human-divine work – Reflections: Cardijn Today

24 March 2023

Is it about spiritual anthropology?

(St) Joseph Cardijn spent his working life teaching by word and example about the eternal and temporal destiny of each person and of the moral responsibility that each worker has to lead the workers of the world to achieve their divine destiny. In one of his writings from 1945, he said, “The body of the young worker and of the young working girl is a living temple of God; the home they will found is inseparably linked up with all these necessary convictions, it is a spiritual ideal incarnate in time, lived in time. This spiritual training, this spiritual conception of life imply a morality, which is not a burden, but a responsibility.” In saying this, Cardijn attempts to describe a spiritual anthropology.

The Australian Cistercian monk, Michael Casey offers a reflection on spiritual anthropology in his book Grace: on the journey to God (2018). He proposes as a starting point the belief that all people are created in the image and likeness of God. In Genesis 1, it is revealed that we are created in the image of God: “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness… (1:26). I have always regarded “image and likeness” as a “double-barrel” expression, done to emphasise the first word, in this case, “image.” Casey has a different view: the word “image” refers to God’s act of creating us. We have no say in the matter. It is God’s grace at work. It is God’s intention that we be seen as images of God. But the moment we say, “Well, this is what God is like”, pointing to another individual or to ourselves, then we are working with the word “likeness.” We have the potential to be like God. It is up to us to desire to be like God and to seek to be like God.

The desire and the action are acknowledgements of the eternal destiny of each person. And at the same time, they are the temporal destiny of each person. In the Gospel reading for Mass for Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent (John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30), the evangelist recounts a story from the life and ministry of Jesus. He contrasts Jesus’ faithfulness to the Father with the lack of faith of those who were quick to judge him as being unworthy of God’s grace, or who were uncertain about God’s presence in their lives. Ever aware of his eternal destiny, which is for all people, to give glory to God for all eternity, and which is fitting for all created in the image of God, Jesus called out those who chose to be not like God.

In every situation in his life, Cardijn tried to ask himself what Jesus would do if he was in that situation. He taught his young leaders to do the same. Reflecting on the source of their faith, that is, the Tradition of the Church, involved participation in the life of the Church. He encouraged them to immerse themselves in the Church and in the world. Is there an action within this framework that is possible to carry out and to invite others to be involved also? It seems to me that self-transformation and the transformation of the world need a spiritual anthropology like that described by Cardijn in 1945. The challenge for us in the twenty-first century is to work out what it will look like now, almost eighty years after Cardijn wrote his reflection.

Author

Pat Branson

A YCW of the masses to the scale of the world – a reflection written by Fr Joseph Cardijn

Casey, Michael (2018). Grace: On the Journey to God. Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, Inc., Chapter 3: The Grace of Humanity.

Readings for Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

23 March 2023

Not just in word, but also in deed …

In his reflection, posted on 18 March, Stefan Gigacz shared with us the story of Blessed Marcel Callo (1921-1945), a leader in the YCW. What impressed me about Blessed Marcel was how he treasured his relationship with Christ, which he shared with others, an intentional faith shared courageously. He came to realise that it was his mission to bring out the best in those who suffered with him in the concentration camp in Mauthausen.

Fr Joseph Cardijn spent his adult life training young workers to be leaders who would seek to transform their fellow workers and their families. In his Keynote Address to the World Congress for the Lay Apostolate, held in Rome, 1951, which he titled “The world today and the apostolate of the laity,” Cardijn spoke about “the consciousness of, and will for, solidarity and interdependence in the world of workers themselves who become more numerous every day.”

Repressive regimes, such as that established by the Nazis, set out to destroy the creative energy and spirit of those who seek to unite and celebrate all that is good in life and in the world. Ultimately, the oppressors fail because of the solidarity of those who live to give glory to the Creator. The life of Blessed Marcel gives testimony to the truth of this view. The oppressors failed to crush his spirit.

I was taught at an early age that faith without actions is useless (James 2:20). Being arrested for being “too Catholic” did not deter Blessed Marcel from continuing to give witness to his faith through how he lived his life, especially in captivity. The Gospel reading for Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent presents Jesus’ teaching about faith in action promises eternal life (John 5:31-47). By his word and his example, Blessed Marcel demonstrated his commitment to the transformation of those he worked with in the concentration camp. And that transformation was accomplished through simple activities that united people in faith and in comradeship. None was more precious to him and his comrades than the celebration of the Eucharist.

