We Are on the Same Team

This guest post was written by Wynn Brown, a University of Notre Dame graduate and Young Life staff associate in South Bend, Ind.

Staff Associate Wynn Brown, left, and one of the high school students Wynn has befriended working for Young Life Michiana.

In the fall of 2015, I began college at the University of Notre Dame with some apprehension about Catholicism. Eighty percent of Notre Dame students identify as Catholic, but I was raised in an evangelical Protestant church. I knew little about the Catholic faith, and, I admit, what I had heard made me wonder if Catholics were “real” Christians. At a Young Life camp the summer before college, I found I thrived when I was surrounded by friends who shared my love of Jesus. So when I moved in at Notre Dame, I looked to Young Life for a Christian community of friends. Little did I know that I would befriend Catholic students who would change my definition of what constitutes “real” Christian faith. Little did I know that my Catholic theology courses would stretch and enrich my beliefs and lead me to earn a second degree in theology. I encountered many nominal Catholics at Notre Dame—people who identified as Catholic but who seemed to have nothing in their lives that set them apart as followers of Christ. I attended Catholic Mass and saw students who knew the routine but didn’t appear to enjoy it. Then I met Madi. Madi sang the same worship songs I did. She read the Bible. And when she offered to pray over our lunch one day, she started with “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” and I expected to hear “Bless us, O Lord.” Instead, Madi thanked God for the food, the friends around us, and for the greatest gift of all, Jesus. She spoke as someone who clearly had a relationship with Christ. Faith for her was not a weekly religious requirement but something that connected with her soul. I started off seeking a business degree at Notre Dame, but along the way I took a C.S. Lewis class to fulfill a theology requirement. I was blown away that I could study things—things that I actually enjoyed—as part of my education. I just kept taking more and more theology classes until I had met the requirements for a second major. In addition to classes on Scripture, I read the works of Augustine, Therese of Lisieux, G.K. Chesterton, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Erasmus, and many others. These were mostly Catholic writers, and I found that I agreed with 99 percent of everything I read and was growing deeper in my faith in the process. Perhaps even more influential than the Catholic materials were the professors who taught me. These men and women cared deeply about the subjects they were teaching, and, more importantly, they cared about us and our faith. None of my business professors ever cried in front of the class because he or she so passionately connected with us or the material being discussed. One of my favorite classes was called “The Catholic Faith,” and in it we walked through Book One of the Catechism. After nearly every class, a friend and I would linger to ask the professor a few questions about little discrepancies between what we had been taught growing up and what he had mentioned in class. He would always welcome us with, “Hello, my Protestant friends!” I took other classes with him because I loved his teaching so much, and we developed a friendship. Toward the end of my senior year we sat down to lunch together, and I asked him for some advice on my future. He gave me some practical advice, and we chatted back and forth, but then he paused and started tearing up. He said, “Wynn, whatever you do, never lose your kind spirit. God has given you a unique gift. Don’t throw that away.” I received a lot of advice over this time, but that was the only career advice that really stuck with me. During my four years at Notre Dame, I volunteered with Young Life Michiana. And after graduation, I decided to stay in South Bend and work full-time for Young Life. I love Young Life’s mission to introduce adolescents to the person of Jesus and help them grow in their faith. And I love that Young Life is ecumenical: We are on the same team. My faith as a Protestant has grown through my exposure to the Catholic faith. And I hope that through the collaboration between Young Life and the Catholic Church, more Protestant Young Life leaders will come to appreciate the Catholic faith. I also hope more Catholics will come to know Young Life and want to join this effort to reach every kid with the love of Christ. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes the purpose of his book this way:

It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals.

I think Young Life has a similar goal, and it’s a goal Protestants and Catholics can tackle together. Young Life seeks to bring adolescents into the great hall of Christian faith. But no one is meant to live their life dwelling in the hall of Young Life. They must enter a room—a practicing church—to find deeper communion. Young Life is a funnel to churches: Protestant and Catholic churches. We encourage students to connect with the person of Jesus Christ. We desire a connection that lasts a lifetime. And we know a lifetime of faith can only be sustained within a church.

Young Life Grew My Vision for Catholic Ministry

This guest post was written by Amanda Jewett, youth and young adult minister at St. Cecelia Church in Beaverton, Ore. She serves on the Diocesan Committee on Young Life for the Archdiocese of Portland.

