https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydd-1wmxmXw

Transcript

So, we’re in this season of the Church, and it isn’t as exceptional as some of us believe, where it’s hard to know who to listen to. Even from within the hierarchy of the Church, there are conflicting, confusing, and even misleading statements about what we are to believe and how we are to adhere to the faith.

So how do we know who to listen to from within all the confusing messaging? Well, I think there are a lot of ways to discern that. For example there are plenty of scriptural verses that inform us of what a good leader should be like and they all flow into some pattern of virtue and holiness.

But, we live in the age of public relations and sophistry which makes it nearly impossible to detect whether a person is a virtuous leader or not because they can simply portray themselves that way and hide their true nature.

And this is why we have to rely on more subtle clues to get a sense of who we can rely on to lead us in the faith. So I offer this reflection as one way to help in that discernment but with this disclaimer. I’m not trying to point a finger at anyone with this video. This video isn’t about anyone specifically. Instead, it’s a way of offering a principle that has helped me discern where to fix my attention as I do my best to follow Christ through his Church.

I mentioned, a second ago, that we live in a world of sophisticated public relations and media which makes it really hard to tell if a public person is sincere in the way they portray themselves.

And this informs the first principle that I’d offer which is to be cautious about spending your energy trying to scrutinize public personalities. The traits that scripture tells us to look for in a leader are not the kinds of things you can detect, from a far so I think it’s futile to try to spend excessive amounts of time trying to know which high profile bishop or intellectual you should side with.

But when it comes to your own parish priest and even your own bishop, you should be able to better judge whether they exemplify the traits that are described in scripture because you should have a more intimate awareness of their leadership traits.

But even then, that can be difficult to discern, especially if your bishop or priest are popular or overseeing large congregations. So, I offer a more subtle approach that has been helpful for me and it starts with a bit of a clumsy analogy.

Imagine an object whose purpose is to heat its surrounding environment and the objects that are in it. So, like a space heater. Its role could be described as being something that has a trait that nothing around it has so that those things in close proximity to it can acquire that trait.

This isn’t a great metaphor, but I hope it gets the point across that I would argue this is what God does. He is life, he is being, he is love so that anyone that does not have life, or being, or love, acquires these things when they are receptive to his presence.

And Jesus, who is the Word made Flesh, has this quality as well, so that those of us who expose ourselves to him in a receptive way, will begin to be conformed to his likeness. We will begin to acquire his traits like wisdom, kindness, mercy, courage, humility, faithfulness, etc.

So, because of Jesus’ contagious nature he tends to provoke a reaction. You can’t remain neutral about him especially in close proximity to him. If you want to be transformed you will embrace his presence, if you don’t want to be transformed, then you will likely become hostile towards his presence.

It’s kind of like C.S. Lewis’ trilemma argument where he said you can’t conclude that Jesus was a good moral example and teacher but not the son of God when he claimed to be the son of God. Someone like that is either a lunatic, a liar, or they’re telling the truth. But positive neutrality towards Jesus is nonsensical.

And Jesus indicated this fact when he said things like “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” and then he goes on to describe how his presence will be a cause of division in Luke 12.

For those who crave that fire, they will love him for it. For those who don’t want to be heated, they will resent a source of heat. And that should help us understand why Jesus said that the World will hate him and that we, as his followers, should, likewise, expect to be hated.

So an encounter with Christ or with God, as far as I can reason it, should only produce one of two reactions. Either a person is transformed by that presence, or they retreat from it.

But a kind of reaction that will never happen is someone who expresses affinity for the heat source, but isn’t transformed by it. If they stay in proximity to it, they can’t help but be changed by it. You can’t reconcile an appreciation for a source of heat while removing yourself from it.

And it’s this admittedly imperfect analogy that I think we can apply to the question of those who represent God in the Church. Because anyone who represents Jesus and his ministry, or in other words, anyone who acts in the place of Jesus, should produce a similar effect.

They should be someone who transforms those who are willing to respond to God’s invitation and they should produce hostility in those who resent that transformative presence for fear that they might be affected by it when they do not want it.

Now if this is a valid approach, as this can be applied to our own discernment, I’d say that we could use it to scrutinize those who are well liked by elements in society that have no intention of warming up to the idea of conversion to discipleship.

In other words, if there is a trend among non-Christians to say things like, “I really like that pastor, or bishop, or pope.” But they themselves aren’t finding that affection a reason to seek to know the Christian life for themselves, then there could be a problem there.

If a leader in question is winning the affection of the world but isn’t having a transforming effect on it, then they aren’t acting in the person of Jesus. They aren’t bringing his contagious presence to the world.

And expressions of fondness from outsiders can be an indication of something else: that instead of being challenged to grow in faith and holiness the way Jesus does, it could be an indication that they are simply finding affirmation in their remoteness from God rather than being challenged to be reconciled to him.

And that’s not the way of Jesus. Jesus was relentless in his invitation to repentance and conversion and it was that same relentlessness that got him into trouble with the authorities of his day and eventually tried and executed.

So a bishop who is chummy with politicians, pop stars, and celebrities who convey their admiration for them but are not indicating any transformation towards Christ, could be a good hypothetical example of what I’m talking about.

The last thing I’d want to leave you with is the sense of how important it is for anyone who calls themselves a Christian or a Catholic to be immersing themselves in study. We can’t rely on a harmonious and cohesive rendering of the faith to come from the hierarchy at the moment, at least not those filling pastoral offices.

But, even from within that mess, the actual teachings of the Church remain unchanged and are quietly calling to us through the confusion, so we need to study them and then compare them to things that are being said and taught.