Newspaper Page Text
December 11,1980
PAGE 5
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The Church Is For Sinners
BY FATHER PHILIP MURNION
In a letter she once wrote, Flannery
O’Connor told of her impatience with
someone who lamented the fact that there
are sinners in the church. With characteristic
insight, the short-story writer insisted: The
church is for sinners.
Jesus faced the same problem and
answered similarly. He was attacked for
consorting with sinners. But he insisted he
had come for those who needed salvation.
A great many people have idfficulty with
this notion. Remember the older brother in
the biblical story about the prodical son?
The older brother complained about the
generous treatment given by his father to the
repentant younger brother who had finally
come home. The story is a reminder: God
has the most needy in mind.
Another biblical story makes a similar
point: the story about the Good Shepherd’s
readiness to abandon the 99 sheep in his
flock in order to go out and find the one
who was lost.
All parishes and their people face a
common danger. They could become
complacent, all too ready to complain about
the presence of someone they feel is not
measuring up.
Priests have often been criticized for
spending too much time with the
troublesome youth in the parish or with
families suffering many problems or with the
young woman or man whose life has gone
into a human and moral tailspin.
Again, in a time of church renewal such
as the present there is a danger that zeal will
turn inside out, that people who do not give
evidence of really profound commitment to
the church will be regarded, somehow, as
not real members of the church. This danger
can even appear among some people who
have participated in very good movements in
the church.
Marriage Encounter, Cursillo, the
charismatic renewal, and other old and new
movements, have contributed greatly to the
church’s life. They have helped people to
make deeper, more lasting commitments to
the Lord and to others. The church would
be much poorer without these activities. But
a danger arises if people who have benefited
from these and other movements suggest,
however unintentionally, that those who
have not participated in them are lesser
members of the church.
KNOW
YOUR
FAITH
The church challenges people and -the
challenge needs to be felt keenly. At the
same time, the church is a community of
reconciliation, a place where people can
always experience the patience and love of
Christ.
A difficult balance is soughty by the
whole church in this area. The difficulty can
be seen when current efforts to prepare
people to receive a sacrament for the first
time -- Communion, confirmation,
preparation of parents for their child’s
baptism -- are considered.
The celebration of all these sacraments
has benefited because of the care given to
preparing people and helping them
understand how the reception of a
sacrament is related to their own
commitment and faith.
A problem can develop, however, if it is
suggested that reception of a sacrament
expresses something already achieved, in
such a way that it is forgotten how
sacraments are acts of Christ and of the
church community that help people achieve
new levels of faith and commitment.
The extremes in these matters are far
apart: not challenging people at all, on the
one end; excluding large numbers because of
their inadequate commitment, on the other
end. These extremes are rare.
In the center, the line between urging
people on to Christian commitment and
making the church an elite church is more
difficult to draw. Efforts in these matters
require considerable wisdom.
In fact, the most powerful demands we
experience are those from people who have
first demonstrated the generosity of their
love. After all, the expression of love places
demands on those who receive that love.
I think parishes and their people can pose
a challenge to those who need a challenge by
first demonstrating the love of Christ. As St.
John said, “It is not that we love, but that
God has first loved us.”
The love shown through Christ was not
shown because we had already been
redeemed. It was for our redemption.
Undoubtedly, the best way for us to
ensure that the church remains a community
for sinners is to realize that we are all in that
number.
THE CHURCH must always be a
place that confronts us with the
challenges of living a Christian life. At
the same time the church is a
community of reconciliation, in which
people can experience the patient,
enduring love of Christ, even before
any demands are put on them. (NC
Photo by John Gregg)
No Private Sin In The Christian Community
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
In First Corinthians, Chapter 5, St. Paul
had to deal with a messy case of incest in the
Changing Perspectives
BY NC NEWS SERVICE
The boy rather awkwardly took a seat
near the back of the church. He and his
father were late for Mass. This was the
church where the boy was baptized, received
his first Communion. Now he was 17 and
right at the moment he was in a turmoil.
He wore rumpled jeans and yesterday’s
shirt. Feelings of confusion, anger and regret
kept rushing through him as he remembered
his father’s anger and their argument.
His father sat down next to him. They
hadn’t spoken on the way to the church.
The father too was confused at the moment.
The boy had badly broken his curfew last
night. But the father knew his own strong
reaction was caused by more than that. The
incident brought some hidden anger to the
surface.
The boy realized his lifestyle was a bit
afield from his father’s wishes right now. But
like many teen-agers, he felt his father didn’t
understand him. He wondered how much his
father would like him if he really did
understand.
The father knew his son wanted to be
understood. As a matter of fact, the father
wanted to be understood too, by his son.
The pressures of work, the problems of
family finances, the demands placed on his
time - the father wanted his son to
comprehend these things.
IN RUMPLED JEANS and
yesterday’s shirt, the young man knelt
in silence in the back of the church.
“Oh God, I am so sorry,” he prayed.
“I’ve disappointed my mom and dad.
They’ll never understand.” (N Sketch
by Christopher McDonough)
The boy was getting older. His father
wanted the best for him. What’s more, the
father remembered his own mistakes and
lived in some fear his son would make
similar mistakes. He wanted his own
experience in life to help his son.
Soon this boy would leave home, for
college or for work. The father was
concerned about that approaching moment,
wondering if he had done enough for the
boy, hoping he had.
