On "Deus Caritas Est"

I am reading the encyclicals of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, in obedience to a homilist who, at the end of last semester, suggested Deus Caritas Est and Spe Salvi as summer reading.

Obedience has seldom yielded more fruit for me! As I read Deus Caritas Est, an encyclical on Christian love given Christmas day of 2005, I could not believe my eyes. The Holy Father seemed to be saying, paragraph after paragraph, what has been on my mind for the past four years. My copy is copiously highlighted and peppered with notes like “BRILLIANT” and “Was just thinking of this….” I am honored and privileged to say that I have the same thoughts, judgments, and desires as a pope.

I wanted desperately to blog about it, writing a critical essay with lots of intelligent comments. I sat down to do just this, but now that I look again at the encyclical all I can say is a total, emphatic “YES.”

I won’t resay what Pope Benedict XVI says so well. So read it! (It’s only 25 pages long, and it’s glorious.) My copy with notes.

Personal holiness vs. Service?

Cool things happened last Friday: I went to early morning Mass and received the Eucharist from my CMA-SS chapter advisor (the altar server and extraordinary minister). Later in the day, learned that if I complete the PPVI Medical Consultant program, it will go in my dean's letter (!). Still later, I gave a quick presentation on our CMA-SS chapter to the incoming M1 students. Finally, I met with a neuroscience faculty member to present TAC's modus operandi. (It's not clear to me that TAC's style is doable right now for my medical school, but I enjoyed showing off how it is the ultimate, perfect, and best style for integrating knowledge.)

But the post is not about the whole day, it's about something interesting I noticed when I gave the CMA-SS presentation. I was the first of the ten organizations presenting, followed by the Christian Medical Association. My focus was strongly placed on personal holiness--our main events are prayer before class, Mass together, understanding Church teachings, and attending CMA conferences. By contrast, The Christian Medical Association mentioned bible study, but spent most of the presentation on their mission trip.

Photo credit: basictheory

Mission trips are excellent (I do not want to be misunderstood at all: mission trips are wonderful). But in my experience of American Christianity there is an overemphasis on service and an underemphasis on perfection. This is sadly ironic, because it not only depletes our interior lives but undercuts service! (If we do not have our own souls in order, how can we bless others?)

Some might say, how can we focus on ourselves before others? That isn't Christ-like! I reply that serious and continued formation before placing oneself at the service of others is necessary and rational. (What to the flight attendants tell us about oxygen masks before every flight?) What is rational is Christ-like: Truth Himself is sensible, not only in an abstract and absolute sense but in His intimate knowledge of our human nature.

Source: nashvilledominicans.org

The Dominican sisters of St. Cecilia articulate the relationship between personal holiness and service nicely:

The glory of God and the salvation of souls has been the goal of the Order of Preachers since the Order’s foundation in the thirteenth century. Following in this tradition, Dominicans continue the mission of preaching and teaching, contemplating and giving to others the fruits of their contemplation, in order to achieve this end.

So, hopefully, our CMA-SS will continue to focus on personal holiness to enable our avocation of service and enrich it. I am planning to host a website for our chapter and will make a point of drawing attention to this.