5th Advisory Meeting
On or After the Candidate Completes Day 54
Description: The purpose of this section is to guide the candidate to the veil in the inner sanctuary of the Temple as a metaphor for the necessity of placing God at the center, along with the need to re-align all our other relationships accordingly. While the prior section, the Table of Self-Knowledge, addressed this issue more personally in terms of prioritizing Christ - placing the “weight” of our lives on him - this section is more interpersonal. The idea is that the Temple is you, and by turning to the inward reality of the eternal God who dwells within by the grace of the Holy Spirit, you are gradually transformed in all your relationship patterns. So the sense of standing before the veil, in prayerful contemplation of a loving, intimate God, is the destination not only for this portion of the Novena, but for the whole of the spiritual life.
Preparation Points
Sexuality and Identity. With the start of Part 3 of the Novena, we enter the especially challenging arena of identity and sexuality. There is much the Church has to offer here but there is also growing resistance from the wider culture. The candidate will certainly feel the pull of this. Almost everything society used to assume about the human body and biological sex seems to be morphing on a daily basis. What’s driving this unprecedented shift? The roots, no doubt, go back to the sexual revolution, but the arrival of smartphones in 2007 has accelerated our current confusion. Social media has also played a big part. With posts flooding their newsfeeds, young people feel the obligation to react, to like and to approve. Those who don’t applaud their friends’ lifestyle choices face shame and exclusion. Another more subtle driver is the lack of meaningful silence. The inability to put aside their devices, to create the necessary personal space to process experience, further feeds the anxiety that is pervading western society. Even if you’ve found balance, that’s probably not the case for the candidate. There is probably a significant culture-gap between you. How to proceed?
Question but Stay Open. The relationship you’ve established will play a key role here. As the candidate wrestles with the content of these meditations, they should feel free to question, to challenge and to express doubts. We do hope, however, that they remain open and prayerful - willing to invite God into their reactions. We’ve worked at presenting the Church’s teaching honestly. Our conviction is that the truth about relationships is more needed than ever. We speak candidly about matters of intimacy and sexuality because we believe it’s necessary. While some candidates may find this difficult and even triggering, others will find it a great blessing. Catholic young people are looking for clarity and truth to counter the confusion. The growing rates of depression, addiction and suicidal ideation speak to the inadequacy of modern approaches to family, identity and interpersonal relationships. We offer the Church’s wisdom humbly, but also with confidence. Failure to present the truth about the human person is its own form of cruelty.
Mind the Gap. Since this section touches on controversial social issues, try not to get caught off-guard. Be ready for discussions about sex and gender, marriage and family, as well as the question of how faithful Catholics participate in an increasingly intolerant secular society. In particular, review the workbook sections for Days 41 and 42. The purpose is not to focus on “hot topics” but to highlight how much our culture has changed in the past 20 years. Acknowledge that we’re experiencing unprecedented social change, but also affirm that God’s plan endures because it is timelessly true. It’s reasonable to assume that the candidate isn’t sold on the Catholic Church’s positions about important issues. In fact, we won’t even assume you’re sold. It’s not unusual to have questions and difficulties about Church teaching (this is faith seeking understanding after all), but our goal is to avoid imparting those same difficulties to the candidate. You don’t need to “convince” the candidate so much as help them to see how confusing this makes all areas of interpersonal relationships.
Constructive and Creative Applications. This section opens up conversation about intimacy and personal boundaries in creative ways. Despite the controversial subject matter, the main points are constructive and highly informative. We spend time with St. John Paul II’s insights around Theology of the Body as well as his lesser-known work, Love and Responsibility. We’ll also be delving into scripture and making very practical applications. In fact, you might be learning more about the tabernacle and the Jerusalem temple than you ever wanted to know! We hope this content captures your imagination in a new way!
