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The Church inhabits two different worlds, argues Tom McMahon in this fourth commentary of his series on the meaning of "Sacrament" in an Age of Technology. Within the Church he sees "civil war exists over boundaries". He asks concerning the 86% who have stopped listening to the Church: "have they abandoned Jesus: or have they gone across the spiritual street to that other world that Michael Morwood addresses?"

Two Different Worlds…

I can't remember when I first heard the song about two different worlds … we live in two different worlds … In taking it to bed with me tonight I may come upon more words; I'm sure it comes from the days when I was celibate and living in the world of clerical isolation. In seminary and for the first few years after ordination I lived in that small corner of society that focused on heaven, paying little attention to present earth and everyday people. I lived my life, and I thought the lives of parishioners, according to the world of Rome, like Frank Sinatra's "Doing it My Way". Later on I am going to quote from a young man who left the priesthood in Australia when he discovered the holiness of life in ordinary people; Steve puts it so much better than I and I will quote him in my commentary next week.

Michael Morwood

Here in this series on Sacraments for the Age of Technology I suffice to say that I have discovered a plenteous supply of sacred signs in the universe, on, in, and around good old mother earth and its created inhabitants. Michael Morwood is so right when he says: "We are living through the greatest shift ever in Christian thought. New images of our universe and our planet, along with knowledge about the long, slow development of life on this planet provide us with a new context in which to understand the divine presence we call God always present and active everywhere." Michael invites us to look in on that other world. Catholics were taught that the earthy world was out of bounds, at least that's what we thought until the convent and clerical life fell apart. I find it interesting the Jesus recommends we look at life through the eyes of a child … awe-some …

As the Polar Express idles at station Two Different Worlds I lay an intellectual foundation, like tracks over which our train of thought will follow, namely appreciating freedom from trauma and a clear perception that Roman Catholicism is not the same experience as Christianity.

Professor Peter A. Levine, uses the example of a disobedient Eskimo boy who is bitten by a seal, not only wounding him but destroying his new pair of birthday pants. The boy locks in the trauma, experiencing revived fear; think frozen pendulum of a grandfather's clock. To unlock the traumatized feelings the pendulum must begin to swing, at first under the therapeutic impetus of new information, perhaps only one way at first and then under repeated attempts as full freedom of liberating thought is restored. (Credit: HEALING TRAUMA, Restoring the Wisdom of your Body, Sounds True 800-333-9185 ) I remind readers that in my series on eucharist/Eucharist I wrote that most children who have made first confession at age 6 have locked into a picture of a punitive, distant and abstract God, each child abused and traumatized in the dark secretive confessional box, thus setting a frozen boundary on one of the Two Different Worlds that are the subject of this paper.

In my personal life by studying the history and documents of Vatican Two (1965), as well as the Council of Trent (1542) and Vatican One (1890) I released myself from frozen boundaries set in early childhood; I sense a stress pattern, a conflict of the use of power within the four-hundred-year pattern, Vatican Two speaking of individual religious freedom and Vatican One, reinstated by JP2, demanding mute obedience to papal authority. They are two different worlds and the separation of Jesus' mentality from that of Rome is obvious to me. There are many examples from which to choose, my selecting here the coming of Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson to the United States and the opposition to him by the party line bishops as directed by the Vatican. A well educated Robinson enjoyed educating lay people while Rome accused him of causing confusion and disunity among the people and clergy; two different worlds collided and my question near the end of my critique (See comments on Robinson and Lakeland talks at USF See: www.catholica.com.au/gc1/tm/033_tm_250608.php) was "Where does Jesus stand?" ……where does Jesus stand in the contradiction of two worlds? I quote an Italian dad when I taught in 1969 at Presentation (girls) High School, San Jose: "you and your god damn Jesus Christ, for God's sake he was Jew." When I was interviewed for six hours by a church historian I questioned "why do you want my story?" The wise and learned educator said that I had one foot in the old world and one foot in the new and researchers 100 years from now would enjoy records of the power transition. Change in Romanism is glacier like; history records opposition and progress. Given modern education and expectant life durability total change may come about in perhaps two hundred years. In the meantime civil war exists over boundaries.

A meeting of old friends…

As promised I report on our Polar Express travelling to Grass Valley, Ca., now a forest community of people who have fled the big city and its entanglements. We met as a community in diaspora, four couples, eight members of the original 1975 Community of Jesus Our Brother; despite moving to various parts of the United States for a time the community has remained in touch, often celebrating significant events such as death and grand children's birth. Two left the community theologically in 1982 and joined a Jesus Saves bible study group; I was there to hear how the six sustained their spiritual values not having taken part in institutional Mass and sacraments for close to 15 years. Two men were converts to Catholicism, while four others were cradle Catholics.

I discovered no newness. I perhaps offered too much church history and marveled at the way they trusted me with my ideas and particularly their interest in Michel Morwood's vision of a spiritual future. All six have children and grand children who no longer participate in the Roman Catholic experience; all their children were baptized and educated in the seven sacraments and Sunday Mass.

What I did find was comforting to me; each of the six believed that decisions concerning God and their moral and faith conduct were personal to them and they did consider the "brush up" lessons I was offering as valuable to their informed consciences. The seeds of mature thinking had been sewn shortly after Vatican Two and I was witness to the harvest in intelligent people in 2008. My friends and fellow members of our dialogue community had watered the seeds of knowledge on their own; there were no signs of fear or confusion in their relationship to the divine.

I thought of Brian Coyne often quoting that 86% of Australian Catholics no longer participate in the structured religion of their youth … and I ask "have they abandoned Jesus: or have they gone across the spiritual street to that other world that Michael Morwood addresses?" I had driven close to 500 miles to Grass Valley in times when gas prices soar; the joy that I experienced in listening to the sacraments that these people use to sustain their Christian lives was plentiful; my cup runneth over!.

My 86-year-old sister, vowed in convent life since 20, said to me today "Tom we live in two different religious worlds." Midge and I are the last of our depression days tribe and we are close. Midge tells me of the woes of her diocese and her rallying the people to feed the homeless in winter shelters, a program ignored by their pastor. As she stood in my cluttered office this noble and physically crippled woman who works mainly with women in prison asked "Tom, have your read all these books [about 300]?" I said, "yes", and that most are writings on the combination of two different worlds, both of which she unknowingly continues to live in. I knowingly and freely live in a spiritual world directed by the Gospel of Jesus my Christ as interpreted by John the 23rd and Vatican Two. Might I say the twain has met in a back room in San Jose, Ca.

I had two major concerns as I drove home from Grass Valley, issues that I will address in # 5 of this series next week … it is my faith that the Creator has gifted each individual with the ability to identify meaningful sacred signs; how does one educate educated people to accept and identify the "new " sacred signs, especially when the chief sacred sign (Trentan priest) of the past has lost its salt? Let's fire up the boilers of the Polar Express and take a stab at discovery next week.

Tom, just another rider on this fast moving express train of faith and thought. 28/06/2008

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Image Credits: The graphic of the Phoenix lander which has recently touched-down on Mars was sourced from www.ian.cz/redsys/upload/612712-32036.jpg. Click on the other images to see the original source.

Tom McMahon, a former priest now married, lives a very fulfilled life in San Jose and continues to contribute voraciously to several Catholic discussion lists in the States. He has been an enthusiastic supporter and encourager of the Catholica Australia initiative from the very beginning.

What are your thoughts on this commentary by Tom McMahon? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

©2008 Tom McMahon

[Index of Commentaries by Tom McMahon]