We have just concluded a week of prayer for Christian Unity. We gather to pray for it because it has not in many ways yet been realized. In Fairport there have been seven churches occupying a very small geographical space. Before Vatican II we have had a history of division and misunderstanding with little cooperation and involvement apart from some intermarriage. Then after Vatican II there was some co-operation with the establishment of a joint Food Bank and the Good Samaritan Fund and we attempted to come together in prayer, at times even sharing pulpits. In this context we tried to overlook differences, but often felt the irritation of our different theologies and different approaches to pastoral practice, especially in regard to ministry. These times have also planted in the minds of some of our faithful that these differences were not really that important and people could indiscriminately attend any one of these churches without a problem. But present experience and the crucial issues of our day dictate otherwise. We are very different and failing to respect that fact can have serious consequences. When openness and tolerance is met with self-righteous legalism, dialogue becomes very difficult. Several of the Protestant churches we encounter take a very legalistic approach to every contemporary issue by making the Bible the ultimate authority. They believe that God speaks to us directly in the Bible, that is, God dictated to the writers of the Bible the very words He wanted written down. So having God’s very words, the Bible becomes like a law book. “God said it. I believe it. Case closed.” For them the Bible is absolutely unerring in every single detail, even those details of science, geography, and the development of the universe which we know to be incorrect. The focus for them is to keep God’s law so one can be saved. The Book will lead you to individual sanctity with little concern about the complexities of sin and evil, especially regarding the social dimension of injustice. All problems are solved by the proper answer to the question, “ Have you been saved—or Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?” They’ll say, “I know the Lord—Jesus is my personal Savior—the Lord spoke to me”—but none of these slogans are in the Bible. Such attitudes lead to a worship that is individual—which holds that a proper response to an “altar call” is all that’s necessary. This contradicts the communal spirit of the New Testament and the belief that what the Lord tells me must be ultimately judged by the shared discernment of the entire body of believers of which I am but one member. The New Testament portrays the Church as a pilgrim people constantly on the move, building up the Kingdom of God in ever new and changing circumstances. It does not depict the Church as a loose collection of “saved” individuals. Their ethics are oriented toward personal purity and ignore the underlying causes of evil in social injustice and materialistic greed. Their understanding of Christ leaves little room for understanding the humanity of Jesus while maintaining focus on his divinity. This blurs the true picture. But they are afraid of putting Christ too closely in touch with an evil world. The world is filled with problems that are so bad in their minds that there is a temptation to throw up one’s hands and let a vengeful God deal with all the sinners. “I’m saved so I can sit back and let the Lord come in time to punish this evil world.” But the Church was never meant to segregate itself from the world—they are inextricably bound together. We indeed are to be in the world but not of the world—which means that the very focal point of the Church –like it or not—is the oftentimes the depressing world around us. But it is this world into which Jesus came and in which he established his Church. They pray that we might find Jesus—but in reality it is Jesus who seeks us out in our actual lives as human beings and calls us into an intimate relationship with Him who came to reveal himself by acting in our human history. Grace therefore is not so much for them a movement or ongoing experience in this relationship which God initiates, but one isolated moment. Which is why they ask: “Are you saved? Have you found God’s will?” But God is mystery—unable to be packaged and possessed—we cannot reduce God to the known or we have made God over into our own image and likeness. We do not possess God, God possesses us. Catholic theology is we-centered--- not I-centered. The New Testament reveals that salvation is for the collective people of God, the Church. Certainly it does not ignore one’s responsibility for one’s own salvation, yet the ultimate focus is on God’s people, not the individual. Jesus chose disciples to follow him and to participate in his mission. He often spoke of the reign of God which is a corporate, communal concept. The early church depicted in the Acts of the Apostles is not an I-centered church----salvation spreads from us to others. The sacraments established by Jesus are aids to communal life. Baptism and Eucharist were indispensable elements of the life of the early church. The communal life and activity of the church were organized and overseen by fixed leadership. The early church was a church led by bishops, who kept the community functioning as one body. To understand the church we must look not simply to the New Testament. What the church believed and how it came to be structured was hammered out in early communal councils of the church as was the canon of scripture itself. These elements of our faith were conditioned by historical forces to which the church responded. Throughout the centuries historical forces have continued to play a large part in shaping the Church as we know and experience it today. Our Catholic faith maintains that nothing God has created is bad in itself. And nothing that humanity has developed to explain and deal with God’s creation---science, psychology, medicine, sociology---are evils to be avoided simply because they have in some circumstances led to the establishment of unchristian values in the modern world. Instead of opposing these disciplines Christians should seek to enter fully into them, find what is potentially good in them and then incorporate that good into the message of the Gospel. The News Herald just published a little article on our Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which sounded very positive. But recently within our ecumenical efforts we have reached a point where disagreements on doctrine have kept us from attending to the work of carrying on the mission of Christ. Perhaps now the best approach or response is not words but the lived example of Christian love. We need as Catholics to work at improving ourselves, not anyone else. We got involved in ecumenical efforts here in the village to underscore our openness and acceptance of other Christians, to share our faith without judgment, and to work together for the poor and needy of this village. We will renew our efforts as a parish to do that without the same extent of involvement in the pulpit sharing and common worship services we have had in the past. Anthony Gilles has a helpful little book from which I borrowed elements of this reflection. The Book is called Fundamentalism: What Every Catholic Needs to Know published by St. Anthony Messenger Press.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 12:26:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015