April 1, 2012
It's our work, not the Bishop's...
....Let's keep something clear. My role as a priest, and the bishops' role as bishops, is to form and support the laity for their proper role in the public square. It is the role of lay people to shape the world around them according to their vocations. I (or, even more, the bishops) will teach, give you the sacraments, and support you. The work of the public square is really your work, lay people, not mine. Remember that when you think bishops aren't being strong enough in the public square. We clerics know that you lay people often face in your daily lives challenges that would make many of us roll up in a ball and hide under the covers. On the other hand, the Enemy of your soul hates priests and bishops with surpassing malice. We live every day knowing that we go to our judgment with Holy Orders upon our souls and to those to whom God has given much, more will be expected. As Augustine said, "I am a bishop for you, but I am a Christian with you." Neither portion of God's poor little servants should fall into the trap of thinking that the other has anything easy in life.Posted by John Weidner at April 1, 2012 7:30 AM
If you are p.o.'d that a bishop isn't jumping around with his hair on fire in front of the White House, waving his arms, and telling you whom to vote for, then maybe you should be doing that according to what Holy Church has taught you and in keeping with your vocation. And if the priests and bishops in your life have not been stellar in their roles of teaching (read = they are human, they are sinners, they are … x, y, z….), then put on your own big-boy underwear and get to work anyway. Things will improve. Priests and bishops will find their way to the spines they need, or in some cases abandoned. And they will do it faster if you are with them rather than against them. Believe me: carping at priests doesn't generally make them do things either faster or better. I know this by experiential knowledge and not merely by theoretical. Help them out by prayers and encouragement and example.
There is only so much the bishops can accomplish in the public square on their own: the rest is your job. Don't shirk your role even if you think bishops and priests are being lazy or craven. Stand up and get to work right now, even if you are disappointed that bishops aren't beaming lasers out of their eyes or issuing decrees of excommunication while they levitate to the strains of Verdi's Dies Irae...
Thus endeth my rant....
Reference was made to the idea that in a Christian/Catholic culture, we made time for going to Church. Indeed, it semeed that the Church, by setting multiple days of Obligation helped the population step outside their daily work-life and think about bigger things their relationship with God, their family and life. It was good.Now, we tip-toe around this word obligation because we understand that with Sunday trading (for example) we can't be talking about obligations and responsibilities in this new society, for fear of putting pressure on people.The key is to understand that we are now back in Roman times for the Catholic Church. We are now counter-cultural*. It is understanding our obligations and responsibilities that will differentiate us from the main-stream culture that is currently suiciding. Obliged to go to mass? Oh, lets make it optional. Obliged to stay married? Oh, lets make it optional. Obliged to give birth to the life already created? Oh, let's make that optional. Obliged to have responsibilities? Oh, that might generate a sense of guilt!We practice the small things to help build the strength to take on the big things.*I get this sense in a lot of discourse that we acknowledge our Christian heritage and note that it has put in place a lot of the cultural norms we enjoy today. But we have been riding the wave of history and not had to fight to build or establish anything special, even as we watch it crumble away. The sanctity of marriage is a joke given how easy and common divorce is, the importance of the traditional family is treated as almost an embarrassment, for fear of alienating the growing number of single parent families. We either join in the culture and then ultimately secularize and trivialize the Church, or we concentrate on the deeper theological values that attracted the pagans to eventually turn Christian. Because here we are again, folks.
Posted by: Emylli at May 1, 2012 4:08 PM
