Praying with Evangelii Gaudium: Day 1

                              Light in a messenger's eyes brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to                                     the bones.

                                                                                              (Proverbs 15:30)

Let me  begin this wonderful journey of the heart with this document, with a question:

 How do you live your joy? 

Christians believe that they receive this from Jesus. Many speak of how he has set their hearts on fire with love and joy. That's lovely,  but what do we do with that fire? How do we live it?

'I live it by being happy that Jesus loves me' is a common answer. 
Pope Francis might  respond ' I'm happy that you're happy...but you've been given a gift. Are you keeping that gift for yourself, or are you sharing that joy with others? Do you let that joy define you, or is it just a feeling you enjoy having?'

These are hard questions, which our Pope is very good at asking. And he's right to ask these questions:  

What's the good of having the joy of Jesus Christ, 'fill our hearts and lives' (EG 1) if all we do with it is live a pleasant feeling, once in a while be at peace with the world and walk around with a big smile on our faces?  Don't get me wrong: We need to be happy people.  Being happy means being healthy -at least emotionally, and spiritually- and, let's face it, happy people make the world a better place. No arguments there. 

 But when the Pope speaks of a joy that is constantly born anew, he really means  a transformed, and transformative joy.  It's transformed because everything is renewed in the trinity. Our joy is meant to evolve, not just sit there stagnantly until we die! 
   It's transformative, because through its power, we can transform the lives of others. Through it, we can also  restore hope to a world living in despair, by spreading the Gospel, and living it to the fullest of our abilities. That's how I understand his talk of an new chapter of evangelization marked by joy (EG 1). There's nothing wrong with the old evangelization,but our century, our whole millenium is in dire need of the Christian message, and yet resistant to it at the same time. Something needs to be done.

   One of the reasons why there is resistance to the message of the Gospel in the modern era, is that faith in God has been replaced by adherence to the God of consumerism. However, Francis points out that the greater challenge to the work of evangelization, and to the well-being of the world, is the state of the modern heart: Complacent, covetous, longing for frivolous pleasures, and with a blunted conscience. (EG2)  There is still room for happiness in such a heart, but instead of this, we find a a pervasive narcissism that lusts for pleasure instead of true joy.

 The struggle for evangelization today, is that  God's joy, as quiet as it is, is easily drowned out by the noise of our our self obsessed consumerist culture. When that joy of the divine fades from our hearts, something that happens even with Christians,  our desire to do good, to serve others, (EG2) and to work for the building of the kingdom quietly fades. This portrait of the modern Christian is not flattering at all, and is in part what is wrong with the Church. We should not be living our lives  on to the rules of the secular world , but according to the fullness of life that the spirit offers us, a " life that has its source in the heart of Jesus" (EG2)

 A challenging invitation from the Pope, one especially relevant on this First Sunday of Advent. Let us continue our journey into advent with a spirit of conversion  that will lead us to the heart of Jesus.

  

1. THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. In this Exhortation I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come

I. A JOY EVER NEW, A JOY WHICH IS SHARED

2. The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ.

Praying with Evangelii Gaudium

What...am...I...Doing???
I have 17 days to put together 2 small paper, one larger one, and to edit one 35 pager that has been the central part of my life for the past year.  I DON'T HAVE TIME TO START A NEW BLOG!!

and yet...

Here I am. Ready to answer some questions:

Why are you here?

I wouldn't be able to explain it all  in one single blog entry.
And yet here I am explaining it all in one paragraph of a blog entry: It's a combination of excitement over the season of Advent that's upon us, and inspiring papal documents that I want to process more perfectly, and awesome people like my Theobud Lauren that really all come together to remind me...there's lots of work to do. I'm not sure if I'm the one to do it, but tonight. I feel like I'm called to it.

 So what is it that you want to do here?

 Your guess is as good as mine!

No really...WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

  ...

I will slap you with this trout  if you do not answer this ques...

  Alright alright.
jeez...a trout...where'd you get that? Never mind...
 To answer your question... I really like papal documents. I like them all. They seem to capture something amazingly prayerful about our Church that many in this world is clueless about, but that we Catholics ought  to celebrate on a daily basis.  But we don't celebrate them that often. In fact we generally ignore them. I'd like to do something about that.

Oh, and what do you intend to do about it Mr. Nobody

  What I do best, Mr hostile reporter:  Pray. It's what every Jesuit does quite well! When we want to prepare for an event or an exam or anything that life has to offer...very often, we pray.  You know, MC Hammer was right: you DO Have to Pray, just to make it today.

 And so I intend to pray the documents. I say documents plural. I'll do my best to go through more than one. Especially when new ones come out, I'll try to tackle them, one paragraph at the time. It will take a long time.  In the Case of Francis' encyclical,  there are 286 'sections' or 'points'. At the rate of two points, every second day or so... It should  take me...a very long time. He'll probably come out with his next document by the time I'm done here...even before I'm done!

 But that's what praying with the document entails.

 So Dude, tell me, what's the point of doing this?

I'm doing this for myself, and whoever is interested in reading and commenting.
I'm doing this so I can understand more prayerfully these documents that are already very prayerful to begin with.
I'm doing this, because our Universal Church needs to appropriate for itself these important documents.
Thousand of people around the world are now talking about Pope Francis and his vision.
I want his vision to influence my prayer.
Above all... I'm doing this because I want to get closer to Jesus.
I'm tired of being someone who follows Jesus from a far, from the comfort of my own little bubble.
Intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, I want every ounce of my life to belong to God.
It wont be easy, but this is a step in that direction!

You sure you're up to this? You won't give up in the middle like so many other things you undertake!? 
  Oddly enough, that's a possibility. I might give up.  But right at this moment...I'm not feeling this is an option. I'm just feeling joy. Shouldn't I just go with that???
...
 No more questions then?

Just a statement: You're crazy.

  Crazy for God. Yup, absolutely.

I'll begin this crazy journey on the First Sunday of Advent: December 1st, 2013.

 As Pope Francis says: Pray for me. I need it!