An Invitation to Commonweal Subscribers
REINVENTING THE CLEVELAND COMMONWEAL LOCAL COMMUNITY
The Cleveland CLC met 29 times, about once a month, between September 13, 2017, until we ceased gathering after February 24, 2020, due to the pandemic. A total of 36 names appeared at one time or another on the membership list. Almost all of these were Commonweal subscribers. In 2018 there were about 165 Commonweal subscribers with an email address within thirty miles of the center of Cleveland. Therefore, about one out of five of subscribers expressed some interest in our CLC.
Commonweal provided me with the zip codes of subscribers with an email address who lived within thirty miles of downtown Cleveland. Analyzing that data I concluded: "In order to have CLC meetings within easy driving distance, there would have to be at least four or five CLC groups. If half of the subscribers in the area came, non-subscribers would have to be recruited if more than six persons were desired at meetings."
Only about half of our membership list came regularly, or frequently. Most of the other half came to only one meeting; some never came. These members repeatedly asked to stay on our membership list even though they had come to only one or even no meetings. The most frequent reasons for not coming regularly were conflicts with their busy lives and/or the long commute distance to meetings.
THE VIRTUAL DIMENSION STRATEGY
For a decade Commonweal had a very successful blog, dotCommonweal. Contributors posted brief articles for discussion. About fifty people commented regularly including myself in the most recent years. The blog was widely praised for creating a very civil and even caring virtual community. However, Commonweal wisely decided that it was better to promote local communities and conversations. Fifty CLCs later, that decision certainly seems justified. Fifty communities consisting of even small numbers who are able to interact with one another, and their local communities, are better than one community of about fifty persons who do not meet each other and do not interact as a group with their communities.
The difficulties our CLC members experienced with travel distances and time conflicts suggest expanding our present Blogger website to include posts and comments by members may be a wise way to build upon dotCommonweal experience. Why not build a fifty person or more virtual community among Cleveland subscribers? Our blog would give us the advantage of acting publicly and collaboratively especially around critical issues of local interest.
This journey into becoming a virtual community is beginning with an anonymous survey of our present membership list. We can begin to speak and listen to each other with the hassle of finding time and a meeting place. As a veteran planner for the mental health system, I know those who show up for a meeting and who speak are often not representative of all interests. Often meetings inhibit the expression of different viewpoints. Beginning with an anonymous survey that brings forth everyone's opinions, so we see the big picture but also the details. Like other synodality processes our aim should be to respond to everyone not simply the majority.
Now we are inviting all Commonweal subscribers in the area to participate in this survey by becoming a part of our virtual community. We not only want to listen to your opinions we want to enable you to be part of what we do virtually.
The survey covers the virtual dimension of our local CLC, the Bishop's recent Pastoral Letter as a framework for development local groups and discusses models and logistics for organizing both physical and virtual groups.
THE PASTORAL LETTER STRATEGY
Bishop Malesic's pastoral letter provides a very promising framework for developing our Cleveland CLC. Having a local flourishing apostolic church is one of the "issues that matters most" for our CLC. The bishop has identified concrete ways of doing this for our diocese. Most importantly he has challenged us as individuals and small groups to take the initiative to create a flourishing church in our own lives.
“It’s simply a letter about how we can draw closer to Christ, and there is no controversy in that,” Bishop Malesic said. “Let’s just pray 15 minutes a day; join a small group; invite your Catholic neighbors and friends together to have a cup of coffee and talk about ‘Why are you Catholic?’; ‘How can you become a disciple of Jesus?’ I think these are the basic things.”
-from a media interview of the bishop
I invite every Catholic in the Diocese of Cleveland to read this pastoral letter in its entirety, as I have written it with each of you in mind. Make notes and underline your copy of the letter; Consider reading it more than just once. then, meet with some other Catholics who have read this letter and discuss it in a small group. Over the next year I would like this letter to be at the forefront of conversations around the diocese. (page 2)
The letter focuses upon practical things: fifteen minutes of prayer each day, having a small group that supports us spiritually, sharing our stories with others, and developing a very concrete sense of mission in our daily lives.
