sorely need to be addressed, such as racism, sexism, and heterosexism. God knows we need a church and a country that is “woke.”

Is It Time for Smashing Idols?

By Joseph Stoutzenberger

Some years ago, I was visiting a priest friend of mine who was pastor of a large, active parish. A man in his sixties, he was the only priest serving the parish. I asked him why he didn’t request a newly-ordained priest to be assigned to help him. He said quickly, “Most of them worship a God different from the one I do.” That response caught me by surprise. He went on to say that he and a few other older priests conducted an intervention with one new priest who was refusing absolution to penitents in confession if he felt they were not sincere. The older priests pointed out to him that his job was not to judge but to represent the merciful, loving Christ who told his followers to forgive others “seventy times seven times.” That exchange led me to question if, indeed, there are conflicting notions of “God” within Christianity itself. Are some Christians worshiping idols, even though the name of that idol is “Jesus?”

Blue sign, stating Make America Godly Again. Showing "A number of recent studies are pointing out that there is politics behind the word “Christian.”

A number of recent studies are pointing out that there is politics behind the word “Christian.” In Christian: The Politics of a Word in America, Matthew Bowman examines the trend among some conservative Christians to identify the religion with the United States itself. The thinking is that America was founded by inheritors of the Protestant Reformation so that Christianity, the United States, and Western Civilization itself are essentially synonymous. The Christian identity of America is under attack today from sources within the nation itself, secular humanists, and immigrants from non-Protestant, non-white, non-European countries. From this perspective, certainly, Muslims are a threat, as are immigrants from Africa and Latin America. Pope Francis spoke about this exclusionary understanding of Christianity in his book “Let Us Dream,” written with journalist Austen Ivereigh. Pope Francis declares this mentality to be a distortion of Christianity that is intended to serve only the interests of those who propose it. He is echoing what Jesus said, that “not everyone that says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” In the line before that, Jesus says, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7: 20-21).

My priest friend and Pope Francis are talking about idolatry, perhaps made worse because it is done in the name of Christianity. How might those of us who have a different understanding of God and what Christianity stands for counter these more narrow views? Pope Francis offers some suggestions. For one, he advocates dialogue. Like many people who have had occasions to dialogue with different groups, I have found it easier to engage with people from other religions than with members of my own who hold a different worldview, but it’s possible and helpful to find common ground with one’s family. In addition, Pope Francis’s “Let Us Dream” is a call to action. Live the Christian life in such a way that people will associate “Christian” with hospitality, kindness, and shared joy. Rather than fear and hatred of the other, put the dream into action so that the first association people make with Christianity is an expansive view of what was said of them in the early days of the religion: “See how these Christians love one another.”

Are We Misreading “The True Spirit of Christmas”?

By Joseph Stoutzenberger, December 24th, 2023.

A Christmas Eve morning news program ended with a panel discussing “the true meaning of Christmas.” At the heart of the discussion was, of course, “Keep Christ in Christmas.” One commentator railed against the materialism underlying all the shopping and gift-giving. Another suggested that doing random acts of kindness would be a way to demonstrate the spirit of Christmas. A third pointed out that after Jesus was born, the family returned to Nazareth and lived a normal, everyday life among family and fellow townspeople. These sentiments are worthy and hard to disagree with. To critique them is like critiquing Mother Teresa. It’s mind-boggling that we even need to admonish people to be kind and neighborly to one another, and for many years now, the materialism associated with Christmas has been addressed in churches and even in popular holiday movies. Even the word “normal” is poignant today. So many of us long for what we perceive as living a normal life while the scourge of COVID-19 rages on and political turmoil makes for an unsettling atmosphere in the country. However, as much as these messages are needed, they can be as nourishing as white bread. Do these messages truly reflect the Christmas spirit?

When thinking about Christmas gift-giving, a story from my own life comes to mind. In my teen years, I worked in a steel plant that made pipe fixtures. Conditions were oppressive. Dust filled the air; the noise level was deafening. The temperature near the cupolas spewing out molten steel was beyond tropical. The half-hour lunch break began precisely on time, and when it was over everyone needed to be on the assembly line ready to work. After every eight-hour shift, fifty men at a time crowded into open showers to wash off the dirt and grime. It was a great impetus for me to go to college. The top workers were the molders who shaped the casts for the pipe fixtures as a conveyor belt carried them past the men who poured the red-hot steel into them. Weekly pay was determined by production levels. The more pipes made, the greater the pay for everybody. Fewer pipes meant smaller paychecks. Invariably, output increased in late fall and early winter. I asked a more experienced co-worker why the molders were pushing themselves so much harder at this time of year. He told me that the men wanted larger paychecks so that they could afford to buy Christmas presents for their families.

