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PAGE 5 - November 9,1972
Relationship with God and Neighbor
BY FR. QUENTIN QUESNELL, S.J.
“OUR RELATIONSHIPS TO ONE ANOTHER set the tone of
our relationships to God.” A Sister in New Orleans, La., shows
her love for a baby in her care at a nursery. (NC Photo by Frank
Methe)
“The reign of God can be likened to ten bridesmaids ..
Jesus says it in the gospel of Matthew. Yet we wonder why.
Come to think of it, why should God’s rule and kingdom be
likened to anything at all on this earth?
Why should it be like “a man’s going on a journey” or
“sowing good seed in his field?” Why should it be “like a
mustard seed” or “like yeast” or “like a buried treasure?”
Really, what has God to do with “a merchant’s search for fine
pearls” or “a dragnet thrown into a lake” or “a king’s wishing to
settle accounts with his officials?”
Yet, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said that God’s rule over our
world could be compared to all those things. It doesn’t seem to
result in a very lofty picture of God. It makes God sound so
close and ordinary, as if we could see him or something very
much like him every day.
Is God really like the actions and objects of daily life? And
are they all somehow like God? It seems that Jesus thought so.
And he ought to know.
But even that is only half the story. Jesus suggests an even
stronger comparison to God. As he wants us to understand it,
God is like the people we meet.. And, for all those people, God
is like us.
The experience we have of one another is our most basic
experience of god. The images we have of one another are our
fundamental images of God. Our relationships to one another
set the tone of our relationship to God.
Jesus never tells us to treat seeds and yeast and nets and
pearls as if they were God himself. But he does say that is how
we should treat one another. First, he asks us to try to be like
God, loving not only those who love us, but giving generously to
good and bad alike. Your Father makes his sun shine and his
rain fall on both the good and the bad. We should try to be like
that: “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
But also, we will actually find God like ourselves: “If you do
not forgive others, then your Father in heaven will not forgive
you the wrongs you have done.” “You will be measured by the
measure you apply to others.” “Do not judge others so that
God will not judge you.” “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive
those who sin against us.”
The relationship between our neighbors and ourselves will set
the over all tone of our relationships with God. That is why
Jesus can say that “the second commandment is like the first.”
That is, “love your neighbor as yourself,” is like “love God with
your whole heart and soul.”
For Jesus, either of these two commands taken along and
without the other one is just so much empty talk. The
relationship with God and the relationship with our neighbors
give meaning to each other. That is why Jesus can also say:
“Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me.”
(Know Your F aith)
Relationship--No Man Is An Island
BY DR. LAWRENCE LOSONCY
It is no accident that one of Thomas Merton’s most famous
books should be called “No Man is an Island.” Merton was a
monk who knew silence and solitude. He sought God in the
peace of the monastery and in the quiet of prayer. And yet he
came to realize with great conviction that no man is ever alone
or free from other men.
His books were a constant source of inspiration for people
who struggled to find the meaning of life, his message a constant
reminder that we are all in need of one another, that no human
can ever cut himself off from others and still hope to survive.
A number of philosophers pondered this same theme,
especially in light of the World Wars I and II. Many of them
despaired because they saw in world war the last signs of man’s
alienation from his fellow men. Others saw hope, because they
felt the living, graphic catastrophe of war would convince us all
that we cannot survive in a state of alienation.
Sartre portrayed the situation in a metaphor. He said a
drowning person inevitably reaches up. The last thing to be seen
of a drowning person is a hand above water. The hand is open.
The only way the drowning person would be saved is that
BY FR. JOSEPH CHAMPLIN
Last week I ventured my opinion, based on extensive travel
around the United States during the past year, that the Church
has turned a corner and is entering upon a period of relative
serenity. I offered two reasons in support of this observation: a
change in the attitude of priests and a shift for the better in the
religious vocation situation. This week I would like to list and
describe briefly several other developments which in my
judgment, substantiate the assertion.
* Improved liturgy problems. This column from its inception
has frequently reported on imaginative and successful worship
services in the nation. There are others, of course, and, what
seems to me particularly significant, an ever-increasing number
of parishes or worshiping communities with diversified,
high-quality Sunday liturgies.
Our diocese has never been a pioneering area in the liturgical
field and we have few pastors who would consider themselves
avant-garde liturgists. Yet at a Sunday afternoon clam bake for
priests recently, I learned in but a few hours of four parishes
undertaking some really creative steps to improve their worship
programs.
We hear about places where nothing has been done to
implement the liturgical renewal, where priests apparently don’t
care for the “new” liturgy, where members of the congregation
must suffer week after week through dull sermons, bad music
and a generally poor celebration. But these seem, fortunately, to
be on the decrease and more satisfactory approaches on the
' increase.
