The church is us
Here's a great comment from a friend of mine on the Church, the body of Christ. He's responding to efforts by Boston's archbishop, recently named Cardinal O'Malley, to change Massachusetts law so Catholic Charities of Boston will be able to bar gay couples from adopting Catholic Charities' kids. My friend wrote:
The church IS good. It is the body of Christ. We are all the body of Christ. What O'Malley and other officials choose to say and do often challenges my faith in the Church, but it shouldn't because the Church is something much more profound than O'Malley. That being said, if one believes that there is illness within the Church, it is his/her duty to heal it rather than abandon the whole and set up a "virtue colony" which will probably end up being hypocritical in the end anyway. It may seem contradictory that the church is "good" but that it also "needs healing," but I think that this gives pretty good witness to the temporal and transcendent nature of the Church and Catholicism's integrated corporeal-spiritual duality.
My response: This exactly captures what I never seem to be able to articulate to people about the church. I agree that the flaws in the Church show its incarnationality. The beautiful flip side of that incarnationality is that you or I are as much of a part of the church as Cardinal O'Malley--we are each the same size light in the kaleidoscope. Sometimes it seems unequal because only some may make policy and get interviewed by the media, but that's false because the Church is only tangentially about internal or public policy--it's about the love of Christ in the world, and you and I have the chance to love like Christ and to show Christ's love in ways and in situations that O'Malley never could. The Spirit moving in the people of God is like a breeze in a field--every stalk moves differently, some of them even move in the opposite direction. And a stalk, obviously, has no hope of knowing the entire picture. But we believe that the Spirit is leading God's people somewhere good.
posted by Theologienne @ 11:33 PM
Share
2 Comments:
This is one of the most important things faithful Catholics can learn about our (eternally) blessed and (always) imperfect church. Yes, we need to identify and attack the failings of the hierarchy. But no, we cannot let those failings separate us from our own mission to know God, and to create the kingdom on earth to the extent that we can. God wants us to find joy in following Christ. If all we do is moan about Rome, we will never do so.
Yes, but there are choices in between accepting whatt he Cardinal O'Malleys of the world do, and leaving to form a potentially hypocritical colony elsewhre. Couldn't it be argued that some churches are more progressive or more enlightened or even more scriptural than the laws set by Rome? or do we believe that there is only ONE church of jesus Christ, and that the Catholic form? And if we believe THAT, what makes it the ONE church: the infallible dictates of Rome?... Await your thoughts ....
Post a Comment
<< Home