Sentire Cum Ecclesia

Ever wondered who on earth Fr John Zuhlsdorf is and how he manages to spend so much time blogging?

Well get all the gos from the horse’s mouth before the National Catholic Fishwrap publishes some distorted version of it here: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/08/waiting-for-zagano/

In these days leading up to World Youth Day in Madrid, the girls, Cathy and I have been reminiscing about WYD08 in Sydney. This morning Mia set of on a school excursion with the red and orange backpack from WYDSYD. Maddy told how at an assembly at her school they farewelled the pilgrims. She whispered to her friend next to her: I’ve been to one of those. It still amazes me that, though no one in our little family was technically a “youth”, we were able to experience a World Youth Day for ourselves.

So timely then that Sandro Magister has recalled for us the Pope’s own analysis of the 2008 Sydney event. Read this: http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=1349004&eng=y

I didn’t get the dishes finished last night. I finished listening to John Cleary interviewing Fr Richard Leonard sj, and then got hooked on listening to the wonderful Lanchashire accent of Professor Brian Cox (how does someone that young get to be a “professor”?) on ABC1’s “Wonders of the Universe” (you can still catch episodes 2 and 3 on iView; actually I have just looked up his wikipedia page, and now I am wondering how does someone only two years younger than me get to look THAT YOUNG??? Hair would have something to do with it, I guess…).

Anyway, I woke up in the wee hours of this morning (we are experiencing something of an “Indian Spring” here in Melbourne at the moment, it is quite mild outside here by the fire at 6am) with the idea of finishing my comments on the Sunday Nights interview with Fr Leonard.

After they had finished talking about prayer, the subject turned (as it always does in these kinds of discussions on theodicy as surely as night follows day) to the Atonement. Fr Leonard began by saying that there is “that verse” in the old Scandinavian Lutheran hymn “How Great thou art” that he can never sing. “Yes!”, I cried, “I know just the one – its the one that goes:

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze.”

I can’t stand that verse! It’s so vapid and soppy. Actually, just now taking a look at the Wikipedia page for this hymn, I note that this verse is in fact the work of one Stuart K. Hine, an English “missionary” to the Ukraine who translated a Russian version of the Swedish Hymn. Blame him, not the Lutherans.

But no! This wasn’t the verse to which Fr Leonard was referring. The verse was, in fact, another of Hine’s inventions, not in the Swedish original. The verse to which Fr Leonard so strongly objected was this one:

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Fr Leonard completely rejected the atonement theology expressed in this verse. God didn’t send his Son to die for us, he said; rather the death of Jesus was the act of human beings (in particular the Romans), to which God’s act, God’s response and answer, was the Resurrection. He went on to say that he was more comfortable with the “Eastern” theology: Jesus didn’t die, he was killed (I don’t know how accurate that is to say that is the Orthodox understanding). In other words, don’t blame God for the death of Jesus – blame the Romans (shades of Monty Python?).

Now I am well aware of how common the revulsion is to the thought that God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, but those are in fact the words of St Paul (Romans 8:32), not Stuart K. Hine or the Scandinavian Lutherans. The argument put forward by Fr Leonard suffers from the common failure of regarding God and his Son as different people, and not just distinct “persons” (the Father and the Son) of catholic Trinitarian theology. But, again, what seems to be lacking in this “critique” is a sensibility of the Scriptural way of speaking of the Paschal Mystery, which strongly suggests that the entire Paschal Mystery, both the Passion and the Resurrection, were a part of God’s will, God’s plan. Here one can mention not only

1) St Paul’s statement in his letter to the Romans in 8:32, but also:
2) John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”
3) Luke 2:42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” – indicating that Jesus himself was very conscious of the fact that his impending suffering was not only a human act, but ultimately the “will” of his Father
4) the use of the little word “must” (Gk: dei) used repeatedly by the Gospels (eg. Mark 8:31, Luke 9:22, and even John 3:14) to express the divine necessity of Jesus’ death

It is simply unfaithful to the Scriptures to present a picture of the Paschal Mystery whereby we separate the Passion of Jesus from his Resurrection and say that the former was the will and act of man alone, to which God “responded” with the latter.