The transformation sought by Cardijn and the young leaders in the YCW, was made possible through faith. In that concentration camp and wherever leaders committed themselves to following Christ, the actions built on faith brought together the temporal and the eternal: it was a foretaste of their destiny. How can this be achieved in our present age? Which actions bring heaven to earth? Which actions “reach out ahead” and pull the future into the present so that both are experienced simultaneously?

Like every saint before him, Blessed Marcel Callo drew on his faith in Christ for the strength he needed to draw people together and in the midst of the suffering that they shared, he involved them in creating pockets of happiness that enfolded them like shields of love. Small actions carried out in response to the signs of the times come from recognising and rejoicing in the presence of God in what is celebrated, or what is endured. Such actions may seem trivial, but they carry within their execution the seeds of transformation. They are the work of God carried out by those who seek to be God’s instruments of salvation.

Author

Pat Branson

Biography of Blessed Marcel Callo (1921-1945)

Readings for Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

21 March 2023

Let’s be apostles to our neighbours

Have you read Challenge to Action: Forming Leaders for Transformation? It is a collection of talks or lectures by Fr Joseph Cardijn, the founder of the Young Christian Workers. The original English edition was edited by Fr Eugene Langdale who was a pioneer of Catholic social work in England and a close friend of Cardijn.. Ordained in 1934, Fr Langdale was instrumental with others in bringing the YCW Movement to England. You can obtain a copy of the ebook from the Joseph Cardijn Digital Library.

The focus of Cardijn’s work was young workers, specifically the formation of leaders, who would be apostles to the masses of young workers in the world. The genesis of his mission was his experience of the negative impact of factory work on his peers. When he entered the junior seminary, they went out to work. He reported much later: “They were intelligent, decent, God-fearing. When I came back for my holidays they were coarse, corrupted and lapsed from the Church—whilst I was becoming a priest. I started to make enquiries, it became the obsession of my life. How did it come about that young lads brought up by Christian parents in Christian schools should be lost in a few months?”

The young priest Joseph Cardijn worked to empower young Christian leaders to transform the world of all workers. His mission is every Christian’s mission. It is the mission Jesus gave to his followers after his Resurrection and before he ascended to heaven. As with all good that is done in the world, evil is always present and more often than not, in the form of the status quo, the patterns of our lives that we protect from disruptive influences … and Cardijn was certainly a disruptive element in the Church and in the world.

We hear this story being told in the Gospel for Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent (John 5:1-16). In the Jewish society of the time of Jesus and the birth of the Church, work on the sabbath was forbidden. A man, who had been ill for 38 years, was lying on his mat in one of the five entrances to the pool of Siloam in the Temple precincts. It was the sabbath and the man was too slow to reach the pool when one of God’s angels stirred the water so that he could be cured. Jesus listened to the man’s story and healed him. When he picked up his mat, he was stopped by people who were scandalised by his sinful action – Jews are forbidden from working on the sabbath and carrying one’s mat constituted work, just as Jesus broke the law because he healed the man on the sabbath. Blind obedience to the letter of the law constituted the evil present in the Temple.

Our world is full of “good news” stories, which are told to teach people about the good in our society and to encourage them to be doers of good also. Rarely are stories told about “loving God.” It is as though faith is a very private thing and we should never give voice to the part that God plays in our good works. It would be politically incorrect to do so in our society.

Surely, therefore, there is a strong need, indeed, a demand for disruptive behaviour in the form of public proclamation of the good news of God’s presence and power at work in people’s lives. Let’s acknowledge in simple ways, the presence of God and openly praise and thank God. Let’s share our God-stories with our families and friends. Let’s be apostles to our neighbours.

Author

Pat Branson

Short Biography of Cardijn, by Father Eugene Langdale

Readings for Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

14 March 2023

May our faith not be mere ideology

Greg Lopez posted a reflection titled Declining members in Christian organisations in Australia on 10 March. He stated that there are 11,400 Catholic parishes in our fair land. Between 1991 and 2016, the number of Catholics going to Church regularly decreased by about 40% and in 2016, only about 11% of Catholics attended Mass in their parishes each weekend. However, this is not the case with Catholic schools. Catholic education has continued to grow nationally. Clearly, the mantra of “family, parish, school” no longer has meaning for most Catholics in Australia. The Australian culture was at one time Christian, but that is no longer so. Have most Catholics come to view the faith as an ideology? Have they forgotten the faith stories given to them through the Mass? It would appear that certain human values have gained the ascendency over Christian values related to forming their relationship with God and with Christ.

