[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Equip Cast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Jansen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration to equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission. Let's go.

Everybody, welcome to the Equip Cast Coaches Corner, where I break down important topics to equip you and your team for mission in your family, in your church, and in your ministry. All right. My name is Jim Jansen, and today I'm gonna talk about Pope Leo's Christmas list. Right? So what do you do? What? What do you get from the man who has everything?

Or, or at least has like a lot, a lot of responsibility. Uh, pretty cool place to live. Like what would you do if Pope Leo were on your [00:01:00] Christmas list? I wouldn't even know where to begin except for that. He's actually left us a list. Okay. Well, I mean, he hasn't actually left us a list of what he wants for Christmas, but what he has done is he is left us a list of his priorities.

What does he want? What does he desire? I think it's kind of funny that some people are wondering what his priorities are and waiting to know, you know, where does he desire to lead the church? I don't think we have to wait. I think he's already told us. So I wanna break down for you, Pope Leo's first address to the College of Cardinals.

I'm gonna be citing a little selection of his, uh, homily with the cardinals, uh, at mass. May 10th, 2025. That is two days after being elected. Right away. He was very clear about what was on his heart, what was on his mind, where he wanted to lead the church. And I'm just gonna, 'cause it's the season, gonna take this [00:02:00] through the lens of a Christmas list, right?

This is his wishlist. So he begins like this. He says, I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the Universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the second Vatican Council. Right. So I'll just pause there. First off, immediately he's going back to the Second Vatican Council and the themes that came out of those documents, the engagement with the modern world, the vocation of the laity.

The Universal call to holiness and the Universal call to mission. He's immediately kind of harkening back to those and he is saying for the last several decades, his pontificate is going to follow the same path as Pope Francis and Pope Benedict and John Paul ii and on and on and on. All the way back to Paul the six, John the 23rd Saints I might add.

Saint John the 23rd Saint Paul, the six [00:03:00] Saint John Paul ii. Like he. He's going to be following the same program. And then he says, quote, Pope Francis masterfully and con freely set it forth in the apostolic exhortation. Evangelic, guardium, right? That's the joy of the gospel. And he says, I'd like to highlight several points.

And here comes his list. He lists out six things. That he desires where he would like to leave the church, where he thinks we're being called by the spirit to give the best of our time, energy, and attention. So here we go. Number one, he says, the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation. So for like years now.

We've been on a path to rediscover. What does it mean to proclaim the good news? And part of what Pope Leo is highlighting for us is that it means putting Christ first. At some point in the [00:04:00] process of evangelization, there's this really important pivot that everything we do leads up to this moment and everything flows from it.

According to John Paul ii, it is proclamation and specifically the proclamation of Christ. That is the hinge on which all evangelization turns that at some point we have to be able to say like, you know. The Lord made you for more than this. He made you for relationship and love and peace and joy and sins kind of in the way.

It's ruining it. It's ruining your relationship with yourself, with others, and with God. But Jesus, Jesus died to bridge that gap he died to, to bring you back into relationship with God and with others. And if you let him. If you respond in faith and hope he will rescue you, that's a short, simple proclamation of the gospel, right?

We, we just need to be aware that without Jesus, [00:05:00] we're nothing, not just we like individuals, but we as a community, he has to be primary in our teaching. So I'm gonna quote Cardinal Avery Dulles of happy memory. He has, uh, since passed away, he had this, this quote, he said that. The evangelization in the church now suffers from an excessive ecclesial.

Centrism. What does that mean? Well, that's theologian. Speak from a very smart man to say we talk too much about ourselves and not enough about Jesus. Right? The holidays when we get together with friends and family, right? Some family that we're maybe not genetically related to, that we didn't grow up with, right?

Family by, by marriage. It always goes better when the beloved is there for the sake of our loved one. You know, think of a, think of a spouse. The idiosyncrasies of their family tree, their in-laws, right? Your in-laws, their siblings, their parents. All of that goes better when [00:06:00] the beloved is there, and for the sake of the beloved, we can tolerate and even come to love those oddities and differences.

That's the way it's with Jesus. Jesus is the only thing that really makes it tolerable to be a part of our Christian communities. 'cause we're not the lovable ones, we're the awkward ones, right? We're the in-laws, but it is for the sake of Jesus that we can be there and begin to love one another because he first loved us and he helps show us how to love all those other imperfect people around us.

