Through what lens do you view the world? It’s important because his determines your first take on life. Your relationships, goals, ethics, self-orientation and attitudes towards others are shaped by your worldview. Life viewed through a scientific lens looks for physical proof. An atheist discounts miracles and the transcendent completely. What if it’s a Catholic lens?
This post is further development on a spiritual toolbox for youth ministry. The “tools” being the knowledge and skills needed to equip teens for life as a Catholic young adults.
Catholic Imagination
A spiritual tool I consider essential is formation in a Catholic lens or worldview. In this video, Fr. Robert Barron discusses how doing just that is an integral component in implementing the new evangelization. Fr. Barron calls this lens Catholic Imagination. He speaks of how young Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II was formed and later formed others this way.
First, with his fellow seminarians during the Nazi occupation, he clandestinely read the Polish classics, which were filled with the “Catholic Imagination.” The Polish culture was so thoroughly Catholic that this was integral.
When the Communists had control of Poland, Wojtyla taught his students Catholic spirituality, literature, theology and formed them in the ideas of a Catholic mentality and culture.
By the time he became Pope, those colleagues and students were leaders in Polish society. When the time was right he empowered and unleashed them onto Polish society transforming it, and the world, through the power of this Catholic thought.
The Sources of Catholic Imagination
Where does formation in the Catholic Imagination happen? Fr. Barron says most especially in the liturgy. It also happens in the great intellectual life of the Church. He cites Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, Dante, Teresa of Avila, John Paul II, Therese of Lisieux as sources of this life.
I think one of the best ways we can tap into this tradition of Catholic thought and imagination is by studying the lives of the Saints and their writings. One of the ways the Tradition of the Church is encapsulated and passed on is through the living witness of the Saints. Their “lived theology” is a tangible expression of the Catholic Imagination. I plan to talk about the lives of the Saints a great deal to my youth in the coming months.
Appropriate Goals for Youth Ministry Formation
I think this is an important goal for youth ministry. We need to form kids in Catholic thought and give them Catholic imagination. Then let them become Catholic businessmen, doctors, lawyers, professors, parents and unleash that dynamism on the world.
And, then we have to let that formation out into the world. Let them be great Catholic professionals in society…doctors, lawyers, politicians, teachers, journalists, actors. This, Fr. Barron says, is how we transfigure the world. By carefully spreading the seeds of Catholic thought preserved through the centuries in the great literature and spiritual traditions of the Church. There, Barron remarks, is the work of the new evangelization.
How have you been formed in the Catholic Imagination? What elements do you think should go into forming teens to become Catholic thinkers?
