Newspaper Page Text
August 21, 1980
PAGE 5
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
Today’s parish has its roots in the local
churches of apostolic times. However, the
apostolic communities are really its ancient
ancestors. More recent forbears include the
village church of Western Europe and
national parishes of the immigrant era in the
United States.
However, the parish of the ’80s, like the
parishioners of the ’80s, is suffering from a
kind of rootlessness that apparently was
unknown to its predecessors. Nowhere is this
more evident than in the casual coalition
that frequently passes for parish community.
Apostolic churches, village churches and
national parishes had a natural community
as their base. Often it was forged from the
need of the people to survive economically
or to survive as an ethnic or religious
minority. Today’s parishes, particularly
those in urban and suburban neighborhoods,
seldom enjoy any natural community base.
Rather, they are composed of disparate
groups and individuals who don’t readily
recognize a common denominator other
than their common geography; they live near
each other.
The search for solutions to the problem
of parish rootlessness has resulted in a
variety of experiments. Among these
experiments are the personal or floating
parishes built by people around such
common* denominators as the university
community of which they are all members,
around a charismatic community or a shared
hope for the church. Some have endured,
but many have died out as members
discovered their shared dream lacked the
stuff to build a resilient Christian
community. The parishes which strive to
give their parishioners a common vision seem
more successful.
Father James H. Provost of the Diocese
of Helena, Mont., writing in “Chicago
Studies” in 1976, cited the following reasons
for the existence of the church: “to praise
God, develop the Christian life among its
members, and to proclaim the Gospel of
Christ and his liberating, healing presence to
a sinful world.”
What is true of the universal church is
true also of the church at the local level, the
parish. The church is a community
structured along hierarchical lines with the
pope and bishops, as successors of the
apostles, charged with overseeing the
carrying out of Christ’s commission to
preach the Gospel to all nations.
However, the fact that the church really
does have a hierarchical nature does not
mean that the church must be referred to by
Catholics as “them,” meaning the sisters,
priests, bishops and the pope who so
obviously have the church as a large part of
their lives. The church is an “us,” that
includes the laity. In fact, all Christians
together, laity along with priests and
religious men and women, make up the
church or parish community.
In the church, as Father Provost points
out, “the Gospel is preached, the sacraments
are celebrated and Christians live in a
community of love and concern.”
Coresponsibility, a concept which became
popular following the Second Vatican
Council, has done much to revitalize parish
community. For some people,
coresponsibility meant a greater role for the
laity in the planning, the decision-making of
the church. At the parish level this spawned
parish councils and parish school boards.
Both were important steps on the road to
parish community.
On the other hand, for many people
coresponsibility is a word that refers to
every Christian’s call to minister, to serve.
This reflects a much deeper understanding of
the concept of coresponsibility. It leads
many Catholics to a new awareness that they
are indeed called to live out their baptismal
commitment by placing themselves and their
gifts at the service of the parish community,
and as members of that community, at the
service of the larger community.
Members of prayer groups, the Cursillo
movement, the small groups developing
among Spanish-speaking Catholics and other
movements which are trying to achieve
Christian communities based on love and
concern, have done much to help pastors
restore to their parishes the unity to which
Jesus calls his people.
It is through such local Christian
communities of faith and concern that the
Gospel is most effectively preached to the
world.
children. The whole evening was, I think, a
pleasant time for all of us. We came closer
together - and had fun doing it.
The next day as I drove back to Dayton, I
thought of good times I had spent with
other families in their leisure hours. For
instance, one Sunday afternoon two families
not yet blessed with children took me far
out into the country. Tim and Jan owned
some unsettled acres rich in huge trees.
Together with Ben and Ann we walked until
we were all weary, and then sat by a stream
and talked. Marriages and friendships were
strengthened that day.
Long years ago when I was growing up,
the members of my family relished silence -
together - at certain times. We were all
readers, and on some evenings we would sit
in the living room with our heads buried in
evenings.
At my brother’s house in Columbus,
Ohio, the small dining area adjoining the
kitchen is where the family often gathers to
munch and talk and debate. The subjects of
conversation seem endless: abortion, the
Cincinnati Reds, the hostages in Iran, the
creation of the world, knitting, premarital
sex, the Great Depression. The conversations
may not always be polished, but everyone
learns to express their opinions and listen to
the opinions of others.
In this house plain talk is a leisure-time
activity - and like all worthwhile family
activities, it brings the participants closer to
one another. It is still true that the family
that plays together - at least some of the
time - is likely to stay together and even
grow closer.
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. List two reasons why you enjoy being a member of a parish
community. How active a member are you?
2. From reading Steve Landregan’s article, where does today's parish
have its origins?
3. What does Landregan say parish communities can be formed
around?
4. What draws the people in your parish together? Geography? A
common task?
5. What does Tom Lennon feel is the advantage of spending leisure
time together with family and friends?
6. Why does Father John Castelot say that the first Christians were
pioneers in uncharted territory?
7. Describe several characteristics of the communities found in the
Acts of the Apostles.
8. What do you personally consider the most important purpose of
community? Discuss.
At Ease: Coming Closer
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
If the gospel ideal is a challenging one, so
is the ideal presented in the other New
Testament writings. For it is the very same
ideal, but now translated into the practical
living out of Christianity.