Catholic Youth Minister Amanda Jewett, far right, visited a Young Life camp in 2017.

Two summers ago I attended a Young Life camp in Eastern Oregon as an adult guest. I agreed to visit Washington Family Ranch not knowing much about Young Life. I was curious but did not anticipate that the experience would change the way I view youth ministry.

Similar to any summer camp, there were ropes courses, a zip line, and a swimming pool. But when it came to the program, I noticed right away that Young Life didn’t assume that the 400 campers had faith in God. Young Life expected that most students didn’t yet believe or were still questioning. And this assumption dictated the initial language, music, and message. God wasn’t mentioned a lot the first day, and all the songs were popular secular music. But over the course of a few days, God became the focus of everything. And as I looked around, I saw disconnected teens slowly become more comfortable talking about Jesus. By the end, teens were singing praise and worship songs as loudly and as passionately as they had sung the songs of Taylor Swift and One Direction. Teens were acknowledging their need for God and surrendering to Jesus.

What led to this transformation?

I watched as Young Life made it all about a relationship with Jesus first and foremost. All catechesis and faith formation follows naturally from this relationship or encounter with Christ. Without this foundation, catechesis can be lost or considered irrelevant.

Our Catholic youth need what Young Life prompts teens to develop: a relationship—not just head knowledge, not just the idea of faith—an actual relationship with the actual person of Jesus Christ, who loves us more infinitely and unconditionally than anyone else ever can. I saw Young Life reaching kids in a way I never experienced as a cradle Catholic and one who attended Catholic school from preschool to college, got a degree in theology, and now works for a Catholic parish. At camp, I saw an immense opportunity—an opportunity for these teens, whose lives were being intimately touched by God’s divine presence, but also an opportunity for the Catholic Church to improve its outreach to teens, especially in this day and age.

My exposure to Young Life taught me, as a Catholic, that I am called to go out, especially to the peripheries, so I can encounter teens and spread the Gospel, rather than wait for teens to come to me and my youth group. Like our pontiff Pope Francis has said, we are called to smell like the sheep, and I saw Young Life leaders doing this.

When watching the interactions at camp, I recognized that the Young Life leaders had real and authentic relationships with each one of their kids. Prior to camp, these leaders had gone out to football games, school plays, and robotics tournaments to find these teens, rather than wait for them to come meet the leaders at a Young Life club. Camp was a culmination of months of contact work and relationship building.

This is missionary discipleship. By the very nature of our baptism, we are called to “take on the smell of the sheep” and accompany people on their journeys to Christ. We are a missionary church, and Christ’s Great Commission (Matthew 28) is at the center of that. Should our parish ministries not reflect this as well, going (not staying!) and making disciples of all nations?

Our Catholic faith holds such beauty, depth, and richness, and my identity as a member of the Catholic Church is a source of personal pride and delight. For this reason, I want to learn from Young Life and become more effective in sharing my faith in Christ with teens.

At the time I was visiting the Young Life camp two years ago, my primary concerns at St. Cecilia circled around the number of kids who were attending our church youth group, how well they knew the Catechism, and how heavily involved they became in the life of the parish. All of those are important and play their own roles. Yet I had lost sight of the primary goal, the “why” of Catholic ministry: Do our parish teens have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and are they on the path to sainthood? I had to ask myself a difficult question: Does our youth ministry lead our teens to information, events, and programs, or to a PERSON?

In the two years since my visit to camp, I have engaged with the Young Life ministry in my area. I have befriended my Young Life counterpart who serves at a local high school, and we have done contact work together at the school. I have also joined a committee of Catholics and Protestants who are shepherding a collaborative effort between Young Life and the Catholic Church to reach more kids. As a part of this committee, I helped organize three joint worship nights where Catholic youth ministers and Protestant Young Life leaders met to get to know each other. Even though we are coming from different Christian denominations, we know many of the same kids, and we need to work together if we are going to reach every kid.

I lead youth ministry in Portland, where few claim to be Christian. Most teenagers here are disconnected from a church, and I desire nothing more than to help them find Christ. My exposure to Young Life has inspired me to help build bridges between different Christian denominations and, more importantly, between teenagers and God. I thank God for allowing his Spirit to move in this way, and I ask that He continues to bless and guide us in this work, as we go and make disciples of all nations.

Pope Francis: Let Them Lead from Their Calling

This guest post (the final installment in a four-part series) was written by Craig Gould, Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministries in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He is also a member of the Young Life Catholic Relations national board.

