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Before I forget&
Jesuit Father Walter Burghardt is still going strong in his late eighties. He is a great theologian and preacher. But most of all, he has a great love for the Church, the Body of Christ. Several years ago he wrote:
In the course of a half century, I have seen more Christian corruption than you have read of. I have tasted it. I have been reasonably corrupt myself. And yet, I love this Church, this living, pulsing, sinning people of God with a crucifying passion. Why? For all the Christian hate, I experience here a community of love. For all the institutional idiocy, I find here a tradition of reason. For all the individual repressions, I breathe here an air of freedom. For all the fear of sex, I discover here the redemption of my body. In an age so inhuman, I touch here tears of compassion. In a world so grim and humorless, I share here rich joy and earthy laughter. In the midst of death, I hear here an incomparable stress on life. For all the apparent absence of God, I sense here the real presence of Christ.
Just
when I think that the headlines in the newspapers can't get
any worse, they do. But along comes Pentecost, the
birthday of the Church, the feast of the coming of the Holy
Spirit to the early disciples. The Spirit continues to
give us, the church, HOPE. The Spirit compels us
Catholic Christians, not only to look critically at ourselves
as the Body of Christ of which we are privileged to be members, but also to envision a future richer that any we have yet experienced. Do you believe that? We have to have HOPE--and the Spirit is about HOPE.
Every one of us, by our baptism and confirmation, are called to an encounter with God and then sent by the Spirit to bring hope and to restore meaning to other people's lives. Where are we called to go by the Spirit? Who in our lives, and in our world, needs hope and meaning? The spirit is the advocate of victims; the Comforter; the One who is able to disturb us, to refocus our lives.
Every year, the number of people who attend Mass on a regular basis is decreasing, in T.S. Eliot's words, "not with a bang but with a whimper." Once upon a time the Body of Christ was vibrant and energetic. How healthy is the Body of Christ in 2002? Is the Spirit (overlooked by those who live without hope) calling us to a New Pentecost?
There are some Catholics who are "restorationists", who want to turn back the clock in hope of recovering a mythical Golden Age of the Church. But social institutions are not immortal; they must change or die. The Spirit, in our time as in every age, is trying to make all things new and to renew the face of the earth (as we sang in today's psalm.) Our Tradition assures us that God will never break the Covenant God made with us, Jesus will never leave us orphans, and the Spirit will not cease to be committed to making all things new . The challenge for all of us is to remain faithful to God and to seek to discern and to respond to the Spirit's promptings.
Do you really believe that the Holy Spirit might actually call us to go looking for trouble, for troubled people as Jesus did? That the Spirit calls us, as a result of prayer, to become aware, to be disturbed, lest we fail to hear and respond to the cries of the needy and the structure of sin? That the Spirit calls us to be united though we have diverse theological views, so that the world may believe (John 17:21)? That the Spirit convinces us that we can help change the world--and that we will be found guilty if we fail to do so? That the Spirit calls us to live exciting worthwhile lives?
"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life who has spoken through the prophets." Wow!
Fr. Bill
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