A lot of people are interested in the decline of religion

Greetings, all! I had a fabulous time on Morning Air yesterday speaking with John Morales about the recent survey showing a decline in religiosity - but still a fair number of people a’prayin.’ And, it picked up a bit of traction; we had two callers with interesting comments or questions as to what could be driving some falling away from church. You can listen to the whole thing here starting at minute 25:10.

The biggest takeaway from me: ultimately, we, the weekly church-going faithful, are responsible for sharing why it is we go to church and have faith. Keep in mind that evidently at no point in the survey’s history has more than 29% of people reported attending a religious survey regularly. So, yes, that’s not great - but our work has been cut out for a while, and it’s no excuse to give up.

And we also got into my reflection on St. Paul’s speech at the Areopagus, when he addressed the Greeks on their “Unknown God:”

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
“You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’* What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one* the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’* as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’
Since therefore we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We should like to hear you on this some other time.”

That’s a message of hope - that we are children of God - and that is what must be shared in any form of evangelization, just as St. Paul did with the Greeks.

Up next: I recently spoke with actor Shia LaBeouf, director Abel Ferrera, and Br. Alexander Rodriguez about their movie, Padre Pio, which comes out this Friday, June 2. I’ve got an article coming up talking about what I learned from that interview, and why the movie is a little different probably than you think. More to come!

Tomorrow at 7:30 am ET: join me on Morning Air to discuss the decline in Americans' belief in God

Friends, I am back with John Morales and the crew on Relevant Radio’s Morning Air program tomorrow at 7:30 am eastern. We’ll be talking about a recent survey that shows a decline in the number of Americans who believe in God. My message: we can draw on the wisdom of St. Paul who, in his speech at the Areopagus, addressed the idea of an “unknown god” - that our God is no longer unknown because he took on flesh and became man, and that Indeed “He is not far from any of us.” (Acts 17:22-28) This is the message of hope to take into our own evangelization ( to which we are all called!).

You can listen live online via the player here, get the app, or find your station here. I actually do recommend the app because then it’s easy to listen to all Relevant Radio programming, whenever you want. Good stuff!

And, on this Memorial Day, let’s pray for the souls of all those who served in the military, and especially those who gave their lives in service to this magnificent country. May God’s blessings continue to be on the United States of America, and may we always recognize our great blessings, and teach future generations to do the same.

A reflection from L'Arche La Ferme's blog: Inner Life

I recently wrote a reflection for the international blog of the L’Arche La Ferme community, called Inner Life. My post, “Meet My Teachers,” was a response to the question: what nourishes your inner life?

Around the time I responded to the prompt, I had been watching the birds in our backyard do their thing. And it is a wondrous thing. On any given day you can see goldfinches, brown wrens, flaming cardinals, iridescent starlings, and serious crows gathering around the feeder, alighting to the woodpile, holding court among themselves as they fly in for seed. And I was struck by their beingness; their nature as purely birds, and nothing else. And, as I write in the reflection, how this beingness is a direct expression of God, down to the bright red color of the cardinal. And, I learn from them about how to…just be.

You can read Meet my Teachers here, and it is also copied below. And special thanks to Paul de Vulpillières for his excellent editing.

La Ferme is the original L’Arche community, which serves as a retreat center. I have taken three of their online retreats, which have all been wonderful. Their “pandemic wisdom” retreat, focused on the wisdom of Julian of Norwich, is worth a go. You can learn more here.

Meet my Teachers

There is a bird feeder in the back yard, and at all times it is filled to the brim with seeds and nuts. They come in the morning, pigeons waddling across the boards, robins and cardinals, finches and mockingbirds, asking with their eyes and beaks for a refill. They are there in the evening, knowing that they can gather and wait again for their fill which will assuredly come.

For me, the desire to sit with the back yard creatures started in 2020. During the depths of the pandemic, I began to keep a ready supply of shelled peanuts for the squirrels in my nearby park. At the end of the work-from-home day, I would suit up, animal feed in a plastic baggy, and sit with them. Day after day, I tried to beat my squirrel record; 13 was the most that would gather at any given time. My strong memories of the uncertainty of that time are punctuated with those quiet dusks spent with my numerous, white-bellied friends as they shook and cracked the peanuts I gave them. There were also the blue jays, warbling from the branches above, and suddenly diving down for the peanuts the squirrels missed.

Sitting and watching all this backyard activity is like observing an aquarium. The birds fly from the porch rails to the wood pile, to the feeder to the seed scattered on the ground. Mr. Cardinal is bold; Miss Pigeon is contemplative. The crows peer at us from the distance, and startle with the smallest movement. Inside the kitchen, the cats loll and purr, content and secure in their place in the household animal hierarchy.

Jesus said to His disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Notice the ravens: they do not sow or reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds! Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your life-span? If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest?”

I do notice the ravens. I notice the chickadee flitting, its tiny heart beating in its chest, the activity and work of its life. I notice it does not necessarily stop to think: it just is.

When people ask me why I love L’Arche, I often point to this same quality: the emphasis on being. Do those in community love me because of my job, or where I live? No, they do not. And when I am at L’Arche, I can let go of the pretense that these things are me. Instead, I can just be.

And, is not God defined as pure beingness, itself? God is the great “I am.” He shows us there is a deep holiness in being oneself. Just as with birds. Take the cardinals, for example: their red is a pure expression of God. Their tiny feet curled around the perch, the largeness of some birds, the smallness of others: all as God intended. They try and be nothing but themselves. And I am mesmerized by it.

So, I bird watch. They’re my teachers. They don’t know it, of course. They just are. On the other side, I know it. I even write about it. This simple fact shows me that the way to “just be” is still ahead of me. One day, I’ll be.

April 2023