Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: June 30, 2019
I find that the hardest thing to do in leading a good Catholic life is finding time! There are so many religious activities that take time: prayer, learning, ministry, and so forth. Even the more enjoyable aspects of our life of discipleship – say, enjoying our Parish community together – takes time. (On that note, don’t forget our Hawaiian Pot Luck Supper on Monday, July 15, at 6 pm! It will be enjoyable for everyone, including the children and grandchildren of our Parish, but you have to put it on your schedule!)
A few priests of our diocese – about eight so far – are taking part in something new this year. We’re gathering together one evening a month to study together, under the tutelage of the theology professors at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University here in Baton Rouge. Now that we actually have a genuine Catholic university here in town, and one that teaches theology to boot, we’ve decided to make more use of it!
We began by studying Lumen Fidei (“The Light of Faith”), Pope Francis’ first encyclical. Actually, he made use of a large body of material already composed by retired Pope Benedict, so in many ways that 2013 document was a product of them both. Its subject is the core of Christianity: the theological virtue of faith, belief in Jesus Christ, our Lord and the only Savior of the world. Our study led us to realize anew many things about faith, such as its communitarian dimension, as art. 39 notes: “It is impossible to believe on our own. Faith is not simply an individual decision which takes place in the depths of the believer’s heart, nor a completely private relationship between the believer and the divine … By its very nature, true faith … always takes place within the communion of the Church.” I found this an important reminder to us all, to preserve and enhance our religion together: those who wish to exclude or at least run away from others are acting contrary to the faith, contrary to the wishes of God who always seeks to approach and find us.
So “faith” was our study of the first few months. Now we’ve begun a study of Spe Salvi (“Saved in Hope”), which Pope Benedict wrote earlier, in 2007. The theological virtue of hope can be described as what faith produces in us, the confidence of our eventual reward by Christ. It goes beyond our dreams for the blessings which may come our way in this world: “humanity has need of a hope that goes further … something infinite” (no. 30). And so we hope here and now in a transitional manner, for our hearts are already set on the world to come.
Don’t worry: I’m not going to share with you every insight that struck us – or just me! – as noteworthy during our reading and discussions. But what I am going to praise is the plain fact that we’ve gotten together to do it. I recommend such study and discussion groups to everyone. Many a neighborhood “small Christian community” is able to deepen their committed discipleship by making this kind of effort. Not just prayer together but honest intellectual exploration of what our Catholic Christianity is all about – in Bible study, in discovery of the Church’s intellectual traditions, in the contents of the Catechism, and so forth – makes us better followers of Jesus.
Yours in the Lord, in whom we hope,
Fr. Paul D. Counce
