Is it time to close the Ark? (Depravity is why we can’t evangelize, so let’s focus on seekers with beauty, encounter and family)

[MarysLurker]

Remember also that (IMO) the worlds greatest living theologian, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, he anticipates a smaller, yet more fervent Church .

Thanks to you I just reviewed BXVI’s statement… and wow. You, and he, are spot on correct.

“Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.

“The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

 

[po18guy]

Praise to the Holy Spirit! I just connect the dots.

 

[kainosktisis]

If debate is more like one camp going against another camp with each of their respective arguments, presenting them logically so that people can decide for themselves what is true, maybe not so much…

I grew up in a household where Bible-thumping was the rule - not the exception. Whether or not anyone listened (They usually didn’t), didn’t matter. It was all about the fight. Standing up for the faith. And maybe some ego…God, help us with our egos…

Honest dialog is a whole other matter…But…even more than that…We have to be willing to get to know others.

I came into the Church because I got to know a Catholic who - Glory be! Oh, Glory be! was a Catholic who actually knew her Bible!!! If you ever want to draw in a Protestant, know your Bible! I can’t emphasize that enough! Know your faith & the reasons for your beliefs!

Talking to her opened up my eyes & mind & softened my heart. It was because of her answers, respect, kindness, vulnerability, & our growing together as friends & sisters in the faith (albeit, separated - but she treated me as a sister nonetheless) that I was finally able to overcome my once-held Protestant objections of the faith to want to research Catholicism more. I had to have answers…

And in June of 2014, well, I came into the Church…So now you know the rest of the story!

 

[MarysLurker]

Honest dialog is a whole other matter…But…even more than that…We have to be willing to get to know others

Right… which isn’t really possible to do online, at last not to the extent that it can be done IRL. And you can’t really get to know someone if they’re just a debate opponent, whether online or off.

 

[kainosktisis]

True, but the lady I’d gotten to know…? We’d first met online… Just saying…

We hit it off, & after a while, we were IMing & calling one another, & she lived in another state from me!

 

[MarysLurker]

@Unique_name, forgot to tag you in the OP per your request. Sorry

 

[Mary888]

There is no time except that which God brings. Most people suffering from depravity now have been taught, abandoned and left to it. We haven’t found the prayer to help them. So why abandon them?
Plus the way of the Cross is not an ark but complete abandoning to God’s will. Maybe we will be stuck or naybe we will nove forward. “Thy will be done”.

 

[MarysLurker]

Most people suffering from depravity now have been taught, abandoned and left to it. We haven’t found the prayer to help them. So why abandon them?

Because you can’t teach someone a lesson unless they first enroll in the class. And you can’t argue them into enrolling into the class. After they decide to take the class, maybe then you can have a debate with them once they truly are seekers.

There are plenty of people here on CAF who struggle with X sexual sin and seek advice here and get it. That works, even if it’s a bit gritty. There really is no way I can think of to do more to engage them than to use the way of beauty.

 

[esieffe]

Sort of like the Benedict Option. The group Saint Paul Street Evangelists, put out rosaries, medals, and information and they don’t argue. They offer everything they have at no charge, accepting no donation. If someone wants to genuinely talk, they talk.

St. Paul Street Evangelization – Tools for the New Evangelization

I can’t blame anyone who wants to close the door. Just don’t lock it. If I were not such an air-conditioning loving media junkie, I would love to be a Benedictine monk. I would love to get a cabin in the mountains [one with air-conditioning and internet access.] I’m serious.

Our Mother though might disagree with us. She went through a great deal of trouble to charge us with the job of helping her save her children. She visits her children in purgatory, and like her Son, hates seeing any of them going to hell.

Years ago, when I was at a very low point, I had someone walk up to me on a commuter bus and say, "I don’t mean to offend you, but I have this strong feeling that I am supposed to pray with you. I burst into tears. I had just gotten word my mother had breast cancer, had a host of other problem, and I had put on a St. Jude medal the night before and was wearing it on the bus.

It is no secret that people aren’t banging on our doors to get in, but there are a few. Unfortunately, God doesn’t give us a statement showing us all the people he reached through us, but in the end, all there needs to be is one. So while I understand anyone wanting to shut the door, we all still should know that simply living the example, is enough to get the attention of a seeker, who may want to know what you have that he doesn’t. So shut the door for a while if you need to, but just leave the light on.

 

[MarysLurker]

Our Mother though might disagree with us. She went through a great deal of trouble to charge us with the job of helping her save her children. She visits her children in purgatory, and like her Son, hates seeing any of them going to hell.

