SHOCKED MAYBE, BUT REALLY? ARE YOU SURPRISED?

Yesterday, my day away (somewhat,) a priest friend and I went out for brunch.  Though one of my favorite places for breakfast food, they practiced the uncivilized trend of having T.V.s playing in every corner of the restaurant.  So we were into our cup of coffee when Fr. B says, "Do you see what they are reporting on T.V.?"  It was the shocking story of the man who shot the reporter, camera man, and the interviewee on live television.  

"Can you imagine your world being so small," I opined, "that the only way this disturbance in your life can be dealt with is by killing somebody?"  

Fr. B replies, "How much you wanna bet it is a love triangle and that we find out he later ends his own life?"

Well . . . he was close.

Talk about jaded.

But really, are you surprised?  We are constantly working on becoming what some people consider a freer society, but it is leading us down some deadly paths.

1. You have a right to happiness in this world.

2. There are those who deserve life and those who don't.

3. There is no God who needs to be part of civic life therefore there are no absolutes.

4. Truth is subjective.

5. Man is the highest authority.  (At least the one with the most power.)

So, with these as your premise, where do you find meaning in your life; in what you do, accomplish, and are "good for."  That brings you happiness (or escape) is that which is labeled, "the good."  If these are the goods, anything that works against them is evil.  And if you don't have a well developed sense of God, Divine justice, hope both in this life and the after life, that you have dignity and meaning through simply through your being, which comes from this God, that there is such a thing as redemptive suffering, that every aspect of your life and the lives of those around you are a part of these paradigms, then for an increasing number of us, personal justice based on my idea of truth imposed by my will becomes a more realistic option.  

If we keep telling people McDonalds is a real food option, can we be surprised when people base their lives on a McDonalds diet even to the point where they get sick?  And if we keep teaching people that they are their own moral authority, can we be surprised that they take the advice seriously?

AUTHORITY QUESTION

So how does one help the Church continue on her mission?  Every last member of the Body of Christ has a role in the mission.  What is yours?

 

The first step, according to Jim Lundholm-Eades of the National Leadership Roundtable, is to figure out where what your authority is within the hierarchy of the Church.  There are four types of authority.  The first is cultural.  Cultural authority is somewhat bred into us.  We respect teachers because we know if we do not, we will answer for it at home.  Little does a classroom of seven year olds realize that they could rise up and take over the school if they organized themselves.  In much the same way we culturally give some amount of deference to clergy and religious, usually amplified by a Roman collar or a habit.

 

The second is positional.  One listens to the manager at work because he has been placed in a position of authority and is able to call some resources to his aid when trying to lead the company in a certain direction.  Likewise priests or bishops, or a mother superior (or the parish secretary for that matter) etc has some given authority because of the role in which they have been placed.

 

Relational is the third.  Because you have a relationship with a person you also have some influence over them.  If your son asked you for twenty dollars for gas to get to school (assuming he doesn’t do it too often) you might be more inclined to give it to him than someone walking up to your table at a restaurant and saying, “Hey, can I have $20?”  Likewise, getting someone to go to Church is more effectively accomplished by a friends saying, “Hey, wanna come to Mass with me?” rather than a billboard that says, “Hey!  Come to Mass!”

 

And finally there is competency.  This person has authority because they are good at what they do.  You go to the dentist and listen to what he tells you because he knows about teeth.  As highly as I think of our facilities manager, even if he said to me, “Father, I have a pair of pliers and I could rip that tooth out of your head for you for a fraction of the price” I would not listen to him.  Hence, they guy who knows how to fix the boiler in the Church should have more authority over the boiler than the parochial vicar.

 

So if these are the areas of authority within the Church, the first step is figuring out where in this system you fit.  Most laity will find themselves in the relational and competency areas of authority though occasionally in the other areas.  Understanding this allows one to understand his or her responsibilities.  After that, it is best to memorize the sobriety prayer, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  It is also good to remember that despite human beings being involved in the running of the Church for over 2000 years, she is still here and still strong.  Evidence enough that it is the Holy Spirit running the ship and can magnify and purify our feeble efforts.

AND HER HAIR SHALL BE OF WHATEVER COLOR IT PLEASES GOD

Two people pass each other in the doorway of the Church. One is entering for ever thinking, “Finally I have found the Church that speaks with legitimate authority. Faith is handed on here. Truth is passed down through the centuries and like a rock it never changes. Here is a place where I can be told about God.”

He passes shoulders with the man walking out of the Church for ever thinking, “Finally I am leaving this Church that tries to speak with such authority. I have no say in faith and morals. So called truth is pushed down my throat like a rock that I must swallow. I feel stifled at being told who my God is.”

As Mom used to say, “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” Sometimes the very things that make the Church attractive to one person makes it a turn off for another. Proper authority is one of those things, you might presume, that attracts me to the Church. After all I knelt down before the bishop, placed my folded hands into his before a cathedral full of people and promised proper obedience to him and his successors.

Why would this be attractive? For me it was seeing the fractioning of the rest of Christianity. It was seeing denominations voting on believe so that by popular vote (as well informed as it may be) a particular denomination now says God wants us to believe X instead of Y. Another area that causes me to pause is the practice of individual congregations picking pastors that teach God the way they want Him taught. So if a particular minister was too Roman, or too fundamental, or used Scripture to show that pigs should only marry pigs and not intermarry with hedgehogs and the congregation did not like it, they could fire him and get someone else who would teach that God says that it is Okay for pigs and hedgehogs to marry.

The possibility here is that God becomes a mirror of the worshipper. Garrison Keeler once said, “They loved God, but only because God agreed with them.” There is the chance that God becomes simply a higher form of ourselves, our beliefs, our comforts, our hopes, and this is very attractive to some people. But if this is the case, who ultimately are we worshipping?

It can be challenging, difficult, disturbing, even humiliating to confront a God that is not a grander copy of our own hopes and desires. Through the Catholic Church He asks us to freely kneel down, place our hands in His, and vow obedience to Him in saecula saeculorum. For those for whom this is attractive this quote from Chesterton makes perfect sense:

“We don’t really want a religion that I right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. . . They say they want a religion to be social, when they would be social without any religion. They say they want a religion to be practical, when they would be practical without any religion. They say they want a religion acceptable to science, when they would accept the science even if they did not accept religion. They say they want a religion like this because they are like this already. They say they want it, when they mean that they could do without it.”

(Did anybody get the title of this post?)