|
From the Pastor&
" For six and eighty years I have been serving him,
and he has done no wrong to me; how, then, dare I
blaspheme my king who has served me."
Polycarp, Bishop of the Early Church
Christian Martyr
This weekend we Christians celebrate the great feast of Pentecost: the feast of the Holy Spirit; the feast of the beginning of the Church. The church has been an important part of my life since I was a kid. I've seen the Church change during the last thirty-five years and I still love being a baptized member.
Father Henri de Lubas (1896--1991) was a French Jesuit who suffered much from misunderstanding by less gifted men in the Church during the late '40s. He was forbidden to teach theology; he was expelled from Lyons where he had taught; his books were banned and even removed from Jesuit libraries. Yet he was never questioned by Rome or his superiors, was never informed of the precise accusations.
For a decade he suffered in silence. Then in 1960 John XXIII appointed him as a theological expert for Vatican II. Our present Pope, John Paul II, named him a cardinal in 1983. How did this holy priest, who suffered from the Church he loved, influence me?
His love for the Church! In a meditation he spoke of the Church as the mother who gave him life. He spoke of the Church as paradox:
I am told that she is holy, yet I see her full of sinners. I am told that her mission is to
tear man away from earthly cares, to remind him of his eternal vocation, yet I see her constantly
preoccupied with the things of earth and of time, as if she wished to live here forever. I am assured that she is universal, as open as divine intelligence and charity, and yet I notice very often that her
members, through some sort of necessity, huddle together timidly in small groups -- as human
beings do everywhere. She is hailed as immutable, alone, stable and above the whirlpools of history, and then, suddenly, under our very eyes, she upsets many of the faithful by the suddenness of her
renewals. (1966 at Notre Dame University).
We are privileged to be members of the
Body of Christ, the Church! Some of us weep at the
crisis of the Church in our times. Some of us are angry at her. Some of us take her for granted. Some of us find her out-dated . But today's feast of Pentecost reminds us to have HOPE; the Holy Spirit in our lives is always about being people of hope.
The late
scripture scholar, Father Raymond Brown, wrote in 1975, "in
the biblical sense a krisis is a moment of judgment, and there never was a crisis so great as when Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed the inauguration of God's rule among men. The Master whose initial coming was a krisis may be speaking again to his people in the crisis of today& "
Crisis in the Church? Some of us are strict, others are elastic (not liberals or conservatives). Do people listen to papal authority? Moral and ethical questions are often decided by one's own view of freedom versus authority/church teachings.
The Eucharist, our sacrament of oneness, now divides us. Shall we kneel or stand, sing Bach or David Haas, blast heaven with the organ or strum a guitar, shake hands or give a hug or not-at-all, receive our Lord on our tongue or in our hand? Will we have the Eucharist as the number of ordained priests shrinks?
And who can be a priest? Do we want to belong to a Catholic community, or is any Christian Church okay? How do we bring the gospel to our young who were raised on TV and need "new" all the time? And I haven't even mentioned the role of women in Christ's Church!
Christ is our leader. It is Christ's Church. What is the Risen Christ saying to us on Pentecost 2000? Can the crisis be a blessing for an even greater future for the Church of Christ? Have hope! Have hope!
As for me, I go back to Polycarp the Martyr and profess my love for Christ& and his Church.
-- Fr. Bill
|
|
