Region 9 Vocation Director Meeting May 14-16
I preached at the Senior Mass at Helias High School and the chaplain presided. Then, I left Jefferson City. The dioceses of the states of Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri met to discuss strategies, learn from a professional speaker and shared creative ideas this past week in Kansas City, KS. Our presenter is an adolescent psychologist who has degrees in theology and so is interested in the spiritual development of adolescents. That seemed appropriate to our interests! He spoke to us about the spirituality of our current generation of echo-boomers, the offspring of the baby-boomers.
The spirituality is: moralistic, therapeutic Deistic. "can't we all get along? Don't exclude! Don't paint yourself as better than everyone else thereby making others less than you." When asked, "how important is going to church for you, to be a part of the community." 3% of the population said that is why they go to church. Hmmm. Almost half go to church to improve their relationship with God. Taken to its extreme, there is no reason to help others because my spirituality is between Go and me. About 1/3 go to church to help others. Taken to its extreme, there is no need to pray and no need to really talk to God because I just have to be a nice person. And, about 1/5 go to church because it helps me cope with the issues I have to face day to day. It's therapeutic and helps me get through life.
If that is the case, then, we must look at the Catechetical documents and ask, as the document asks, how do we frame our authentically Catholic message without betraying the message?
We then discussed the vocation to faith, relationship, and work and what happens when the commitments to each start to compete. It was a very good workshop presented by Dr. Mike Carotta.
On Thursday, I celebrated mass at Visitation Parish in Vienna for the school children. After mass, I visited with all the classrooms and then interviewed the boys and girls in 7th and 8th grade about their spiritual lives. This was the 16th and final school of this school year.
The spirituality is: moralistic, therapeutic Deistic. "can't we all get along? Don't exclude! Don't paint yourself as better than everyone else thereby making others less than you." When asked, "how important is going to church for you, to be a part of the community." 3% of the population said that is why they go to church. Hmmm. Almost half go to church to improve their relationship with God. Taken to its extreme, there is no reason to help others because my spirituality is between Go and me. About 1/3 go to church to help others. Taken to its extreme, there is no need to pray and no need to really talk to God because I just have to be a nice person. And, about 1/5 go to church because it helps me cope with the issues I have to face day to day. It's therapeutic and helps me get through life.
If that is the case, then, we must look at the Catechetical documents and ask, as the document asks, how do we frame our authentically Catholic message without betraying the message?
We then discussed the vocation to faith, relationship, and work and what happens when the commitments to each start to compete. It was a very good workshop presented by Dr. Mike Carotta.
On Thursday, I celebrated mass at Visitation Parish in Vienna for the school children. After mass, I visited with all the classrooms and then interviewed the boys and girls in 7th and 8th grade about their spiritual lives. This was the 16th and final school of this school year.
posted by Fr. Joe Corel at
3:05 PM
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