Catholic Life Ministries

By Robert Fontana

Lent challenges me to do what Jesus advised: take the “beam” from my eye before I try taking a “splinter” from someone else’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5) And this Lent, I’ve decided that jigsaw puzzles are going to help me (and us) do that.  

You might ask, “Just how is doing a jigsaw puzzle helping me take “the beam out of my eye?” First, working on a jigsaw puzzle demands paying attention to details (not an easy thing for me). It’s a quieting exercise that requires slowing down and searching for shapes and colors that connect. There is also a beautiful intimacy to it. Lori and I sit next to each other. We help one another out, cheer each other on, and commiserate together when it seems impossible. And then, we continue on, searching for shapes, contours, colors, and little images or markings that will help connect one piece to another.

The slow work of doing a jigsaw puzzle resembles the slow work of taking a “beam” out of my eye. It begins with paying attention to me, to what happens to me while I interact with life, especially with people. I notice my reactions, try to step away from judging others, and examine my responses, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

I remember the first time that this happened to me in a big way. Right out of high school, I was doing volunteer work at a Catholic parish on a Navajo Indian Reservation. I had never been west of Dallas, Texas, never knowingly talked with Native people, and was pretty full of myself as a devout Catholic, ready to share the Catholic faith. I was taught, and believed, that  Catholicism was the one true Church; and I was ready to tell others about it.

Arriving at the parish, I discovered that we Catholics were only one of many   Christian churches competing “to help” the Navajo people. I saw an Olympic-type competition among the many    denominations to draw the Navajo children to THEIR vacation Bible school. Driving our van to pick up   children, I was on high alert dodging the other church vans doing the same thing. Pentecostals, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, and   other non-denominational groups. Though I did not quite know what it meant or how to articulate it, it felt a bit obscene to me. I did not see that I had a “beam” in my eye that needed to be taken out.

Our parish volunteer ministry team decided to do door-to-door evangelization. We practiced how to give our 4-minute evangelization spiel and set out. At one adobe home, before I could begin my spiel, a Navajo woman held up her hand and said, “Stop! Why don’t you listen to me before you open your mouth.” She followed with, “We’ve been do-good to death.”

I don’t remember the rest of our conversation clearly, but I do remember being shaken by her words. It was the beginning of my coming to realize that I had a “beam in my eye” that needed removing. But the work was slow. First, like the jigsaw puzzle, I began connecting the shapes – all the Christian churches competing for the Native children’s participation, including we Catholics – we were all “do-gooders.” The words “do-gooder” did not feel good. What did it mean? At the time, I pondered, but did not ask someone older and wiser than I.

It was not until much later that the Navajo woman’s words, “We’ve been do-good to death,” and “Why don’t you listen to me before you open your mouth?” began to really bother me. I hadn’t really listened to her. I had so much to say. Sadly, I started doing youth ministry a few years later with the same “do-gooder” beam in my eye. I had so much to say to young people and gave the most god-awful retreats. The saving grace was that we had fun, ate well, and there were good, caring people working with me. But again, I talked at the young people and did not listen to them because I had a “beam in my eye” and did not know it.

Fast forward to graduate school, youth ministry training and learning a Catholic theology of grace: that all of creation, though wounded by sin, is imbued with the presence of God. God is fully active in the lives of every human being, regardless of race, creed, or color. If this is true, then every person deserves to be respected and heard. And, if this is true, then the method of evangelization cannot be a “monologue” which is what I was doing with the Navajo woman and my first youth group. We needed a dialogue that began with my listening to them, learning their stories, and building trust and friendship before I shared my story.

Finally, after years of looking at the shapes, colors, and contours of my encounter with that Navajo woman, I was able to name the “beam in my eye” and remove it by learning to listen to others whose world views and experiences were completely different from mine. This has been the story of my spiritual journey since, taking the beam out of my eye, as I learned to…

~ be a humble Catholic Christian;

~ be a healthy spouse to Lori and loving father to our children;

~ work with women in ministry;

~ struggle with being raised on the white side of segregation and flying a Confederate flag;

~ listen to and honor the stories of my gay family members and friends;

~ willingly encounter believers from Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Native American religious faiths;

¨ and…you get the message.

During Lent I am working on a jigsaw puzzle to help me slow down and pay attention to the jigsaw puzzle of my life. What beam needs to be removed from my eye this Lent? I’m not sure, but I’m expecting the Holy Spirit to show me one piece, one shape, one color at a time.