By Teresa Bodnar-Hiebert and Kiply Lukan Yaworski

Participants beginning the Adult Faith Enrichment Program joined some 200 alumni and friends for a Lay Formation Alumni Fall Gathering with Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, Oct 12 at the Cathedral of the Holy Family in Saskatoon.

Originally from St. Donatus Catholic Parish in the Cactus Lake area on the western edge of the diocese of Saskatoon, Fr. Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author who presently serves as president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. He was a long-time popular presenter for the Lay Formation Program in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon – a program that this year has been renamed the Adult Faith Enrichment Program.

“The Theological Formation of the Laity – the Task, the Tension, the Hope” was the title of Rolheiser’s presentation, which addressed changes over the past 40 years as Catholic lay people began to study theology and scripture, and started to provide ministry within their parishes and communities.

Using scripture and anecdote to “name the present moment,” Rolheiser challenged his listeners to deepen their own conversion and commitment to Christ and the Church, and to consider how they are living out their discipleship in the world, including in their families, workplaces, communities and parishes.

Quoting spiritual leaders, saints and authors, Rolheiser noted that we often suffer from a crisis of imagination, rather than a crisis of faith. The young are new pioneers, using new technology and methods of communication, but often “we are living it with our old imagination… we need a new imagination,” he said, adding that we must also move on from old stereotypes of what we may have imagined God to be.

He described secular culture as a teenager that has not yet grown up, immature in many ways, but not necessarily “bad.”

The church today is living a “Garden of Gesthemane” experience in many ways, spending time in the desert, he suggested. Like the people of Israel in the desert for 40 years, “you stay in a certain place until you learn your lesson… it is a frustrating place to be, but not a bad spot.” In such a desert, or “dark night of the soul,” we need the daily bread provided by God – “not weekly, or yearly, or Freedom 55 bread, but daily,” Rolheiser said, referencing the Lord’s prayer. Ultimately, a desert or Gethsemane experience is a call for the Church and the followers of Jesus Christ to grow more deeply in faith, he asserted.

Like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, when our world falls apart and it seems there is no God, an encounter is needed to open our eyes again. For the disciples in the Emmaus story, their eyes were opened when Christ broke the bread. “It is the Eucharist that opens their eyes,” said Rolheiser. “Christ is always around us, but we must have the eyes to see.” Jesus is the one who will turn us around through the Eucharist and the Word, he said.

In all of this we must have trust, even in the midst of darkness and struggle, he added. “Trust that David will slay Goliath… trust that the loaves and fishes will be enough,” he said. “It’s only when you’re finished that the angel will let you in. You will be forced to trust when there isn’t anything left.”

Reflecting on the story of the Rich Young Man in the Gospel of Luke, Rolheiser also challenged his listeners to consider what they are holding back from God. “What are the two or three rooms in the house of our soul that we have kept for ourselves?”

He stressed that in the struggle to give all to God, we can only change our lives through God’s grace, and with the help of community. He related the story of a group of priests who have been meeting together to challenge each other in complete and brutal honesty about their lives, calling each other to give all to God, and sharing support. One told Rolheiser: “This is the hardest thing I have ever done… but it is also the best thing I have ever done. I have never been so happy.”

When the Rich Young Man turns away from Jesus, he goes away sad, continued Rolheiser, quoting Leon Bloy: “The only real sadness in life is not to become a saint.”

Another challenge is to avoid the bitter and jealous path of the elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son, or the workers paid the same for a full day’s wage as those hired in the last hour. “If you work for God, you are going to be rewarded a hundred-fold – the trouble is, you can have everything, but you will enjoy nothing if you are watching what other people are getting.”

The problem that good people have with grace, is a fear that it will be “given away cheaply” when in fact God’s grace is shocking in its mercy and abundance, he described.

“We are like the older brother in the Prodigal Son, we stay at home and do all the work and the young guy is out there, with prostitutes and drinking and so on, and he gets the party,” described Rolheiser. But that story told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke ends with the father’s deep concern for the older brother – the father goes out to him, and calls him “son” – echoing the word used by a worried Mary seeking her lost Child in the temple.

“So that is us – the many parts of the story, and the grace we need,” summarized Rolheiser. “First of all, we need the grace to give everything in our lives over to God– and to the extent that I have sadness as a 70-year-old man, it is because I am not a saint – but to do that, we cannot do it alone, we have to do it with grace and community. And then, we need to face the angers, the jealousies, the bitterness that is in us because we are the ones who went to work early in the day.”

Rolheiser also reflected on the Old Testament story of Tobit to offer hope when considering the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, and other churches as well. “We are going to be purified for the health of the world. We were the first ones on the front pages, but it is something that will help the world,” he said of the light being shone on the devastation caused by sexual abuse.

The fall gathering concluded with celebration of the Eucharist by Bishop Mark Hagemoen, Fr. Ron Rolheiser, Bishop Emeritus Gerald Wiesner, OMI, and cathedral pastor and rector Fr. Ephraim Mensah.

In his homily, the Bishop Mark Hagemoen reflected on the insight of a scholar he knew as a young priest, who said that the genius of Christianity is in the central place between transcendence and imminence that is the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh who comes into the world. “The Incarnation honours both transcendence and imminence together,” said Hagemoen, reflecting on both qualities in the Gospel about the healing of the ten lepers.

Hagemoen also spoke about the canonization of St. John Henry Newman (which took place the next day, Oct. 13, in Rome). “Newman knew the volatility of moral, theological and political atmospheres and the fickleness of the human heart,” the bishop observed, adding that, like Newman, we must allow faith “to take us to places where thought and revelation should be brought to bear – rigorously to bear – on the greatest issues of our day.”

The bishop pointed to Newman’s understanding of conscience – noting this is a timely reflection for Canadians going to the polls in a federal election Oct. 21. “Conscience has rights, Newman would say, but not in terms of its own absolute will, as a self-autonomous ego, but because conscience has duties to the community and to God, and our faith definitely informs and illumines an informed conscience.”

Lay Formation and the newly-named Adult Faith Enrichment Program involve the whole process of sharing the wisdom of Jesus Christ and answering the call to be a disciple “on a journey that is more wonderful terrible and way more important than we can imagine,” concluded Hagemoen.

More photos from the Fall Gathering 2019: