What happens when we don’t let go and let God? I was listening to a group member express his concern that there are teachers of religious education in Catholic schools who do not believe what the Church teaches about some moral issues. He mentioned abortion in his contribution to the review that was being conducted. There are many involved in Catholic education who would agree with him, but for every teacher who would argue that they don’t have to believe what the Church teaches, they only have to teach it, there are many who live with God and share that life with their students. Yet, there still exists a problem in the Church of people who do not let God lead them. That is why we need apostles in our schools as much as we need them in other places of work.
Cardijn reflected on the role of parents as the primary educators of their children and of the responsibility of teachers in schools to be places “where you learn to live and to love in line with the education that mothers and fathers are responsible for giving to their children.” He knew only too well that this was an expression of the ideal. Earlier in the talk on formation and education he gave as part of the 1950 Godinne lecture series on Person, Family and Education, he acknowledged that many parents had not been prepared well for their responsibilities as the first educators of their children. He also acknowledged the difficulties created by teachers who were not formed in the faith that parents sought to pass on to their children. Moreover, then as now, there are teachers in schools who reject the faith as being integral to a fully human life.
Clearly, from a perspective of faith, those who work in Catholic schools are duty bound to support parents who want to bring up their children in the faith. And where that happens the trinity of family-parish-school is marked by peace and happiness. Children are able to mature in faith. St Luke provides us with an image of the childhood of Jesus, who grew up in the safety of this trinity of faith (Luke 2:40).
Today, February 10, is the Feast of St Scholastica, the twin sister of St Benedict. The Gospel for today (Luke 10:38-42) is pertinent to this reflection. Luke takes us into the home of Martha and Mary. Martha is all action, the model for hospitality workers. Mary is criticised by her sister for not helping out with the meal preparation. Instead, she sits and listens to Jesus, who reminds Martha of the importance of prayerful reflection in a life dedicated to spreading the Good News. How does this apply to Catholic schools? In a research project I undertook in 2021, I learned from Catholic school staff I interviewed that they are “time poor,” meaning that some were too busy with their work to take time to reflect and pray. That might be true, but it is also true that they have lost focus.
So, what has to change? How do we encourage those who work in our schools to focus on and share their faith so that more will come to experience and appreciate the presence of God in their lives and in their schools? A recent experience of a YCW meeting has shown me the importance of listening to people’s experiences of being taught in a Catholic school and of the need for teachers to listen to one another. Likewise, the stakeholders in Catholic education need to sit and listen with prayerful hearts and minds rather than simply sending out surveys to be completed and using the data to make decisions regarding the type of education to be delivered.
Author
Pat Branson
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Person, Family and Education – the 1950 Godinne Lecture series given by Fr Joseph Cardijn: Lecture 3 – “Formation and education”
Yesterday’s reflection focused on the parish and the young worker, indeed a timely reflection for me. I have been reading some of the stories told through the government report on the underpayment of workers in Australia and it has left me distressed. The committee behind the report gathered evidence from around Australia, including evidence of the underpayment of young workers. One regional organisation reported that 65% of the young workers being assisted by them reported wage theft issues impacting their lives.
A young worker’s life is about more than just the wage they are paid. In yesterday’s reflection, a quote from a talk given by Fr Joseph Cardijn highlighted “the dangers to which they [young workers] are exposed” and he named areas of their lives where they are tempted to be less than themselves. Cardijn said on another occasion, “Left to themselves, young workers cannot possibly recognise their own dignity and fulfil their mission. They are incapable of understanding it with no one to help them, form them and uphold them.”
When I think about the young workers I see at Mass every Sunday evening, I wonder, “What does my parish do to help them, form them and uphold them? Our parish priest has invited them to form a young adults group. Some have responded to the invitation. And some have undertaken to be leaders in the youth group that meets after the evening Mass every other Sunday. This is an action that has flowed from the group that has been formed by him.
Cardijn committed his life to accompanying young workers and training young leaders as apostles to the workers. His faith in Jesus motivated him and he sought to communicate with young people about the centrality of Jesus in their vocation as workers. He said of them in the first lecture of the 1949 Godinne series of lectures, that “they are not criminals sentenced to a life of servitude, but the sons and daughters of God who have a magnificent, sacred, divine mission in their life and work.” I hope this is the message the young in our parish hear from our priest.