I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier… but I told someone who was having the struggle of whether or not to speak up and say something in a hostile work environment to just wear the Miraculous Medal and let Mary decide who needed the talking to.

Need to race against the edit timer and get that in the OP! … done (post #2).

That’s it. Use the sacramentals. There are better ways to give a personal witness and Christian presence than to have debates with everyone who’s wrong.

 

[esieffe]

That’s it. Use the sacramentals. There are better ways to give a personal witness and Christian presence than to have debates with everyone who’s wrong.

That brings to mind what “the machine” in the movie War Games, said “the only winning move is to not play the game.” Arguing won’t change anyone’s mind.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

My thoughts are that there’s a significant amount of people that have an obstinacy to some measure and it is not really possible to convert them. Really only God can help them, but that should be the first recourse.

 

[QwertyGirl]

@MarysLurker, might I suggest that you consider “people” one person at a time? If what the Church teaches is true, then each individual person has been created in the likeness of God, and each individual person has a soul.

I think your frustration may be that it is your hope that a whole classification of people will “wake up” and believe all the things the Church offers. That is most likely not going to happen. I would suggest that it isn’t supposed to happen that way. There is value in converting one soul at a time.

I am an agnostic here, on a Catholic forum, so I don’t really have a dog in the fight. Just thought I would offer my two cents worth.

 

[MarysLurker]

That brings to mind what “the machine” in the movie War Games, said “the only winning move is to not play the game.” Arguing won’t change anyone’s mind.

Here’s that scene

 

[MarysLurker]

MarysLurker, might I suggest that you consider “people” one person at a time?

That’s what we need to do but the only way you can do that is through regular personal encounter, not antagonistic debate. That’s what I’m trying to get at.

And you’re right that somewhere in my bones there is still a hope against hope for a “Catholic moment.” And that despite the fact that Archbishop Chaput rules that out in his book linked to in the OP.

It’s hard to accept that huge numbers of people are not going to have children, families, or anything like that by their own choice. It’s a lot easier to accept, as you say, that one person is of infinite value. That’s why I say, focus on the needs of the seekers (like you) instead of exhausting ourselves on the masses.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

I think your frustration may be that it is your hope that a whole classification of people will “wake up” and believe all the things the Church offers.

MarysLurker suggested to pay attention to people who interested and to not focus too much on those who firmly entrenched in what they believed.

 

[QwertyGirl]

MarysLurker suggested to pay attention to people who interested and to not focus too much on those who firmly entrenched in what they believed.

Yes, she did. I am suggesting that her frustration with whole “groups” of people can be alleviated if she considers that maybe it isn’t in God’s plan that these “groups” be “woken up” in the manner MarysLuker would like.

I don’t think a loving God wants his children to spend their lives in frustration. When I read @MarysLuker 's OP, frustration is about all I heard. Others may have heard something else. I read it and re-read it and the thought that came to mind is that life is too short to be so frustrated that one needs to come up with a plan for shutting the door on whole groups of others, for no reason other than they don’t believe the same things.

 

[MarysLurker]

don’t think a loving God wants his children to spend their lives in frustration. When I read @MarysLuker 's OP, frustration is about all I heard. Others may have heard something else. I read it and re-read it and the thought that came to mind is that life is too short to be so frustrated that one needs to come up with a plan for shutting the door on whole groups of others, for no reason other than they don’t believe the same things.

You may be reading too much into the whole shut-the-Ark analogy. All I’m saying is, don’t debate with people who aren’t already seekers because there are other, better ways to reach them. Like just giving a witness by wearing a medal as discussed above. Nowhere do I say to reject anyone.

Yes, I am frustrated. I’m not frustrated about not convincing people, though. I’m frustrated about having to accept, as you say, that whole swaths of people are, by choice, throwing their futures away. Look at the linked articles in the OP if you want more info. They are from secular sources. The doomsaying is being done by the World Bank and The Economist and Gallup, not me.

 

[QwertyGirl]

I’m frustrated about having to accept, as you say, that whole swaths of people are, by choice, throwing their futures away

You are assuming you know what their futures will bring. You don’t know that, they don’t know that. Nobody but God knows that.

Share God’s love, one person at a time. You may never know who you touched, or who you didn’t. It can keep you busy for the rest of your life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it alleviates some of the frustration.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

for shutting the door on whole groups of others, for no reason other than they don’t believe the same things.

She’s shutting up the door of trying to convert them or trying to reach out precisely because they don’t believe the same things. Mostly because it is a futile endeavor and don’t those type of people want to be left alone. She also mentioned an option for helping people that are interested.