Hi friend and welcome to SC! We’re the fastest growing community to support Pope Francis – free of trolls, toxicity, and ads. We’re helping faithful Catholics regroup, renew our hope, and get a little smarter.
Just 1 year after Our Lady saved the world from the 2012 Mayan apocalypse (I’m kidding), she gifted us Pope Francis, who has gone on to provide some of the most beautiful, challenging, provoking, and timely guidance we’ve ever had.
But, there are so few of us willing to stand up and be counted. So few who ‘get’ that many of us have been resisting change and growth for a long time. So many of us who silence our own voices and our own impact, because we’re afraid or unnerved by others.
You are incredibly important.
Joining us means you get to meet other people like you, people who believe in a culture of kindness and learning. You need both together. Pope Francis is constantly sharing insights and outlooks that change lives. It’s changed ours. We need the inspiration of others, a space to ask questions and share ideas, to understand the impact of his words.
What’s sad is that this should be the norm for every Catholic parish and group out there. Being faithful to the holy Father isn’t supposed to be special. But we live in a time when it is. So what should we do about it?
Find friends who think like us. Do our research together, Share what we learn. Get smarter. Because when we change ourselves, and when we grow, and the Holy Spirit is active within us – we change our world. We each have a ‘zone of impact’, our circle of family and friends. They are our ‘mission field’.
But not all of us are called to be missionaries. Some of us are called to just be. Some are not called to preach. Some are called to preach without words. Some are called to have street smarts.
And that’s why we’re called Smart Catholics. Not because we’re all geniuses. I sure am not. I’m the learner in chief.
Like you, a lot of us are incredibly busy. We don’t have time to go get theological degrees to answer hard questions from kids, friends, or loved ones. Some of us do, and they join us as ministries to share their skills and tools.
We do need super smart professors, and we need thriving parishes. But that’s not who we are. We can’t learn everything by ourselves. We don’t have the time to debate speculative theology, and deal with the tiny details.
We have to relate to real people. Real situations. At work, at home, online. and sadly, with no ill will. too much of the way we’ve been catechized, or taught our Faith, isn’t rooted in God’s relentless love for us.
The Christian life that Pope Francis models is strange to many of us – as strange as St Francis, St Mary Magdalene, or Christ. It’s surprising. but its street smart.
We need the street smarts that come from being on the frontier.
But we’re not a front line. We have to let the military ideas go. We’re not at war with the world, or ourselves, or each other. God so loves the world… so we will too. And each other.
Now, that doesn’t mean we agree with everything. But like Pope Francis, reality is greater than ideas. and too many ‘professional Catholics’ are obsessed with ideas.
Ask yourself this: what happens when you stop silencing your own contribution? What happens when you find the strength to own your own voice, and perhaps quietly, firmly, live out the truths you believe? What kind of peace and joy can you find when you stop letting an influencer’s clickbait run your life? What happens to your world? What’s the impact on the world, if we’re only 7 connections away from each other? Who are you called to be?
These are the question we’re asking ourselves. Who you are matters. What you’re interested in matters. Who you want to be, matters.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t work with cookie molds. He breathes in you as a unique expression of God’s infinity divine creativity. That’s what Wisdom is, the understanding of God, the living in his presence, the practice of the reverence of the holy mystery present in the world, in each other, in you, in me.
The world needs your presence, your creativity, and your street smarts. I can’t wait to learn from you.