The Gospel reading for today’s Mass (Mark 7:24-30) presents us with a story about the power of faith in Jesus. A Syrophoenician woman appeals to Jesus to save her daughter. The story seems to focus on the verbal jousting that goes on between Jesus and the woman. I think Mark was inspired to write about “faith without borders.” God is passionate about everyone and he invites each into a relationship that is both human and divine. The distressed woman was responding to that invitation from the depths of her despair. She knew that she had to “let go and let God” be creator, redeemer and saviour. Jesus recognised this in the woman’s appeal and he told her to go home to her daughter who had been healed.
God is present in our world and is engaged in the work of overcoming the power of evil. The temporal destiny of all workers is a life lived in the presence of God, a life marked by productivity and the joy of contributing to the wellbeing of others. This cannot be achieved without God. To act without God is to slow the progress of the triumph of good over evil. God intends us to act in ways that, upon reflection in the spirit of the Creator, we can say, “And it was good.”
When I continue with my reading of the report into the underpayment of workers in Australia, I will look for signs of the presence of God and be thankful for the work being done to overcome evil. Being thankful in prayer; expressing appreciation for the work of those who participate in God’s work of completing creation through acts of restorative justice; and responding as God’s instruments of salvation to the needs of people around us: these are actions that we can all undertake each day as we work in God’s presence.
We saw in an earlier post the significance Cardijn placed to the parish as a platform for social action.
In today’s post, we see how importantly he regarded the role of the parish as a means of reaching out to young workers.
He wrote:
At the age of 14 – and before the war, at the age of 11 – 12, a large number of our young parishioners leave school to begin their life as paid workers. This new life, ordinarily takes place outside of and often far from the family and the parish. It has a decisive influence on the mentality, on the conduct, and on the spiritual and temporal future of the adolescent boy and girl. There are half a million such youngsters in Belgium, aged 14 to 21 – the entire working class of tomorrow.
Oh, who knows about their life, conversations, acts, habits; the dangers to which they are exposed; the abuses of which they are often the victims; the temptations, the scandals, the promiscuities which surround them in their work, in the transport they use to go to work; at the office, in the workshop, in the factories, the mines … during their rest periods, during the leisure and recreation?
The life of young parishioners
But what attitude should the parish adopt? Cardijn asked:
The parish – is it interested in the life of these young parishioners? How many are there in each parish? How are they prepared for this life at work? Has one brought them together on the eve of their entry into the factory or office – to show them the interest that we take in that new stage … so important in their life? Does one celebrate a mass for their intention? Does one try to interest other parishioners in such a ceremony? Does one give to these newcomers to the world of work – older companions – true guardian angels – who would watch over their first steps in the apprenticeship of this life of liberty? And then, who forms their professional conscience? Who assists them, counsels them … helps them in the numerous cases when it is impossible for them to manage alone … in teaching them about their professional tasks, in their apprenticeship, in their morality, in their safety and hygiene at work, in relation to all the accidents and conditions of their work which have a preponderant influence on their health, their future, their religious and parish life? … And when they return from work in the evening, or on Sunday, who offers them normal occasions to continue their education, their recreation? Who helps them save, have insurance, who helps them prepare for a healthy … integral … true family life?
Young workers abandoned
Cardijn was unsparing in his criticism of parishes and the Church in general for its failure to respond to these issues:
Let’s admit it humbly, for all those problems, particular to the working youth and which are essential for the development of their moral and religious life – that is to say their parish life – the majority of young workers are abandoned to themselves.
All this part of their life, by far the most important; takes place far from the influence of parish life and clergy. All these difficult and complicated problems are solved … without the knowledge and often without any contact with parish clergy and parish life. In the young worker’s life, how often are the parish, the clergy, the church, the ceremonies … criticised, and ridiculed? And little by little, often very quickly, the young worker is no longer interested in the parish life or clergy. He becomes indifferent; he distances himself … since all that has become foreign: absent from his daily life so humble, difficult … which he lives far from that one hour of time (if at all) he might spend on Sunday in the parish church.
