Obviously enough, the person who has presence is present, i.e., there’s nothing he or she is not bringing into the room, no sense of being preoccupied or distracted, no absence to dilute the being there. It’s even more compelling than charisma, for the person blessed with true presence makes you feel that the most important thing in the world is happening right here, right now. The person with presence, in other words, is a living event.

Smith says that presence is a far more practical attribute. While the charismatic leader is often attracting attention to him or herself, the leader with presence is focused on being present for the problem that needs to be solved.
 
What do you think? In your experience, which trait is more valuable in ministry—charisma or presence?

Think of the captivating pastor or charismatic youth minister you know. Often, a stellar individual stands out from the crowd like a downhill skier or a figure skating virtuoso. The flip side of having such extraordinary individual gifts, however, is the shining star is often not especially effective at working with a team.

The four reasons why being a boss is not an Olympic event are:

• Winning isn’t everything, or even the only thing
• You don’t get to practice more than you play
• You don’t belong to just one team. In business, you belong to several teams at once
• There’s no closing ceremony

The last one is my favorite. Wally Bock explains: “Every triumph is the gateway to a new challenge. Every time you come up short you must learn from it. Every time your team changes, you have to adjust.”

To read his explanations of the other three, click here.

What do you think? What is one key to leadership that you strive to achieve in your ministry?

Click here to read Margie Sullivan’s article from the March issue, “Ritual moves us from ordinary life to holy ground.”

I’ll give you an example. I went to college in southern Missouri. It was not uncommon for a stranger to stop me on campus and ask if I knew Jesus as my personal savior. Now, on the surface, this seems like a process question. It seems like the evangelist is truly concerned about my relationship—my personal relationship—with Jesus.

But here’s the tip-off that this question was part of a program. First of all, it is a template question. Every good southern evangelical asks it, pretty much verbatim. Next, it didn’t really matter what my answer was. Yes, no, I don’t know, or (never say this unless you’ve got an hour to kill) I’m Catholic—it didn’t matter. The evangelist had a set pattern of replies, all designed to get me to “accept Jesus.”

For some of these folks (not all), it didn’t really matter who I was as a person. Whatever my own life of grace might have been like up to that point had no influence over their encounter with me. They knew what they were going to say and what they wanted me to say before they ever met me.

I worry that we have a similar evangelical program going on in a lot of our RCIA groups. When I can, I ask RCIA teams if they know what they will be teaching about on the third week of September (pick a week at random). A lot of them can tell me, even though they currently have no inquirers. They know what they are going to say before they have even met those they hope to evangelize. And they know what they want the inquirer to say back. Just open the ritual book to the Rite of Acceptance and read the example responses of the candidates. These examples have become the rote replies of thousands of inquirers, regardless of the lives of grace they may have lead up to that point.

Move from program to process

So how do we move away from program and toward process? A first step might be to define “process” a little more. If the RCIA is a process, what is the process for? Becoming Catholic? That’s not what the rite says. The rite of Christian initiation is a process of seeking God. It is a process of living the way of faith and conversion (see RCIA 1).

If that’s so, then we might say the RCIA is not a program; it’s a relationship. Our job is not to read from predetermined templates. It is to explore the mystery of grace at work in the individual inquirer standing before us.

Share your thoughts

How do you evangelize? How do you help your parishioners evangelize? How do you equip them to make accommodations and adjustments when they are faced with an actual inquirer? Please click on the comments link, and share your thoughts.

Aid agencies

Compassion for Haiti: The Gift of Tears (Catholic Relief Services)
Catholic charities respond to Haiti crisis (video)
Catholic agencies prepare for long-term relief (NCR)
USA: urgent appeal for the people of Haiti (Jesuit Refugee Service)

Liturgy and prayer

Homily by Archbishop Carlson at Mass for victims in Haiti
How Can Catholics Help Haiti? (Archbishop Dolan-video)
Haiti, Eucharist and Justice: How the Cry of the Poor Affects our Worship (Joyce Donahue)
A prayer for dreamers amid the nightmare in Haiti (TeamRCIA)
A Prayer for Haiti (Diana Macalintal)
Una oración para después del terremoto en Haití (Diana Macalintal, tr. Marilu S. Covani)
Haiti—Does liturgy matter? (Today’s Parish)

