Pax tecum,
How many people on here think about doing what’s good for the Church? Do you carefully ponder if what you think about what is truly good for the Church truly means that it’s good for the Church? Do you examine the things that harm the Church? Do you recognize them? And if you do, what are you doing about it?
I’ve been asking myself these questions as of late, and I would to hear some different opinions.
-Karl
Son – I’ve gone through this thread three times and I still have no clue what you want. To be honest, you sound as if you’re trying to lead an orchestra when you are still learning to play the recorder. What I mean is that you’re trying to lead all of us, but you’re not sure yourself where you want to lead or how to lead.
You say that you’re not getting the responses that you’re looking for. OK, let’s begin there. Leadership is not about getting responses for which I’m looking. Trust me, I’ve been superior of three houses and soon to be a general superior. Leadership is about getting responses to your questions. Some of them are going to be complete surprises.
You ask, how many think about what’s good for the Church. There is a problem with this question. The Church exists on every continent with more than one billion members. Unless one is sitting in Peter’s chair, where one is getting the big picture, everyone can think, but no one can really say what’s good for the Church, because at the end of the day, all of us would be responding from our limited experience, not from a global experience as the man who sits in the big chair and gets the reports from around the world.
If you want to lead people to think about what is good, I strongly suggest that you select something that is common to the people with whom you’re speaking For example, when I’m speaking to my brothers about the good of the Church, I’m not thinking about everyone on CAF or every Catholic in the world. My brothers don’t know everyone on CAF or every Catholic. They will never come in contact with these folks. My brothers know the immigrant poor, the unborn child and his parents, the chronically and terminally ill, the abandoned senior and the disabled person without a voice.
When I want to know what is good for the Church I state the question in the context that they operate. For example, “What can more can we do for the immigrant poor in the Church?” By addressing a very specific need, we’er making our contribution to the good of the whole. I lead my brothers to identify observable things that they can do for this target population.
You need to do the same here. You need to pick something that is common to all of us and then direct the question to that point. “What can we do for X that will help the Church?” If you put it that way, you’ll be able to lead. If you ask what are we thinking about, you’re going to get as many responses as there are readers. You will have more than you can handle.
You’re asking people what they’re doing about things that harm the Church? Thomas a Kempis wrote that at the end of time, the only person standing in judgment at your trial is you; therefore, you should not worry about what the other person is doing, but about what you’re doing. Because you can only see the actions of the other, but you do not know the intent or the heart of the other.
In other words, you’re probably asking a question that you should not be asking, unless you have the authority to do so. Otherwise, you’re invading other people’s privacy. Good leaders do not invade, they invite. They usually begin by saying, “I do A, B and C when I see this problem. It works for me and I thought I’d share it with you.” Then he leaves the floor open for people to ask for more information or for people to share what they do. Observe, he never asked them to do so. He invited by initiating.
I hope this helps you formulate what you want in a more concise and useful manner.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
