CHARLOTTE — More than 2,000 people packed St. Matthew Church in south Charlotte May 20 to hear "Dynamic Catholic" speaker Matthew Kelly during an evening of several conferences on "Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose."
The author of several best-selling books, including "Rediscovering Catholicism" and "The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic," captured his audience's attention right from the start, injecting his remarks with lots of humor yet sharing some dire statistics concerning the state of the Church in the United States.
Kelly pointed out a major concern widely noticed in the Church today: the average Catholic is not actively participating at Sunday Mass.
"If you visit any Catholic church in America on Sunday morning, what would you discover? There's a spectrum of engagement. You got some people in the pews 100 percent engaged; other people 80 percent, 60 percent, 30 percent ... So a fundamental challenge in this moment in history is an engagement issue," Kelly said.
"How do we drive engagement? How do we drive engagement in ourselves? How do we drive engagement in our family and friends? How do we drive engagement in our parish? How do we drive engagement in our community?" he asked the audience.
The answer to those questions, he continued, can be found by examining the experiences of people who live with passion and purpose – and not just religious people. According to Kelly, people who live with passion and purpose are highly engaged in every aspect of their lives.
"Living with passion and purpose is a by-product of other things," he noted, and two traits set apart these men and women. "They are hungry for 'best practices'" and "they are committed to continuous learning," he said.
"Interestingly, these first two qualities have nothing to do with our faith. Wherever you find excellence on this planet, you find these two qualities. When these two things are absent, we tend to be taken over by mediocrity."
Kelly continued, "Disturbingly, these two qualities are alarmingly absent from the life of our Church in this moment in history. As Catholics, we tend not to be hungry for best practices. We don't want to do it the best way. We want to do it our way! We think we are Frank Sinatra."
But, he said, we have plenty of examples to follow, in the communion of saints. They are the "kings" and "queens" of best practices when it comes to Catholic spirituality.
"If we were really hungry for best practices, we would know all about them," he said.
Kelly encouraged the audience to take a pen and paper with them to Sunday Mass, then take notes from the homily being delivered by the priest or deacon.
He acknowledged that it's not part of Catholic culture to take notes at Mass, he said. But, he added, that means "what we are really saying is, 'You know, I'm not even going to bring a pen and paper because Father has nothing good to say.' You know what? We're saying that's even worse than that: We're saying, 'God's not going to speak to me at church.' Because if we believe that God was going to speak to us at church, we would bring pen and paper."
People who live life with passion and purpose also possess clarity and ease of decision-making, he said. "They know who they are. They know what they are here for. They know what matters most, and they know what matters least."
"God wants you to become a phenomenal decision-maker. He wants your 'yes' to be a strong, powerful, passionate, enthusiastic 'yes!' And He wants your 'no' to be a firm, resolute 'no,'" he said.
How do we possess this kind of clarity? Solitude, silence and prayer, he said.
Personal silence and solitude are essential to listening to God's voice in our lives. "To thrive, you need silence," he said.
God speaks to us in many ways, Kelly continued. First, He meets our most basic needs. Second, He gives us talents and abilities to serve Him and others in this world. Our talents enable us all to make a difference in other people's lives, if we don't discount our ability to do so, he said. Our individual, unique talents also give us the chance to excel in certain areas, such as music or sports.
"Our culture obsesses about these unique abilities. But when you put these two things side by side: Become the best football player in the world, side by side with making a difference in somebody else's life, the football thing becomes trivial. Why? Because it is. Because we are made for meaning, and we can't live without it," Kelly said.
"When you put things in context, you discover their true value," Kelly said. "Who is the best in the world in creating context? The Catholic Church. (It's) been creating context for 2,000 years."
"We come here to church on Sundays to get some context," he continued. "We come here to church on Sundays to realign our lives in the context of the Gospel. The Gospel is the ultimate context because it shows us the true value of everything.
"I'm telling you, there's genius in Catholicism. You scratch below the surface, and there's genius in Catholicism."
— Rico De Silva, Hispanic Communications Reporter