Today is the feast of Pentecost. It is the end of the Easter season.
Recently I’ve heard a number of people begin public prayers with “Come Holy Spirit”. Of course, that’s the beginning of a longer prayer by that name. In one case the person prayed that whole prayer and then said, “let us pray” then started a prayer that was specific to the event I was attending (online).
In a number of other cases people have started by just saying “Come Holy Spirit” and then moving right into the prayer they wanted to offer before the talk they were giving. This has happened both online and in person.
I mention this because I’ve felt for a long time we tend to forget about the Holy Spirit when it comes time to pray. I think most people pray to the Father and through Jesus, His Son, but I think we tend to forget the Holy Spirit. It’s a good thing to remember the Holy Spirit is the member of the Holy Trinity who animates the life of the Church and makes God the Father and Jesus the Son, present in our lives. As we say in the Nicene creed He is “the Lord, the giver of life”. We also understand Him to be the sanctifier, the one who makes us holy. The Holy Spirit is a verb in that sense.
In today’s readings an option for the second reading is from Galatians chapter 5 where St. Paul talks about the works of the flesh and the fruit of living life in the Spirit. I’ve written many times about that fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Who doesn’t want more of those things in their life. If you do, like all of us surely do, we should ask the Holy Spirit to come to us and dwell in us guiding our words and actions.
Here is a reflection on the Come Holy Spirit prayer from a 2017 article in the ChurchLife journal from Notre Dame. https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/come-holy-spirit-the-vulnerable-bravery-of-fr-hesburghs-favorite-prayer/
So, Come Holy Spirit…
The other thing I want to comment on is the graduation address given by NFL player, and Catholic, Harrison Butker at Benedictine college in Kansas. Here is a link to the text: https://www.ncregister.com/news/harrison-butker-speech-at-benedictine
He also makes reference to the AP article about a turn toward, some would say a return to, a more traditional style of worship by Catholics. Here is a link to that article: https://apnews.com/article/catholic-church-shift-orthodoxy-tradition-7638fa2013a593f8cb07483ffc8ed487
There’s been a lot of controversy about some of Butker’s remarks, especially the part about the role of women. He references the term “vocation” many times so I’d like to take a moment to review our understanding of that term:
A vocation is a calling. That implies, rightfully so I think, that it’s not just about what we think. It infers some outside influence on us. For Christians that influence is God.
Our primary vocation is known as the Universal Call to Holiness. Simply put, it means we all are called, with God’s help, to become holy. At one time it was thought only those who devote themselves full time to the work of the Church, like priests, bishops, nuns, monks, religious brothers and sisters, etc. had the potential for attaining holiness during this life. That is not the current understanding. You can find more in chapter V (not paragraph 5) of the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, known in English as the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html
Our secondary vocation is our state of life. We can be called to life in the Church, as is a priest, bishop or vowed Religious, or outside the Church as a layperson. If the latter, as are all of us, we can be called either to the married state or the single and chaste state. Butker is talking about the married state in his comments about women.
Finally, the last level of vocation is what many unchurched people think of when they hear the term. What do you do for a living, or more appropriately, how do you spend your time. For those of us who work(ed) jobs, which would be almost all of us, the answer might be I’m a manager or a teacher, lawyer, nurse or whatever. Sometimes what we do is just a job and sometimes it truly is a vocation.
So, having said that about the term “vocation” let me make just a few comments about Butker’s talk.
It’s clear that he’s passionately Catholic and certainly passionate about his view of the best type of Catholicism. I appreciate his passion and find some things I like in his remarks and some I take issue with.
He spends a lot of words about the lack of leadership in society and the Church regarding Covid-19. I have a different view. It’s easy to look back and see things we might have done differently but at the time I think everyone was doing the best they could to keep us safe. I think that’s true about Dr. Fauci as well as our bishops and priests. I know, for example, that Fr. Jeff’s highest concern was for the safety of his parishioners. I also know he sought out advice from the best medical professionals he could find, including infectious disease specialists. He wasn’t just parroting something sent to him from Washington or Washington street. I believe most other religious leaders acted similarly and for the same reasons, our safety. I feel like Butker is too quick to find fault here.
In terms of the role of women I both agree and disagree with Butker. The Church tells us what to do but not exactly how to do it. When it comes to living in the lay state there are many nuances in terms of how to do it. For women who discern the kind of arrangement Butker describes, that’s great. I fully support that. I also fully support those women who discern a different arrangement that involves a career and parenting. I think we all know from our own lives that God has a different plan for each of us. To me, the key is to be attuned to that and follow God’s will for us. Butker and I agree on that point though I emphasize it applies to both men and women. Sometimes women find they can’t live the life Butker describes either for economic reasons or maybe physical reasons. Again, the point for me is that God has a plan for each of us. We need to discern that plan and say yes to it even if it’s not the plan we had for ourself.
I think Butker spent way too many words talking about style of worship, views of bishops and priests, etc. He goes so far as to say you should decide what diocese you’re going to live in based on these things and suggests you might not make it to heaven if you make the “wrong” choice. I’m happy that people who like the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) have access to it but I find it no more than a preference. If liturgy is celebrated well, whether the TLM or new order of the Mass (Novus Ordo), our worship should be fruitful and acceptable to God. While the TLM isn’t for me I wouldn’t prohibit it, though I do agree with Pope Francis that it has become a source of division in some places.
The snippits you’re seeing on the news about Butker’s talk are woefully inadequate for you to get the whole picture, though to be fair, newscasts only have a couple of minutes to devote to any single story, so I can’t be too harsh on them. I suggest you read the text and see what you think. I also think you should read the statement from the Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, one of the founding parties of Benedictine College, about this: https://www.mountosb.org/
One last thing about all this. There have been numerous calls for the Chiefs to fire Butker. The Chiefs should leave him alone unless he’s not performing as a kicker. We’ve lost the ability to disagree about things without trying to “cancel” the other person. In this case I think that’s just silly. He’s entitled to his opinion, which is what a commencement address is anyway. We all have our own view of what Christianity lived out should look like. Some of us will agree with him, some will disagree, and for many, I suspect, we’ll partially agree and partially disagree, and I think that’s OK. He’s not a bad guy or an enemy because I disagree with him on aspects of his speech.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
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