* Greater concern about prayer. In the sixties many priests
abandoned the breviary and turned to other forms of prayer or
totally submerged themselves in the active apostolate. Some said
in effect: “My work is my prayer.” I see the clergy now shifting
back to a deeper interest in their inner life and, particularly,
back to the Church’s official prayer book, especially in its
American format, “Prayer of Christians.”
Moreover, the rapid growth of Pentecostalism plus the intense
someone reach out with their hand, take his hand in theirs, and
pull him up. Sartre’s comment is that all of us today will find
ourselves drowning if we live in insolation from others or in
denial of our relationships.
Martin Buber popularized the notion of relationship in the
phrase, “I-Thou.” He felt that if we see others as persons, we
will be open to them. But if we see others as objects, to be used
or manipulated, we will be closed to them. For him, the central
question in all of human experience was the question of
whether we would treat another as persons or things. He felt
that in relating to one another, we would find meaning and
purpose, for in relating to one another we free the person and
* the life which is each of us, and there is growth.
Buber’s thinking was much influenced by the Hasids, a sect of
Judaism begun in the 18th century. The Hasids, according to
Buber, believed a divine spark dwelt inside every living thing, to
be freed only when a relationship had been established. For this
reason they communed with trees and other things of nature,
believing that they would find the divine in the relationship.
Buber points out how much more likely this is to happen
between human beings.
Without realizing it, Buber was moving in his thought toward
interest of priests, religious men and women, and the laity in
prayer groups and shared prayer says something about a return
to the Spirit and to things of the spirit. This does not mean an
end to conflicts in the Church or an immediate resolution of
differences, but it does, I think, augur for more peaceful,
objective, accepting discussions of controverted matters.
* Parental involvement in sacramental preparations. The
engagement of mother and dad more actively in the work of
preparing children for baptism, first communion, first
confession, and confirmation may well be the most important
innovation of the 70’s. Our experience in the parish has shown
its tremendous value as an adult education vehicle, as a means of
building closer family ties, and as an effective method of
transmitting faith values to the youngsters.
In an age of confusion among adult Catholics, family
disintegration and alienation between parent and child, the
potential these programs hold for healing rifts and clarifying
misconceptions should be obvious.
* Lay participation. I suppose there still are priests who
spend hours at desks writing checks or who find a day totally
filled with administrative details. However, I would like to
believe that the era of a pure “administrator” who never acts as
a “pastor” is over. Hiring full or part-time parish secretaries and
using lay people for tasks more properly their own should free
the parish clergy for prayer, study, liturgy and pulpit
preparation, catechising and, very importantly, visitation of
homes and the sick. That in itself could produce a profound
transformation in the relationships between priests and
parishioners.
We sometimes forget the vast change which has taken place in
so few years. Parish councils are now the rule, not an exception
and in time liturgy planning teams will be equally as common.
Shared decisions making is today an accepted term and while
implementation of that concept on the local or diocesan or
national level may not have reached the degree which some
desire, its ultimate role in our future cannot be questioned.
* Better preaching. Lay persons tend rightly or wrongly to
the mystery of God’s presence in us. Like the Hasids and like
the philosophers who pondered the kinds of problems Sartre
struggled with, Buber was expressing mankind’s yearning for
God, a yearning which seems bound up with a yearning for the
presence of other humans in our life.
God, who is above all human experience (transcendent)
chose also to become present in human experience (immanent).
When he sent Jesus, his Son, to live among us, he immersed
himself in human experience. Through the Incarnation of Jesus
and through Jesus’s death, resurrection, and glorification, God
has made himself our God forever. Through Jesus we are offered
a relationship to God in a personal way, and through our
relationship with other human beings we are offered a chance to
find Jesus.
Because the Spirit of God dwells in the Church of which we
are members by Baptism, and because God sends his Spirit to
dwell in the hearts of all men of good will, we begin to search
for Jesus Christ not alone, but in the company of other people.
The experience of relationships with other persons is essential
for developing a relationship with God in Jesus Christ, which
bond is in fact the deepest dimension of any relationship
between people.
Corner
judge priests and parishes heavily in terms of their sermons or
homilies. The clergy know that and I believe at this time are
giving much greater time and effort to the preparation of good
presentations for the Sunday liturgy. The positive implications
of such conscientiousness for the Catholic Church in the 70’s
likewise ought to be quite evident.
* Upsurge in confessions. I think there is a middle course
between confessing once a year (or less often) and once a week.
Some who used to go regularly and often, apparently now go
hardly at all. However, I sense the beginnings of a change here, a
realization on the part of many Catholics that they may have
overreacted and given up something that has great spiritual
value.
The immediate and very solid success of our confessional
room at Holy Family leads me to conclude as well that most
churches throughout the country will soon feature this kind of
arrangement for the sacrament of penance, an improvement
which will enhance, as we discovered, the quality, if not the
quantity of confessions.
