The problems we face every day are ambiguous and ill-defined. We can’t create a list of right action that satisfies every situation. Instead, we use guiding principles and accountability to help navigate our way to doing the right thing.
Mass Readings Audio
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/18_08_19.mp3
Welcome to the twenty-first episode of By Your Life. Thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please subscribe on the right side of the page so I can send you notifications when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend you think would benefit from By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It is my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace, and to trust that it is good for business. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we will reflect on the readings for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The first reading from the Book of Proverbs and the second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians have a common theme. That is, encouraging us to not live in foolishness, but to grow in wisdom and understanding.
I started reflecting on this Sunday’s readings about a week ago. I had so many examples of wisdom and foolishness that I could talk about from my experience in the workplace. And then, the Pennsylvania grand jury report about the 70 years of abuse by priests was made public and everything I had to say was silly by comparison to the seriousness of the findings published in this report.
Like many of you I was sickened and angered by what I read. Mostly, I was saddened. I was sad for the victims. I was sad for the holy men who share the title “Priest of Jesus Christ.” I was sad for the Catholic Church. I was sad for the continued wounds to His Sacred Heart. Believe it or not, I was also sad for those who committed these sins and those who failed to act appropriately when they learned about it.
A lot of people responded with heartfelt attacks against the Church. Some use the stories of abuse as justification for why they left or plan to leave. This saddens me too. I was also saddened by those who attacked the prosecution and the media for investigating and disclosing these crimes by suggesting that other institutions, schools, other churches, do the same thing, as if the “everyone’s doing it” defense is a valid one. (It is not and never has been!)
We are right to be angry, sick, hurt, and sad about sin in the world and these sins in particular. The truth is, what happened (and continues to happen regardless of who is doing it) is a sin against God and man. This does not reflect the moral teachings of Christ or His Bride the Church. Despite the failure of these people whom we should have been able to trust, the Church’s teachings are still sound moral truth and guide us to live in wisdom, not foolishness.
So, what can we learn from the readings, the Church scandal, and other institutional failures that we can apply to our businesses? There is a lot.
Our readings this Sunday invite us to live in wisdom. In the Book of Proverbs, this invitation from Woman Wisdom to “Forsake foolishness that you may live” is followed by a similar invitation from Woman Folly but in the end, we learn “that her guests are in the depths of Sheol”. While the two invitations sound similar in the beginning, Wisdom demands that her guests reject their ignorance, whereas Woman Folly trades on their ignorance.
When my daughter was about 6 years old, she commented about a toy that was being advertised on TV. I think it was a Barbie that was supposed to do all kinds of tricks. She said, “They look really cool on TV, but when you buy them, they aren’t as much fun.” Ah, the wisdom of a 6-year-old!
While deceptive advertising of a child’s toy may not seem to be a horrific offense, we’ve heard many stories of companies who’ve preyed on the ignorance of their customers for a financial gain. The financial crisis was created in part by banks who offered mortgage products to people who couldn’t afford them. But the banks aren’t the only ones who are responsible. Enticed by the sweetness of the offer, some people ignored the reality of their finances and bought houses their paychecks couldn’t support.
We often mistake foolishness for wisdom, and what is wise, we perceive to be foolish. Oh, how my life has been filled with this confusion! My life’s lessons have been a sometimes-painful process of sorting it all out. Perhaps you can relate. Wisdom can be the hindsight of foolishness.
Wisdom is the hindsight of foolishness.400 years before Christ, Aristotle taught about “practical wisdom” which is essentially the moral will to do the right thing and the moral skill to figure out what the right thing is.
The problem is although we are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore have a built-in desire for what is good and right and true, we also suffer from the consequences of Original Sin which “darkens our minds, weakens our wills and inclines us to sin.” (USCCB.org)
As leaders, knowing that we are inclined to sin, we have to develop the ability to do what is right in particular circumstances and to help each other to make that right choice too. Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe, authors of Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing, put it this way:
“Practical wisdom is akin to the kind of skill that a craftsman needs to build a boat or a house, or that a jazz musician needs to improvise. Except that practical wisdom is not a technical or artistic skill. It is a moral skill—a skill that enables us to discern how to treat people in our everyday social activities.”
Practical wisdom is a moral skill that enables us to discern how to treat people. ~ Barry Schwartz @BarrySchSchwartz and Sharpe continue: “It is here that Aristotle focuses our attention on something critically important: character and practical wisdom must be cultivated by major institutions in which we practice.” For example, doctors, lawyers, and teachers, must cultivate practical wisdom in their professional development. I would add to this that every organization must cultivate an environment that develops practical wisdom within its workforce.
What do I mean by this? As a leader, it is essential for you to help your employees put into practice moral decision making as it specifically relates to your company’s purpose. Why? Because regardless of its specific purpose, every business is comprised of people serving people. And, as Schwartz says, “any work that involves interaction with other people is moral work.”
As leaders, it is not sufficient to provide our employees with job descriptions that detail tasks to be completed because the problems they will face every day are often ambiguous and ill-defined. We cannot possibly create a list of right action that will satisfy every situation and circumstance. Instead, we use guiding principles to help navigate the way to doing the right thing. In business, these guiding principles are a company’s core values. In life, they can be summed up in the two Great Commandments.
But, if we are to live a moral life personally and professionally, we need help. Even those of us with a strong moral will are prone to give up if we have to constantly swim against the current. As leaders, we need to create the environment where we define, share, institutionalize, and honor core values, and encourage and support others to do the same.
Many organizations espouse core values, but they fail to live and honor them. Companies like Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, and Equifax suffered significant damage to their brands when they violated their values and therefore their customers’ trust. Great leaders don’t just assume that if they issue a decree everyone will do the right thing. They have built-in and proactive accountability to continuously help their employees grow and develop in alignment with their core values. They hire, develop, discipline and fire people based on their willingness to live the values so that everyone in the organization, from the boiler room to the boardroom is committed and held accountable to the values. And when they fail, (and they assume they will fail), they make it right. Failure is inevitable. The key is to catch it early, make it right, and then figure out how to prevent it from happening again.
So, wisdom is applying knowledge to do what is good and moral and right. But we cannot speak the moral life without acknowledging the reality of sin, our own sinfulness, and our need for God’s mercy. The moral life requires grace.
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. ~ Charles SpurgeonThe source of grace is at the core of the Gospel reading. Jesus knows our human weakness, that is why He gave us the gift of grace in his sacraments. He was very clear. Seven times he says, we must eat his flesh if we want to live. The grace we need to live a moral life, to respond to Wisdom’s invitation and no longer live as foolish persons, is the grace we receive in the Body and Blood of Christ.
For He says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” This “remaining” is the inner presence of the Holy Spirit that is actively enlightening our moral compass and supplying us with the spiritual strength to do the right thing.
Our Church is hurting right now. Every Catholic has been impacted in some way by this grave sin and breach of trust. To move forward, we must keep our eyes on Christ. For He is the Head of the Church. We will always be disappointed by priests, religious, parish staff members and each other. But if we remain in Him, He will remain in us and we will have His life within us.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to give us the grace to do the right thing, at the right time, and for the right reasons.
May God bless you abundantly and may you glorify the Lord by your life. Amen
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Many thanks to Fr. Stan Fortuna for his musical gifts, especially the traditional and contemporary versions of Come Holy Ghost (Come Holy Spirit) that you hear in this podcast. You can find more from Fr. Stan http://www.francescoproductions.com/ or on Facebook.