The YCW response
Cardijn continued on to explain the YCW’s response to these problems:
Now there is the problem which is presented in urgent fashion: How to maintain… I would say, how to re-establish the contact between parish life and the habitual life of the young workers in the parish? How to achieve … that the parish, its life and organisation, its clergy have a preponderant and decisive influence on the life of the young workers – not only to assist them, to prepare and protect them from temptations … and the initiations and the scandals of abuse? Beyond that, and above all how to influence their life at work, en route to work, with their companions? Were the parish to show such interest, youngsters would be proud to be faithful parishioners, practising Christians and audacious … apostles of parish life. Then it would appear clearly to them as Christian life, lived socially and organically, in community, in strong union with other Christians. They would also be proud to imprint their daily life with the principles of the Divine Master, who continues to act and teach through the church, the parish and its clergy.
This is how we believe the problem can be faced efficaciously and practically … There is but one means: that of a specific group of young workers in a parish section of YCW as soon as they leave school. There, among themselves, by themselves and for themselves, with the assistance of the parish clergy – they face all the problems of their life as young workers; they form themselves to seek practical solutions; they learn to think, to speak, to discuss and to act as Christians; they organise all kinds of services; they offer mutual aid in a concrete and living manner in order to live a Christian life … linking their life at work with their parish life; inspiring their life at work with parish ideals. They learn to sanctify their life at work through a communion of thought; feelings, acts, prayers and sufferings … uniting their daily life to the sacrificial gesture of the parish clergy … at the altar where the Divine Victim who alone can give the strength and courage necessary to reach and save their fellow workers.
This parish union of the young workers puts Christian doctrine at the base of their life as young workers. It is as young Christians, young parishioners that they learn to practically and concretely solve the problems of their life as young workers. What is the significance of their work? What kind of conduct/attitude should one have at work? What are the legitimate and necessary demands necessary to their parish life? What are the institutions for saving, for insurance, for further education and recreation which are favourable for the development of their professional, physical, moral and religious life?
The parish doctrine, which is Christian doctrine applied to the organisation of Christian society – could furnish all the answers. When the young workers understand that; when they have sensed and touched that …because it was explained simply and concretely – oh how proud they are to be parishioners, to live as parishioners everywhere: at home as with their fellow workers! How proud they are to reply to insults against the clergy, the sacraments and the church and religion. The parish section of the YCW unites them freely, and voluntarily of their own choice … without violence … inculcates in them an esprit de corps, a spirit of association, of mutual aid, of mutual caring, of Christian loyalty which is the best cement for parish life.
Such was Cardijn’s vision for the Catholic parish!
We saw in an earlier post the significance Cardijn placed to the parish as a platform for social action.
In today’s post, we see how importantly he regarded the role of the parish as a means of reaching out to young workers.
He wrote:
At the age of 14 – and before the war, at the age of 11 – 12, a large number of our young parishioners leave school to begin their life as paid workers. This new life, ordinarily takes place outside of and often far from the family and the parish. It has a decisive influence on the mentality, on the conduct, and on the spiritual and temporal future of the adolescent boy and girl. There are half a million such youngsters in Belgium, aged 14 to 21 – the entire working class of tomorrow.
Oh, who knows about their life, conversations, acts, habits; the dangers to which they are exposed; the abuses of which they are often the victims; the temptations, the scandals, the promiscuities which surround them in their work, in the transport they use to go to work; at the office, in the workshop, in the factories, the mines … during their rest periods, during the leisure and recreation?
The life of young parishioners
But what attitude should the parish adopt? Cardijn asked:
The parish – is it interested in the life of these young parishioners? How many are there in each parish? How are they prepared for this life at work? Has one brought them together on the eve of their entry into the factory or office – to show them the interest that we take in that new stage … so important in their life? Does one celebrate a mass for their intention? Does one try to interest other parishioners in such a ceremony? Does one give to these newcomers to the world of work – older companions – true guardian angels – who would watch over their first steps in the apprenticeship of this life of liberty? And then, who forms their professional conscience? Who assists them, counsels them … helps them in the numerous cases when it is impossible for them to manage alone … in teaching them about their professional tasks, in their apprenticeship, in their morality, in their safety and hygiene at work, in relation to all the accidents and conditions of their work which have a preponderant influence on their health, their future, their religious and parish life? … And when they return from work in the evening, or on Sunday, who offers them normal occasions to continue their education, their recreation? Who helps them save, have insurance, who helps them prepare for a healthy … integral … true family life?
Young workers abandoned
Cardijn was unsparing in his criticism of parishes and the Church in general for its failure to respond to these issues:
Let’s admit it humbly, for all those problems, particular to the working youth and which are essential for the development of their moral and religious life – that is to say their parish life – the majority of young workers are abandoned to themselves.
