Catholics throughout diocese live faith out daily, including in workplace

By KARA KOCZUR, Globe staff reporter
(Email Kara)

In a society where people have learned the art of being busy, it can become easy for Catholics to equate their faith to an hour-long pit-stop on Sundays. For some, an hour is too long. They count down the minutes until they can watch the football game, go shopping or head back to bed.

Basically, they can't wait to get back to their "lives."

And this is in a world that for the most part considers Catholic teachings too restrictive and outdated; a world where many core Catholic beliefs are being challenged and ridiculed.

As Dr. Paul Matthews puts it, society isn't exactly "Catholic-friendly."

"There are a lot of things that get thrown around as being Catholic these days, but trying to be a Catholic that's remaining faithful to the teaching of the Magesterium, that does get to be a bit of a task," said Dr. Matthews, 44, a family practice doctor from Holy Family Parish in Emmetsburg.

It may be a difficult task, but it's one Catholics are called to live out daily, including in the workplace. Faith is to be incorporated into Catholics' lives, not separate from it. As stated in the pastoral constitution, Gaudium et Spes, lay people are to be "witnesses to Christ in all things in the midst of society." It's something Pope Benedict XVI reminded Catholics of during his April visit to the United States.

Speaking to U.S. Bishops, he said: "Is it consistent to profess our beliefs on Sunday, and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs? Is it consistent for practicing Catholics. . .to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contradict the right to human life of every human being from conception to natural death? Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted. Only when their faith permeates every aspect of their lives do Christians become truly open to the transforming power of the Gospel."

Fixing the inconsistencies

Dr. Matthews knows the inconsistencies the pope is talking about. A doctor since 1992, he was taught in residency that he must put his personal beliefs aside and prescribe birth control. After all, he was told, it was a service. Never feeling comfortable with it, he gave it up eight years ago and has been an NFP-only physician ever since.

"If you really care deeply about people, you should love them, just as much as you love your own family," he said, which is what he tries to think of when talking to patients. "Why would I tell this young lady one thing that's contrary to church teaching, and then go home and expect my daughter to live according to church teaching?"

The decision has not come without its challenges. Dr. Matthews said he has heard from others that some patients don't want to be seen by him because he won't prescribe birth control or refer them to someone who will. And although he doesn't complain, he said he has seen an "increase in persecutory behavior" from other doctors in the field who don't agree with his stance.

"What I think a lot of other physicians don't understand is that there aren't two ways about this," he said. "They just look at NFP as a type of contraception, when in fact it's actually a choice to embrace a particular lifestyle and reject another. It really is about the total person, whether you do embrace it or reject it."

Besides refusing to prescribe birth control, Dr. Matthews also rejects abortions, sterilizations and "anything that would limit the way we're supposed to love and live," he said.

Prayerful help

Dr. Matthews said he finds strength to witness his faith daily from prayer and his family, referring to his wife as his "rock here on earth." He prays throughout the day, saying short ones before seeing patients at the clinic or hospital, and making them more intense if it's an emergency or difficult situation. His family also has traditions of praying the Angelus at noon and the rosary at night. Some of his most said prayers are the Memorare, Hail Mary and Anima Christi.

"Because my days are variable, I can't always have a set time every day to pray this prayer or whatever," he said. "I have to literally incorporate my prayer life into my work."

In a way, Don Luensmann's prayer life is also based on his work schedule. As the executive director for the Chamber and Development Council of Crawford County, he spends a lot of time in meetings with businesses to discuss retail, industrial development and tourism for the county. Having "pretty fast-paced" days, Luensmann said he places prayers and Bible verses in his office to remind him to pray.

"I try not to forget that life is made up of a lot of obstacles and opportunities and regardless of whether you're failing or succeeding, prayer is an absolute necessity," said Luensmann, 48, of Sacred Heart Parish in Manning.

In the morning he tries to spend 10-15 minutes with Scripture and will pray the rosary on his drive to work. On his way home in the evening he'll pray about the day, things going on in the world and for his four children.