Pope Francis has warned against viewing Christianity as an ideology: “Be careful, for the Gospel is not an idea; the Gospel is not an ideology. The Gospel is a proclamation that touches the heart and makes you change your heart.” When people choose to ignore the stories conveyed through liturgy, then eventually, the values that are conveyed through the Gospel are soon replaced by values that are characterised by convenience and immediacy. The message of the Gospel has been drowned out by the cares of the world.

Fr Joseph Cardijn described this phenomenon as a “worker problem, world problem, human problem, apostolic and missionary problem!” When and where “apostles” and “missionaries” accompanied Christians in the manner of Christ accompanying them, then faith in Christ shaped their lives. That this accompaniment has declined significantly in Australia was inevitable, given the increasingly materialistic and consumerist character of our culture. The call of the Gospel is to live with a generous and forgiving heart and to be attentive to the struggles of those around us.

In the Gospel for Tuesday of the Third week of Lent (Matthew 18:21-35), Jesus responds to Peter’s question about forgiveness with a parable that contrasts God’s compassion and forgiveness with the actions of the unjust servant. Our relationship with our neighbour (Love your neighbour.) must be a reflection of our relationship with God (Love God.). When the commitment to religious observance declines, then peoples’ relationship with God suffers and there will be significant changes in the values that people uphold.

Reversing the trend does not mean returning to the past because often what existed in the past was merely religion on show, that is, people practised their “faith” without understanding or appreciating the relationship with God on which the practice is founded. We would do well to learn from others about living our faith through walking with those in need and strengthening our commitment through being in the presence of God. I listened to Amar Singh, an Australian Sikh, as he told the ABC presenter Richard Fidler about the importance of his faith and his religious practices to his compassionate responses to the needs of people he met in his work as a truck driver. He reflected on his experience of being in the presence of God and how in a sense it completed his life. May we, too, find fulfilment in being in God’s presence as we go about our work each day.

Author

Pat Branson

Catholic school enrolments trending down – A Victoria University report, 26 September, 2019 presenting evidence of changing values in Australian culture

Church Attendance in Australia – a National Church Life Survey (NCLS) report. The McCrindle infographic on Church attendance in Australia will provide more insights into the ways Australians think about life and faith

Pope Francis’ messages against ideologies in the Church Rome Reports, 1 March, 2023

The world today and the apostolate of the laity: Keynote Address by Fr Joseph Cardijn to the World Congress for the Lay Apostolate, Rome, October 1951

Readings for the Mass celebrated on Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent.

Amar Singh’s love for faith, family and country: ABC Conversations with Richard Fidler, Monday, 13 March, 2023

5 March 20235 March 2023

Our human and divine destinies

Reverse ageism is an issue affecting young workers in Australia. Reverse ageism is “discriminating against someone because they are younger, as opposed to older.” The discrimination occurs because work conditions tend to be age-based rather than on the level of skill. The Young Workers Centre, based in Melbourne, helps young workers in Victoria to develop “the knowledge and skills needed to end workplace exploitation and insecurity.” YWC exists to help young workers to challenge ageism without devaluing human dignity.

When Fr Joseph Cardijn helped to found the young workers movement, which we know as the Young Christian Workers (YCW), almost a century ago, he was intent on forming people in faith. His goal was,

“the resurrection of the working class, which will emerge, from the tomb of error, exploitation, and slavery in which liberalism buried it for centuries.”

He spoke about this goal of the YCW in a series of lectures titled, The young worker faces life, which he delivered in Godinne, Belgium, in 1948. Cardijn expressed confidence in achieving the goal; he viewed the leaders in the YCW as,

“apostles who, with and by Christ, by their sufferings and prayers, and even by their death on the Cross, merit with Christ this resurrection of working-class youth and of the working class of the world.”