All this part of their life, by far the most important; takes place far from the influence of parish life and clergy. All these difficult and complicated problems are solved … without the knowledge and often without any contact with parish clergy and parish life. In the young worker’s life, how often are the parish, the clergy, the church, the ceremonies … criticised, and ridiculed? And little by little, often very quickly, the young worker is no longer interested in the parish life or clergy. He becomes indifferent; he distances himself … since all that has become foreign: absent from his daily life so humble, difficult … which he lives far from that one hour of time (if at all) he might spend on Sunday in the parish church.
The YCW response
Cardijn continued on to explain the YCW’s response to these problems:
Now there is the problem which is presented in urgent fashion: How to maintain… I would say, how to re-establish the contact between parish life and the habitual life of the young workers in the parish? How to achieve … that the parish, its life and organisation, its clergy have a preponderant and decisive influence on the life of the young workers – not only to assist them, to prepare and protect them from temptations … and the initiations and the scandals of abuse? Beyond that, and above all how to influence their life at work, en route to work, with their companions? Were the parish to show such interest, youngsters would be proud to be faithful parishioners, practising Christians and audacious … apostles of parish life. Then it would appear clearly to them as Christian life, lived socially and organically, in community, in strong union with other Christians. They would also be proud to imprint their daily life with the principles of the Divine Master, who continues to act and teach through the church, the parish and its clergy.
This is how we believe the problem can be faced efficaciously and practically … There is but one means: that of a specific group of young workers in a parish section of YCW as soon as they leave school. There, among themselves, by themselves and for themselves, with the assistance of the parish clergy – they face all the problems of their life as young workers; they form themselves to seek practical solutions; they learn to think, to speak, to discuss and to act as Christians; they organise all kinds of services; they offer mutual aid in a concrete and living manner in order to live a Christian life … linking their life at work with their parish life; inspiring their life at work with parish ideals. They learn to sanctify their life at work through a communion of thought; feelings, acts, prayers and sufferings … uniting their daily life to the sacrificial gesture of the parish clergy … at the altar where the Divine Victim who alone can give the strength and courage necessary to reach and save their fellow workers.
This parish union of the young workers puts Christian doctrine at the base of their life as young workers. It is as young Christians, young parishioners that they learn to practically and concretely solve the problems of their life as young workers. What is the significance of their work? What kind of conduct/attitude should one have at work? What are the legitimate and necessary demands necessary to their parish life? What are the institutions for saving, for insurance, for further education and recreation which are favourable for the development of their professional, physical, moral and religious life? The parish doctrine, which is Christian doctrine applied to the organisation of Christian society – could furnish all the answers. When the young workers understand that; when they have sensed and touched that …because it was explained simply and concretely – oh how proud they are to be parishioners, to live as parishioners everywhere: at home as with their fellow workers! How proud they are to reply to insults against the clergy, the sacraments and the church and religion. The parish section of the YCW unites them freely, and voluntarily of their own choice … without violence … inculcates in them an esprit de corps, a spirit of association, of mutual aid, of mutual caring, of Christian loyalty which is the best cement for parish life.
In today’s first reading (Genesis 1: 20 – 2:4), we find the passage:
…God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth.’
…God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.
Cardinal Cardijn made this clear to young workers.
“Young workers must always be faced with the great truth of the eternal destiny of the mass of young workers. How often have I cried out at mass meetings: You are not machines, beasts of burden, slaves; you are human beings, with an eternal destiny, a divine origin, a divine purpose. You are sons of God, partners with God, you are heirs of God; this is true, not only for a select few but for the masses and the whole of the working class, without exception.”
The world today is better than it was in the past. Despite the systemic environmental degradation, the quality of life of billions is improving. Yet, billions are also suffering.
The abundance of God’s creation is insufficient for the wants of many. This imbalance between the desires of a significant population against the needs of others desecrates and violates the truth that all humans are created in the image and likeness of God.
Pat’s reflection on 4 February 2023 captures this imbalance in rich and abundant Australia.
JUDGE
Do I/we believe in today’s first reading — that we are all created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore we are all equal no matter what our station in life is?
Do I/we believe in Cardijn’s exhortation that we are not machines, beasts of burden, slaves … to employers, to consumerism, to materialism, to an ideology…
Do I/we believe that i/we are children of God, partners with God, and heirs of God?
