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Before I forget&
Ireland is 95% Catholic. Yet Ireland is very tolerant of atheists. They even have a dial-a-prayer for atheists. You dial the number and nobody answers. -- from The Furrow
Why do they put the Gideon Bibles only in the bedrooms, where it's usually too late, and not in the bar downstairs? -- Christopher Morley
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. --Abraham Lincoln
Do you love the Church? The Church is the Body of Christ. Christ is the head and by our baptism we are members of that Body. People, real human beings, are the Church on earth. We have our failings, just as we always did. If the Church wasn't guided by the Holy Spirit, we would've have closed shop shortly after the first Pentecost. It's very easy to see the church as a sinful institution--just as we can see any family as a dysfunctional institution. But families and the Church are much more than institutions. Both are made up of human beings. I joke with my siblings that our family has material for a year sit-com, endless therapy and countless conversations for family reunions: The Church can also provide material for sit-coms, therapy and family reunions.
Just as I will always be a Murtaugh, so I hope I will always be a member of the Roman Catholic Church... not only a member but a contributing and active member of the Roman Catholic Church. What is your "commitment" of time, talent and treasure to the Church? The Church is right here in New Brighton. Right here we live out baptism, we live the Gospel, we act as disciples of Christ. The Church is more than universal, regional... it is a local community of men and women trying their best to be faithful. As Newsweek, Time, Star Tribune, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc., analyze and report the failings of the Church, hopefully we remember and appreciate the local communities we belong to. The Church, right here, visits the sick and elderly, helps kids and teenagers, works for justice, turns to those in grief, and gathers seven days a week for prayer and praise.
When we look at the Roman Catholic Church and criticize its failings and vices, let's not forget all the good it does and the virtue of her members. I'm not giving up or walking away from the Church. Despite countless failings, the Church gives me L-I-F-E. Yes, the Church is a paradox. In an address given at Notre Dame University in 1966, Father Henri de Lubac, a French Jesuit, said:
I am told she is holy, yet I see her full of sinners. I am told that her mission is to tear people away
from "their" earthly cares, to remind "them" of "their" eternal vocation, yet I see her constantly
preoccupied with the things of the 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.
It is easy to be a Christian? Absolutely not! It is easy to be a member of a local parish? Absolutely not. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, who was hanged in 1945 for conspiring to overthrow Hitler, wrote a book entitled, The Cost of Discipleship. The book contains a phrase that talks about "cheap grace and costly grace."
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without Church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a "person" will gladly go and sell all that he/she has. It is the pearl of great price to buy for which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a "person" will pluck out the eye which causes him/her to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves the nets and follows him... it is costly because it costs a "person" "their" life...
Cheap grace would give up on the Church. Costly grace means we have to work at being the Body of Christ& with the help of the Spirit. Maybe, like the rest of society, we've lowered the bar too much. Maybe, the recent events and crimes within the Church are calling us to raise the bar. Are we willing to do it?
Let's remember that the symbol of Christianity is the cross. Right now we have to carry the cross of scandal together. It is costly... cheap grace "folks" will walk away.
Fr. Bill
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