Newspaper Page Text
March 12,1981
PAGE 5
> «■
Parishes As Resources For Everyday Living
BY FATHER PHILIP MURNION
Business, labor, politics, science, human
services, law: what can lay Catholics
contribute to such fields of everyday
endeavor?
Four years ago, a group of Catholics in
Chicago issued a public declaration of
concern. They said they feared that with so
many new opportunities for lay people to
fulfill roles in the internal life of parishes,
one of the church’s vital roles might slip
from view: its role in motivating lay people
to live as Christians in the worlds of
everyday life and work - the world outside
parish buildings.
KNOW
YOUR
FAITH
(All Articles on This Page
Copyrighted"!981 By N.C. News Service)
Most people recognize a need to discover
the connections of faith and everyday life.
The question is not whether, but how, to
discover the connections.
Many parishes are trying to establish
means of support for people who want their
Christianity to bear in clearer ways on
everyday life. The secret, it seems, is to
recognize the ways people can support each
other in this. Ministry in this area, in other
words, will benefit from being a “peer”
ministry.
The genius of the Christian Family
Movement (CFM) is that it provides such
support. CFM enables family members to
consider together what faith means to them.
It helps them think together about the
spiritual dimensions and the social
conditions of life.
As Christians think about the relationship
of the parish and everyday life, they often
ask each other questions like these:
- Have you ever had to make a decision
that was a problem of conscience? What did
you do?
- In your work, do you ever find yourself
thinking about your faith as an aid in
deciding what to do? If not, why not?
- Do you expect your parish, or the
church, to be of any help to you in your job
or your daily life? (I once asked this
question in a group and got “no” as an
answer. Then I asked, “Well, what do you
think about that?”)
The parish is not a mere retreat from the
pressures of life. It can serve as a place where
people find energy and hope for confronting
everyday life. In other words, the parish can
serve as a genuine resource in day-to-day
living.
Everything a parish does may be a source
of encouragement and support for lay life.
But some parishes try to give explicit
attention to the challenges people face at
work, in their communities, in their lives as
citizens.
There has always been a realization
among parish priests that all of human life is
a concern of the church. This conviction has
meant involvement of the church in support
for family life, services connected with
health and education, concern for workers
and other activities.
But, there is so much that can still be
done to discover the connections of faith
and work. Recently, a group of Christian
Brothers conducted a symposium on “work”
in which a thelogian, Brother Gabriel Moran,
talked about how true spirituality touches
everything that involves the human spirit -
meaning every aspect of our lives. Similar
discussions of work are becoming more and
more common.
Work, whether at home, in an office or in
a field or a mine, takes up a major part of
most people’s time. The concern of some of
these Christian thinkers who examine the
meaning of work is that walls not be built up
between the different aspects of one’s life.
Parishioners are discovering they can help
each other remove walls that divide up their
lives. Generally this means arranging for
small group meetings of people who share
similar situations in life or similar
occupations. In these groups, there will be
opportunities to consider life’s pressures in
light of the Gospel and to find support for
being a personal sort of leaven in the world -
that is, a constructive Christian presence in
the world.
Probably our greatest source of anxiety
and inner conflict comes from the fact that
we are trying to balance the many
conflicting demands of the many worlds we
live in. It is a challenge.
But, of course, we realize that whenever
the people of a parish gather, it is their
intention to leave carrying with them the life
and light of Christ, no matter where their
steps take them.
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. Father Philip Mumion says all of human life is a concern for the
parish. What do you think he means by this?
2. List two ways parishes can help people see the relationship
between earning a living and living by faith, according to Father
Mumion.
3. In Richard Conklin’s article, how were Arthur and Arlene
Quigley, residents of South Bend, Ind., first motivated to social service?
4. Discuss one way the Quigleys translated their faith into their
everyday lives.
5. What sort of community does Father John Castelot say the
Gospel of Matthew was written for?
6. Take a few moments to think quietly about your work and your
faith. What are the links that you see between the two? Have you ever
discussed this in a group? What is the largest obstacle, in your opinion,
to acting as a Christian at work?
Matthew’s Community
A PADLOCK ON a gate at a United States Steel plant in
Youngstown, Ohio, tells the story of one plant that has
fallen victim to troubling economic times. Catholic parishes,
along with churches of other faiths in Youngstown, have
offered much support to families of the unemployed while
pooling their efforts to reopen steel mills. (NC Photo)
The LYNAY Button (It Says It All)
BY RICHARD CONKLIN
Arthur J. Quigley drove home one day in
January and, before pulling into his garage,
drove up and down the driveway of a
neighbor who was away. “No tire tracks
invites burglars,” he explained. “We try to
take care of one another around here.”
This small gracious act was typical of the
66-year-old University of Notre Dame
engineering professor, whose helping spirit
for 42 years at St. Joseph Parish in South
Bend, Ind., was a subject of vestibule
conversation even before the term “lay
ministry” was bandied about.
“Wherever two or more of us were
gathered together,” recalled one veteran
parish activist, “there also was Art Quigley.
And if he wasn’t there, Arlene was.”
Quigley, and his wife, Arlene, came to
social action by a route familiar to many
other Catholics of their generation, a route
that begins with liturgy. After the young
married couple moved to South Bend in
1942, they were influenced by a young Holy
Cross priest, Father Michael Mathis. Founder
of Notre Dame’s liturgical studies program,
the priest’s efforts presaged much in
Catholic worship that would come out of
Vatican II two decades later.
