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Page 2 • Foith Today
Revealing letters
By Dolores Leckey
NC News Service
C an you imagine the ear
ly Christian church
without letters to ignite
hope and encourage
endurance?
The letters of Paul in the New
Testament are not only the story
of missionary adventure. They are
accounts of one man’s soul. And
during the beginning days, the let
ters of Paul, James and Peter knit
together a group consciousness for
the fledgling Christian
communities.
Something similar is seen in the
United States in the years prior to
the Declaration of Independence.
The Committees of Correspon
dence helped form the individual
istic colonies into a people bound
by principles of community. Let
ters inspired, informed and linked
people.
Through the ages letters have
served various purposes. They
have been means of providing
spiritual direction and encourage
ment. They have been means of
self-understanding. This latter pur
pose is seen in Christopher
Leach’s Letter to a Younger Son.
Leach, a British writer, wrote
following the death from asthma
of his elder son at the age of 11.
In the letter, the dimensions of
Leach’s faith are laid bare for all
to see. In describing his wrench
ing loss and threadlike hope, he
reveals the sensibilities of a seeker
after truth.
Contemporary Christians also
write letters revealing the many
ways faith makes an impact in
people’s lives. While preparing for
the 1987 world Synod of Bishops
in Rome on the vocation and mis
sion of the laity, I asked readers
of these pages to write to me
about their life and faith.
One woman wrote, “I’ve been
waiting decades for someone to
ask me.” She had been a public
health nurse in the Arctic and had
witnessed the restorative qualities
of silence and compassion in the
lives of wounded and sick people.
God is in the silence, she wrote.
Others experienced God particu
larly in nature. One woman, ap
parently confined to her home,
wrote that she looks out the same
window every day and while
there are piles of garbage in her
view there also are 10 crab apple
trees. Watching the trees change
through the seasons speaks to her
of Christ, “ever new and ever
changing,” she says.
Others wrote about Mississippi
rainbows, the vastness of a Texas
sky, the behavior of robins. God
is visible to them in all this.
Still others told of people
whose lives quietly say, “God is
real.” There are the eucharistic
ministers who take the EuchariM
to the homebound and remain to
talk and listen. Their style of
ministry, intensely personal, says to
the homebound, “You are an
important part of our parish com
munity.”
Hundreds of people identified
the family, no matter what its
shape and no matter how wound
ed, as the primary place of their
encounter with God. They glimp
se God in the small, seemingly in
consequential details of daily life:
a spontaneous embrace, words of
forgiveness.
There were hundreds of letters
about the workplace. Nurses
know that their hands touch life
and death and they are humbled.
Teachers see the human soul in
the rebellious child, in the
brilliant question, in the plodding
endurance. Managers try to
organize company life around
principles of justice and respect.
Bishop Stanley Ott of Baton
Rouge, La., a U.S. delegate to the
Synod of Bishops, was so touched
by these letters of contemporary
faith that he quoted from them in
an address to the synod itself.
As I read and reread these let
ters, I see how the act of writing
helps one to get in touch with the
richness of the inner life and how
sharing helps to form, a communi
ty of consciousness. What these
people write shows how the
threads of grace weave in an out
of daily life, ever so subtly and
sometimes secretly.
(Mrs. Leckey is director of the
U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for the
Laity.)
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When it dawned on Samuel Clemens that his only salable skill
was "scribbling" humorous stories, he became very unhappy
being Mark Twain, says a letter he wrote to his older brother,
Orion, Oct. 19, 1865.
(NC photo of letter, copyright Mark Twain Foundation)
By Father John Castelot
NC News Service
D ear Friends:
People sometimes ask
what developments in
biblical studies have in
fluenced my work and
life. What new insights have af
fected the way I teach, the way I
live, my attitudes, my reactions?
There is no simple answer. So
much has happened in recent
years. But often enough changes
in oneself occur not by gaining
completely new knowledge but by
gaining new insights into old
knowledge. Or one develops by
coming to realize, in a personal,
practical way, the implications of
what one has known and
acknowledged rather unreflective-
ly for a long time.
If I were to select one basic
realization which had really
s revolutionary effects, it would
” be the acceptance of the
human dimension of the Bible.
The Bible is the word of
God given through the words
of humans and consequently
conditioned by all the limit
ations and inadequacies of
human communication.
As the Second Vatican Council’s
“Constitution on Divine Revela
tion” put it, “Seeing that, in
sacred Scripture God speaks
through people in human fashion,
it follows that the interpreter of
sacred Scripture...should care
fully search out the meaning
which the sacred writers really
had in mind, that meaning which
God had thought well to manifest
through the medium of their
A story to be token seriously
By David Gibson
NC News Service
I t is no accident when a
collection of the letters
written to family
members, friends and
associates by a well-
recognized person makes its way to
a best-seller list. The story of a
unique, intriguing person unfolds as
the pages of these letters are turned
— every bit as good as a novel,
perhaps better.
I think of the letters of short-
story writer Flannery O’Connor in
the book titled The Habit of Being.
The letters are revealing, in the
literal sense of the word. In them,
one sees her as a person.
Her friends, others who influenc
ed her, her family, her homelife all
come into the picture. Because of
these letters, the sight of peacocks
marching through Flannery O’Con
nor’s farm yard has become a per
manent part of my memory of her.
Especially valuable for me — and
supportive — was the discovery
that for her, writing was hard
work, a struggle.
