Newspaper Page Text
I
February 5, 1981
PAGE 5
Hope: Beyond The Pie In The Sky
BY FATHER PHILIP J. MURNION
I. Hope is an important commodity. In
recent years, a lot of people have been
looking for ways to be more hopeful about
what they are doing. And they have
rediscovered something about the meaning
of hope.
Hope is not primarily the expectation
that tjiings will get better later, no matter
how bad they are now. Nor is it merely “pie
in the sky.”
No, Christian hope entails the conviction
that, somehow, people have a role to play in
giving their lives direction. As Christians, we
do not simply have to accept as fate
whatever chain of events might occur.
In other words, Christian people are not
simply the victims of a history written by
other, more powerful people. Rather, by the
decisions we make and the actions taken, we
accept responsibility for much that happens
in our lives. In doing so, we decide how to
relate to the other characters who play roles
in our lives.
In these terms, hope becomes a
responsibility we share with God rather than
the point at which our responsibility ends
while we wait for God to take over.
Christian hope requires us to plan,
therefore, if it is not to be reduced to
wishful thinking. In planning our lives, we
first assess our situation, looking at it as
much as we can with the eyes of Christ.
Second, we consider what talents and
materials we have to work with.
Third, we decide how to use all available
gifts, talents and resources.
In this way, responsibility for our own
lives is shared with the Lord and we can look
to the future with hope.
II. The thoughts I’ve just expressed are
thoughts about individuals and the way they
plan. But planning fulfills a similar role in
the case of a parish and its people.
This is the purpose Of planning in a
parish: to exercise hope as a decision about
the future.
Of course, it is tempting sometimes to
think that God ought to take care of
everything for us and that there is nothing
we need do, or can do, about our situation
or about our future.
Many parishes and their people are
finding that planning is very worthwhile, an
important adventure for more than one
reason. In the past 10 years, many parishes
have discovered the tools of planning - at
times borrowing tools fashioned in the
business world or in management schools.
Often, parishes have adapted these tools to
use as guides for:
-- clearly defining broad goals;
- spelling out specific objectives;
- determining the means necessary for
achieving objectives in terms of programs
and events;
- deciding what time period is involved;
-- specifying who is responsible for
various activities;
-- evaluating an event or program after it
is concluded, determining how well
objectives were met and what prevented
fuller achievement.
Such an approach has several advantages.
It ensures wide agreement about what must
be done. It is realistic about available
resources - time, money and people. Also it
is very clear about responsibilities.
Furthermore, by evaluating what has been
done, a parish can learn how to improve its
apostolate in the future.
Such planning tends to involve the pastor
and staff, the parish council and as many
others as is reasonable. It requires
cooperation on the part of all involved and
doesn’t work as well as it can if it doesn’t
reflect responsibility and maturity. Good
planning provides evidence that people are
aware they must use their gifts carefully and
responsibly. It can promote a sense among
people that they are part of each other’s
lives.
Now let me add a note of caution. While
using the various planning tools, many
parishes are finding it necessary to remember
that they are not primarily business
organizations. A parish is a community in.
which personal relationships have priority
and which responds to its people as needs
arise.
The parish will always be something of a
“messy” family. It will try to keep order in
its relationships and responsibilities but it
will never be able to get everything
organized, for love resists some organizing.
The tools of planning can be helpful,
then, as guides in particular areas that need
to be organized.
Finally, in most parishes, there is little
danger of overplanning, for there is little
history of this kind of planning.
When planning takes place it provides a
kind of skeleton or basic structure for the
complex body of the parish. For parish
planning takes the mission of the parish and
sets out to put it into practice.
MANY PARISHES have discovered
the tools of planning fashioned after
the business world and manageent
schools. The tools of planning can be
helpful as guides to particular
programs and activities. Planning takes
the mission of the parish and sets out
to put it into practice. (NC Photo)
Discussion Points And Questions
1. Does Father Philip Murnion recommend that parishes use the
tools of planning taken from the business world? What advantages
could there be in this?
2. Why does Father Murnion say parishes should keep in mind that
they are not exactly like business organizations?
3. What does Father Murnion mean by saying the parish is something
of a “messy” family?
4. David Gibson lists some people who may find themselves pressed
for time. Who are they?
5. Gibson does some speculating on a busy man’s daydreams. What is
his dream? Now, in the real world, how, should people with little time
plan for the future, according to Gibson?
6. According to Father John Castelot, how does Paul prove his claim
to be an apostle, on equal footing with the other apostles?
7. Have you ever found yourself pressed for time? How did this
make you feel? Which of your responsibilities, if any, did you shirk?
Who in your family complained the most about your busy schedule?
How did you resolve the problem of time? Or have you?
it
THE FUTURE is never quite as clear as one might wish
and the path to a fully personalized world is always being
mapped out in the present circumstances of our everyday
lives. The future the Christian hopes for is one where people
- not things - will be the priority. (NC Photo)
Time Is Of The Essence
The alarm goes off! It’s 6 a.m. The young
man -- 30, a husband and the father of three
young children - rolls slowly out of bed. He
shaves and showers quickly, then dresses and
prepares his own light breakfast.
At 7, about 15 minutes before his wife
wakes up to begin getting their oldest child
ready for school, this man boards a bus for
work. He expects to be in his office about
8:10.