For our life on earth reaches full stature when it becomes an offering… It follows that every form of pastoral activity, formation and spirituality should be seen in the light of our Christian vocation. (Christ is Alive!, paragraph 254)

In the last blog, Let them Lead Everywhere, I wrote that Pope Francis’ call to ministry leaders was to let young people lead in all the different places where young people are living their lives, not simply within the bounds of the ministries we have created. For my final post on Christ is Alive!, I am highlighting Pope Francis’ invitation to let young people lead because they are called by God.  

If it’s the end of the school year, you can count on young people being asked vocational questions. The standard would be to graduating seniors as everyone wants to know what they will be doing next year. After 14 years of compulsory school, youth are free to choose what comes next. The decisions they make offer a real insight into how they conceive of their own calling and whether or not God has a place in that. Will they go to college? For two or four years? Will they go to trade school? Will they go right to work? Are they taking a “gap” year or doing a year of service somewhere? 

This question isn’t a surprise since young people have been answering it ever since they were 5, and their kindergarten teacher had them draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up. The real surprise is that after all of this time, those of faith who have relationships with young people haven’t forced the next question, which is: “What is God calling you to do with your life?” If we don’t ask that question, they assume God is outside of this most central part of their life. And it may take years before they reconcile what they’ve said yes to along the way and what God is actually calling them to do. 

I had a phone call last week with a recent college graduate who has decided she wants to work in ministry although she just invested four years studying psychology. I had lunch this week with a friend who is fulfilling her calling as a high school campus minister but admits she spent her college years studying art and philosophy. She wonders whether her love for art fits in with her current work. And next week, I’m meeting with someone who is starting as a church youth minister after spending 30 years as an engineer. Despite their different ages, all three are asking themselves the same set of questions, vocational questions, questions about their gifts and God’s call.

That’s the other thing about vocation. It’s a constant question, or more accurately, a set of questions: 

What am I good at? What do I like? What does the world need? What are my responsibilities? How does being a disciple of Jesus Christ change any of the questions I just asked? How do I hear a call from God? If I make a wrong choice, will God not bless me? Does God only have one specific path for me? 

What I hear Christ is Alive! saying is that for too long those of us who love young people and who want to see Christ at the center of their lives have left them to figure out their calling with only the culture to guide them—a culture where success is measured in popularity, influence, money and attention. And that sounds more like an invitation from the rich young man mentioned in the Gospels than an invitation from the Lord of “sell everything you own and follow me.” Finding their calling with only the culture to guide them is really far from a community that considers itself “collectively responsible for accepting, motivating, encouraging and challenging” young people in their vocation (Christ is Alive!, paragraph 243).

I’d suggest these words push us as leaders of young people to ask ourselves tough questions about calling: 

How do we practice discernment in our own lives? Do we ask our young people questions about how they make decisions? Are we helping young people to identify their gifts and live those out? How do we help parents to see this decision through the eyes of faith? 

Pope Francis: Let Them Lead EVERYWHERE

This guest post (the third in a four-part series) was written by Craig Gould, Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministries in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He is also a member of the Young Life Catholic Relations national board.

'Popular' leaders, then, are those able to make everyone, including the poor, the vulnerable, the frail and the wounded, part of the forward march of youth. They do not shun or fear those young people who have experienced hurt or borne the weight of the cross. (Christ is Alive!, paragraph 231)

In the last blog, Pope Francis: Let Them Lead WITH You, I wrote that Pope Francis’ call to ministry leaders was to accompany young people as they lead. In this post, I want to focus on his even more radical vision for young people—that they would lead everywhere. 

There was a common strategy that was used to train me when I was learning to do youth ministry. It was believed that if you got the most popular kid to be active in the ministry, he or she would soon bring lots of other youth. It was purposeful, it was deliberate, sometimes it was successful, but it was elitist.

It was also not scriptural. If Paul and the Holy Spirit are to be consulted, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). Yet there I was trying to woo the captain of whatever team was in season, believing this to be the best strategy. It would take me a long time to realize that no one would have made Peter captain of anything. Or that Jesus’ tactics would have been criticized the minute he began with Matthew the tax collector.

In youth ministry the temptation is to gradually build up young leaders until we can hand over new levels of responsibility to them when they are ready. Pope Francis isn’t buying our perfectly scripted plan. He’s concerned because when we construct those processes, we are doing so with the intention of creating leaders who will perpetuate us and our programs. And when we do that, we’ve effectively created an exclusionary practice.

