Tending the Garden
Working in campus ministry has truly been a tremendous blessing in my life. Not every day is easy, but being present during such a formative time for these young adults - through their joys, victories, struggles, and failures - has helped enlarge my heart to better receive each of them, no matter their circumstances.
As our community continues to grow in big and little ways, I’ve been trying to reflect on what is needed to provide the best environment in which spiritual, intellectual, and personal maturation can take place. This isn’t strictly limited to campus ministry. As I look back on my own formational experiences in seminary, graduate school, undergraduate, and within my circles of family and friends, I have definitely noticed patterns of when I was able to receive formation in a life-changing way and when the circumstances led me to shut down entirely, limiting any kind of growth that could have happened during this time.
I’m sure that I’m not alone in this. We have all had mentors, communities, or experiences that have led us to be the person that we are today. For better or worse, the environment that we are formed in has a long lasting impact that can ultimately shape our outlook on life as well as our willingness to engage the world around us.
I have known so many adults who refuse to sing because, when they were children, a teacher ridiculed them for their musical efforts.
I can’t count how many times I have heard that people are terrified of going to confession because a priest yelled at them as a child.
No matter if it happens in a family setting, at school, or in the Church, an unhealthy environment can leave lasting damage in a person’s mind or heart in a way that can greatly limit any kind of openness to new experiences in the future.
The negative effects of bad formation are not limited to a mocking or traumatic experience, it can also be found in how we pass on the faith from one generation to the next. How many future former Catholics do our schools need to churn out before we recognize that faith formation is more than imposing an intellectual tradition onto young minds?
Obviously, having a solid catechetical approach is essential to parish and school life, but if we simply focus on the content or the mechanics of conveying that content, I am convinced that we will only continue to see a downward trend in the number of baptisms, weddings, and funerals in our churches each year while the number of unaffiliated continues to skyrocket.
What I am reminded of every single day by my students is that the best formational environment is one rooted in love. This can seem so obvious and even as if it is some kind of platitude, yet my experiences in the priesthood, seminary, and in Catholic schools has shown me that this is often the one thing lacking in a formation setting.
The lack of creating and fostering a loving formation environment can stem from several reasons. Mentioning three of these reasons may be a helpful start in identifying this weakness within our institutions. First, love could be simply taken for granted. We can assume that bearing the name Christian somehow makes the commands to love our neighbor, our enemy, and to forgive automatically become built into our efforts. Imitating Christ is hard and entering into any kind of formational environment without intentionally desiring to make His love known will ultimately lead the family, classroom setting, or parish to a place of stagnation at best, and at worst, a slow decay into becoming a mediocre association of people who are only tangentially united by being in the same place at the same time each week.
Second, as we live in the world, the logic of the world can slowly seep into our mindset, replacing the Christian worldview with whatever distorted sense of self and community is affecting the broader culture. We can see this when people believe that the only way to toughen someone up is by mercilessly mocking or ridiculing them in order to “prepare them for the hardships of the world.” While I have definitely observed this happening to younger people, I have honestly recognized the severity of this approach happening much more often with adults, especially those in places of higher education or specialization. Going beyond any kind of rite of passage, this cruel attitude looks like the old eating their young - less interested in being helpful and more determined to destroy the hopes and passions of those coming of age. Personal insecurities turn what could be a thriving community into a graveyard as unhealthy comparisons and a nasty spirit of competition outweigh the need to love those entrusted to our care.
Finally, and this is perhaps a much more complicated obstacle to overcome and also related to the second obstacle, generational neglect, wounds, and bad formation can lead those currently tasked with forming others (parents, teachers, pastors) to believe that a loveless approach is simply the way things are done. At this point, we’ve become complacent because the static nature of a loveless environment feels safe and less risky than the dynamism of love.
The devil loves a loveless environment. It’s within a community where love is taken for granted, where it follows the logic of the world, or where love is seen as too risky that he can do his best work. Why? Because a loveless environment prevents us from being who we were made to be.
If love is intentionally cultivated and seen as the necessary foundation in the vision of a formational environment, vulnerability and freedom will follow. When people know that they are loved, it leads to a greater capacity to share themselves and to receive others. Instead of being paralyzed by a loveless environment where every action and word is judged, a loving formational environment helps people become who they were called to be by virtue of their baptism, that is, beloved children of the Father. Jesus tells us in Matthew 18, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” This childlike attitude in so many ways is found in vulnerability and freedom. When we lean into a need to be vulnerable with one another, it means that we are living in a trusting environment and one where we know that we can make mistakes and still have the opportunity to receive mercy. A loveless environment, on the other hand, is repulsed by vulnerability. Any kind of weakness is stamped out, forgiveness is only granted if it serves selfish ends, and we come to believe in a distorted sense of relationships that are grounded in utility rather than learning to make gifts of ourselves and receive the other. If a group of people hide behind niceties and a performative faith, all that will come of it will be superficial relationships that will disappear the moment a crisis or challenge faces the community.
The students that I have the privilege to work with are silly, creative, bold, and desire intimacy with Christ. They know that they can be themselves, make mistakes, and are willing to be challenged to grow because we desire our community to be motivated not by comparisons, fear, or ridicule, but only love.
In his book, What’s wrong with the World, G.K. Chesterton tells us, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” This Christian ideal is founded on love. To truly love and be loved is difficult, but it is absolutely worth trying.