In both the case in the last post, the case of prayer, and in this case, the discussion of the Atonement, I can sympathise with Fr Leonard for wanting some other kind of God than this God of Jesus Christ which is presented to us in the Scriptures – but ultimately that is the God we have to deal with, that is the God we struggle to make sense of in our puney theologies.

To turn back to the hymn “How Great Thou Art” (which, incidentally, we recently belted out at last week’s assembly of the Victorian Council of Churches at the Melbourne Salvation Army centre), perhaps we need someone who can read Swedish and give us the hymn closer to the original. The Wikipedia article on the hymn also gives an earlier, purportedly more accurate, translation, which does not include either the verse that I object to or the verse that Fr Leonard objects to.

When your voice speaks in rolls of thunder pealing,
Your lightning power bursts in bright surprise;
When cooling rain, your gentle love revealing,
Reflects your promise, arcing through the skies.

The Bible tells the story of your blessing
So freely shed upon all human life;
Your constant mercy, every care addressing,
relieving burdened souls from sin and strife.

And when at last, the clouds of doubt dispersing,
You will reveal what we but dimly see;
With trumpet call, our great rebirth announcing,
we shall rejoin you for eternity.

It also adds a translation of these two verses:

When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to Him I lift my face;
And then in love He brings me sweet assurance:
‘My child! for thee sufficient is my grace’.

O when I see ungrateful man defiling
This bounteous earth, God’s gifts so good and great;
In foolish pride, God’s holy Name reviling,
And yet, in grace, His wrath and judgment wait.

Perhaps if we were to sing the hymn with these verses, it is something that both Fr Leonard and I could join together happily in singing.

Hi! Remember me? I used to blog regularly before life went crazy. Anyway, I am just taking a break from doing the dishes, because, as I was doing the dishes, I was listening to a podcast of Sunday Nights with John Cleary. Now, I know that this blog is rapidly descending into a critique of Sunday Nights, but, if nothing else, they do provide stuff on that program to get you thinking.

The program I was listening to this time was John Cleary interviewing Fr Richard Leonard sj, he of the film review fame. Now, I have nothing at all against Fr Leonard – his film reviews for the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting are generally spot on. But I do take issue with somethings he had to say in this interview.

The interview is about his new book “Where the hell is God?”. It is, according to Fr Leonard himself (I haven’t read it) a reflection on the age old question of God and suffering in the light of his own experience of his younger sister’s accident that left her a quadraplegic.

Okay. First let me say that I cannot say anything about another person’s experience of God or suffering. That is uniquely theirs to talk about. Secondly, I don’t think Fr Leonard, or anyone else writing on such a subject, can say of another person “Your way of understanding how God works in this is wrong.” Fr Leonard actually says as much in this interview. He speaks of people treating the Christian God like the ancient Greek god Zeus, who was a “weather God”, a god who needed “sacrifice, prayers and penance” to keep in the good books. He goes through a series of categories of letters that he and his mother received after his sister’s accident. Now, granted that Fr Leonard and his mother found these letters less than helpful – and they have their complete right to say so btw – nevertheless it is another thing entirely for him to turn around and say of people with such views “You have the wrong view of God”. Noone has ever made sense of the question of how a good God can still allow suffering to take place. Fr Leonard has his answer – God as “friend” – others have their answers. Personally, they are as good as eachother in my book. If you can make sense of this, good on you. I’m not about to burst your bubble.