ACT
If I/we believe in today’s first reading and in Cardijn’s exhortation:
What could I/we do not to become a slave to an employer, to an ideology, to consumerism, or to materialism?
What could I/we do to help those suffering from injustices that deprive them of their humanity?
In yesterday’s reflection, Stefan explained how Cardinal Cardijn saw the role of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) and the parish. The foundation of the YCW was the parish, and the social action that the YCW undertook was part of parish life.
Pope Francis, in 2022, would develop further what Cardinal Cardijn said in 1925 when speaking to the French social organisation, “Village de Francois (Village of Francis).”
“Jesus Christ alone fills our thirsty hearts,” Pope Francis stressed to members of the Village of Francis.
The Village of Francis develops and runs innovative shared living spaces, i.e. the Village. It brings together vulnerable people and those who care for them, focusing on three areas: living together, economic activity and integral ecology.
The Village of Francis, the Pope said, “is an ecclesial place that goes out of the usual framework to propose something else.”
“It is the Church as a ‘field hospital,’ concerned more with those who suffer than defending its interests, taking the risk of novelty to be more faithful to the Gospel.”
“I hope that the Village of Francis will contribute to rediscovering what a true village is: a fabric of concrete human relations, in mutual support, in attention to those in need, in the coexistence of generations and the concern to respect the Creation that surrounds us.”
After reading Cardinal Cardijn’s and Pope Francis’s views on the role of the Church (parishes and parishioners), can we conceive parish life as reduced to only going to mass and receiving sacraments?
SEE
Why do I go to Church?
Why do the people I know go to Church?
Is my parish actively involved in the life of the community where my parish is located?
Is my parish “a fabric of concrete human relations, in mutual support, in attention to those in need – within and outside the parish?”
JUDGE
God saw that it was good. The first reading (Genesis 1:1-19) is the creation story. What God created was good, and more importantly, He created the universe, the world, and everything in it in abundance and for everyone.
All those who touched Him were cured. Today’s Gospel (Mark 6:53-56) shows a broken world filled with suffering, and Jesus is the healer. Those who touched Him were cured.
ACT
How can my parish – followers of Jesus Christ – help restore God’s creation?
How can my parish – followers of Jesus Christ – be an instrument of His healing?
Although the YCW was not officially and formally founded until 1925, Cardijn always insisted that its real foundation was in the parish of Our Lady at Laeken, not far from the centre of Brussels, to which he was posted at Easter 1912.
Placed in charge of women’s projects in the parish, within a year, he had organised over 1000 women in various groups, including several embryonic study circles for teenage female workers.
It was an amazing demonstration of what a Catholic parish could be!
Nevertheless, he – and the emerging YCW – often faced criticism. And in a famous 1925 speech entitled “The YCW and the parish,” Cardijn sought to respond to these criticisms.
This talk, he said, “offers me a unique occasion to show by the concrete example of the YCW, how the social organisations in general must – and if they are well structured and well directed – can become one of the most appropriate means of our time to revive PARISH LIFE; to reconstitute the parish community in its integral nature of doing good.”
“Unfortunately, in many industrial regions, the parish is no longer significant except among the clergy,” Cardijn lamented in words that could easily apply today.
He continued:
Ask the people, and those who still understand the name will respond: “The parish, the parish priest… that’s where people go for baptisms, for children’s first conmunion, for marriage and funerals.”
“The bonds which exist among the parishioners, between them and the parish clergy… their rights and reciprocal duties… the family and the parish union… all that no longer lives for the masses. That kernel of the militant Church, united in the struggle for the Christian organisation of earthly society and the conquest of blessed eternity… scarcely appears any more to most people.
And yet, the esprit de corps, the conscious and strong union among all the parishioners which manifests itself to the public by a united front in the defense as in the attack – is more indispensable than ever in order to restore Christian life… to re-infuse the sense of catholic/universal … not only in the working class, but in all of society. And we think that the parish social works are an easy means to bring back the masses to that community of life, to that esprit de corps, to the understanding of the parish spirit.
We must truly dare to admit, among ourselves, that apropos of the social organisations, there are regrettable misunderstandings which prevent many generosities. “The social organisations, according to some people, exist and work at the margin of the parish”… “The social sphere, the social framework (cadre), according to certain people, is in opposition to the … parish framework”. To the directors of social works, some say “You come and divide the parishioners, with your organisations which take into account their interests, their conditions and their requirements-bringing sometimes hostile divisions”. Haven’t you already heard the remark: “pretty soon different parishes will need to be created for the workers, for the farmers and for the employers”.