This man will not get back home until
about 6:30 p.m., having added about two
and one-half hours of commuting time to his
office hours. About 12 and one-half hours
into his day, he begins to spend time with
his family.
For this man, one of life’s big problems is
time - the lack of it He wishes he could
spend more time with his family or, at least,
that he could spend more of his best, most
rested, times at home. In this he is not alone.
Most men and a great many women in his
suburban community share similar
office-related schedules.
There are other people who have time on
their minds, but not on their hands.
- The homemaker whose harried schedule
-- chauffering teen-agers, encouraging
children’s talents, consulting with teachers,
performing volunteer activities and other
efforts to be all things to all people - seems
to overload the days.
-- The single parent of young children
who wonders when he will find time to do
his mandatory grocery shopping.
- The working mother who might need,
but does not have a maid, and who still must
volunteer time for the school-related services
parents are expected to perform.
-- The teacher who finds that in the midst
of work and home-related activities she
must, for her career, return to college to
pursue an advanced degree.
And there are others - people for whom
time is of the essence.
It is almost customary nowadays to
remind people that they do, after all, have it
better than their forebears who worked 12
and 14 hours a day. Modern technology,
health care and transportation combine with
other elements of progress to make life
easier, it is said.
Still, the fact remains: A great many
people feel immensely hassled by the
schedule of their daily lives and, because Of
this, feel they are not doing their best in
some of life’s important areas. Perhaps they
- hope the time comes soon when their
jobs fit into their whole lives better;
- hope for time to spend ~ as husbands
and wives, family members, or friends ~
learning to understand each other better;
- hope for mo;e time to spend with their
children, with elderly relatives;
- hope for time to work at removing
from their lifestyles any obstacles to
communication, obstacles which keep
people from communicating well: like
excessive television viewing, or the rigors of
being a thoroughbred consumer.
For people who feel they lack time to
focus on what is regarded, deep down, as
most important in life, planning for the
future often means finding ways to create
more time in life. Usually it means using
time to concentrate on the people in one’s
life.
The lack of time can be depersonalizing;
people who care about each other begin to
race through each other's lives like speed
boats in the night. They make a lot of noise
but they don’t see each other very well.
Of course, plans to change things can end
up in the wishful-thinking category. Perhaps
the young man we spoke of daydreams
during his bus ride about an 18-hour work
week that allows all the time he wants for
pursuing home-base activities; a future when
he knows exactly how to use leisure time
well; when no time will ever be wasted.
Pleasant thoughts. But awakened from
them with a jolt of the bus, the young man
begins to concentrate on using well the time
already available; on creating some new time
for the people in his life.
Was Paul Really An Apostle?
BY FATHER JOHN CASTELOT
The lot of persons in authority is not an
easy one. It seems that, no matter what they
do, someone is waiting to jump on them.
Paul was no authoritarian. But the very
fact that he founded Christian communities
put him in a position of leadership and
responsibility. If he asked his people for
material support, his adversaries would
scream that he was out to feather his own
nest. Since Paul did not ask the support,
some claimed he really did not have
apostolic authority. They concluded he
didn’t dare ask for the simple reason that he
had no right to ask.
This is the problem Paul addresses in
Chapter 9 of the first letter to the
Corinthian Christians. The fact that he
dwells on the subject at such length indicates
its importance.
Paul asks: “Am I not free? Am I not an
apostle?” He answers these two questions in
inverse order, taking up first the more
important one of his apostleship.
The fundamental requirement for an
apostle, in the strict sense of the term, was a
personal experience of the risen Lord.
Alluding to his conversion experience, Paul
asks: “Have I not seen the Lord?”
The other requirement was a commission
from that same Lord. Rather than simply
claim such a commission. Paul points to the
obvious success of his work among them.
That should be clear proof that the Lord
really sent him.
Paul says: “And are you not my work in
the Lord? Although I may not be an apostle
for others, I certainly am one for you. You
are the very seal of my apostolate in the
Lord.”
This puts him on a par with the other
apostles, with the same rights as they. He has
a right, like them, to board and room.
These are perfectly legitimate rights, as he
illustrates .vith examples taken from
everyday life and eter. from Scripture. Any
laborer is worthy of his hire - whether he is
a soldier, a farmer or a shepherd.
Paul points out: “It is written in the law
of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while
it treads out grain.’ Is God concerned for the
oxen, or does he not rather say this for our
sakes? You can be sure it was written for us,
for the plowman should plow in hope and
the harvester expect a share in the grain.”
If the other apostles have these rights,
how can the Corinthians conclude that he
doesn’t have them? In fact, he says, “If
others have this right over you, is not our
right even greater?”
For other people have not worked for the
Corinthians personally; Paul has. He has
freely chosen not to use his legitimate rights,
not because he doesn’t have them, but, “on
the contrary, we put up with all sorts of
hardships so as not to put any obstacle in
the way of the Gospel of Christ.”
In similar vein, in his first letter to the
Thessalonian Christians, (2:19) Paul had
written, “You must recall, brothers, our
efforts and our toil, how we worked day and
night all the time we preached God’s good
tidings to you in order not to impose on you
in any way.”
In no way has he abrogated his rights or
the basis of those rights: his apostleship. His
reward is the satisfaction of carrying out his
mission in full freedom, with complete
unselfishness.
(Copyright (c) 1981 by NC News
Service)
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles on This Page Copyrighted 1981 By N.C. News Service)