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May 2004: A Meal For Sinners |
| Week 1: Am I Worthy? Do I Deserve To Be Here? A big question for many people seems to be, whether or not they are worthy. When I ask people what are the biggest struggles with Eucharist, I was surprised at how many people said to me, "Believing that I am worthy, or wondering whether I have enough faith. Or, whether I deserve to be here". We Don't Deserve It One of the marvels of this gathering, to me, is that the only thing that makes a person worthy of being here is that they aren't worthy. The only criteria that matters for our gathering, I believe, is that we don't deserve it. The Meal Is For Sinners This meal is not for people who have it all together. This is for sinners, for the weak, for the struggling. Jesus said, "I've come to eat with sinners". And that's exactly what he did and exactly what de does not. The trick is we could never deserve to be here - we could never earn this - and the wonder is, we don't have to. God who knows how weak and sinful we are says, "I want you. Come to the table". You Are Loved I really never ever begin to earn his love, his incredible love that we celebrate here. I couldn't make myself worthy of that. It's just sheer gift. To be loved like that here. I guess if I hear anything from the Mass to myself, it's "You are loved". God Eats A Meal With Sinners At Eucharist, we bring ourselves honestly just as we are. This is not about pretending we have it all together. Our state before God is one of meekness. Please not that this is not becoming an occasion where we hate ourselves, or beat ourselves up, but to celebrate the wonder of God, who again eats a meal with sinners. Lord, We Need Your Mercy We sing "Kyrie Leison". Perhaps that is best translated "Lord, you are merciful, and we need you". We cry out "Lord Have Mercy", because it is so important we are aware of the truth. Our need for God's great mercy... and , our part in the suffering in the world. Our prayer for mercy is not simply that God would forgive my personal little failings but whether our common stance before God. We Are Here Because We Need To Be Here I heard people say that they stay away from Church because they say that it's all just a bunch of hypocrites. The truth is the bad news about the Catholic Church is that every person gathered is sinful. It that it is made up of weak and sinful people, therefore we compromise the truth? We hurt one another. We don't always live what we profess. The bad news about the Catholic Church is that it is made up of weak and sinful people. The good news about the Catholic Church is, it is made up of weak and sinful people. Therefore, there is room for you. There is room for me. We don't even pretend that we are not sinners. In any Catholic Church building, you'll always see confessionals - reconciliation rooms. Those are public statements of the fact that we are sinners and need God's mercy. Though we are baptised for the forgiveness of our sins, we must be converted again and again. The fact is, we are not here because we are better than everybody else. We are here because we need to be here. Keep On Going Disregarding Feeling I believe it goes something like your desire to please me, pleases me. Something along those lines. If you're not feeling the real presence, taking the Eucharist, if it's not moving you, and you are not feeling any connection, but you want to feel that, then keep on going. God's Mercy Meets Our Sinfulness The whole purpose of our gathering then, is to help remember who we are, in relation to God and one another. We remember our sinfulness and the Loving One's Great Mercy. And so, it becomes an experience of praise, as we again encounter the One who loves us in our weakness. Children In Search Of Their Father There's a story told in Spain about a father and a son whose relationship had been strained and under tension. The young boy ran away from home. But the father began to search for his son and finally in Madrid, in desperation, he put an advertisement in the papers. The ad read "Dear Paco ... Meet me in front of the post office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father". The next day, at noon, in front of the post office, several dozen young men named Paco showed up. They were seeking that forgiveness to that they have a father that would welcome them home. It is true that each of us yearns to know that type of forgiveness and the wonder of our God is that God is a loving parent. Ready to forgive us. Ready to take us sinners back. Week 2: Lord, I Am Not Worthy The Church Spotless And Tainted The Church is holy and sinful, spotless and tainted. The Church is the bride of Christ who washed her in cleansing water and took her to himself "with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless" (Eph 5:26-27). The Church too is a group of sinful, confused, anguished people constantly tempted by the power of lust and greed and always entangled in rivalry and competition. When we say that the Church is a body, we refer not only to the holy and faultless body made Christ-like through baptism and Eucharist but also to the broken bodies of all the people who are its members. Only when we keep both these ways of thinking and speaking together can we live in Church as true followers of Jesus. Believing In The Church The Church is an object of faith. In the Apostles' Creed, we pray: "I believe in God, the Father, ... in Jesus Christ, his only Son, ... in the Holy Spirit, in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." We must believe in the Church! The Apostles' Creed does not say that the Church is an organisation that helps us to believe in God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. No, we are called with the same faith we believe in God. Often it seems harder to believe in the Church than to believe in God. But whenever we separate our belief in the Church, we become unbelievers. God has given us the Church as the place where God becomes God-with-us. The Two Sides Of One Faith Our faith in God who sent his Son to become God-with-us and who with his Son, sent his Spirit to become God-within-us cannot be real without our faith in the Church. The Church is that unlikely body of people through who God chooses to reveal God's love for us. Just as it seems unlikely to us that God chose to become human in a young girl living in a small, not very respected town in the Middle East nearly two thousand years ago, it seems unlikely that God chose to continue his work of salvation in a community of people constantly torn apart by arguments, prejudices, authority, conflicts and power games. Still, believing in Jesus and believing in the Church are two sides of one faith. It is unlikely but divine. Week 3: To Receive You Superabundant Grace Supercedes Abundant Sin Over the centuries, the Church has done