I believe the Holy Spirit is using Pope Francis to call us further out of our posture of superiority. How many times have I heard someone from the church or from Young Life complain because a young person didn’t prioritize youth group, or Campaigners, or club—as if their faithfulness to the gospel was measured on the scales of activity that we created? God’s vision for them is bigger than this, and our participation in His kingdom must be bigger as well.

The way I was initially trained had me excluding some students as I went after the popular kid. And it led me toward a rotten internal philosophy where I believed that by building a relationship with the popular kid I could somehow make him “mine,” and he would be an ambassador to draw kids to my (fill in the self-important event here). The Holy Spirit has always been too wild for that kind of manipulation. I am thankful that though it’s taken me a while to grasp it, Jesus has been patient with me.

How patient will young people be with us if we continue to try to fit them into tight windows where only a few will lead?
Where have young people shown incredible leadership outside of official church ministry?
How do I imagine growing the gifts of a young person outside of my structures for discipleship?
What gifts of leadership do we celebrate in young people?
Do we reserve congratulations only for a select few young leaders? 

Pope Francis: Let Them Lead WITH You

This guest post (the second in a four-part series) was written by Craig Gould, Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministries in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He is also a member of the Young Life Catholic Relations national board.

The community has an important role in the accompaniment of young people; it should feel collectively responsible for accepting, motivating, encouraging and challenging them. All should regard young people with understanding, appreciation and affection, and avoid constantly judging them or demanding of them a perfection beyond their years. (Christ is Alive!,  paragraph 243)

In the first blog, Pope Francis on Youth Ministry: Let Them Lead, I wrote that Pope Francis’ call to ministry leaders was to let young people be protagonists and people of action. In this post, I want to draw our attention to one of his favorite ideas: Everyone, especially teens, should be accompanied.

My first time leading a group of teens was as a Young Life volunteer leader taking a group of high school guys to summer camp. At 11 pm at night, when we were supposed to be settling, we were still making lots of noise—so much so that a leader from above us came to the door to ask us to quiet down. I’ll never forget when I opened the door and the other leader took one look at 19-year-old me, looked around the room, and asked, “Hey, where’s your leader?”

The other thing I won’t forget was how my mentor, John Grothjan (Gro), showed me how to build relationships with youth—how to pray for them before we spent time together, pray for them silently while we were hanging out, and then pray for them after they had gone home. I learned to always take a notebook to talks to capture what the speaker said so I could bring it back to the small group cabin time later. I could even compare notes with Gro, who after 20 years of doing youth ministry still brought a notebook himself because leaders model leadership. He taught me to show up to the high school graduation and pray over every kid who walked across that stage. One last shot to do my part to put them at the feet of Jesus.

Letting young people lead doesn’t mean abandoning them. Youth ministers know this, Young Life staff know this, but it’s the larger community that sometimes forgets. We have to teach other adults how to walk with young people. As advocates for young people, we’ll have to step into the uncomfortable position of talking to the adults who don’t treat them well.

Yet just as I get comfortable as the ultimate defender of young people, Pope Francis also reminds me:

“A mentor should therefore nurture the seeds of faith in young people, without expecting to immediately see the fruits of the work of the Holy Spirit.” (Christ is Alive!, paragraph 246)

Here’s a list of people who love this young person more or just as much as I do:

the God who created them,
the parents raising them,
the family who cares for them,
friends who know them,
and teachers, coaches, other adults who invested in them.

I want this young person to know Christ, I believe God called me to share the gospel, but I’m not the only working of the Holy Spirit.

So if I’m called to serve youth, but also called with others, how do I: 

Make sure I’m lifting them up in every victory and standing with them in every defeat?

Work with other adults to accompany them—or do I see them as “mine”?

Celebrate what else God is doing in their life beyond the role God has for me?

Share with other adults, in particular their parents, the joys and concerns I see in them?

Accompaniment is hard, but I suppose Jesus feels the same about me, and the Incarnation happened anyway. Thanks be to God!

Pope Francis on Youth Ministry: Let Them Lead

This guest post was written by Craig Gould, Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministries in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He is also a member of the Young Life Catholic Relations national board.