“Hoping,” that was the word. The father
was hoping that his own sometimes clumsy
efforts to reach out to his son would be
understood. At this moment, this father’s
relationship with his son seemed less than
successful.
Neither father nor son heard much said at
the altar that Sunday. This wasn’t a regular
Sunday for them. For them, this Mass was a
needed moment to sit down quietly, to
think.
The father remembered an argument he’d
had as a teen-ager with his own father. The
son remembered an earlier argument he’d
had with his father and recalled that they
did, after all, get over it.
Both, in entirely different ways, thought
about their profound involvement in each
other’s lives. Both realized that they would
not want that involvement to simply become
something of the past.
The son reflected on some of his own
aspirations in life, knowing that his father
had hopes for him too. There were times,
both knew, when the two sets of aspirations
conflicted. Expectations brushed up against
expectations, one perspective on the world
crossed paths with another perspective on
the world.
The boy and his father knew they weren’t
alone with such occurrences. Other families,
friends, even whole communities could
experience conflicts for similar reasons.
There was a sense in which the boy and
his father seemed to push and pull at each
other’s lives, posing future ideals for one
another, on the one hand; lacking patience,
lacking enough time for one another, on the
other hand.
During the prayers of the faithful that
day, someone prayed aloud for a special
intention. The father and his son did, at
least, hear that person’s voice. They each
had their own special intentions. In their
own ways, each hoped for a not-too-difficult
way out of their present difficulty and into a
better relationship.
The Mass ended. They rose to leave.
Some friends came over to the boy and his
father in the back of the church. One friend
told of a funny item in the morning
newspaper. The father and his son managed
to laugh - a little.
On the way home in the car, father and
son exchanged a few words. Each could feel
that time doing what time often does in
families. It was putting their big problem
into a different context.
The difficulty they had with each other
from time to time wasn’t being erased. But
bit by bit it was beginning to seem different,
less all-encompassing. They were beginning
to remember some of the other important
things that bound them together.
Christian community. Having disposed of
the matter in no uncertain terms, he now
turns to something which disturbes him even
more than the affair itself: the attitude of
the community toward the incident.
Early in the chapter he alluded to this:
“Still you continue to be self-satisfied,
instead of grieving, and getting rid of the
offender!” Now he returns in deadly
earnest: “This boasting of yours is an ugly
thing. Do you not know that a little yeast
has its effect all through the dough?”
For Paul, there is no such thing as a
“private” sin. Every action of a Christian
affects the whole community for good or for
ill. The community is an organic body; one
cannot have “just a toothache or “just” an
upset stomach. In either case the whole
body is miserable.
That is why he uses another illustration,
that of the action of yeast. That action
cannot be confined to just a little section of
the batch of dough; once added it will make
the whole ioaf rise. We have another way of
expressing the same truth when we observe
that one bad apple can spoil a whole bushel.
The mention of leaven, however, suggests
to Paul’s Jewish mind the custom observed
by his people in connection with Passover
and the Feast of Unleavened Bread which
followed it. For some strange reason, yeast
had become a symbol of evil and corruption.
In preparation for Passover, every pious
housewife scoured the house looking for
stray pieces of leftover leaven and throwing
it out. Thus symbolically the Jewish people
acted out their inner purification in
preparation for Passover. The use of only
unleavened bread through the following
week signified their subsequent separation
from evil.
With this practice in mind, Paul urges the
Corinthians: “Get rid of the old yeast to
make of yourselves fresh dough, unleavened
loaves, as it were.” To stress the urgency of
the situation, he adds: “Christ our Passover
has been sacrificed. Hurry up! Passover has
already come and gone! If we are going to
celebrate, it must be with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth.”
Once more his converts seem to have
misunderstood him. He had written an
earlier letter (now lost) telling them not to
associate with immoral people. They had
very conveniently concluded that this was an
impossible exaggeration. They would have to
resign from the human race, drop out of
society.
Paul agrees, but insists tht he was not
referring to such people in general, but only
to immoral members of the Christian
community. What outsiders do is not the
business of the Christians; God will take care
of them. But the conduct of fellow
Christians is very much their business.
The community is supposed to be a haven
from the immoral pressures of a twisted
value system. The mutual support of the
people is designed to provide an atmosphere
where they can breathe the air of freedom
and grow in true humanity as true images of
God.
Such a community, in its turn, will be a
beacon inviting a distaught society to come
and find peace. The Christian community
cannot fulfill this vocation if it is itself
distraught, imprisoned in the same value
system as society.
Paul dismisses the case of incest with one
final word: “Expel the wicked man from
your midst.”
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. Father Philip Mumion says that Jesus encountered a situation
which Christians today also may encounter in their churches. Describe
this situation and discuss why this happens.
2. What suggestion does Father Mumion make as a way of helping
people see that the church is truly a community for sinners?
3. What is the problem between the father and his teen-age son
described by the NC feature this week? Does this situation ring a bell
for you? How did you handle a similar break in your relationship with
your son or daughter or perhaps your own father?
4. Have you noticed that time has a way of softening disagreements
in your family? Why do you think this happens?
5. Father John Castelot discusses St. Paul’s strongly felt conviction
that one’s actions affect the entire community of Christians. Do you
agree with him? Discuss this.
6. Why was St. Paul so concerned about the attitude of the
Corinthians? What was their attitude?
7. Family members often have definite opinions about how other
members should behave. This is especially tme for families whose
children are teen-agers. Why is this such a crucial time for families? Why
do teen-agers and their parents frequently operate with different
perspectives?