September 6, 2026
Dear Friends,
Those of you who attended our Advent Celebration last November probably remember our presenter, Dr. Andy Root. Andy shared with us some reflections on why we feel so exhausted all the time and how we could slow down during the Advent season. I first became acquainted with Andy’s work in 2020, when a friend of mine introduced me to a series of books he was writing on ministry in a secular age. I read several of those books over the past few years and have regularly listened to Andy’s Podcast, which is now called Ministry in a Secular Age.
In an episode of his podcast that was released August 28, Andy made reference to his book The Relational Pastor: Sharing in Christ by Sharing Ourselves, hereafter TRP, which he published in 2012. I had not read the book, but I found it on one of my bookshelves. When I checked my Amazon account, it indicated that I had purchased it in March of 2021, which was at the time I was reading several of Andy’s other books. Somehow, I never got around to reading it, but was so inspired by what Andy said in the podcast that I started reading it that very day.
While I haven’t finished the book yet, I have found it to be insightful and inspiring. Andy argues “that ‘relationship’ is the very goal (not a tool) of ministry.” (TRP, 10) He makes the case that our consumeristic culture has formed us to consider others as individuals with wants, rather than as persons with needs. He writes:
These words (individual and person) may seem to be synonymous, but they are fundamentally different […]. [P]ersonhood, as opposed to individualism, sees relationship with others as the very ontological structure of humanity. Or to say it in a less jargon-y way, personhood claims that we are our relationships. Relationships are not what we decide to be loyal to, not devices that bring loyalty to ideologies, but what give us our very selves. We are relationships, they are the very core of our existence, the source of life. (TRP, 18)
Andy’s words helped me to recognize in the words we hear Jesus speak to us in the Gospel this Sunday a call to honor the personhood of all the members of the Church, even when we find ourselves in disagreement or conflict with each other. Jesus challenges us to see and treat others not as “opponents,” but as sisters and brothers with whom we have a relationship in Christ. That is why the Lord calls us to seek and to work for reconciliation with our sisters and brothers.
Later in the book, Andy writes:
“Brother, ” “friend,” “mother” are the designations given to persons. An individual is a boss, consumer, professor, voter and so forth. The very label denotes a function; you are given this by individually doing something toward some interest. […] But the denotations of “brother,” “friend,” or “mother” are not constructed to signify a function but a relationship. (TRP, 62)
In a chapter in which he reflects on what it means to be a person, Andy writes, “So to be in relationship is not to seek to influence someone’s interest, but to share the other’s place, by indwelling them through relationship.” (TRP, 73). Then he reflects on how Jesus indwells us as persons through the Holy Eucharist. He writes:
There is something very sacramental here. Taking Communion is to consume the body of Jesus, participating in indwelling organically, spiritually and socially (we don’t give ourselves Communion alone). Indwelling is so central that we are to take Jesus’ body and blood into our own; his person is fully indwelling us.” (TRP, 75)
As we come together this Sunday to celebrate and receive the Holy Eucharist, we are invited to rediscover and recommit ourselves to our relationship with the Lord Jesus and with our sisters and brothers in Christ. We encounter and receive the person of Christ in the Eucharist, who indwells us, which allows us to encounter and receive our sisters and brothers, even in times of conflict, as persons with whom we are in relationship and with whom we share in the life of Christ.
Peace,
Father Leo