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the Archdiocese of Atlanta mnmic&r GEORGIA GEORGIA BULLETIN SERVING GEORGIA'S 71 NORTHERN COUNTIES BOOK SECTION THEOLOGIANS VIEW Sunday Morning Crisis In Church BY REV. ROBERT W. HOVDA What is the Church? The Church, in the Catholic view, is a worshiping commun ity. Both words are important. It is not merely a place or an atmosphere which lends itself to worship, nor is it* merely a community of men and women who worship God in their pri vate and individual ways. If it were the latter, it would not be essentially different from a city all of whose inhabitants happened to be believers. The Church is different from such a city because it is divine gift rather than human political ac hievement, and because it dis covers itself as community and nourishes its very nature as a community in the activity we call liturgy or public worship. This in not easily seen, even' by Catholics, in our time. In The Christian Failure, Ignace Lepp observes: "It loo its as if the five hundred odd people who assemble at Mass meet there purely by chance and the more 1 see of this the more I real ize the gulf between the prese nt day parish and the Chris tian communities of the first centuries." Father Lepp's co mment summarizes the pro blems which will be considered by this volume. For those who believe in Jesus Christ and in his mystical Body are lacking in experience of its reality, and are consequently inarticulate in describing and oommunicating it, what is to be expected of the unbeliever? Why should one be surprised that the Church is ev erywhere rilscnssed and defin ed as everything but what it really is? This article by Father Robert W. Hodva, one of our weekly columnists, is taken from a new book published by Helicon Press of Baltimore ($3.95) un der the title SUNDAY MORNING CRISIS. The book edited by Fa ther Hodva is a series of essays on renewal in Catholic worship done by some of the nation's leading liturgists. lies believe certain things ab out God and man which other men do not believe only in part —we have the illusion of dog mas without end; we know of creeds and catechisms. We know these things. It is of these things we think when we think of the Church. We invest these activities, talents, folkways, prejudices (however we view them) with a corpo rate dimension. They are not only things that Catholics do, they are things "the Church" does* they are not only attri butes of Catholics, they are at tributes of "the Church.” When we seek to define the Church, we tend to define it in these terms. So the Catholic Church turns up in newspaper stories, in tavern conversations and in phi losophical soliloquies as a great moral force, as a bastion of hu man dignity, as a distinguish ed educator; as a befuddled an achronism, as an interesting museum, as the religious con- terpart to political totalitarln- ism and man's thirst for easy answers. From all this we can safely conclude only that, what ever the Catholic Church is, it is a perennially fascinating phe nomenon. But these references, flattering or not, do not penc il hardly occurs to us that it is possible, in discussing an subject as familiar as the Catholic Church, to miss die point completely. We assume that we understand what is fam iliar. And so the beauty of a tree, the warmth of the sun, the dignity of a dance fade in our minds and leave us pleas ureless. And the holy Catholic Church, from covenanted com mon prayer, sinks to die level to dull instruction, tedious mor alizing, soulless institution. We know that Catholics are interested in education—a vast parochical school system im presses this concern on our minds. We know that Catholics are good businessmen—parish and diocesan properties of every kind make us aware that clergy as well as laity are no innocents in the world of fin ance. We know that Catholics have certain real, if narrow, moral sensiticities—there are 'legions** and crusades," at- taks on "birth control** and st erilization. We know that Cahto- trate. They do not penetrate, and they mislead. They divert our minds from die real Church, the worshiping community. We may think that this is an ex aggeration, for we are fully aw are that Catholics worship, they pray, they "attend Mass" with a regularity which is admirable or puzzling according to the vie wer's disposition. But this is precisely the point 1 want to make. The important nodon here is not one's idea of what individual Catholics do, or even of their most important deed. It is rather one's idea of what the Chrch does and of a whole, when we use the word “Ch urch," we do not think immed iately and primarily of a wors hiping community. And we are wrong. We could not be more wrong. We are wr ong whenever we place second ary or even accidental aspects of the Church of Jesus Christ alongside or above its primary and essential reality. Whenever THE GOSPELS ARE ENTHRONED. One of the most impressive ceremonies connected with Vatican Council II is the enthionement of the Book of the Gospels. Each day, before the start of council deliberations, the Book of the Gospels is carried in solemn procession between the rows of council Fathers, and set in a place of honor in their midst. A dif ferent bishop is selected each day for the honor of carrying the Gospels in procession. "the Church as educator** or "the Church as good influence in die community** or "the Ch urch as bulwark against Com munism" or "the Church as custodian of culture" or "the Church as pope and bishops and priests" — whenever any of these notions (some of them, like the last, downright errors, the rest accidental) get the upper hand over the Church as community gathered in wor ship we are mistaken. Not that we haven't been wrong before and won't be ag ain. But our being wrong in this matter is a disaster. It is the source of countless spi ritual problems and confusion, and a font of skepticism. It is the origin of a false dichot omy, division, separation betw een Jesus and the Church, bet ween the Savious and the com munity of salvation. For there is no doubting Christ's aim, whatever hesita tions the aspect of his Church at any given moment may in vite. He is the way to God, the truth about God, the life of God. And all the power of the Word made flesh was directed to the forging of a community f* that they may be one**) sharing the way, the truth, the life in worship. This is the messianic kingdom, as much of it as thin earth will see until judgment day. At Sinai God had constitut ed the children of Abraham as a chosen people, a nation of kings and priests. He gathered them there, through Moses prophetic leadership, as a worshiping community. As such he met them, made his cove nant with them, gave them the Law. Different, separate from other men, their pure worship of the living God would be a sacrament, a sign, for ail the nations to see. So primary was public worship as mark of this people that they were revealed to be altogether a priestly peo ple. Minute prescriptions for the celebration of the liturgy were a part of their very con stitutions. Nor did Jesus in fulfilling the Father's promise and the hopes and aspirations of this people change the character of the chosen community as a wor shiping and priestly congrega tion. The Church is the new Israel, the fulfillment of Isr ael's covenant, the kingdom wh ich Israel prefigured, no longer marked by circumcision but by a baptism of male and fe male alike, no longer protected by a nationalism but by an in dwelling Spirit who knows no earthly barriers. We are Christians baniaarwe accept Jesus Christ as our Sa vior, because we believe he has a unique significance for every human being, because we re gard his moment on earth as the master key to the meaning of every moment and of all time. Man's pilgrimage toward the open end of eternity had been foiled, confused, baffled by the realities of sin, of ex ile, of death. He knew him self as sinner, as guilty, as • somehow radically powerless to attain the happiness, the one ness the completion that his being craved. He faced death, a prospect so repugnant, so utterly at odds with his self- awareness and his knowledge of God's love, that the futility of human power in the face of it was all the more crushing. He was alone, in exile, conscious of the realities of isolation and incompleteness. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4