But I do draw the line when Fr Leonard begins to talk about valid and invalid kinds of prayer. Okay, I share Fr Leonard’s distaste in the bride-to-be who asks Father to pray for good weather for her wedding day, just as I share the distaste of football fans who pray for their team’s victory. But it is another thing altogether to reject, as Fr Leonard does in this interview, prayers for (for eg.) rain. John Cleary wants to assert a theology of prayer (common in its smug wisdom) where the goal of prayer is to change us, not God. God cannot be changed, Fr Leonard – a good Jesuit – asserts. From all I can gather, Fr Leonard seems to reject intercessory prayer altogether in this interview. As a kid, I knew that my father’s livelihood depended upon the rain. To pray for rain was, for my father, quite a different matter from the bride’s prayer. His was a prayer for survival. It was a prayer of absolute trust in the one in whom he placed all his trust.

I remember long ago reading somewhere (probably in his Table Talk) where Martin Luther railed against the “monks who mumble prayers night and day but never ask God for so much as a mug of beer”. There are so many passages in the Scriptures which speak directly of the importance of praying for the needs of both oneself and others that it really does lead one to think that anyone who directly rejects either intercessory prayer or prayer for one’s own needs (eg. “give us this day our daily bread”?) has actually lost touch with the God who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ and in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. “Ask and you shall receive”, jesus said. “Whatever you ask in my name”. “What father would give his son who asks for an egg a scorpian?”. Etc. etc. One cannot but conclude that God wants us to pray for our needs and the needs of others. My daughter thanks God for Harry Potter and asks that she and her friends will enjoy themselves at school tomorrow. Is that an invalid form of prayer? To childish? To immature? To primative? Didn’t someone say: “Unless you become like a little child….”

Ultimately, the kind of prayer that asks for what you need and asks for the needs of others to be fulfilled is not the kind of prayer that one addresses to “Zeus”. It is the kind of prayer one addresses to one’s Father in heaven, the Father whose Son actually invited us to pray that way in his name. You can’t make sense of this kind of a God. This kind of a God is like your parents – and what kid understands his parent? If mum and dad love me, as they say they do, why do they make my life so miserable? Yet, when I want or need something, I will still turn them for the help I need. Prayer to “Our Father in heaven” is the kind of prayer that exhibits TRUST. Trust, ultimately, is the only thing that can answer the mystery of the Good God and Suffering. Any form of prayer that expresses real trust in God – trust that he will work all things to the good of those who love him for the sake of Jesus Christ – is true Christian prayer. It isn’t superstition.

One more thing on the “Open Letter” of Catholics for Renewal.

The main request of the letter is for diocesan synods in all dioceses across Australia. The letter references the Code of Canon Law, §§460-468.

The Code defines a “diocesan synod” as:

a group of selected priests and other members of the Christian faithful of a particular church who offer assistance to the diocesan bishop for the good of the whole diocesan community according to the norm of the following canons.

Note the word “selected”. More on that below.

When should a synod be held? “[W]hen circumstances suggest it in the judgment of the diocesan bishop after he has heard the presbyteral council.” (Can. 461 §1)

Who convokes and presides at the diocesan synod? The Diocesan Bishop (Can. 462 §§1,2)

Who must be involved in a Diocesan Synod? (Can. 463 §1.) The following must be called to a diocesan synod as members of the synod and are obliged to participate in it:

1/ a coadjutor bishop and auxiliary bishops;
2/ vicars general, episcopal vicars, and the judicial vicar;
3/ canons of the cathedral church;
4/ members of the presbyteral council;
5/ lay members of the Christian faithful, even members of institutes of consecrated life, chosen by the pastoral council in a manner and number to be determined by the diocesan bishop or, where this council does not exist, in a manner determined by the diocesan bishop;
6/ the rector of the diocesan major seminary;
7/ vicars forane;
8/ at least one presbyter from each vicariate forane, chosen by all those who have the care of souls there; also another presbyter must be chosen who, if the first is impeded, is to take his place;
9/ some superiors of religious institutes and of societies of apostolic life which have a house in the diocese, chosen in a number and manner determined by the diocesan bishop.