enough to make any critical person want to leave it. Its history of violent crusades, power struggles, oppression, excommunications, executions, manipulation of people and ideas and constantly recurring divisions is there for everyone to see and be appalled by. Can we believe that this is the same Church that carries in its centre the Word of God and the sacraments of God's healing love? Can we trust that in the midst of all its human brokenness the Church presents the broken body of Christ to the world as food for eternal life? Can we acknowledge that where sin is abundant, grace is superabundant and that where promises are broken over and over again, God's promise stands unshaken? To believe is to answer yes to these questions. The Church, God's People As Jesus was one human person among many, the Church is one organisation among many. And just as there may have been people with more attractive appearances than Jesus, there may be many organisations that are lot better run than the Church. But Jesus is the Christ appearing among us to reveal God's love and the Church is his presence visible in today's world. Would we have recognised Jesus as the Christ if we had met him many years ago? Are we able to recognise him today in his body, the Church? We are asked to make a leap of faith. If we dare to do it, our eyes will be opened and we will see the glory of God. The Garden Of Saints The Church is a very human organisation but also the garden of God's grace. It is a place where great sanctity keeps blooming. Saints are people who make the living Christ visible to us in a special way. Some saints have given their lives in the service of Christ and his Church; others have spoken and written words that keep nurturing us; some have lived heroically in difficult situations; others have remained hidden in quiet lives of prayer and meditation; some were prophetic voices calling for renewal; others were spiritual strategists setting up large organisations or networks of people; some were healthy and strong; others were quite sick, and often anxious and insecure. But all of them in their own ways lived in the Church as in a garden where they heard the voice calling them the Beloved and where they found the courage to make Jesus the centre of their lives. Week 4: But Only Say The Word Being In The Church, Not Of It Often we hear the remark that we have to live in the world without being of the world. But it may be more difficult to be in the Church without being of the Church. Being of the Church means being so preoccupied by and involved in the many ecclesial affairs and clerical 'in and outs' that we are no longer focused on Jesus. The Church then blinds us to what we came to see and deafen us to what we came to hear. Still, it is in the Church that Christ dwells, invites us to his table and speaks to us words of eternal love. Being in the Church without being of it is a great spiritual challenge. To love the Church means to be willing to meet Jesus wherever we go in the Church Loving The Church Loving the Church often seems close to impossible. Still, we must keep reminding ourselves that all the people in the Church - whether powerful or powerless, conservative or progressive, tolerant or fanatic - belong to that long line of witnesses moving through this valley of tears singing of praise and thanksgiving, listening to the voice of their Lord, and eating together from the bread that keeps multiplying as it shared. When we remember that we may be able to say: "I love the Church, and I am glad to belong to it". Loving the Church is our sacred duty. Without a true love for the Church, we cannot live in it in joy and peace. And without a true love for the Church, we cannot call people to it. Meeting Christ In The Church Loving the Church does not require romantic emotions. It requires the will to see the living Christ among his people and to love them as we want to love Christ himself. This is true not only for the "little" people - the poor, the oppressed, the forgotten - but also for the "big" people who exercise authority in the Church. To love the Church means to be willing to meet Jesus wherever we go in the Church. This love doesn't mean agreeing with or approving of everyone's ideas or behaviour. On the contrary, it can call us to confront those who hide Christ from us. But whether we confront or affirm, criticise or praise, we can only become fruitful when our words and actions come from hearts that love the Church. Week 5: And I Shall Be Healed The Authority Of Compassion The Church often wounds us deeply. People with religious authority often wound us by their words, attitudes and demands. Precisely because our religion brings us in touch with the questions of life and death, our religious sensibilities can get hurt most easily. Ministers and priests seldom fully realise how a critical remark, a gesture of rejection or an act of impatience can be remembered for life by those to whom it is directed. There is such an enormous hunger for meaning in life, for comfort and consolation, for forgiveness and reconciliation, for restoration and healing that anyone who has any authority in the Church should be constantly be reminded that the best word to characterise religious authority is compassion. Let's keep looking at Jesus whose authority was expressed in compassion. The Church as an often fallible human organisation needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the Living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness. Forgiving The Church When we have been wounded by the Church, our temptation is to reject it. But when we reject the Church it becomes very hard for us to keep in touch with the living Christ. We we say "I love Jesus, but I hate the Church", we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially. But the Church as an often fallible human organisation needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us to continues offer us forgiveness. It is important to think about the Church not as "over there" but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in who we meet our Lord and Redeemer. Our Spiritual Leaders The Church as the body of Christ has many faces. The Church prays and worships. It speaks words of instruction and healing, cleanses us from our sins, invites us to the table of the Lord, binds us together in a covenant of love, sends us out to minister, anoints us when we are sick or dying and accompanies us in our search for meaning and our daily need for support. All these faces might not come to us from those we look up to as our leaders. But when we live our lives with a simple trust that Jesus comes to us in our Church, we will see the Church's ministry in places and in faces where we least expect it. If we truly love Jesus, Jesus will send us the people to give us what we most need. And they are our spiritual leaders. |