It is similar in the case of other
collections of letters. They tell the
story of someone remembered for
the impact of his or her career. But
more important they reveal the
spirit of the person. This is what is
recalled months or years after the
book is put down.
□ □ □
What might a finely bound col
lection of letters written by you
reveal?
I pose this question, well aware
that the popularity of letter writing
has diminished in the age of long
distance telephoning. Nonetheless,
it might be fun to imagine the
course charted by a series of your
letters written over a period of time.
It won’t be revealed in the ab
stract. Remember, when people tell
of themselves, they tell of actions
that involve them and the ways they
spend their time. Or they tell of the
goals that pull them forward.
People who play a role in your
life will come into view in your
letters. By telling of those to whom
you dedicate great energies — an
elderly parent, a child with special
needs, best friends, the poor —
much is told of you.
A period of great difficulty in
your life may have changed you. j,
This period is likely to be reflected
in the way you tell of yourself.
Again, events that principally af
fect others — the death of a child
in a friend’s family, the joblessness
of a close relative — can make a
profound impact on you and the
way you envision your world.
Faith, obviously, is basic in the
outlook of one who has faith. So it
may well find a place in your let
ters. The impact of a single event
that influenced your faith long ago
may find its way into your letters.
You may record thoughts about
faith or actions motivated by faith
— or both.
The point is that the story told
through your letters will be unique
— similar to stories told by others,
yet different in significant ways.
Perhaps you will say that to tell
your story this way is to take
yourself too seriously. Paradoxical
ly, the history of Christianity sug
gests that it is worthwhile to take
yourself this seriously: to look
within the circumstances and
events of your life, and to see how
the story of an intriguing human
spirit is unfolding.
(Gibson is editor of Faith Today.)
words” (No. 12).
That statement means I could
not indulge my intellectual sloth.
The Bible is a library of sacred
literature reflecting various
historical, psychological and
cultural conditions over a period
of about a thousand years!
The Bible has to be subjected to
all the disciplines used in the
study of any literature. And since
we are dealing with a wide varie
ty of literary forms peculiar to an
cient and foreign cultures, this is a
challenging task. But it is a richly
rewarding one.
I also have gotten a more
realistic appreciation of the
humanity of Jesus. Just as God
communicated his truth to us in
human language, so he has reveal
ed himself uniquely in the
humanity of Jesus as a visible,
tangible, lovable human being.
Practically, this has led me to a
much more serious contemplation
of the Jesus of the Gospels.
Reflecting on his human love and
considerateness and his compas
sionate identification with us in
our struggles I have come really to
know God.
Another exciting realization was
that each evangelist was a creative
theologian, not composing “lives”
of Jesus so much as com
municating his meaning to
readers.
For all their sameness, the first
three Gospels are amazingly dif
ferent, responding to the varying
needs of the communities for
which they were written. The
continuing discovery of their
distinctiveness has been exciting,
as has the realization that the
mystery of Christ is not captured
completely in any one Gospel.
All of this inevitably has had an
effect on my spirituality. The in
creased realization of God’s utter
ly free gift of love, irrespective of
any merits or demerits of mine,
has had the greatest impact. This
love takes one’s breath away. A
particularly moving statement is in
Galatians 2:20: “I live by faith in
the Son of God who has loved me
and given himself up for me.”
I also have come to rely on the
confidence-inspiring assertion in
Philippians 4:13: “I have the
strength for everything through
him who empowers me.”
This works wonders when I am
faced with a challenge that floors
me and makes me painfully con
scious of my inadequacies — like
when I get an especially deman
ding assignment from the editors
of Faith Today.
Sincerely,
Father John J. Castelot
(Father Castelot is a professor
of Scripture at St. fohn’s
Seminary, Plymouth, Mich.)
Faith Today • Page 3
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
David Gibson suggests in his article that readers imagine themselves
in the shoes of one who has written a series of letters that will be col
lected into a bound volume. Such collections, he suggests, tend to
reveal much more than the surface aspects of a person’s life. What is
revealed is the soul, the spirit of the person.
•Would a series of letters by you reveal that some important, past
event influenced you in a permanent way.
•What role would your thoughts about faith play in your letters?
•Would current activities that occupy your time and that are
motivated by faith and the church community play a role in your let
ters — activities at home, in the parish, in the community?
•What roles would other people play in the unique story of your
life? How would other people enter into your life as a person of faith?
In Debbie Landregan’s letter based on an interview with Mary Veith,
the story is told of a woman who expresses faith through a particular
service to others. This is the result of insights the woman gained
through events in her own life. Do you know of others like Mary Veith
who express faith in particular ways as the result of events in their
lives? Have events in your life influenced your way of expressing faith
in daily life?
Second Helpings. Being true to our Christian vocation means offer
ing to others “what we have received, in season and out of season,” says
Jesuit Father A. Patrick Purnell in Our Faith Story: Its Telling and Its Shar
ing. The goal is “to help people reach their full potential as human beings,”
Father Purnell says. “Therefore, our task is to encourage and aid all that
is really human in them,” based on the model of what it is to be human
provided by Jesus. Father Purnell encourages people “to look back at their
lives” in an effort to “discover what were the factors and the events which
contributed to the development of their faith. As they come to understand
their own faith journey, so they see themselves as searching for the mystery
at the heart of life. We can begin to give an understanding of faith as a
journey quite simply, even to small children,” he says. (Collins Liturgical
Publications, 8 Grafton St., London W1X 3LA. 1985)
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