Okay, so that's number one, a return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation number two, Pope Leo's wishlist here. Uh, Christmas wishlist, the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community. What does he mean by that? Well. He's kind of echoing back to something that John Paul II said in, uh, the mission of the Redeemer John Paul's, uh, document literally [00:07:00] from 1990, like over 30 years ago.

Now, stop and think about it. 30 years ago, missionary discipleship was not part of the common language of the church. The new evangelization was not part of the common language making missional communities all of that like. All of that was very foreign. And in 1990, John Paul II said this, he said, A radical conversion in thinking is required in order to become missionary, both for individuals and for entire communities that like we have to learn how to think differently because we're not currently living as missionaries.

Our habits, our ways of thinking aren't orientated. To be missionary, which is why we need a missionary conversion for the entire Christian community. John Paul II goes on to say the effectiveness of everything we do, organizations, movements, parishes, apostolics works. They all need to be measured in light of their missionary imperative to the [00:08:00] degree that they are missionary and fruitful in that endeavor.

That's how we measure their effectiveness. And then he gets this really cool prophetic like. Gift to us. John Paul II says, only by becoming missionary will the Christian community be able to overcome its internal divisions and tensions and rediscover its unity and strength of faith. Wow. The division, the tension, the lack of strength in our faith, all of that can be discovered and can only be rediscovered if.

We become missionary. This is why it's number two on Pope Leo's Christmas list, the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community. Okay, number three, growth in collegiality and ality. Now again, I just, you know, sometimes collegiality, ality, it's just, I mean, if I can like oversimplify it for a bit as a dad, [00:09:00] it's just listening to one another.

It's just working together. And again, as a dad, as I think about when my children are home, I love it when I see them really working together. Whether it's preparing a meal for the holidays, whether it's wrapping gifts and you know, preparing last minute, things like that, or whether it's just even better just sitting and talking to one another and actually listening to each other, especially the little ones that, that's what's on Pope Leo's heart collegiality and ality.

That's number three. Number four, attention to the census vide, especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms. Alright, what does that mean? Well, census vide means the sense of the faithful. What he's getting at here is we need to pay attention to the expressions of faith that naturally arise as, uh, out of the work of the Holy Spirit in his people.[00:10:00]

Again, as a father, I think about this way when, when my lovely wife and I are planning a family gathering and we, you know, we're trying to like, make sure that we create some space and time for the fun and the, the connection that we desire. It always goes better when we pay attention to what naturally arises.

Like what do they want to do? Does it just, does it just become a pickup game, a football in the yard? Do people just get out the guitars and start to play? Is there a favorite game? Is there favorite food or music that just seems to gather people together in similar fashion? Pope Leo's encouraging us to attend to what expressions of faith and love naturally arise, the devotions that naturally come out of the people of God.

All right, that's number four. Number five, loving care for the least and rejected. Again, as a dad. This is not complicated. This isn't rocket [00:11:00] science. It doesn't need a lot of explanation here. I can just say as a dad, when I see the little ones remembered, right, the, the elderly who are slow, when the little ones who maybe need a little help cutting up their food, they can't wrap the gifts themselves.

They slow everybody else down. When I see loving care for the least and rejected that, that gladdens my heart as a father, and that's what's on Pope Leo's heart here. Loving care for the least and rejected. That's number five, number six. This is the last one here he says. He wants a courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in all its various components and realities.

And he coached the, uh, second Vatican council. Okay. I mean, we could say a lot about this one dialogue with a contemporary world. I mean, that's a lot. That's, that's entertainment in its movies and its [00:12:00] politics and its culture. And in its most simple form, it's conversation with your neighbor. There's a special joy about the holidays where you can just have a conversation with your neighbor, and I know it's cold outside and everybody wants to get back inside, but just take a moment to have a conversation and to listen, to understand, and then to be understood.

That's our own little way, right. Of being able to engage to get Pope Leo right, his sixth item on his uh, Christmas wishlist to be able to have dialogue with the contemporary world. Alright, lemme pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you for the gift of our first American Pope, Pope Leo the 14th.

We ask that you would shower him with graces during this season that you would. Protect and guide and lead him that you would open our hearts and minds to desire, uh, what you offer us [00:13:00] and where our Holy Father, Pope Leo, desires to lead us. Amen. All. What are your thoughts? You can respond back in the chat@quiparchomaha.org.

Again, that's quip arch omaha.org. Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening to the Quip Cast. We hope this episode has inspired you to live your faith and to equip you to be fruitful in your mission. Stay connected with us by going to equip arch omaha org. God bless and see you next time.