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What sort of community are we?  Thank you for your thoughts for my recovery. Being part of a varied community is always a comfort in times of trial. Indeed, that's how I see the Church — horizontally, not vertically. What sort of community are we trying to create here? Of course, this leads us to reflection on whether we are a community trying to be an institution, or an institution attempting to become the sort of interactive community the Lord requires. Or is it some kind of shaky alliance between so-called communities, each fired by self-righteousness, and determined to seize power? My reflection leads me towards the notion of people trying to make the best of things, at times with little reward, and sailing their frail craft between despair and integrity with the Star of the Sea by night and the Sun of Heaven by day for the voyage to the Land Where Sorrow is Unknown.
It is this kindness that lies at the center of our faith. It is its special emblem, and we can find it echoed in other faiths. To us, it is central to our very existence, to the way we make any sense at all of our existence. 'Love one another as I have loved you.' Simple as that. For the life of me, I cannot see how God is interested in my attempts to preach to others, to persuade others that I am on the right path and they on the road to perdition. There is so much of this at times I wonder why someone has not started the Order of Lay Preachers in the Catholic Church. They have their websites, their discussion advocates, their poisonous pamphlets, and their vitriol against those they typecast, name-call, sterotype or label as dissidents, liberals, cafeteria catholics, back-sliders, and so forth. When you think you're more Catholic than the Pope you've got real problems, babe. Yet many such people ... are really good people! Yet many such people, hungry as they are for mystery, certainty, black and white solutions, are really good people. They are, however, driven by fear that more than twenty centuries of tradition are being swept away. I do not believe that we should deride them, no matter how vicious some of their sentiments may at times be expressed. Instead, they can be encouraged to reflect on the fact that Jesus has promised that the 'gates of hell' cannot withstand the force of the legions of love. Love, that's what it's all about, folks. What is their self-image? I can only guess, but perhaps it is something like the Famous Few who withstood the onslaught of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. Trouble is they do not realize that many of those planes overhead in our times are not Fokkers but Friends. There's no need to sound the alarm. I have had dealings down the years with many friends who consider themselves conservative, very orthodox Catholics. They brought Humana Vitae into their lives, despite many challenges, prayed to the saints, said the Holy Rosary, made Mary the Mother of God their Queen of the Family, tried to live the Beatitudes as best they could.
When the Second Vatican Council came they joined wholeheartedly in the reforms, uncomfortable albeit as rote was abandoned, and when Faith of Our Fathers was sung tears of nostalgia came to their eyes. It is not for any of us to criticize them for their steadfast faith. They are not 'goody two shoes' but sincere and practical Christians. I think that such people have been misrepresented as 'unreconstructed Legion of Mary types' or as some kind of robots obeying the clerical class. They are, like the rest of us, trying to find their track up the Mountain. One form of misrepresentation of them is by trying to represent them through fringe groups that cultivate fear of change and defame all changes as heretical. This form of perverted pessimism may do great harm to those people the false prophets claim to defend. I have never been a pessimist who is always waiting for it to rain. I have always been, like the poet Leonard Cohen, soaking wet. Change is an essential feature of life. Unless we change we have not learned. We need to read the sign of our times. In our times materialism and consumerism walk through our families like secular dragons seeking more victims to devour via the video game, distraction or gluttony. It is unfortunate that phoney conservativism feels it has friends at the top. If they spoke to some bishops they might become disenchanted with that notion. Some of our leaders may mistake this Trojan horse for the real thing. They should apply critical thinking to expose it as the stupid, braying donkey it is. Those whose self-perception is that of the 'conservative Catholics' advocate' need to have their credentials checked. Church tradition is a treasury of truth and beauty. It is not to be trampled under foot by self-proclaimed prophets of doom who can make a virtue of disloyalty and a charism of calumny. They can both pick and peck a pope or a bishop. When Pope Benedict soon proclaims his new vision concerning divorced Catholics he will find he has a problem with the doomsayers. Australians are very good at what the Army calls 'dumb insolence' in resisting unwise orders from above, and they are geniuses in walking away from religious ratbags. The Australian Church is alive and well... The healthy Australian Church that bloomed in the aftermath of Vatican II is alive and well. To judge the Church here as 15 per cent goody-two shoes and 85 per cent back-sliding liberals is not only quantitative, but immature and ludicrous. Aussies are great sports spectators, but they will not tolerate not being players in the Church. Participation in the Church is not a spectator sport. The church has to begin to listen more to its people. Rome has to listen more to its Australian bishops. The visit ad limina means, technically, the obligation incumbent
on certain members of the hierarchy of visiting, at stated times, the
"thresholds of the Apostles", Sts. Peter and Paul, and
of presenting themselves before the pope to give an account of the state
of their dioceses. The object of the visit is not merely to make a pilgrimage
to the tombs of the apostles, but, above all, to show the proper reverence
for the Successor of St. Peter, to acknowledge practically his universal
jurisdiction by giving an account of the condition of particular churches,
to receive his admonitions and counsels, and thus bind more closely the
members of the Church to its Divinely appointed head. Let there be Light. Cliff Cliff Baxter can be contacted at: ©2006 Clifford Baxter |
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Like
Odysseus the adventurer, the Christian finds at times great trials
but also surprising new strength, and a charity in others that can be
breathtaking. When it comes from an atheist, an agnostic or from someone
with unfamiliar beliefs the pilgrim is reminded of the Good Samaritan,
and realizes that the divine gift of kindness is 'catholic' in the sense
of being universal to humankind. It's a great mistake to confuse power
with authentic spiritual strength.