From time to time, Luensmann will also talk with his co-workers about faith and pro-life issues, but he said more than anything he tries to allow his behavior and actions to speak for themselves.

"We evangelize through the way that we interact with others and the things that we do," he said. "We can either make people's faiths stronger through what we do [and] how we act out our lives every day, or we can erode their faith."

The first to admit he's a sinner, Luensmann said the one thing he can do as a flawed human being is live his faith out daily. He draws much inspiration from the saints, saying they are the ones who not only inform him and his faith, but also his daily living.

"There are people out there who have gone before me, some of them tens of years, some of them just recently - people like Padre Pio, or Blessed Teresa of Calcutta or Pope John Paul II," he said. "These are people of tremendous, heroic faith that whatever I have pales in comparison to what they did."

Faith always

The saints took witnessing their faith by their lives very seriously. People gave up their lives for the faith, he said, which isn't experienced here in the United States.

"So it's very easy to say, 'Well, I don't necessarily have to follow everything when I'm at work or when I'm at home because my faith is something I do for an hour on Sunday,'" Luensmann said. "[But] if you read the Scriptures and follow the Scriptures, that's not the way it's supposed to work. You're supposed to be living your faith out every day."

Pharmicist Mia Bronk agrees. People are selling themselves short if they just attend church on Sundays, she said, and forget about it the rest of the week.

"You can't just go to church and not behave the way Jesus wants you to," said Bronk, 40, a parishioner at St. Michael's in Whittemore. "You need to try and do that every day."

Bronk works part-time at the HyVee Pharmacy in Algona. Most of her time is spent working with medication for the nursing homes in the area. However, when she is scheduled to work weekends she deals with the public by counseling them on their medication and its side-effects, as well as double-checking the medication before it goes out.

She has worked at the pharmacy for 14 years, and while she said she's never been persecuted because she's Catholic, there are instances when co-workers will make comments to others about not telling her certain jokes or using certain language.

"They'll say, 'Well, don't tell Mia because she won't want to hear it,'" she said. "It's true, I don't."

Her co-workers do approach her with questions they have about Catholicism. They want to know why Catholics have a pope and why he's the head of the church, why priests can't get married and why Catholics need to go to confession, she said. Bronk's husband has taught her some apologetics, which has helped her explain her faith to them, she said.

"I've had many opportunities to share [my faith], which has been good," she said. "I actually think that my work environment is better because of it. They understand more. ... They may not be converted the other way and joining the Catholic Church, but at least they're not against [it]."

Bronk also lives out her faith when it comes to weekend scheduling. She refuses to miss her Sunday obligation.

"Scheduling is sometimes hard, but they're used to it now," she said. "They know that I go to church every Sunday or Saturday night, no matter what."

Bronk's vocation as a wife and mother of six also gives her the opportunity to witness her faith daily to those she encounters, especially patients. She said it's amazing what people will say when they know you're pregnant and have multiple kids.

"A lot of people will say, 'Well, don't you already have 'x' amount of kids? Don't you think that's enough?'" she said. "I'll say things like, 'Children are a gift from God.' Then they'll say, 'Well, have you ever heard of birth control?'"

That's when she tells them she doesn't believe artificial birth control is part of God's plan and that she's wanted every single one of her children.

"I can't say I've ever evangelized anyone," Bronk said. "No one has ever come back and said, 'Oh, what you said was very profound,' but I've definitely shared a lot of that with different people as they've come in through the years."

One thing Dr. Matthews said he tries to remember in times of frustration is that he never knows who he will affect. Perhaps something he says to a mother now will have an effect on her daughter ten years down the road, he said.

He's not perfect, and so he needs his faith every single day, Dr. Matthews said, adding that he wouldn't be the person he is today without it.

"If you're not strong in your Catholic faith every day, whether you realize it or not, you're going to come home and be left with a plateful of inconsistencies and perhaps even some hypocrisies in how you conduct yourself at home versus how you conduct yourself at work," he said. "That sort of thing just catches up with you after awhile. I can say I've experienced it."

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