Modern Crisis: Chasing Big Numbers At Quality's Expense

Friends of the Youngstown Cursillo and apostolates everywhere who suffer from what seems like declining interest and dwindling numbers, read the following excerpts from an article by John Thavis titled "Vatican official says religious orders are in modern 'crisis'".  (emphasis in article mine). What is reported here applies to our apostolates as well.  I will offer a commentary on it in my next post.  Read the article in its entirety here. 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A top Vatican official said religious orders today are in a "crisis" caused in part by the adoption of a secularist mentality and the abandonment of traditional practices.

Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said the problems go deeper than the drastic drop in the numbers of religious men and women.

"The crisis experienced by certain religious communities, especially in Western Europe and North America, reflects the more profound crisis of European and American society.

"The secularized culture has penetrated into the minds and hearts of some consecrated persons and some communities, where it is seen as an opening to modernity and a way of approaching the contemporary world," he said.

Cardinal Rode said the decline in the numbers of men and women religious became precipitous after the Second Vatican Council, which he described as a period "rich in experimentation but poor in robust and convincing mission."

He said the orders need to remember that quality of vocations is more important than quantity.

"It is easy, in situations of crisis, to turn to deceptive and damaging shortcuts, or attempt to lower the criteria and parameters for admission to consecrated life and the course of initial and permanent formation," he said.

It's more important today, he said, that religious orders "overcome the egocentrism in which institutes are often closed, and open themselves to joint projects with other institutes, local churches and lay faithful."

Cardinal Rode said it was undoubtedly more difficult today for all religious orders to find young people who are willing to break away from the superficial contemporary culture and show a capacity for commitment and sacrifice. Unless this is dealt with in formation programs, he said, religious orders will produce members who lack dedication and are likely to drift away.

source: www.catholicnews.com

Think about this as we all press forward in our missions.

Seeing With New Eyes

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge advocate for the sacrament of Confession. I've written about it here, where I included an examination of conscience link that I find very useful. I go to confession every 6-8 weeks.  Do you sin that much, you ask? Well, yes. The more I grow in my faith, the more easily I can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, and the more I realize exactly how much I sin on a minute-to-minute basis, and need to reconcile, especially if I'm going to be united in Christ through the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

In his book Fundamentals of Christianity (A Cursillo Publication), Fr. Frank Salmani discusses how the Holy Spirit drives our Christian faith. "When we open our hearts to the Spirit," he writes, "we begin to see the world and reality not in our limited terms and ideas, but in the way that God sees them. (p. 50)" This isn't just seeing how God sees the good stuff about us, either.

 "When the Spirit of Truth searches our hearts and we are honest with ourselves, we will know that we need to be recreated and transformed to Christ. (p. 50)"  If we're going to live as disciples of Christ, we have to find the cracks--those little areas where evil continues to take root. The confessional is where I weed out the evil and expose the cracks. Christ in the Eucharist repairs the cracks, and my practice of holiness maintains the repair.

I found this handy list on Fr. Larry Richards' website.  This list is alphabetical--a weed's a weed, right?  There are two copies of the list on one sheet of paper, so cut it in half, keep a list for yourself and give the other list to someone you love. I'm not guilty of all of them, but I am guilty of quite a few.

I'm definitely taking this list with me to my next confession.

A Weekend Getaway with the Lord

We prayed. We sang. We laughed. We cried. We worshiped.

We escaped the world and all its trappings to encounter our Lord like never before.

I watched a group of tired, weary, reluctant women transform into little girls again under the watchful eye of a Loving Father. They learned just how powerful a Christian Community inspired by our Lord Jesus to do incredible acts of selfless love can be. They died to themselves and opened their hearts to the Holy Spirit, rediscovering the Lord dwelling within them.

Our Lord has most definitely blessed Youngstown Cursillo Women’s Weekend #59. Thank you all for your prayers!