Were these men succumbing to the allure of “materialism”? I understood what they were doing as an act of love. They lived paycheck to paycheck. If their children were to find presents under the tree, then they would have to work harder. They were already endangering their lives by working in such inhumane conditions. (My time there was cut short when I developed bronchitis from breathing in the sooty air.) The molders picked up the pace so that a little more money would be available for their children. For many poor families, Christmas is the only time they can scrape together enough money to buy gifts. A bike or a new sweater may not explicitly relate to the birth of Jesus but looked at in proper light, it is not foreign to the “keep Christ in Christmas” message. After all, Jesus himself received presents on Christmas!

Moving Beyond Individual Acts of Kindness

When it comes to acts of kindness, the airways are filled with inspiring stories of people helping others in need leading up to Christmas. Plenty of opportunities present themselves to us for donating food, blankets, and toys. It’s hard to argue that Jesus would not advocate acts of giving as a way to celebrate his birth. However, there is a dimension to his message that can be overlooked in emphasizing acts of kindness by individuals or organizations. Isn’t it true that, before John Lewis, Jesus called upon his followers to “make good trouble”? Maybe Joseph led a life of working hard, being kind, being generous when he could, keeping out of trouble, and not upsetting anyone. However, that’s not the life Jesus chose to live. At some point, he decided that he could no longer continue working as a carpenter and keeping his mouth shut. He began preaching a message that drew many people to him, but that also got him in trouble with some very powerful people. His family wanted him to return to his life of making a meager living and not challenging the structures of his society. Jesus didn’t back down. He continued to make good trouble, even though he had to know that it would lead to his arrest and probable death.

A woman is giving bread to a poor man in need. Helping Hand Concept. Black and white

The Christmas story, rightly understood, is as challenging as it is comforting. Jesus is born away from home without proper shelter to warm and protect him. Isn’t there a message in that scene beyond serving up food at a homeless shelter on Christmas day? It seems to imply that we should advocate for policies that treat foreigners humanely and help people get off living on the streets. Shepherds are an important fixture in any manger scene or grade school Christmas pageant. Shepherds were definitely not the “haves” of ancient Israeli society. They were people whom members of proper society went to great pains to avoid. We may nod to the importance of farmworkers and factory workers, but making sure that workers on the lower end of the wage scale are guaranteed a living wage calls for political involvement. In some localities, advocating for a decent minimum wage can get a politician voted out of office by the very people who celebrate the birth of the poor one whose message first came to people subsisting on the lowest rung of the socio-economic spectrum. It’s easy to overlook the political implications of another essential element of the Christmas story. Jesus is kept alive by the warm breath of the animals in the stable. How are other creatures doing in our anthropocentric world? What changes are called for to protect members of other species along with the elements of the environment that sustain life? The Christmas stories in the gospels, rightly understood, both comfort and confront us.

Sorting through the Clutter

Undoubtedly, the ambiance surrounding Christmas has become as superficial as the dreams of the sleeping couple in “The Night Before Christmas.” As far back as 1949, E. B. White wrote elegantly about the dangers of creeping materialism associated with Christmas: “To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.” He reminded his readers that it is more and more of a challenge “to hear the incredibly distant sound of Christmas in these times, through the material woods that surround it.” And he was writing before “elf on the shelf” and the endless lineup of syrupy Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel. However, gift-giving can reflect the spirit of Christmas. Pope Francis, for one, reminds us to be cautious about the trap of materialism; but that doesn’t mean that material things are bad in themselves. Parents face a persistent challenge to help their children keep possessions in proper perspective and to appreciate the simple message of Christmas.

Catholic “Both-And” Mentality Applied to Christmas

Not all elements of popular culture need to be jettisoned as if the choices are “either-or.” We either went to church or we went to the mall. Either we sing carols or “Frosty the Snowman.” Catholic sentiment has always leaned toward the “both-and,” although, as E. B. White pointed out, it is increasingly difficult to sort through the clutter. Most Christian families approach the holidays seeking to maintain a balance—presents under the tree along with a manger scene prominently displayed. It’s a challenge to be vigilant in determining what popular add-ons to Christmas are a blessing or at least a pleasant divergence. Surely the “Peanuts” Christmas special and Dickens’s Christmas Carol deserve to be placed in the “blessing” category, but many other films fall into the “pleasantly divergent” category at best. Plenty of family traditions reflect the spirit of Christmas, often simply because they are family traditions—baking cookies to share with friends and neighbors or watching together a favorite Christmas movie.

