Coffee At 4 A.M. And Drummer Boy . . . Speakers At Spiritual Life Conference Take A Look At Suffering And Joy
By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — “The only doctrine of the Church that’s easily observable is original sin,” legendary Catholic convert and apologist G.K. Chesterton pungently said, according to a nun speaking at a mid-March spirituality conference here that was cosponsored by the Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio.
Sr. M. Johanna Paruch, FSGM, a member of the theology faculty at the Ohio school for 20 years, gave a lively presentation for about 80 minutes on two topics at the March 16 Spiritual Life Conference 2019 also sponsored by the Institute of Catholic Theology (ICT), based at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church here.
Suffering is the result of original sin, Paruch said, and the well-known advice of Catholic Moms to “Offer it up” when dealing with life’s challenges is profoundly theological.
“Our lives should be offered up as a sacrifice. . . . We live in a society where suffering means nothing,” she said. “. . .We have to help people understand, why do we suffer?. . .
“Because of the Resurrection, we know that suffering has a purpose. . . . I think that catechists are first responders” to life’s trials, she said.
The half-day conference began with an 8:30 a.m. Mass offered by Fr. John Parks, the vicar for evangelization of the Diocese of Phoenix, and also featured a talk of nearly an hour by Franciscan University’s Fr. Nathan Malavolti, TOR, the school’s chief evangelization officer. The event ended shortly before 1 p.m.
In his homily, Parks recalled Christ’s outrageous-seeming counsel to love one’s enemies and pray for them when the Savior reminded His shocked listeners that the Father makes the sun to rise and rain to fall on both the just and unjust, and this love is the way of perfection, as the Father is perfect.
Parks gave an example of a little boy with Down syndrome who ran over and hugged someone who was making fun of him.
Malavolti’s unfamiliar face around the St. Thomas the Apostle campus for a few days soon was welcomed because of his beaming expression, including while concelebrating daily Mass.
The Steubenville school and ICT arrived at an arrangement to cosponsor annual conferences here on spiritual life, in the spring, and the Bible, in the fall, ICT director Eric Westby, Ph.D., told the March 16 conference.
The first of Paruch’s two topics was “The Priesthood of the Faithful — Identity and Mission.”
Pointing to the universal call to holiness, Paruch said the reason for the Second Vatican Council “was to make us holier,” not just to put the celebration of the Mass into the vernacular.
Christians are called to be on mission, she said. “It is not a Christian thing to sit down and be complacent.” A religious superior once told her, “You can’t just stand still.” Instead, the message is “Go” — “if you just sit in your room and focus in on yourself, you get sick.”
Citing Pope St. Paul VI saying, “The Church exists in order to evangelize,” Paruch said the commission to “teach all nations” means that “we shouldn’t sit around here waiting for it to happen.”
All the faithful are called to priesthood, she said, although there’s a distinction between the ordained ministry and “our common priesthood. . . . (W)e could pray over that bread forever and nothing’s going to happen” to change the bread into the Eucharist.
Paruch’s other topic was “Prayer, the Source of Strength for the Lay Vocation.”
“The wonderful thing about prayer,” she said, “is that we can all do it.”
She speaks to gatherings all over the country, Paruch said, but sometimes in a group of hundreds of people, even nuns, maybe only two of them can say they read Scripture regularly.
“Pope Francis says we have to keep the Gospel in our pocket,” and people can do so with a cell phone, and the same with the Catechism, Paruch said, citing n. 2697 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment.”
However, she said, her prayers for intentions may lack a follow-up for favors granted. “Even though I prayed my heart out on takeoff” at the airport, she would forget to say “Thank You” for a safe landing.
“We can’t pray ‘at all times’ if we don’t pray at specific times . . . consciously willing it,” Paruch said, citing the catechism.
This Catholic instruction book “says it is Jesus who always seeks us,” she said, and, “Prayer is an encounter of God’s thirst for us.”
Because she arises at 4 a.m., “My first waking thought is ‘Coffee’,” she said, but then she moves ahead to a day marked by prayer.
“I don’t like praying with prayer books” because she’s a fast reader and wants “to push ahead” when reading, she said, but that’s “not the purpose of a prayer book.”
“The Church is so huge that we have lots of ways” to prayer, Paruch said. “We have to make sure that Christ is at the center.”
Like the poor Little Drummer Boy who could only offer his drumming to Baby Jesus, “That can be us,” offering the best at hand, she said. “Obviously, Scripture is the best place to have meditation.”
When a man in the conference audience said he had good prayer periods in life, then they decline, Paruch said, “That’s the cycle of our life.”
Regarding current problems in the Church, “people are angry; they have a right to be,” she said, but “the Church is Jesus Christ. . . . The Devil is thrilled to pieces. Whenever there’s division, he’s at the heart of it.”
As to sacrificial service, “If we’re really serving the poor, they stink. They vomit on each other,” they don’t do what others want them to do, but serving Christ keeps people going back to this work, Paruch said.
Holiness Is Possible
Fr. Malavolti, Franciscan University’s chief evangelization officer, spoke on, “Holiness: Making Our Witness Credible.”
“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God,” he said, but there are people “with large material fortunes” who lack joy.
Consumerist society says that obtaining certain possessions means happiness, but that’s not true, Malavolti said. “We’re never going to be happy, we’re never going to be filled with joy” if people pretend to be someone they’re not. He added: “Whom am I pretending to be right now? What am I lying to myself about right now?”
Catholic author Matthew Kelly says the biggest lie is that “holiness isn’t possible,” he said.
Referring to dangerous social changes as demonstrated by the New York state legislature legalizing infanticide in January, Malavolti said, “We’re being attacked. We’re going to suffer for being Catholic Christians.”
Malavolti cited Pope Francis on the constant battle against the Devil himself, instead of people only having to fight against temptations or worldly allurements. “It’s a personal being who attacks us, not just a figure of speech.”
Pope Benedict XVI said that showing love for the poor isn’t simply accepting “an invitation to charity,” Malavolti said. Christ Himself “commands us to love those in need. . . . Our Lord made it clear mercy is the beating heart of the Gospel. . . .
“How can I be attentive to those around us? Let me not waste the precious gift of my life,” Malavolti said.
Both the Steubenville speakers have interesting entries in their resumes. Paruch has an undergraduate degree in deaf communication, holds the Pontifical Catechetical Diploma, travels widely to present catechist training, including catechesis for people with disabilities, and is engaged in research on Catholic sisters in the U.S. Civil War.
Malavolti completed his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry in Illinois in 1986 and worked as a research chemist, mainly in the pharmaceutical industry, before discerning a call to the priesthood and the Third Order Regular Franciscans. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2005 and served as a chemistry professor for eight years at St. Francis University in Loretto, Pa.