Note that in this list, only section 5 refers to the inclusion of laity in the diocesan synod, and the selection of and invitation to lay participants is completely up to the diocesan bishop. The Canons allow for others to be invited as well as the list above, but these invitations to are up to the bishop. (He can even invite observers from other Christian communities not in communion with the Catholic Church).

Although “all proposed questions are subject to the free discussion of the members during sessions of the synod” (Can. 465), “the only legislator in a diocesan synod is the diocesan bishop; the other members of the synod possess only a consultative vote” (Can. 466).

In other words, Catholics for Renewal may not have closely read the canons to which they wish to draw the Bishops’ attention. They are an instrument of the bishop, not of “the people”. They are predominantly opportunities for the bishop to consult his clergy and leaders in his diocese – something that he is able, of course, to do off his own bat whenever he wants to. There is no sense in which the diocesan synod could in any sense force the bishop’s hand, or make resolutions against his will. He can close or suspend the synod whenever he likes (Can. 468 §1). Curiously, the Code of Canon law doesn’t stipulate how the issues to be discussed at the synod are to be chosen – but I suspect that once again, it is the bishop and the bishop alone who determines what may and may not be discussed on the floor of a diocesan synod.

It is hard therefore to see how Catholics for Renewal think that the holding of diocesan synods would further their populist agenda. And if diocesan synods were inaugurated in all dioceses across Australia, here are some of the complaints you could expect afterward:

1) They didn’t chose me
2) They didn’t consult me
3) They chose the wrong people
4) The bishop only chose who he wanted to hear from
5) The agenda was totally determined by the bishop
6) The Synod voted against it, but the bishop went ahead and did it anyway
7) The Synod was loaded with priests
8) The bishop shut the discussion down because he didn’t like it

You could probably think of others! All of this is why the current code of canon law leaves the calling of diocesan synods completely up to the bishop according to his prudence and wisdom.

I have just finished listening to a program on ABC Radio National’s Sunday Nights program about the “Open Letter” by “Catholics for Renewal”.

Of course, I found myself very annoyed. (Have I mentioned that I don’t like John Cleary?) The malcontents interviewed on this program draw our attention to the falling mass attendance compared with fifty years ago, to the removal of Bishop Morris, the new missal translation (which they weren’t consulted on), ordination of women and contraception, “creeping infallibility”, etc. etc. There is the usual complete rubbish about how the Church is winding back on Vatican II etc. We know the narrative very well now. It is very predictable.

Those interviewed about the woes of the Catholic Church in this program are not young. They were either baby boomers – or older (as in the case of the priest on the program). When they opened the discussion up to people who called in on the phone, the last speaker was “Chris in St Albans”:

Chris: John, look I’m a bit younger than these people. I’m 43, and twenty years ago or more, I was rejecting the baby boomer view of the Church, and I’m still rejecting it now.

John Cleary: What do you mean by that?

Chris: Well, they’re the people who take it upon themselves to speak for the whole church community when they have no mandate to do so. The fact is, it was their generation walking out on the Church and failing to provide proper religious instruction leaving my peers in all manner of strife, broken marriages and trying to navigate their way, when in fact I see today healthier numbers in the Seminaries than ever before, a Church more responsive to younger people, a Church that’s put the guitars away and got real about what the Catholic Church is about and being proud to be Catholic, daring to practice Catholicism, not pandering to some kind of return to protestant ideas of the reformation. Look, we’re a free country, we came out of a terrible experience in Ireland, we’re exercising our freedom to practice Catholicism, going to mass is striking a blow for freedom…

John Cleary: I’ve got to cut you there because we need time we’ve only got three minutes left.

Cleary then goes on to turn the conversation to the Latin Mass of all things, which naturally gets derided by the speakers.