The Acts of the Apostles and the
apostolic letters, including the Book of
Revelation, reveal the joys and the struggles
of the first followers of Christ. They were all
weak human beings like ourselves, trying to
live out the implications of their faith in a
generally alien and often hostile world.
Unlike us, they did not have a long and solid
Christian tradition on which to draw. They
were pioneers in uncharted territory.
Their failings are quite candidly
chronicled, but that is all the more
reassuring. If they had been some unique
breed of superhuman beings, we could feel
no kinship with them. They would appear
utterly unreal and consequently inimitable
and unchallenging.
What really makes people stop and think
is that, ordinary though they were, they
took the message of Jesus seriously and
strove with deep conviction and courage to
make that message work in their lives.
Undaunted by personal shortcomings or
external opposition, they persevered in what
was called “the Way,” and in the process
they eventually transformed their world and
renewed the face of the earth.
One essential feature of their new life was
mutual love, a profound sense of
community, of being one with Christ. Even
granting that Luke’s summary descriptions
of life in the first Christian generation are
somewhat idealized, they do express what
they considered basically important. Typical
is the following:
“They devoted themselves to the
apostles’ instruction and the communal life,
to the breaking of bread and the prayers. A
reverent fear overtook them all, for many
wonders and signs were performed by the
apostles. Those who believed shared all
things in common; they would sell their
property and goods, dividing everything on
the basis of each one’s need. They went to
the temple area together every day, while in
their homes they broke bread. With exultant
and sincere hearts they took their meals in
common, praising God and winning the
approval of all the people” (Acts 2:42-47).
Things were actually not all that rosy, but
that summary captures the characteristic
spirit of the first communities: a spirit of
love, of sharing, of practical concern for
each other. This spirit expressed itself in
different ways in various communities, but it
was always dynamically present - and
visible.
Almost without trying, just by being,
they won “the approval of all the people”
and “day by day the Lord added to their
number.” In a world torn by tension,
division, and hatred, their obvious love,
peace and security exerted a powerful
attraction.
If this was the practical ideal when Luke
wrote late in the first century, it is still the
practical ideal late in the 20th. In a
fragmented society, where fear and
uncertainty and suspicion force people in
upon themselves, loneliness darkens more
and more lives. Almost frantically, some
people clutch at membership in all sorts of
clubs and associations which will give them a
sense of belonging. Ironically, many already
belong to a community whose very essence
is loving concern.
No mere club can ever replace the body
of Christ, into which each of us was
baptized; membership is our birthright.
Still, there is a difficulty here which we
must recognize and try to offset. Many
parishes are so big that they can become
formless and unidentifiable as communities.
Instead of feeling at home as an individual,
one can feel alienated and lost in the crowd.
The larger the parish becomes, the more
impersonal it can seem.
We can reverse this disheartening process
only by reaching out as warmly and
personally as possible to everyone in the
congregation, to these wonderful people
who are really our brothers and sisters in
Christ. We cannot let them remain simply
strangers with whom we rub elbows once a
week.
We must use some imagination and
ingenuity in a sincerely motivated effort to
bring about an answer to Christ’s prayer,
“that all may be one as you, Father, are in
me and I in you; I pray that they may be
one in us, that the world may believe that
you sent me” (John 17:21).
Kirkland, Wash., can help maintain close bonds among the
participants. (NC Photo by Tom Salyer)
BY TOM LENNON
At the end of a sizzling June day a
cooling breeze roamed around Toledo, Ohio,
making its way into the back yard where my
niece, Kathleen, and her husband, Larry,
were hosts to me and a friend, Jerry, a
seminarian. Also present were the young
children, Stacey and Matt. As Larry grilled
hamburgers, the children tossed two colored
sponge balls to Jerry and me.
We were at ease and having fun. At one
IN A FAMILY whatever problem you have is shared by
all the members. Christine and Elias Limon and their
children discuss family problems and goals at a conference
SUMMER LEISURE ACTIVITIES are important to
families and parishes alike. A roller-coaster at a carnival in
at Nuestra Senora de Dolores parish in Austin, Texas. (NC
Photo by Joan Penzenstadler)
point, however, Matt fell down and scarred
his knee on the sharp edge of a brick - and,
for a few seconds, as little children will do,
he screamed. But even that brought us all a
bit closer, for we were concerned about
what the scream might or might not mean.
Later we all ate well. After supper Stacey
showed Jerry and me some of her souvenirs
of previous school years. And Matt, who
knows little fear, laughingly told us about
the time at the swimming pool when he
found himself in water over his head and was
unable to swim! Fortunately, his dad was
nearby.
After the children had gone to bed, we
four adults talked until almost midnight
about everything from car repairs to the
suitability of “Laverne and Shirley” for
books. We said nothing; we read in silence.
But later on, at an evening meal perhaps, we
would talk about the books we were caught
up in. I’d tell about The Hardy Boys; my
brother would talk about Richard
Halliburton; my sister would speak of Philo
Vance; Mother might mention “The Mill on
the Floss.” The books we read in silence
brought us together in conversation.
Sometimes music strengthens family ties.
Several years ago I went to a neighbor’s
house to celebrate the graduation of their
son from high school. After a picnic in the
back yard everyone sat and listened to the
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think we all remember fondly that family
gathering and the sad and joyful songs that
mellowed our hearts in the early June
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles on this page Copyrighted 1980 by N. C. News Service)
The Parish
Is A Community
A Challenging Ideal