Education and catechesis

Resources For Catholic Educators and Youth Ministers (Catholic Relief Services)
How Catholics Can Talk About and Deal with the Tragedy in Haiti (Joe Paprocki)
Why does he permit earthquakes in the poorest country in the hemisphere? (Fleming Rutledge)
Why God Allowed Haiti Disaster (Archbishop Dolan-SIRUS XM Radio)
Poverty Lessons From Haiti (New York Times)
Response to Pat Robertson (Paul Snatchko)

General information

CIA World Factbook on Haiti
8 Things to Keep in Mind About Haiti (The Huffington Post)
Interactive map of the Haitian earthquake (MSNBC)
Photos from Haiti (daylife)

My topics tomorrow are “Liturgy and Catechesis: A Practical Method for Teaching the Faith” and “Whole Community Liturgy.” As I was tweaking my slides in between bites of dinner, I realized they are really the same topic from two different starting points. The first one looks at the liturgy from the point of view of the catechist. If I’m a teacher, what do I need the liturgy to do so I can teach from it. And the second looks at liturgy from the point of view of everyone else. If I’m a parish leader, how does the liturgy give flesh to and embody who we are as a parish?

What is common to both workshops, of course, is the liturgy. When I was starting out in ministry, it was pretty much a given that liturgy was the central and most important enterprise of the parish. Nowadays, that idea almost seems passé in some circles. But not to me. The world is crying out for the hope and liberation we celebrate and manifest in the liturgy.

The recent earthquake in Haiti is a painful example. How can the church provide any kind of solace for such a horrible tragedy? I saws a new report at the end of the day today, the combined Catholic effort from around the world had collected $5 million in relief funds. That’s laudable and important. But Bill Gates donated a fifth of that by himself. Catholics are required to provide as much physical relief as we can, but that is not the unique gift we bring to this, or any, crisis. We bring hope. We bring the good news that death cannot last. We bring salvation from all darkness, pain, and suffering.

And there is one way—only one—in which we bring that good news. When we offer our sacrifice of praise in the liturgy, we make present a new reality, a new reign, that is in, but not of, this world. It is our priestly sacrifice that reorders the world. Or rather, reconciles the world to its original order.

If you’ve been to Sunday Mass lately, its relevance to the situation in Haiti may not seem clear. If that’s so, I submit it is not because the liturgy has nothing to say to our situation today. Rather, it is because we are not saying the liturgy well. If we are letting our own agendas filter through on Sunday, the good news can be muted. If we are easing up a bit on the two-edged sword of the gospel so as not to give offense, then neither are we giving a clear message of liberation.

So by all means, let’s dig deep and give as much material relief as we possibly can over these next weeks and months. But at the same time, let us invest in music that stirs the soul, preaching that shakes us to the bone, ritual that moves us to holy awe, and a warm embrace of the strangers who are not only on a far-away island but also sitting in the pew right behind us.

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit southern Haiti, ten miles from the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Heavy damage, severe injuries, and serious loss of life are expected.

Two Americans still missing in the rubble are Catholic aid workers from the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut. 

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. About 80% of Haitians live in poverty.

Donate now to Catholic Relief Services emergency relief in Haiti.

A Prayer After the Earthquake in Haiti

Lord, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined,
we plead for your mercy.

As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are
on this ever-changing, ever-moving,
fragile planet we call home.
Yet you have promised never to forget us.

Do not forget us now.

Today, so many people are afraid.
They wait in fear of the next tremor.
They hear the cries of the injured amid the rubble.
They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with wails of grief
and the names of missing dead.

Comfort them, Lord, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,
and shelter them under your wings when homes no longer exist.

Embrace in your arms those who died so suddenly this day.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.

Pierce, too, our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,
as the poorest on this side of the earth
find only misery upon misery.
Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day,
to work for justice always,
and to pray unceasingly for those without hope.

And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life’s daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands.

For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground,
your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.

Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
now and forever. Amen.

Copyright © 2010, Diana Macalintal. Permission is given to reprint.

Photo: "Weeping Christ" by Broken Lens via Flickr.com. The sculpture, titled "And Jesus Wept," is on the grounds of the Saint Joseph’s Old Cathedral and the diocesan chancery offices for Oklahoma City, OK, which is right across the street from the Murrah Building Memorial.

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Connecting liturgy and catechesis.

• Liturgy as source of catechesis
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