I Want to Love You Inside Out
Thoughts on the 2024 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress
One of my favorite songs is “Inside Out,” the 2016 release by The Chainsmokers. The song never charted in the U.S. and was overshadowed by their hit “Closer” later that year, but “Inside Out” is a moving expression of the desire to be deeply known and unconditionally loved, and to share that love with someone else.
“Inside Out” is not a religious song, but its theme clearly has spiritual resonances. As perhaps best expressed by St. Augustine, God knows and loves us intimately, and our deepest desire is to share in God’s love. “Be Loved” was also the theme of this year’s Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, or RECongress, focusing on God’s love for us and what it means to be transformed by being God’s beloved.
Last year, I offered some reflections on that year’s RECongress, in which many of the larger addresses and smaller workshops focused in some way on rebuilding the Church in the aftermath of COVID-19, the sexual abuse crisis, and increasing secularization. Another key theme was the role of the Eucharist in the life of the Church, linking the congress to the upcoming National Eucharistic Revival.
This year, many of the congress speakers hewed closely to the theme, focusing on the transformative power of love both inside and out: some focused on the interior, spiritual dimension of our encounter with God’s love, while others focused more on love in action in the world. Not surprisingly, however, a number of other speakers focused on the theme of synodality or on issues raised at the recent Synod on Synodality.
Note: As was the case last year, I didn’t attend RECongress; my reflections are based on videos of the larger arena workshops and the posted descriptions of the smaller workshops, which I recognize does not give me a complete perspective on the event. Also, for some reason, this year the congress organizers quickly removed information about the congress from their web site, but I found an archived version of the event program here.
“God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). As the Apostle Paul makes evident here, God’s love for us is unconditional in the sense that we don’t earn it. God embraces us with divine love no matter how far we have strayed. This was the theme of the arena workshop by Protestant minister and RECongress regular Terry Hershey, titled “The Gift of Enough.” Hershey described the experience of grace as a moment when one recognizes that who we are is sufficient for God’s love. Hershey also diagnosed the many ways we subvert this insight, trying to place limits on God’s love. Fr. Richard Leonard, S.J., an Australian pastor and author, likewise shared stories and anecdotes, many of them humorous, illustrating God’s love (if you enjoy Jesuit humor, then check out the talk). Among the smaller workshops, well-known spiritual writer and speaker Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I. spoke on identifying the reasons we so often resist divine love, and how to overcome those obstacles.
Fr. Tony Ricard, another long-time RECongress speaker and campus minister at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, focused on prayer, emphasizing that when we see ourselves as God’s beloved, we can avoid falling into routines and a business-as-usual approach to church life. With the help of four students, Ricard points out that we can sometimes get caught up in the details of prayer and liturgy, whether it is getting things “right” or saying exactly the right prayers, when in fact prayer should above all be authentic and come from our hearts. Stating that God meets us where we are, he argues that prayer and worship should draw on people’s cultural context. For example, he describes how the school masses at St. Augustine use music that is relevant to the primarily African-American students, while Gregorian Chant, on the other hand, “doesn’t speak to their hearts.” I am, of course, all in favor of inculturation, but I think this overlooks the ways traditional expressions of faith can continue to speak to all kinds of people’s hearts.
As in years past, RECongress featured Spanish-language arena workshops, and smaller workshops, in addition to English. Frequent RECongress speaker Fr. Agustino Torres, C.F.R., in his address “Un Viaje Cuaresmal para Liberar Tu Corazón,” also focused on the theme of being transformed by God’s love, turning to the theme of repentance and conversion, a particularly appropriate theme in the season of Lent, as the title suggests. Interestingly, Torres explored this theme using the language of “liberation” and “renovation.” Riardo Grzona spoke about the important role of catechesis in developing the spiritual life.
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another” (1 Jn. 4:11). Some speakers at this year’s RECongress explained that we are not just personally transformed by being beloved by God; we are called to bring that love into the world. For example, Fr. José Román Flecha Andrés, in his Spanish-language address, explained the connection between love and mercy, and then went on to show how Catholics can live out Christian love in the world by practicing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
Both John Yzaguirre and Katherine Angulo Valenzuela spoke about how families can live out Christian love. Yzaguirre, in particular, offered helpful advice on how married couples can strengthen their relationships by developing three practices or virtues: emptying ourselves of personal self-interest, loving your spouse as they want to be loved, and building mutuality in the relationship. Among the smaller workshops, Yzaguirre and his wife Claire Frazier-Yzaguirre offered a workshop on a similar theme. Hung Vu and Kim-Anh Vu offered a Vietnamese-language workshop on living out the baptismal vocation in family life.