Christus Vivit! (Christ is Alive)

“It is likewise important that it (path of growth for young people) has two main goals. One is the development of the kerygma, the foundational experience of encounter with God through Christ’s death and resurrection. The other is growth in fraternal love, community life, and service.” (CV, #213)

If the truth of the New Testament is often summed up with the 16^th verse of the 3^rd chapter from the Gospel of St John, I might suggest that the above line could be considered the summation of all 299 paragraphs (or 66 pages on my computer) from Pope Francis’ letter to young people, Christus Vivit (Christ is Alive!). For certain there are other great lines, but none so succinctly and pointedly captures the aim of the whole letter—and even more so the whole of meetings of bishops and young people—than these two goals.

Accept the kerygma.

Live the kerygma with each other.

I also do not need any clearer of a picture of what it means for Young Life and the Catholic Church to partner together than this mandate here. As a former Young Life staff person, I can testify to the great power of the kerygma I experienced through Young Life. (The “kerygma” here is defined as the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord). As a life-long Catholic who has always been in ministry, I am witness to the reality that as a Universal Church we have, for centuries and across continents, wrestled with what it means to live as community. With those gifts offered together in mission, I believe that the plentiful harvest that Jesus speaks about will be realized.

If those words are encouraging, then these words are prophetic:

“I want to state clearly that young people themselves are agents of youth ministry.” (CV, #203)

For over 20 years I have been a Young Life staff person, a church youth minister, a graduate school youth program director, and a Diocesan director of youth ministry. Nothing has challenged me as much as Pope Francis’ call—no, his demand—that I allow young people to be agents of the gospel. He pushes us to step out of the way and make a space for them to lead. He demands that we recognize that not only can they lead, they must lead if we are going to see missionary discipleship as the Lord envisions it.

Both communities have spaces for this to happen—whether it be campaigners or work crew for Young Life or peer ministers and service camps for the Church. The prophetic voice moves us beyond offering those opportunities to simply the “elite” youth who have proven themselves. It’s a call to full inclusion, a call to a “popular” ministry, which I will explore in my next post.

Encouraged by kerygma and community, challenged by the agency of young people, I’m left to wonder:

What would happen if we let young people lead the kerygma?

What would it look like if young people helped define and bring to life community for all, not just themselves?

What would they do if young people experienced their own ability to bring the gospel to life?

Jesus wasn’t afraid to ask these questions. Pope Francis has reminded us of them. Now it’s time to let the young church give the answers.

The Young Life Catholic Forum: A Defining Moment

There are moments that define my vocation, moments that make me stop and say, “This is it. This is what my life is about.” January 24-26, 2019 will be one of those moments for me. It just may be one of those moments for you too.

When I consider my life in Christ and my service to the Church, there are a few things that I stand for, ideals that draw the best out of me, horizons that tug at my heart and guide my journey. The first is Jesus Christ. I can never forget that my faith was forged in an encounter with the living God who came in the person of Jesus. Not just a creed, not merely a moral compass, but a divine Person who speaks and listens, who challenges and forgives, who saves me from the pit and sets my foot upon the rock. Like He did for every one of us, I live and die for Jesus Christ.

The second defining ideal is unity in the body of Christ. This has always been a deep plumb line for me. Christ’s body is one. Many parts we are, but together we are the Mystical Body of Christ on earth. Broken and tattered as we are, we are the ark of salvation. Darkened by sin and prone to wander, we are nonetheless the People of God. When Jesus prayed “that they all may be one” (Jn 17:21), it always resonated with me. It struck me as one of the most important parting words that He spoke. As Christians we are called to overcome the stain of division and love each other in a way that the world would see Jesus (Jn 17:23). I want my life to build up the Church, the body of Christ, “until we have come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord” (Eph 4:12). 

The third defining ideal is mission. We don’t just have a mission, we are a mission. We are a sent people. From our encounters with Christ we are sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God and manifest His will “on earth as it is in heaven.” We can’t wait for it. We can’t wait passively in our church buildings, Pope Francis reminds us. We have to go. Like Jesus came searching for us, we have to go after people – engage them, listen to them, love them. This is precisely how the kingdom will come. Saints like you and I leaving our comfort zone and sacrificing our lives so that others might encounter Jesus and have eternal life in Him. I want my life to be a mission.

