A Note From Father Eickhoff
August 25, 2024
Since the school year is just starting, I think that it is auspicious that Pope Francis recently wrote an article concerning the importance of reading to the development of the spiritual life entitled: Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Role of Literature in Formation. As Pope Francis states in the beginning of the Letter his initial thought was to direct this letter to those persons responsible for the formation of priests, but on further reflection His Holiness realized that all the Christian faithful could benefit from the insights developed in the Letter. I encourage you to read the Letter that Pope Francis wrote on your own time as my summary and thoughts in this bulletin article will not be able to convey the full weight of the argument for reading literature that Pope Francis describes. I will print off some copies of the letter and leave them in the literature racks in the narthex of the church and I will include a pdf copy of the Letter in my weekly email.
Pope Francis describes the act of reading literature as crucial to spiritual formation as it allows the reader to achieve two ends that would otherwise not be possible without a great deal of time or travel. The first end is that literature allows the reader to experience different cultures and customs that would otherwise not be accessible to us. Consider the act of reading an epic poem such as the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf which envelops the reader into the world of 8th or 9th century Nordic peoples with their unique culture that is at once familiar and strange to us in the 21st century. We cannot replicate living in this culture today, but in the act of reading we gain admission to this prior world with all its similarities and differences to our own. The second end is that in the act of reading we can gain experiences that are both different from our own and gain these experiences at an accelerated rate. Pope Francis points out that in a single hour of reading a novel we can piggyback with the characters of the story as they experience fear, joy, sorrow, and love (among many other emotions) in situations that are unfamiliar to our own.
These different experiences of both worlds and cultures that are different from our own and the ability to gain familiarity with experiences that we have not gained ourselves are especially important to the fullest development of the spiritual life according to Pope Francis. God does not solely speak or communicate to one particular culture, nor does God only involve Himself in just one form of emotion or experience. Cultures throughout the world have unique ways of explaining their experience of God and gaining insight into these experiences will have a beneficial and additive impact on our own spiritual life. Furthermore, since God speaks to all people the greater the knowledge of how other people (whether they are open, closed, or indifferent to God’s Word) react to God’s presence can only be of help to us as we strive to communicate the Gospel to others.
I will close this bulletin article by noting that Pope Francis writes about READING and not watching. Reading above other forms of entertainment engages the imagination and the intellect and is best suited to developing our ability to grow spiritually.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Stephen Eickhoff
Pastor