Cat and Dog eating and drinking Santa’s cookies and milk.

Holding onto the Message of Christmas

Like so many good stories, the Christmas story is simple but profound, presenting a straightforward message with endless implications. The love of God that we long for in dark times takes flesh in the fragile, poor, needy baby of Bethlehem. We fall on our knees at the very thought of it. In response, we make the message real and tangible however we can. Years ago, St. Pope John XXIII said: “We are one great human family, proven each year by how we feel at Christmas.” Some expressions of popular culture exploit the season in ways that are detrimental to fostering an awareness of God’s love for the one great human family, but others are sincere attempts to bring the message to life. Heartwarming stories of kindness given and received do reflect the Christmas message. There are people who need immediate help, and supporting organizations that provide help for those in need bring out the meaning of the Christ child who was a gift to all the world. Building on that message to address discrepancies in power, privilege, and participation also lies at the heart of the true meaning of Christmas. Perhaps making the leap to that realization is even more challenging than sorting through the candy-coated enticements of pervasive materialism.

Heartwarming stories of kindness given and received do reflect the Christmas message. There are people who need immediate help, and supporting organizations that provide help for those in need bring out the meaning of the Christ child who was a gift to all the world.

Children and Visionaries

by Joseph Stoutzenber

I was sitting in a newly redecorated university chapel next to an artist friend of mine. I asked him what he thought of the ornate crucifix behind the altar. He responded, “It pretends to be art.” Despite the many failed attempts at artistic expression intended to open one’s gaze to the holy in Catholic culture, clearly, Catholicism has had a long love affair with art and has been one of the greatest proponents of art for two thousand years.

The Madonna della Pietà (1498–1499), informally known as La Pietà, by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

If you are not familiar with the books or videos of Sister Wendy Beckett, treat yourself to one. In the 1990s, she hosted two series on art for the BBC and wrote a number of books as well. She does not confine herself to what we might think of as “religious” art. However, she sees experiencing art as not just a pleasure but as a doorway to spiritual awareness. Consider The Gaze of Love to get a sense of how she finds a wide variety of art, offering insights into the human condition that can serve as catalysts for prayer.

Last month, Pope Francis spoke to a gathering of artists to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Vatican Museum’s modern art section. He quoted the noted twentieth-century theologian Romano Guardini as saying that “the situation of the artist is not unlike that of a child and even that of a visionary.” That is, good artists look at reality around them with a sense of wonder, finding beauty that others can miss like a child does. It is akin to what Zen Buddhists call having a “beginner’s mind.” This freshness of perspective is also that of a visionary who sees possibilities for what can be. It is like the message of the Hasidic tale in which a student asks a rabbi, “When can we tell the moment of dawn? Is it when, from a distance, we can distinguish between a dog and a sheep?” The rabbi answers, “No, it is dawn when we can look at another and recognize that person as our sister or brother. Before that, it is still darkness.” A work of art opens us up and leads us to enter “a space into which we can step,” where we encounter objects, events, and persons in a new light.

I have friends who are artists and poets. One friend of mine, Frank, spends his early hours painting every day, at times adding a poetic reflection to accompany the painting. A poet friend of mine, Ed, has a way of describing commonplace experiences that always leave me thinking, “Why didn’t I see that?” Sometimes we hear a song that speaks to our heart just at the moment we need to hear it, as if God is our dee-jay. I am not at home with art, visual art, poetry, or music. I have tried my hand at writing what I call poems when a scene or situation sparks a sense of appreciation when poetry seems to be called for. I am enclosing a poem I wrote, not because it is great poetry or even poetry at all, but as an encouragement to any who might read it to try their hand at being a child or a visionary, giving expression in some fashion to the beauty that surrounds us always.

Food Court

Food court at the mall is a sacred place. A teenage girl with sparkling eyes, Dark hair in rivulets down her forehead, Chatters away over salad, Her gawky boyfriend munching on Chick-fil-A, Never uttering a word. Young girls cluster together, Heads turned inward, eyes outward, Whispering, sharing secrets, In search of… Those boys from school! A couple walks by arm in arm, Dropped off in a van from a group home. But there they are, Together, haven for each other, Making their way slowly through the crowd. Young men flank each side of the court Distributing communion—slivers of cheese steak Or Chinese chicken on a toothpick—“special of the day.” A Guatemalan man, like an altar boy, Meanders among the tables, Broom and dustpan in hand, Picking up each morsel left behind. This is his turf, And he will keep it clean. Thomas Merton was right. We miss God Not because there is too little of God But because there is so much.