So it is with great enthusiasm that I invite each of you to participate in an event that is decidedly about Jesus, unity, and mission – the Young Life Catholic Forum. Co-sponsored by Young Life Catholic Relations and the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, we invite you to a historic gathering in the heart of New York City, January 24-26, 2019. Be a part of the surging movement of unity, friends on mission for Christ and for kids. Young Life staff and volunteers, Catholics from parishes, schools and dioceses from around the country, coming together to glorify God and equip God’s people to do His work in reaching every kid, everywhere for eternity. 

This is a defining moment. Be a part of it. Come to New York. Jesus is calling.

Click on this link for more details! https://younglifecatholicforum.splashthat.com

Abdullah: An Introduction to Receptive Ecumenism

I remember how cold it was, the mountain air biting at our faces as we waited for transportation. At least I wasn’t alone. Less than a year into my Peace Corps experience in rural Morocco I had received the blessing (by the grace of God) of a true friend.

Mohamed was a bright and principled young man from humble beginnings – Moroccan, Berber, Muslim. He studied law at the local university, though he had little chance of actually finding a job after graduation. In Morocco either you had money and could buy your way into extending that privilege or you didn’t, translating into a hard life of sustenance and survival (education notwithstanding).  Despite his family’s struggles, Mohamed was always positive, even playful, a trait that warmed my heart on cold days like these.

It all happened in a moment. A small group of teenage boys began to laugh and point. Mohamed and I turned to see the object of their amusement. I will never, for the rest of my life, forget what I saw.

It was Abdullah.

A living portrait of abject poverty, Abdullah’s hair was matted and unkept, his skin darkened and scabbed from constant exposure, his teeth rotten and abscessed. His pants were stained and tattered. A broken sandal flopped loosely on one foot, swollen and black. The other foot was bare, trudging through the fresh snow, tender and red. And in a final measure of unfathomable despair, Abdullah wore no shirt, no coat, his sunken torso exposed to the wind and the cold.

Frozen with shock, in what seemed like an eternity, I stood, slack-jawed and dumb. And while I did nothing, while the adolescents mocked, I witnessed one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. Mohamed, without meditation or delay, sprang up, walked directly toward Abdullah, removed his jacket, placed it around Abdullah’s shoulders, whispered gently into his ear, and guided him down the road.

I have reflected on that story for over 15 years and I can barely hold back the tears now.  It would have been enough if the story ended there. But the most amazing part is that Mohamed didn’t own another jacket. After giving his coat away in a moment of uncalculated compassion, Mohamed went the rest of the winter without a coat.

This event changed me. It challenged me. It haunted me. 

It was like the Jesus that I was reading about in Scripture was right there, alive and well, in the life of one who did not even acknowledge his divinity. It gave me my first undeniable encounter of the hidden Christ, disguised in “the other.” It forever dismantled my simplistic caricatures that assumed (somehow) that God only works in Christians, and perhaps more pointedly, in Christians like me.

I believe that this event marks the beginning of a journey that I continue to travel today – a road recently described as “receptive ecumenism.”[1] By opening my heart to “the other” I can see what I can learn. With humility and self-criticism, I can acknowledge my own shortcomings (and that of my religious tradition) without losing my unique identity as a Catholic, as a Christian, as a human being. I can, with the full authority of the Church, “reject nothing of what is true and holy in [the other]” while maintaining my unique confidence in Jesus Christ.[2]

“I was naked and you gave me clothing,” Jesus said.[3] Lord, open my eyes to see you where I least expect it. Lord, open my heart to love you in the broken and downtrodden. Lord, open my mouth that I might proclaim your goodness wherever it is found. Amen.

---

[1] See Paul D. Murray, ed., Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008).

[2] Nostra aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions), 2.

[3] Mt 25:36.

Letter to a Protestant

Dear friend,

Okay, I’m a Catholic and you’re a Protestant. I figure I’d come right out and say it, not to draw some line in the sand (goodness no) but to put into words what we both might be thinking.  “Oh, you’re one of them.” Right? Well, maybe there are a few things that you might want to know before we move on:

First, let me just say I like you. I have a smile on my face as I write. I don’t have some sort of knee-jerk reaction to you being Protestant. You are a Christian. You are my brother or sister in Christ Jesus. You are my friend and Jesus told us that there is no greater love than to give up one’s life for a friend. So we can start off on a very positive note.