But Chris surely had a point? The problems we are now tackling arose because of policies and directions in the period between 1968 and 1985 (it is the priest on the program who says something to the effect that it was full steam ahead in the Spirit of Vatican II until about 1985 when the direction seemed to change). The people who promoted these policies were the generation known as “baby boomers”. Now here in this “Catholics for Renewal” project we have the same generation of people wanting to push the same policies as the solution to the very problems those policies caused in the first place. It beggars belief!

In contrast, again as Chris observed, the direction adopted in recent decades – which ironically has been more faithful to the Council texts than the “Spirit of Vatican II” policies – has led to slow but steady growth in the numbers of students in our seminaries, to a vitalisation of Church engagement with youth, to a renewed liturgical practice, to young Catholics daring to practice their faith because they have learned what that faith is, and so on.

I really do wonder if there isn’t so much a “division” in the Church between “liberals” and “conservatives” as a kind of “generation gap” which prevents those on either side of the generational divide from seeing the world as the other does. We’ve a long way to go in the renewal of the Church, but we are on the right road. Now is not the time to do a U-turn and go back to the failed visions of the 1968 generation.

A snip from a Zenit report on a seminar at Christendom College:

Father Pacholczyk pointed out the irony of a 1940 U.S. law that protects not only the bald eagle, but the bald eagle’s egg.

“If we can see that destroying a bald eagle’s egg is just as bad as destroying a bald eagle, why can’t we see the same thing when it comes to human life?” he asked.

See: http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-33067

Perhaps that is a dangerous question, but I am reflecting on it in the light of this “Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Bishops of Australia” being promoted by a group calling itself “Catholics for Renewal”. It has just over 1000 signatures at the moment and, while I am certainly not suggesting that you sign it (God forbid!), I am suggesting that you read it, and ask yourself this question: If I were composing an open letter to the Pope and bishops prior to their Ad Limina report, what would I be putting in it?

The composers of this particular “open letter” are quite right in pointing out that

As Christ’s faithful, we must speak out. Under Canon Law we have a right and a duty in keeping with our knowledge, competence and position, to manifest to our pastors our views on matters which concern the good of the Church (C.212.2-3).

It is probably worth highlighting there the phrase “in keeping with our knowledge, competance and position”. This canon doesn’t promote the right of just any old body with an axe to grind having his two cents worth heard by the Pope and bishops. It doesn’t give anyone the right to expound opinions which arise from ignorance, incompetance or… or what? what does “position” mean? Does it mean someone in a leadership or teaching position in the Church? Or does it mean “position” in the sense of being one of the “fidelium” whose “sensus” has a right to be heard?

This current letter seems mainly concerned with the issue of “collegiality and subsidiarity” and particularly calls for regular Diocesan Synods in all Australian dioceses. Is this, do you think, the solution to the renewal of the Church in Australia?

Let me give you another thought. I was reading this morning the June regular column of the Bishop of Sale, the Most Rev. Christopher Prowse, on their diocesan website. In it, he writes:

IN some of my visitations to parishes in the diocese I have introduced an ancient method of praying the scriptures called Lectio Divina.

I am delighted that some groups are established already. After reading this brief explanation below some might say: “We have already experienced this without knowing its name”. I hope so.

Pope Benedict XVI has encouraged the use of Lectio Divina. In his more recent Apostolic Exhortation (2010), Verbum Domini, n. 86- 87, he writes that it is truly “capable of opening up to the faithful the treasures of God’s word, but also of bringing about an encounter with Christ, the living word of God”.

…In regard to the regional forums, may I make this preliminary remark. I believe these fi ve gatherings were real moments of encounter with the Holy Spirit. When the Diocesan Pastoral Council met recently to consider the fruits of our gatherings, we all noted this. There was a real unity. They were prayerful, practical and engendered much “Gospel energy” amongst us.

…Since my Pentecost Pastoral Letter of a year ago (“Finding Home in Jesus”) till now, we have made a great start to reach our final aim of articulating some pastoral priorities to guide the diocese in the future. We have placed ourselves under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In the spirit of Novo Millennio Ineunte (n.29),we have sought to begin translating our Christ-centred approach to particular projects. We are attempting to place the entire diocese on a even deeper missionary/evangelisation foundation.