By distinguishing between the inward and outward dimensions of love, or between spirituality and action in the world, I don’t mean to draw a sharp dichotomy. I think the phrase “inside out”—as in divine love transforms us from the inside out—helps capture how there is an inherent dynamism between spirituality and action. This point was best captured by Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J. in his arena workshop, perhaps my favorite alongside Rev. Hershey’s, which I already mentioned. Fr. Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Ministries, a faith-based organization in Los Angeles focusing on the rehabilitation of gang members. In his address, Fr. Boyle shared several anecdotes demonstrating how the ministry, by helping people experience love, assisted them in starting a new life. One of the better-known speakers at the congress, Fr. James Martin, S.J. offered a pair of workshops likewise bridging the gap between the inner and the outer, one on the story of the raising of Lazarus as a means of growing in spiritual freedom and the second on how Jesus’ ministry demonstrates the need for the Church to go out to the peripheries, to use Pope Francis’s phrase.
Although the theme of this year’s RECongress was “Be Loved,” quite a few speakers and workshops focused on synodality and the ongoing synodal process. This is contrast to last year’s congress and undoubtedly reflects the attention generated by the Synod gathering in October. For example, well-known Vatican journalist John Allen provided a helpful overview of the Synod and the synodal process, placing it in the context of other major happenings during Pope Francis’s papacy.
Theologian Fr. Allan Figueroa Deck provided a helpful Spanish-language overview of the theological concept of synodality, focusing in particular on its roots in the shared vocation of baptism. Similarly, in a very well-constructed presentation, Emilce Cuda, the Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, explained how synodality is linked to Catholic social teaching. She also introduced the concept of “synodal monuments” (monumentos sinodales), that is, the artistic, intellectual, and social works of the faithful over time that continue to provide inspiration and guidance for the Church today.
Interestingly, explaining synodality and the synodal process was given more attention in the Spanish-language keynotes, although a handful of workshops focused on this theme. For example, in the aptly titled workshop “What Are We Talking About?”, Bill Huebsch explained terms like synodality, discernment, and accompaniment. On the English-language side, Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of San Diego, spoke of his experiences as a participant at the Synod in Rome last October and about some of the pressing issues raised at the gathering. He also made remarks about the recent controversy over the Vatican declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which permitted the blessing of same-sex couples. McElroy argued that the Church must better accompany LGBTQ persons.
Along the same lines, many workshops indirectly reflected the work of the synodal process by emphasizing the accompaniment of various people sometimes marginalized in the Church. For example, Ana Barraza offered a Spanish-language workshop on spiritual care for children with disabilities, and Constance Price provided an English-language workshop addressing more generally how to welcome and include people with disabilities in parishes. Heather Banis spoke about how to address disclosures of traumatic experience during sacramental preparation. Greg Walton offered a workshop on “Issues Facing LGBTQ+ Families Today.” Accompanying migrants was a focus of both English and Spanish workshops, the former offered by Fatima Monterrubio and Sr. Sharlett Ann Wagner, Theologian Natlia Imperatori-Lee shone in workshops in English and Spanish, the former on how insights from Latino/a/e theology can inform Church life and the latter on how families can include LGBTQ persons with compassion and respect. Theologian Cecilia González-Andrieu also offered a workshop on U.S. Latina theology in Spanish.
In a rarity, Sr. Teresa Maya, CCVI gave keynotes in both English and Spanish on the role of women in the synodal process and on how the process is promoting the greater participation of women in the life of the Church.
Last year, I noted that many workshops focused on “self-care” or personal development for ministers working in the Church. This continued to be the case this year. The keynote address for the event, given by investor and entrepreneur Jessica Sarowitz focused on the role of “spiritual mentorship” as an important part of professional and personal growth, and elsewhere Colleen Moore offered a workshop on cultivating mentorship among parish ministers specifically. Similarly, signer and minister Sarah Hart offered a workshop on “ministerial burnout,” and Mike Patin offered one proposing the biblical prophet Elijah as a model for dealing with “fatigue, scarce resources, and human weakness.” Hosffman Ospino, who I interviewed for the newsletter a few months ago, spoke on the vocation of the catechist, a theme we briefly spoke on in our interview.
If you attended the RECongress and want to share your impressions of the conference, please share them in the comments below. Let me know if I got something wrong or if you picked up on different themes at the conference!