A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES -- UNTIL WE ARE ONE


        It is true that a picture is worth 1,000 words.  Above is the church of my youth.  I was baptized there. As a second grader, I made my First Communion there.  I was confirmed at that altar while in fourth grade and took the name of "Bernadette." I went to mass not only on Sunday, but Monday thru Friday most of my grammar school days because St. Alphonsus was also my school.  I was in the building next to this amazing sanctuary when the news came over the PA system that John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been shot and the country was for a few hours without a President.

        Maybe surprisingly to some it was here that I learned the love, reverence and awe of God that I practice still.  All those days surrounded by statuary and stained glass imprinted something on my soul. I can hear phrases of the Latin mass echoing through the gothic architecture.  God befriended me here in ways I did not even know.

        Last December, at the end of a long Interim, I took the opportunity to spend eight days at Easternpoint Retreat Center on the shore of the Atlantic in Gloucester, MA.  Each day before dinner this Jesuit retreat center invited all retreatants to mass.  Though it had been a long time since daily mass at St. Alphonsus, some of the words were just as I remembered them on the heels of Vatican Two.   But another thing my soul re--membered was the grace offered and received in the sacrament.  It had been decades since I participated in the welcome of daily participation in the Lord's Supper.

        But once home the holidays were upon us and I re-entered a busy life.  I don't know how long it took me to realize that my soul had a need.  But soon after the first of the year, I found a local church that offered a daily sacrament and made it my mission to attend two or three times a week.  My joy was short-lived.

       Although there were no signs posted that said: "we are narrow-minded"...the priest in his homily took the opportunity to bash otherwise practicing Christians each day.  I came to learn through inference the meaning of the word "re-vert" which he used as often as he could to talk about fallen-away Catholics who came back to the church.  In my dozen or so visits I was delighted to hear C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Augustine, even Kierkegaard quoted in the homily.  And yet, the drumbeat of "we are better, we are true, we got it/they don't" -- finally drowned out the grace of the meal.

       In the one-world age in which we live via the Internet, I easily found access to a live broadcast of a daily celebration of the table several time zones away (Ireland, of course).   The homilies this priest offered spoke of God's love for all people. There was no "us and them."  On the second day I joined them, the priest prayed for the newly elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland! and for ministers of churches born of the Reformation. They daily prayed for the unity of all those called in Jesus Christ. They conclude the service singing: "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, there is One God, who is Father of all."

       As I spent the hour with them each morning this week, my bread and grape juice prepared and consumed, my soul once again became aware of the grace offered and received in the sacrament--and I was filled.

       Perhaps it's because of my young adult transition from the Catholic church into ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church that I am more ecumenically minded (and souled).  I reason that those who love Christ, no matter what they call themselves, are one.  I hear the Gospel messages:  "make them one Father, as You and I are one..." and "those who are not against us, are for us..." and from the book of Colossians:" So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;  bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.  Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful."  This may make me simple... but I think God intended for us to be ONE--to recognize and honor the Image of God in one another. 

         It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the power of the Church's witness which is broken as we squabble with one another for all the world to see and hear.  Where is the religious fervor to put back together what we have torn asunder?  Because why would anyone want to embrace the God and Father of us all -- when He doesn't seem to be able to keep His children from trying to hurt or destroy one another.

        And while my example is cross-denominational...let me be quick to point out that my own church, the PCUSA has its own rampant issues of behaving badly.  Many congregations have left in a huff... and others are threatening.  To my ears, their reasons sound as hollow as  the above drumbeat of "we are better, we are true, we got it right/you don't." They leave to join other disgruntled folk in yet other divisions of the Body...those called by Christ to be one, as Christ and the Father are one.  They leave out of real and unfounded fears. They leave in hubris... They and we and Christ's whole Body further wounded by each division, acts of reciprocal violence

       Yet I find hope for the Church in surprising places; From individuals in congregations I've served who have whispered to me that they believe God loves everyone; From congregations that offer a generous and wide invitation to the Table of grace; From five French monks planted in Northern Ireland whose life together is an answer: "to a call addressed by the Church to monasteries of contemplative life to engage themselves in the mission of spiritual ecumenism, rooted in prayer, conversion of heart and charity, in those corners of the world where Christians are divided. The Foundation Decree of the monastery states: “The aim of the Community of Holy Cross Monastery is to live the monastic life, according to the charism of our Benedictine Congregation of Saint Mary of Monte Oliveto. Our particular mission is to contribute to reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants in a land marked by reciprocal violence and stained by the blood of Christian brothers and sisters."


       Isn't this the call of God to each of us?  And isn't it our call, each of us and all of us, where we are, as best as we are able, to stop the bleeding of the Body of Christ?   Perhaps taking a page from the Holy Cross Monastery's Foundational decree is needed:  "to contribute to reconciliation" -- "rooted in prayer, conversion of heart and charity."

         This morning my husband joined me for the celebration of the sacrament that came to us over live broadcast on the Internet.  When the service was over I asked, "so what did you think?" He said:
"the difference is that they're really living what they say."  It made me proud to be his spouse and simultaneously made my pastor's heart weep.  How does the Church, how do we find our way to "really living what we say."
 
         So of what two churches is this really a tale?  Catholic and Protestant?  Two Catholic churches that practice the love of God differently?  The Presbyterian congregations that now have church splits from their church splits? All of them?  I embody the Roman Catholic church which nurtured me as a child and Presbyterian Church, the denomination that recognized my gifts and call to ministry.  I carry a Tale of Two Churches within me.  What kind of Church do you carry within you?

         The Benedictines teach that the practice of contemplation leads to conversion of heart. Conversion and not Division is what will lead to One-ness.  May it be so in me. May it be so in you.  May it be so in the Body of Christ, Universal--the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
 
In peace, much deep peace,
Rev. Dr. Kathleen Bronagh Weller, Obl. SB
thecelticmonk 
 
P.S. Bronagh is the name I chose when I took my final vows as a Benedictine Oblate.  You can read about that in my 2010 blog archive.
 

       

        

      

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