By praying deeply, perhaps using the Lectio Divina process, we will be helped on our pilgrim way as a people under Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Let us allow the scriptures, the Word of God, to lead us forward.

Now there are some things that seem to me as if it could really lead to renewal in our dioceses. Lectio Divina – deeply reading the Word of God, an emphasis on mission and evangelisation, true Christ-centredness and desire to be in step with the Holy Spirit’s guidance…

If I were writing an “open letter”, I think I would start with asking for a program like this.

I picked up this story on Fr Z’s blog recently, who linked to this post by Jeffrey Tucker on his blog “Chant Cafe”: “Dramatic Changes in Music Rubrics for New Missal”.

Tucker is a great advocate of (1) banning all metrical hymnody at mass and (2) reviving in its place the traditional Gregorian chants for the liturgy. We do not entirely agree with him on his first “great object”, but we do agree that something should be done along the lines of the second.

Nevertheless, we think he is being rather hopeful when he claims that there is a “dramatic” difference between the old GIRM and the new one, a change which he sees as favouring the traditional chant over hymnody. And we are not alone in this skepticism. Fr Anthony Ruff OSB (who recently packed his bat and ball and walked off the field in protest at the new missal translatoin) agrees in this post on the PrayTell blog.

Keep in mind, folks, that both these guys are Americans writing about the US version of GIRM. It is one of the rather untidy facts of the continuing liturgical confusion in the Church that the Vatican releases a standard GIRM and the local Bishop’s Conferences each make their own version of it. Ironically this is one case where the local Bishops Conference trumps the original Vatican version – although it must be said that the Vatican has to approve the local variation/translation before it is allowed to be enacted as liturgical law.

In any case, the Australian version of GIRM still uses the word “song” (rather than “chant”) to translate “cantus” in the fourth option for the Entrance Chant given in paragraph 48. Nor do we yet have a definitive list of “approved” songs from our Bishops Conference (I don’t think they have one in the US either): a fact which makes compliance with this fourth option rather difficult. But compliance with options 1-3 is not simple and straightforward either.

I haven’t seen the new missals, so I don’t know how they will handle the “Entrance Antiphon”, “Communion Antiphon” etc. But GIRM, whether the Vatican, US, or Australian version, clearly favours the use of the traditional chants in some form or other at the Entrance, the service of the Word, the Offertory and the Communion. The problem is that no one appears to have gone out of their way to make these chants readily available to parish priests or musicians. The missals we are currently preparing to throw away – sorry, I meant “put in the archives” – failed us miserably on this score by only giving the “antiphons” to the chants for these parts of the liturgy, without any indication that they were in fact “antiphons” to something else (which was missing from our books). In a recent class on the new translation of the liturgy, I pointed out to my students the requirements of the GIRM regarding these chants at Mass, and they were truly surprised: they had never even heard of the “Entrance Chant”, let alonge the Offertory or the Communion Chant.

Would it not be a wonderful thing if the traditional psalm verses and antiphons for the Entrance, Offertory and Communion chants were made as clear and accessible as the Psalm chant currently is in our missals and parish musical resources? The settings need not be Gregorian (Jeffrey would not approve!), but could be in the variety of forms that we currently have for our Psalmody. Is there any reason, indeed, why paraphrases of the psalm texts and antiphons in hymnic form could not be used? (Again, I know, Jeffrey would not approve).

I have lately made it my practice, when chosing music for the liturgy when I am rostered on as cantor in my parish, to consult the various online available resources regarding the traditional chants, and attempted to find music that at least approximates these chants. I have found the following resources helpful:

The Anglican Use Gradual
The American Gradual
The Liber Usualis
The Gregorian Missal
The Graduale Romanum (1961)
The Graduale Romanum Index for 1974 Missal

Does anyone know any other good sources available on the internet?