“Father Mathis would gather a small
group together on Saturdays to explore in
depth the significance to everyday Christian
life of the next day’s epistle and gospel
readings,” Quigley remembered. It was a
telling exposure to the notion that what
Christians should celebrate on Sunday is
what they ought to have done in Jesus’ name
on the other six days of the week.
At that time, the Quigleys also were
active in the Christian Family Movement,
during its formative years. Their four natural
children, (they also have been foster parents
to six infants and an adolescent) grew up in
a house steeped in the kind of activities that
grow from a profound interest in the
church’s liturgy. The first Advent wreath at
St. Joseph’s Parish was handmade by a
Quigley.
The Quigley’s preparatory years were the
days of Catholic Action, then described as
the laity’s “participation in the apostolate of
the hierarchy.” Later, they were more than
ready when the Second Vatican Council
wrote: “The lay apostolate is a participation
in the saving mission of the church itself.”
In the wake of the council it was not
surprising, then, to find the couple acting as
diocesan resource people for those local
churches interested in the new concept of a
parish council. Their own involvement in
parish activity began in the enlarged role for
lay persons in the liturgy but soon edged
toward social ministry. To both it became
ever more clear that, in Quigley’s words,
“Love of neighbor has to go into the
neighborhood, not stay in the parish meeting
hall.”
The rest is a history of service written in
St. Joseph Parish and in South Bend’s
northeast neighborhood. Most of the work
was done without formal titles, but a brief
list of their major responsibilities underlines
the scope. They have served as leaders on the
parish social justice commission, the
Northeast Neighborhood Council, the
United Religious Community task forces on
neighborhood associations, juvenile justice
and prison reform.
The Quigleys also served as members on
several committees of community
organizations serving the elderly, the poor
and the powerless. The couple played
founding roles in parish Boy Scouts and PTA
and were recipients of Notre Dame’s
Niebuhr award for concern for human
values.
The distinction some people make
between the secular and the religious is one
the Quigleys have spent much of their life
purposely blurring. “To restore all things in
Christ’ has been our motivation,” explained
Quigley. To this end, he said, they have
worked in ecumenical ways “with many who
share our religious conviction” and have also
worked with “non-believers who share our
goals.”
For a 1978 Lenten program, the Quigleys
flooded the parish with buttons reading,
“LYNAY ’78.” The promotional acronym
said it all: “Love Your Neighbor As
Yourself.”
BY FATHER JOHN CASTELOT
If the author of the Gospel of Matthew
used Mark as a resource, he obviously was
writing after Mark, whose Gospel appeared
close to the year 70.
We also should allow some time for
Mark’s work to have circulated and become
known and accepted in Matthew’s
community, which well may have used the
Gospel of Mark in its liturgy.
This would lead to sometime around the
year 80 for Matthew, a date confirmed by
some passages in the Gospel. For instance,
take the parable Jesus tells about the supper
the king gave for his son. When the guests
turn down his invitation, the king sends his
armies and burns their cities. (Matthew,
Chapter 22:7) This may well be a thinly
disguised reference to the sack of Jerusalem
by the Romans in the year 70, and the
author gives the impression that it happened
some time ago.
All indications are that Matthew’s
community was composed originally of
Jewish Christians, staunchly devoted to the
law. But if that had been its original
makeup, it no longer was at the time his
Gospel was written. Gentiles had become
members in increasing numbers, with
resultant tensions and problems of all sorts -
tensions and problems clearly reflected in
the Gospel.
By the time we reach the final verses of
the Gospel, with the command to “make
disciplies of all the nations,” baptizing them,
the tension seems to have been resolved in
favor of a universal mission beyond Israel - a
community that reaches out to gentiles, that
is. Furthermore, the mission involves
baptism, not the circumcision of the Jews.
Such a revolutionary turnabout did not take
place overnight; it had to be a gradual, and
painful, process.
These are just some of the considerations
which incline scholars today to date the
Gospel of Matthew sometime in the ’80s,
perhaps close to the year 90.
As for the place of composition, a
locality somewhere outside of Palestine
seems most likely. The language of Jewish
Christians living in first century Palestine
was Aramaic, and our author wrote in
Greek, very good Greek. Since the Gospel
was directed to the whole community, that
community must have been speaking Greek,
not Aramaic, at the time of its composition.
There is no denying the clear Jewish
characteristics of this Gospel, but these flow
from its subject matter, such as the relation
of the law to Christ, and the underlying
mentality of many of its readers. This blend
of Greek and Semitic traits would reflect a
rather divided community, now largely
gentile, but with a considerable number of
Jewish Christians.
Where would such a group have been
located? Probably not far from Palestine.
After the fall of Jerusalem, many people fled
the ravaged and subjugated land, but they
would not have had to go too far. Syria was
just to the north, and Christian communities
had been in existence there for some time.
In fact, an urban center like Antioch
would be a most likely spot. Jewish
Christians who settled in rural areas would
have been likely to preserve their identity
and to retain their mother tongue, just as
immigrants to our own farming areas have
done. But in a place like Antioch they would
have had to be Greek-speaking to survive,
and here, too, gentiles would have found
their way into the community.
All of these clues suggest strongly that
the Gospel of Matthew was written between
80 and 90 in Syria, and very probably in a
center like the city of Antioch.
ARLENE AND ARTHUR QUIGLEY OF South Bend,
Ind., pose with some of their scouting memorabilia.
Scouting is only one area of the Quigley’s community and
parish involvement which includes Catholic Action.
Christian Family Movement, parish social justice
commission, Northeast Neighborhood Council, United
Religious Community task forces on neighborhoods and
juvenile justice and prison reform, PTA, and several
committees on services to the elderly, poor and powerless.
(NC Photo)