It's the same issue as with parents trying to emphasize quality time with their kids, rather than recognizing that quantity time is vastly superior on every front.
I mean that they are trying to make very special religious experiences a standardized part of religious ed, in the hopes that this will cause the kids to stay once they're adul…
It's the same issue as with parents trying to emphasize quality time with their kids, rather than recognizing that quantity time is vastly superior on every front.
I mean that they are trying to make very special religious experiences a standardized part of religious ed, in the hopes that this will cause the kids to stay once they're adults. It doesn't work, both because very few people can take an experience or two from years ago, and turn it into a stable Catholic life without anything else, and because there's no way to standardize religious experiences.
The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version.
This is a fantastic formulation of an important issue: "The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version."
You know, maybe we give too much attention to people's "conversion stories" and "vocation stories" and things like that. Those stories, when interesting, include magic moments. (No one ever got a million youtube hits for saying, "I dunno, my parents always took me to mass, and we prayed together as a family, and then I just kinda became a nun.") Now magic moments have their place, but not everyone has them, and anyway, you can't manufacture them. At most, you can pave the way for them by... doggedly being devoted for the basics for the long haul.
Excellent connection! I blame Protestants' penchant for proselytizing with conversion stories, that Catholics picked up on, but I also expect that Catholics would have done it without them. It's just so emotionally satisfying to hear about, and it gives the people who contribute to them (or think that they are) many warm fuzzy feelings, and our culture generally is very bad at disciplining emotions. We over-indulge them or wallow in them, by turns.
I've heard of people having NDEs, and not changing their lives even a smidgeon. I've had low-level "magic moments". When the going gets tough (or boring, or lonely) that's not why you stay Catholic. A really amazing feeling 10 years ago doesn't get you through the valley of the shadow of death.
I remember a time when my wife and I were talking to an elderly priest in my family. My wife asked about his vocation story, and he almost seemed confused by the question. I think that for a priest of his vintage (WWII vet who went to the seminary right after being discharged) it seemed odd to expect some kind of big story. He replied that the faith had always been important in their home growing up and that he had felt a draw to being a pries, and that while he was in the war he decided it was what he would do. That was it. It was as if we had asked "what's the story of why you became an accountant/union carpenter/receptionist/etc..." and expected an earth-shattering story.
Turns out that living the faith on a daily basis makes a difference...who would have predicted?
I've heard similar from priests of that era. Met an old Irish priest once and he simply came from a devout family and they went to an ordination of a Dominican Priest when he was young and after the Mass he told his parents he was going to be a Dominican Priest and that was that, and then he did
This particular context was catechizing children, not personal moral behavior.
But the principle applies in so many contexts. Building the foundation right, even though it is muddy and smelly and hard and boring and will probably never really be seen, is essential for doing well with anything, including virtue. And I expect that virtue will be of great help in catechizing children. But also, dogged devotion to catechizing children *right*, will be of great help in developing personal virtue.
It's the same issue as with parents trying to emphasize quality time with their kids, rather than recognizing that quantity time is vastly superior on every front.
I mean that they are trying to make very special religious experiences a standardized part of religious ed, in the hopes that this will cause the kids to stay once they're adults. It doesn't work, both because very few people can take an experience or two from years ago, and turn it into a stable Catholic life without anything else, and because there's no way to standardize religious experiences.
The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version.
This is a fantastic formulation of an important issue: "The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version."
You know, maybe we give too much attention to people's "conversion stories" and "vocation stories" and things like that. Those stories, when interesting, include magic moments. (No one ever got a million youtube hits for saying, "I dunno, my parents always took me to mass, and we prayed together as a family, and then I just kinda became a nun.") Now magic moments have their place, but not everyone has them, and anyway, you can't manufacture them. At most, you can pave the way for them by... doggedly being devoted for the basics for the long haul.
Excellent connection! I blame Protestants' penchant for proselytizing with conversion stories, that Catholics picked up on, but I also expect that Catholics would have done it without them. It's just so emotionally satisfying to hear about, and it gives the people who contribute to them (or think that they are) many warm fuzzy feelings, and our culture generally is very bad at disciplining emotions. We over-indulge them or wallow in them, by turns.
I've heard of people having NDEs, and not changing their lives even a smidgeon. I've had low-level "magic moments". When the going gets tough (or boring, or lonely) that's not why you stay Catholic. A really amazing feeling 10 years ago doesn't get you through the valley of the shadow of death.
I remember a time when my wife and I were talking to an elderly priest in my family. My wife asked about his vocation story, and he almost seemed confused by the question. I think that for a priest of his vintage (WWII vet who went to the seminary right after being discharged) it seemed odd to expect some kind of big story. He replied that the faith had always been important in their home growing up and that he had felt a draw to being a pries, and that while he was in the war he decided it was what he would do. That was it. It was as if we had asked "what's the story of why you became an accountant/union carpenter/receptionist/etc..." and expected an earth-shattering story.
Turns out that living the faith on a daily basis makes a difference...who would have predicted?
I want a collection of stories like that one. Just to counteract the others a bit.
I've heard similar from priests of that era. Met an old Irish priest once and he simply came from a devout family and they went to an ordination of a Dominican Priest when he was young and after the Mass he told his parents he was going to be a Dominican Priest and that was that, and then he did
I have heard substantially the same from a Filipino priest. I think non-Western Catholic cultures still function this way.
> doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul
So, virtue? (In the Aristotelian sense, of course)
This particular context was catechizing children, not personal moral behavior.
But the principle applies in so many contexts. Building the foundation right, even though it is muddy and smelly and hard and boring and will probably never really be seen, is essential for doing well with anything, including virtue. And I expect that virtue will be of great help in catechizing children. But also, dogged devotion to catechizing children *right*, will be of great help in developing personal virtue.
Ah, I mostly meant this in the sense of "human virtues are habits" (ST I-II q. 55 art. 1 co.)
Oh, I see. But does that make all good habits virtues?
As long as "good" really means "good" then yeah I'd say so (though they may not be cardinal or theological virtues).