These misunderstandings come from a superficial concept. In a society truly Christian, the social organisations would be indissolubly united to the parish, as the body of this earthly life is united to the soul … and as the members are united to the body. When, in view of eternal happiness, the parish interests itself in all the needs of the parishioner, when the parish finds a favorable solution, an assistance for all the problems which arise in concrete daily life, humble and often difficult; … when the Church and the parish clergy are no longer strangers to the vital questions posed by the conditions of modern life – which, moreover have a fatal repercussion on religious life.., then our modern society – in all its manifestations: social, economic, artistic and recreational – will again be as it was during the Middle Ages: guided, clarified and protected by the parish spirit which is the true Christian social spirit.
Here we find Cardijn’s integral conception of the role of Church of assisting parishioners to address the problems of daily life and of modern society. This, he argued, was the true Christian social spirit.
And in a later reflection, we will look at how the YCW became Cardijn’s model of this vision.
Although the YCW was not officially and formally founded until 1925, Cardijn always insisted that its real foundation was in the parish of Our Lady at Laeken, not far from the centre of Brussels, to which he was posted at Easter 1912.
Placed in charge of women’s projects in the parish, within a year, he had organised over 1000 women in various groups, including several embryonic study circles for teenage female workers.
It was an amazing demonstration of what a Catholic parish could be!
Nevertheless, he – and the emerging YCW – often faced criticism. And in a famous 1925 speech entitled “The YCW and the parish,” Cardijn sought to respond to these criticisms.
This talk, he said, “offers me a unique occasion to show by the concrete example of the YCW, how the social organisations in general must – and if they are well structured and well directed – can become one of the most appropriate means of our time to revive PARISH LIFE; to reconstitute the parish community in its integral nature of doing good.”
“Unfortunately, in many industrial regions, the parish is no longer significant except among the clergy,” Cardijn lamented in words that could easily apply today.
He continued:
Ask the people, and those who still understand the name will respond: “The parish, the parish priest… that’s where people go for baptisms, for children’s first conmunion, for marriage and funerals.”
“The bonds which exist among the parishioners, between them and the parish clergy… their rights and reciprocal duties… the family and the parish union… all that no longer lives for the masses. That kernel of the militant Church, united in the struggle for the Christian organisation of earthly society and the conquest of blessed eternity… scarcely appears any more to most people.
And yet, the esprit de corps, the conscious and strong union among all the parishioners which manifests itself to the public by a united front in the defense as in the attack – is more indispensable than ever in order to restore Christian life… to re-infuse the sense of catholic/universal … not only in the working class, but in all of society. And we think that the parish social works are an easy means to bring back the masses to that community of life, to that esprit de corps, to the understanding of the parish spirit.
We must truly dare to admit, among ourselves, that apropos of the social organisations, there are regrettable misunderstandings which prevent many generosities. “The social organisations, according to some people, exist and work at the margin of the parish”… “The social sphere, the social framework (cadre), according to certain people, is in opposition to the … parish framework”. To the directors of social works, some say “You come and divide the parishioners, with your organisations which take into account their interests, their conditions and their requirements-bringing sometimes hostile divisions”. Haven’t you already heard the remark: “pretty soon different parishes will need to be created for the workers, for the farmers and for the employers”.
These misunderstandings come from a superficial concept. In a society truly Christian, the social organisations would be indissolubly united to the parish, as the body of this earthly life is united to the soul … and as the members are united to the body. When, in view of eternal happiness, the parish interests itself in all the needs of the parishioner, when the parish finds a favorable solution, an assistance for all the problems which arise in concrete daily life, humble and often difficult; … when the Church and the parish clergy are no longer strangers to the vital questions posed by the conditions of modern life – which, moreover have a fatal repercussion on religious life.., then our modern society – in all its manifestations: social, economic, artistic and recreational – will again be as it was during the Middle Ages: guided, clarified and protected by the parish spirit which is the true Christian social spirit.
Here we find Cardijn’s integral conception of the role of Church of assisting parishioners to address the problems of daily life and of modern society. This, he argued, was the true Christian social spirit.
And in a later reflection, we will look at how the YCW became Cardijn’s model of this vision.