The clear benefit and widespread popularity of common
penance services as a complement to auricular confession need
only be cited here as further indication of an atmosphere we can
expect in this decade.
* Women in the Church. An editor friend and classmate is not
so optimistic about the future and anticiaptes an even more
turbulent period ahead when the full impact of the women’s
liberation movement hits the Church. That may well be true,
but I prefer to look at this from a different perspective.
The gradual integration of women into more active roles (e.g.,
readers at Mass, distributors of Holy Communion) and the vital
decision-making processes (e.g., on parish councils and liturgy
planning teams) may be too slow for some and too much for
others. However, I think the Church will benefit from that
trend, be richer, better and, ultimately, stronger because of it.
Church Has Turned
“THROUGH JESUS we are offered a relationship of God in a
personal way.” Jesus Christ as sketched by Eric Smith for NC
Photos.
“I Am Because You Are”-- Life Is Relationship
BY FR. CARL J. PFEIFER, S.J.
“I am because you are,” wrote a young woman to the man
she loved. The two, both crippled, had decided to go their
separate ways rather than marry. Her words to him revealed the
depth and significance of their relationship even if marriage was
not to be their choice.
The young woman’s words also suggest a penetrating insight
into the meaning of everyone’s life, an insight with applications
far beyond her own personal relationship with her lover. St.
Paul told the Athenian crowds about God, “In him we live and
move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We might say,
interpreting Paul’s words, that life is relationship. I am because
you are.”
Some of the Bible’s most penetrating interpretations of the
meaning of human life portray the deepest reality of man’s life
in terms of relationship with God. Ezekiel, for example,
describes life as a graced relationship between God, portrayed as
a lover and husband, and Israel, described as an abandoned
infant who, through God’s graciousness, grows into a beautiful
young woman (Ez. 16). She can in all truth say to God, I am
because you are.”
The same dramatic description of man’s existence as
constituted by his relationship with God is found in the
descriptions of man’s origin in the first two chapters of the
book of Genesis. Man exists because God, motivated by love,
gives man life.
Psalm 104 poetically sums up the Judaeo-Christian insigr.t
into life as relationship with God. Painting a picture of all living
things looking expectantly to God, the psalmist writes:
“If you take their breath they die, and they fall back into
dust. But send your spirit, and they come to life, You give the
earth the freshenssof youth.” (Ps. 104: 29-30)
Jews and Christians see life’s deepest reality as relationship
with God, a relationship initiated by God. At every moment, in
the most ordinary experiences and the most extraordinary
events, God is at the heart of life, calling, inviting, trying to
communicate himself with man, wanting to share his life with
us, keeping us in existence.
We are free to respond, accepting God’s gracious offer of
himself, listening sensitively to his guidance, entrusting ourselves
into his hands with faith. We are free to ignore him, acting as if
we had no need of him. No matter how we respond, it is his love
that keeps us inexistence. The fuller our response, the richer our
share in life.
It appears to me that the purpose of religious education -- in
the home, classroom, or Church - is to enable people to discern
the presence and reality of God in daily life. Religious education
is meant to sensitize people to the deeper realities of their lives,
the deepest of which touches their relationship with God. The
religious educator aims to enable people to recognize and
respond to God’s activity in their lives for life in depth is
relationship with God. Religion is but the deepest dimension of
human life.
The heart of the religious education process is, therefore, the
skill at interpreting daily life in the light oi the Judaeo-Christian
tradition which sees man’s life as relationship with God. This
process implies a dynamic balance between growth in human
experience and deeper appreciation of that tradition. Religious
education is neither simply learning traditional truths nor
simply exploring human experience. It is a delicate but dynamic
process of allowing increased human experience to penetrate the
deeper meaning of Christian tradition, which in turn permits
deeper insight into life’s meaning.
Appreciation of the deepest meaning of life as relation with
God - “I am because You are” - can develop only as one’s
capacity for relationship with others grows - “I am because you
are.” As there is increased experience of significant relationships
in one’s life, one is more able to perceive the meaning of the
Christian insight into life as relationship with God.
This Christian view of human life can open one to recognize
that the heart of one’s relationship with others is graced by
God’s loving relationship with us. For example, to experience
being with another allows one to understand Jesus’ words, “I
am with you.” (Mt. 28:20). Insight into Jesus’ words reveals
that Jesus’ presence touches our whole lives, but especially
when we are with others in love and trust.
Religious education today is viewed as a dynamic process of
integrating human experience with the Christian tradition iiv
such a way that the one illuminates the other throughout the
process. As St. Paul says, “For, to me, ‘life' means Christ” (Phil
1, 21). I am because You are.