UPDATE: Charles from Boston wrote in to draw our attention to “The Simple English Propers” for the Ordinary Form of the Mass. It’s available in book form from Amazon for about $17 and free to download from the Musica Sacra Website. They even have “practice videos”!

Robert has also given us the link to the Chabanel Psalms, another good resource.

Well, according to Joe Carter at First Things, anyway. He posted a funny little column called “Lessons of an Influence-Seeker” on the First Things “On the Square” page. In it, he suggests six lessons for those who want to “become more effective at being effectual.” They are, in brief:

• Lesson #1: Know your “great objects”
• Lesson #2: Media coverage is not the same as influence
• Lesson #3: Keep your pride in check
• Lesson #4: If you want to have a bigger influence, start by thinking smaller
• Lesson #5: Think long-term
• Lesson #6: Ultimately, it’s not about you or your message

The bits that interested me most were his comments under Lesson #1 and Lesson #4. The latter included the following advice:

How do you get started? Here’s what you do: (1) start a blog, (2) write at least five days a week, (3) build an audience of 150 readers.

As Malcolm Gladwell argues in his book The Tipping Point, the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship is about 150. In blogging terms, this means that when your readership grows, your ability to have a truly influential connection with them decreases significantly. This is not to say that you should attempt to limit your readership to 150 readers. But if you want to maximize your personal influence, focus on establishing strong bonds and deep interaction with a core group.

Consider what might happen if each of these 150 readers read and thought about what you wrote on your blog for five minutes every day. Five minutes may seem insignificant, but it can have an exponential effect. With only five minutes every day, five days a week, you will have the reader’s attention for almost an entire day—22 hours—every year. That’s an astounding opportunity for influence.

The question then becomes how you’ll use this opportunity. Your audience is giving you two of their most precious possessions—their time and their attention. What are you doing with this gift?

Some—even perhaps most—of your time should be spent building rapport with your audience. If all you ever write about is related to your great objects, it will be a challenge to hold their attention. But if you rarely—or never—mention your core message, then you have squandered your opportunity. Find the right balance for your message and your audience.

Well, that’s very encouraging indeed for this ‘ere blogger on this ‘ere blog. According to my statistics, there are about 150 of you sitting around the table. Actually, I have about 500 people registered as commentators, but the stats (of late anyway) show that I only have about 180 readers a day. Not very many, in the greater scheme of things, and the reason for that is clear: a) I have been avoiding all the really controversial issues in the blogosphere and trying to concentrate on the important ones, and b) I haven’t been posting five days a week. I do think you can post too often on a blog. For eg. Fr Z’s blog is really hard to keep up with. You have to leave your readers with time to read other stuff! But admittedly, there has been a bit of a drought on SCE of late. That is because I am not a professional blogger. I have other callings that have greater demands upon my time and abilities.

But the first reason for my drop in statistics – that I avoid the really controversial issues and try to concentrate on the important ones – makes me stop and think a bit about Carter’s “lesson #1” – the need to be clear about one’s “great objects”. He writes:

When the British politician William Wilberforce sensed a call from God, he wrote in a journal entry that “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners [moral values].” These became the twin lodestars that guided his ambitions as an influencer.

Wilberforce inspired me to write out my own version: The restoration of the family as the basic unit of society and the recognition of the intrinsic dignity of all members of the human family. Unless you can clarify to yourself what you want to affect, you can’t make it clear to anyone else.

What are your great objects, the key themes that God has set before you?

I think it hilarious that Wilberforce equated “suppressing the Slave Trade” with “the Reformation of Manners” (did he really mean “moral values”, as Carter interpolates?). We can, indeed, have “great objects” in our lives that are not equally serious.

If I had to pick two “lodestars” in my life it would be 1) to encourage all people to “think with the Church”, 2) to find for myself and to bring to others true joy in living. As Carter says: “What about you?” I would be interested.