Meeting Agenda
1. Use Day 43 for Starters. Day 43 and the exercise of placing groups of friends around one’s “mall” of relationships is a good opener if the candidate doesn’t have much to say at the start of the meeting. There are those who want to dig into the controversial issues raised in Days 41 and 42, but most candidates are more interested in looking at their own relationship patterns. The mall helps highlight our divided loyalties among friend groups and our fear of not fitting in. In preparation, read the Day 43 meditation and try to remember your own struggles in younger days.
2. Is there anything else from your journal you’d like to share? The customary inquiry about insights they’ve gained during the meditations or from the workbook sections.
3. Our Bodies Ourselves. We attempt in this section to redefine our understanding of the body. That won’t be easy. Our culture degrades the human body and obsesses over externals. Even Catholics who are familiar with the Theology of the Body (TOB) have misconceptions about what TOB says with regard to the body. There are explanations of elements of TOB in the daily meditations, but one very important point is to explain that our personhood is intimately and inseparably tied to our bodies. One might object that TOB is not official Church teaching. While these reflections of St. John Paul II, first presented during his early papal audiences, are not doctrinal per se, they do faithfully uphold Catholic doctrine as stated, for example, in the Catechism #364-365. Theology of the Body, in this sense, is fully consistent with Catholic tradition, which from the beginning has been body-affirming. Today it is more and more accepted that someone can be one kind of person trapped in another kind of body. Sex reassignment surgeries and hormonal treatments are given to young people with or without parental permission. Respect for our bodily identity and physical sexuality is under attack, and young people, for the most part, are unaware of the dangers. Our purpose here is not political but personal. We want to elevate our understanding so we see that our bodies are essential to our relationships and especially to building lasting bonds of human intimacy.
4. The Indwelling Spirit. Some “new age” spiritualities talk about the “god within” which is often a deification of the self. Try to help the candidate understand that contemplating the presence of God within is very different from this notion of “we are all, deep down, gods and goddesses,” or the more popularized version of this, “believe in yourself.” God remains holy and other even when he dwells within the baptized believer. We can turn to him and become aware of his presence while maintaining a clear sense that he remains a distinct presence with whom we can experience companionship as a friend.
5. Exclusivity in God. One of the surprising realizations of this section is that God appears to play favorites. In a modern culture that prizes equality young people are troubled by the idea that God allows different levels of access. He designates certain people and groups to be closer to him. It seems very unfair, and understandably so. The meditations attempt to address such concerns, but the candidate will still have doubts. It’s helpful to clarify: God excludes no one from his presence, but rather permits access according to the kind of relationship we have with him. As with any person-to-person relationship, each has full freedom to open up her or his life as much or as little as is mutually desirable. We believe God is open with us to the extent we are open with him, but we can no more demand intimacy with God than we can with anyone else. Intimacy is always a gift. Invite the candidate, if this is still troubling, to reflect on whom they trust and how they decide which friends to open up to. In many ways, God uses similar criteria in deciding whether or not we are good friends to him.
6. Start lining up visits to seminaries, religious houses, convents or monasteries. With the mid-point of the Novena passed, you can encourage the candidate to start contacting religious communities or a nearby seminary or oratory to visit. Share links with the candidate for worksheets to help them as needed and applicable. One is for visiting religious communities. Another is for exploring diocesan priesthood. Some of these visits involve staying overnight as a guest and participating to some extent in the life and prayer of the community or seminary. If there are no options within easy driving distance, encourage the candidate to arrange a series of visits at a break in her or his schedule, like a long weekend or a few days of vacation. How many? It’s up to you and the candidate to figure out a workable number of visits. Some candidates are more motivated, but others only visit one or two communities. To the extent you find the candidate is engaged and willing to make a reasonable effort, I suggest that at least three visits is a good baseline (this can include attending a vows ceremony or ordination). They can always make more visits after the Novena is ended if there remain “places of interest” on their list. As mentioned earlier, please help the candidate in making these contacts by providing suggestions and resources, but let them do the actual work of communicating with the groups.