I am so happy that you have let Christ into your life, that you have found your greatest love and deepest identity in him. Me too. I love it that your ultimate horizon is not worldly fame, financial fortunes or earthly possessions, as tempting as those things are in the world. No matter how many trophies we might accumulate, nothing satisfies. Only Jesus. You know that because I see it in you. After all, you live your life in the imitation of the suffering Servant, the lowly One, the Christ, and I love that about you. I honor and respect that so much.

You see, when you say that you are a Protestant, I know that you and I are so very close already. We have a bond in Christ that goes so deep. It's like we're family, perhaps closer than our own flesh and blood. We are the body of Christ. Together, we operate as Christ’s hands and feet in the world today. When it comes right down to it, I need you. Perhaps you sense that you need me too. We both probably sense that if  the world is gonna know Jesus as Lord, we're gonna need to work together. I want that. I know you do too.

Isn’t it wonderful to love Jesus, by the way? Isn’t it liberating to place your trust, not in an ideology or even a set of doctrines, but in a Person?  Pope John Paul II once said, “We are not saved by a formula but by a Person.” Of course he's talking about Jesus. This has always made a great impression on me. Earlier in my faith journey I was very concerned with being right. I just thought that's what you do. But most of the time it only fed my pride and left me at odds with others. I’m sorry about that. Now don't get me wrong, I continue to be a rather insatiable student of history and theology, but I think about it more in terms of right relationship than anything else – being in loving relationship with God, with others, and with the world in which I live and move. Jesus is such a good model for this.

Speaking of popes, I love our current pope. But I wanted you to know that he isn’t Jesus. Now I know you know this but you might be a little unsure of where I'm coming from. Gosh, we Catholics have made this so confusing for you! I’m sorry about that too. Now I believe Pope Francis is a holy and humble man, but I never get that confused with the Savior. What I find so inspiring about Francis is that he is a man of the Word, he walks what he talks, and he lives what he preaches. Our local bishop recently put it this way as he was ordaining priests, and I thought it was worth sharing: “Believe what you read (in the Bible); preach what you believe; and practice what you preach.” Boy, if we could all do that we’d be in pretty good shape!

I’ve heard many of my Protestant friends say lately that they are inspired by the pope. Francis’ simplicity and commitment to the common people, especially the poor, is just so powerful. Personally, he is a great challenge to me.  He shows me I've got a long way to go to be like Jesus! But the pope isn’t God, let's be clear. I do not worship him or pray to him. I don’t believe (nor does the Catholic Church) that everything he says is gospel truth. He is a follower of Christ, in need of a Savior, indebted to God’s grace, just like you and me. I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you that.

I don’t know if you usually associate this with Catholics but I do pray. And I’m not even talking about Hail May’s and Our Father’s (as wonderful as those prayers are). When I pray I simply talk to God and God talks to me. Matter of fact, the more I pray the more I’m inclined to button my lip and just listen! Surely God has a lot more important things to say to me.

I’d have to say that after nearly 20 years of being an intentional disciple of the Lord, my personal relationship with God is most shaped by reading the Bible and praying every day. Just like you, I thank God and praise him when I pray. I ask God to purify me from sin and fill me with the Holy Spirit. I accept Christ’s lordship in my life and invite him to change me any way he wants. I ask God to make me an instrument of his grace, truth, forgiveness and justice. I beg God to fill me with his love so that I can love others the way Jesus loves us. And I ask God to use me to draw others into a loving, growing relationship with Christ. I ask God to help me to be a good husband to my wife, a good father to my kids, and a good neighbor to my, well neighbors. Just writing about prayer now reminds me how little it helps to talk about prayer and how important it is just to pray.  So I’m going to pray for you now. I hope you’ll pray for me.

There are many things that I was planning to write to you about – Mary, the saints, sacraments, salvation, the Trinity – but for some reason it just doesn’t feel right. Perhaps we’ll get to that stuff on down the road, but I guess the most important thing is to get to know each other first. It seems like the more I get to know people, even people who I think are very different from me, the more I find that we’re more alike than anything. I get the sense sometimes from God, ya know those times when you’re deep in prayer, that we’re all really united already, we just don’t know it. And if we don’t know we’re part of the same body, it’s hard to act like it. But I hope we can change that – one person, one heart (and perhaps one letter) at a time.

I would love it if you’d write me back. I am so interested in your faith, your life, and your story with Jesus. I have a lot to learn from you. And I have a feeling we could become good friends. Thank you, truly, and God bless you.

Yours faithfully in Christ,

Michael