The source of Cardijn’s confidence was his faith in Christ. I am sure that those who know his life and writings well will be able to attest to the consolation he drew from the story of the transfiguration of Jesus, which is recounted in the synoptic gospels. Matthew’s account of the event (17:1-13) is the Gospel reading for today, the Second Sunday of Lent, Year A. Cardijn’s faith in Jesus led him to speak of the human and divine destinies of each person: the human destiny of the worker is the transformation of the worker, the workplace and the world; the divine destiny is union with Christ now and in the life to come. When Peter, James and John witnessed the transfiguration of their leader, they were shown the presence of the divine in the human, the promise of faith fulfilled in the present, and to be the destiny of the faithful beyond this world.

Clearly, for people of faith, the mission of the YCW is much more than the stated mission of the YWC. Acceptance of the divine destiny of all people informs and transforms the human destiny and opens all believers to the experience of the divine in the human. And where this is the spirit in the workplace, the work and the workers are transformed, and glory is given to God. How can this be achieved? What action can we take?

Sadly, the YCW in Australia today is a poor reflection of its former self, the YCW of the fifties and sixties. Yet, it continues to provide opportunities for young workers to gather and do good in our society. For those of us, who are no longer young workers, we can support and encourage the YCW and promote the movement where it does not yet exist or where it once worked for good. Simple actions, like subscribing to the YCW newsletter and advertising the movement’s work in parish bulletins, are worth undertaking as responses to our call to be missionaries.

And going further: by adding our voices to the call for the recognition of the dignity of all workers, irrespective of the work that they do, or their age, we can add to the work of transforming our world, which is the work of all who are co-creators with God.

“Does ‘reverse ageism’ exist in the workplace? Here’s what you need to know” by Mariah Flores. In Keeping the Balance, January 4, 2023.

The young worker faces life – the Godinne lectures, delivered by Fr Joseph Cardijn in 1948.

27 February 2023

“Let us do ever so little for God”

It was a scene in the Bear Grylls interview with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that popped into my mind as I listened to a recording of Cardinal Joseph Cardijn’s talk on “The workman and his family,” given in Ballarat during his visit to Australia in 1966: “We do not reflect enough on the dignity, on the value, on the honour of work and of the worker. The cleaner of the street must be respected because without cleaners there will be accidents. There will be more and more disorder. The cleaner of the street helps society and so does each worker.” As I watched Bear Grylls walking with the President, I noticed someone clearing snow from the path. A simple job, but so important because it helped to create a sense of normality in the war zone. The street cleaner’s simple task contributed to the hope for peace in Ukraine.

When the interdependence of people in society is valued, then the dignity of each person is affirmed and celebrated. Speaking about the ordinary acts of every day in his 1949 Godinne lecture series The young worker faces life, Cardijn said: “Each one must play their part, and each one must do so as a person by knowing its value and by understanding its importance. No one can do it instead of them, just as no one can eat in his place. Each one is indispensable.” As I watched the street cleaner in Kyiv carefully scoop up a small mound of snow and deposit it in the garden beside the path, I realised how important small actions are in keeping hope alive. A small piece in a large puzzle, yet without it, the picture will be incomplete.

I believe that the human and the divine meet in small actions carried out for the glory of God. Fr Joseph Cardijn put it better in the first of his 1949 Godinne lectures when he said: “… the young worker’s role is not only human it is also divine. Each one takes the place of God; he is the image of God; he is like an agent or representative of God.” Approached with this view in mind and heart, every person’s action is a piece in a puzzle depicting the Kingdom of God. And I am taken back to 1952, when I learned through memorising the catechism questions and answers given to me by my teacher: God made me to know him, love him and serve him here on earth, and to be happy with him forever in heaven.

Jesus’ parable about the last judgment (Matthew 25:31-46) is the Gospel reading for Monday of the First Week of Lent. Its theme is found in Jesus’ declaration: “… in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (vs 40). Blessed Edmund Rice, founder of the Christian Brothers, must have modelled his life on this saying of Jesus. He wrote in a letter to one of his friends: “Let us do ever so little for God….” It is in the little things that we can do for others that we will experience the eternal in the temporal. Whatever it is that we do today, let it be done for the glory of God because when we act in this way, we are God’s co-workers and it is for this that he created us.

The workman and his family – Cardinal Joseph Cardijn’s speech given to a gathering during the Christian Social Week in Ballarat, Australia in 1966.

The young worker faces life – Fr Joseph Cardijn’s Godinne lectures, 1949

The life of Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762-1844)