Session Four

EXERCISE – ASKING OURSELVES QUESTIONS

Confessions of Saint Augustine

“And I turned to myself and said: 'And you, who are you?' and I answered: 'A man.' Now clearly there is a body and soul in me, one exterior, one interior. For which of these two should I have enquired of my God? I had already saw him by my body, from earth to heaven, as far as my eye could send its beams on the quest. But the interior part is the better, seeing that all my body’s messengers delivered to it, as ruler and judge, the answers that heavens and earth and all things in them made when they said: 'We are not God,' and, 'He made us.' The inner man knows these things through the ministry of the outer man: I the inner man knew them, I, I the soul, through the senses of the body. I asked the whole frame of the universe about my God and it answered me: 'I am not He, but He made me.'”  Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 10, Chapter VI, Translated by F.J. Sheed.

“Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee! For behold Thou were within me, and I outside; and I sought Thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that Thou hast made. Thou were with me and I was not with Thee. I was kept from Thee by those things, yet had they not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness: and Thou didst send forth Thy beams and shine upon me and chase away my blindness: Thou didst breathe fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and now I pant for Thee: I tasted Thee, and now hunger and thirst for Thee: Thou didst touch me, and I have burned for Thy peace.” Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 10, Chapter XXVII, Translated by F.J. Sheed.

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Creation Is the Primary Cathedral. Creation itself—not ritual or spaces constructed by human hands—was St. Francis’ primary cathedral. It is no accident that the majority of Jesus’ stories and metaphors are based on human and natural observations, not classroom theology. 

Richard Rohr, Creation Is the Primary Cathedral, Nov. 15, 2016 cac.org

Video Meditation Pivotal Players:  Francis of Assisi (Minute:Second 9:40 – 13:29)

Discuss the video and St. Francis’ association to the Church vs. the above statement. What connection might they have with this fourth session on finding accompanying skill questions?

In our last session we watched a USCCB Missionary Disciple video on Accompanying in which Julianne Stanz, a consultant to the USCCB Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, suggests that we use questions, asking people questions, as Jesus did.  I said at the session that this might be a new discipleship skill that we should consider and noted that we should start by looking for questions of interest to the “nones”¹ who no longer come to Mass and the almost-nones who may be considering joining them.

I heard this question that may work:  How do you feel about the way you think the story of your life is going?

Discuss:  Is the a question that might work?  Why or why not?  Can you think of other questions that might work?

I suggest that we begin by considering questions related to Rohr’s Creation as the Primary Cathedral.

Discuss:  What might be some of the reasons why I am suggesting starting there?  Do you think it is a good place to start?  Can you think of other places to start?

Why am I starting there?  Well, first, the right kind of questioning can give people an opportunity to share their own thoughts.  Second, although this topic is deeply God-centered, people may be  more comfortable thinking and talking about things they have experienced than they are talking about God.  What we are trying to find, eventually, is a method we may be able to use to see what gives people joy and, perhaps, if the conversation evolves, let them see the reason for our joy - in case that is helpful to them.

SOME PRE-WORK:  LET’S TRY SOME QUESTIONING

I know you don’t want me to give you homework, so how about trying this pre-work where I am asking you to think about things that don’t require much reading and that can be done while doing tasks at home or elsewhere?  Pre-work Task:  Ask yourself some questions, think a bit about them and see if you learn anything about yourself and God from doing that.

QUESTIONING

It seems that Julianne and I are not the only ones who think that asking oneself questions can be helpful.

The Baltimore Catechism asked questions:  “Who is God?” “Why did God make me?”  “Where is God?” “If God is everywhere, why do we not see God?”  But this catechism provided answers, most of which are good answers, even though it was written more than a hundred years ago.  Ours will be different questions and I want each of us to come up with our own answers.  And there are probably no wrong answers because our questions are about what you think and they are not about things in any catechism.

I looked online and found a life coach website that uses a similar technique, but their questions are focused on oneself and I want you to focus on two people:  you and God.  These “life coaches” say, “Ask yourself as many questions. You can do the thinking when in traffic, while browsing the web, while doing the dishes, or at any other moment. For instance, ask yourself ‘Who am I? What do I want? What is something I could do today that will benefit me tomorrow? . . . Asking yourself these and similar questions, is developing a habit that will lead to knowing yourself better.”

For our purposes, we are not interested in those questions, but the process is pretty much the same.

I am sure you recall my story of asking myself at age seven if I believed that God was listening to my prayers. That changed me from just thinking and doing as I was told, to falling in love with God, as much as a seven-year-old could, and my life totally changes from that realization onward. It was amazing!  Why?  I don’t know for sure, but it may be because it was my answer.

So here are some questions waiting for your answers. They are questions on why God endowed us with certain abilities when God made us humans.  They are questions about the things we see around us in nature, the way we and they are, as Psalm 139 says, “wondrously made.” And don’t stop after your first or second answer.  Keep going deeper and deeper.

Pick one or two of the topics and think long and hard on your own personal answers to the proposed questions or other questions you want to consider.  I hope that you will share your answers and what you discover in our Explorations session or email them to me.

Eating – Why did God make us to need nourishment?  And why couldn’t the process be as easy as seeing where we just open your eyelids and focus?

Cleaning – Why did God make it that dust collects on things?

Babies – Why are they created the way they are?  (Couldn’t God have made it happen in another way? Why this way?)

Love – Where does love come from?  What is its prototype? Why are we given the ability to love?  How do you feel about being able to love, about not being able to love someone? How do you feel about being loved by another?

Other:  (Pick your own question.)

Afterwards, ask yourself these questions about the experience of asking yourself questions:

1. Does pondering questions like this tend to make God more “real” to you? . . . make it easier to try to talk to this God or want to relate to God?  Does it do anything to your relationship with God?
2. Can an ordinary daily task open the way to an encounter God?
3. Would a “none” or any busy person want to learn to do this? Why? How might you be able to introduce something like this into a conversation?

1. The “nones” are the people who, in filling out a survey which has an item asking for their Religion, answer “none.”