Most importantly Bishop Malesic expresses his confidence that we can decide for ourselves the best way to pray, develop our own support system, tell our stories, and identify our missions. That should result in our walking together around a common framework, each listening to one another as we use our personal experience to find practical ways of doing these things appropriate to our own situations.
Bishop Malesic seems to have written the letter for me, personally. That is really amazing since we have never met. I have read it, underlined it, and made notes upon it to share with others, especially with our CLC community. All of this is in a post designed to begin our discussion
Bishop Malesic, in the footsteps of Pope Francis, wants us to be more than disciples, good Catholics that go to church on Sunday. Both want us to have a sense of mission, sharing the joy of the Gospel with the whole world, not as protagonists but as witnesses of our lives.
Likewise, as readers of Commonweal we should do more than just read articles. We should share with others our concerns about the important issues of our time and place. Discussing these in a public blog and inviting nonsubscribers both to our blog and local meetings are ways of having an impact upon our surrounding communities, both ecclesial and civic.
In all this we should be witnesses rather than protagonists. Sharing the gifts that our members bring to the table of life is one of the most important parts of that witness.
SAINT GABRIEL HOURS STATEGY
Bishop Malesic wants us to pray at least fifteen minutes a day. He is confident that each Catholic can decide best how to pray. The Saint Gabriel Hours Website uses virtual resources to make it easy to pray Morning and Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. I am confident that each Catholic can use the website to decide how best to pray the Hours. To do that the website emphasizes fifteen minutes of quality prayer a day. That is about the time it takes to pray either Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer.
The website emphasizes spending quality time with elements of the Hours (hymns, psalms, readings) even if one does not have time to complete the whole Hour. The website brings the riches of the Office to our phones and computers. It can help us search for the best way to pray. This common experience of prayer should help us discuss the role of prayer in our lives. It is a good place for our CLC to begin to take a leading role in promoting fifteen minutes of prayer in this diocese.
Vatican II revised the Liturgy of the Hours, spreading the Psalms over four weeks rather than one week. Although the Council encourages Catholics to pray the Hours with the clergy or together in groups, or even alone, the revised Hours have failed to have much of an impact upon lay Catholics. The breviary remains a complicated book with multiple ribbons, a daunting task to understand and use. Celebration of the Hours in our parishes competes with multiple Masses on weekends and many competing activities in our lives.
Virtual resources for the Hours on our phones and computers can change all of that. The subtitle of SAINT GABRIEL HOURS is "The Good News: Praying with Christ Every Day. Anytime. Anywhere. With Anyone." Pope Francis famously pictured Christ pounding on the church door wanting to get out. The aim of the website is to liberate of the Hours from the breviary of clergy and the choirstalls of monks into the daily lives of each one of us.
Now we can pray an Hour while we take our daily walk either outdoors on using a treadmill. We can share the Hours or portions of them with our family, friends, neighbors and coworkers. The potential for evangelization is great. That is why I named it after Gabriel who is the patron of media. We can bring the message of the Hours into our daily lives.
Commonweal Catholics should be very interested in bringing the revised Liturgy of the Hours to its full potential, for developing celebrations that meet the needs of average Catholics, and that give average Catholics leading roles in their celebration. Cleveland could become a center for that. Bishop Malesic is emphasizing fifteen minutes of prayer a day. Auxiliary Bishop Woost will become chairperson of the Bishops' committee on the Liturgy in November. Our CLC could become an avantgarde, discerning the place of virtual form of the Hours in the diocese and beyond.
CONCLUSION
The virtual strategy offers our CLC an opportunity to involve Commonweal subscribers using spare moments of their time with their digital devices. The Pastoral Letter strategy offers us the opportunity to become an exemplary organization within the diocesan framework while at the same time remaining true to our charisms, both individually and collectively. The Saint Gabriel Hours strategy offers us the opportunity both individually and collectively to be leaders in the renewal of the Liturgy of the Hours. Finally, in all of this we could become a model community, exemplifying walking together, listening to one another, and aiding one another in our lives and missions.