by Charles J. Chaput
Charles Chaput, Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia, writes eloquently and clearly about how Catholics are called to live in the world as the light of the world.
This book was recommended in the Mater Amabilis™ high school Facebook group as a good addition to a high school American government class. I intend to assign it in the senior year. It doesn't cover the machinery of American government. Instead, it explores what it means to remain firm in the faith as an American today and how that faith directs our actions, not just in the voting booth but every day.
Early in the book, Archbishop Chaput briefly outlines the development of democratic government in the American colonies, showing how the leaders drew on the historical Christianity of Western civilization.
Christianity is a restless faith. It points us beyond this life, but also seeks to remake the world in holiness. Christians honor the past as part of salvation history. The past sets the stage for our own small parts in God's story. But the Gospel can't be satisfied with the world as it was, or is. Rather, the disciple serves God in "renewing the face of the earth."In contemporary American politics, this goal to "remake the world" is separated from the historical frame of "holiness." It has transformed into political movements sustained by "almost 'religious' zeal. In my own life, I've seen people who abandon the faith, but then embrace this kind of zeal for issues like the environment.
Our laws and courtrooms declare people are equal even though we are obviously not equal by any measurement we have. And those inequalities are sustained by the lives we lead - the education we receive, the illnesses we suffer. So how are we equal? It's an ideal of equality that grew naturally from our Christian heritage but it now fraught with difficulty when separated from the God of creation.
Only God's love guarantees our worth. And therein lies our real equality. In him, our inequalities become not cruelties of fate, but openings that lead us to love, support, and "complete" each other in his name.Archbishop Chaput never insinuates we should be anything but beacons of truth when confronted by a society that is blurring the lines of gender, sexuality, or marriage, but he insists we must always speak out of love.
[T]he most powerful kind of witness...grows naturally out of the lives of ordinary people--parents and spouses and friends; people confident in the love that God bears for them and eager to share it with others; people who know the world not as a collection of confused facts but as a symphony of beauty, truth, and meaning.He emphasizes that we cannot stand on the periphery and complain about everything we see around us. We cannot withdraw from the culture and hide in an enclave. Our beliefs, our actions, our love must directly impact the society of which we are a part.
But the fact remains that "the culture" is little more than the sum of the choices, habits, and dispositions of the people who live in a particular place at a particular time. We can't simply blame "the culture." We are the culture.His advice does not translate into a specific formula or easy answers; we must immerse ourselves in the liturgy and tradition of our Catholic faith and translate that into a life of joyful sacrifice. We must show Christ's love for the world through our words and our actions, but the particular words and actions of our lives are a matter of individual discernment.
Knowing "about" Jesus Christ is not enough. We need to engage him with our whole lives. That means cleaning out the garbage of noise and distraction from our homes. It means building real Christian friendships. It means cultivating oases of silence, worship, and prayer in our lives. It means having more children and raising them in the love of the Lord. It means fighting death and fear with joy and life, one family at a time, with families sustaining one another against the temptations of weariness and resentment.I have received nothing in exchange for this honest post. Links to Amazon are affiliate links. Kansas Dad requested this book through inter-library loan for me.
