What does the Church have to offer?

I was recently asked by a family friend to put pen to paper (fingertips to keyboard) on this matter to feed into a forthcoming meeting he has with local bishops. This is what I said:

Our Church holds together thousands of years of wisdom on love, life, happiness, pain, forgiveness, reconciliation, kindness, generosity, patience, relationship, self-esteem, service and just about everything else we hold dear and important. It holds warnings on greed, condemnation, judgement and those things which get in the way of us reaching fulfilment.

There are saints and spiritual writers who have dedicated their lives and works to tuning into the meaning of life- a benevolent God that is Love. They have left learning which we can delve into, and parse, and find relevance and resonance for our own lives. Or we can simply take the sound-bites that help us move from moment to moment and day to day. We can learn from the masters as to how to be our best selves.

Many of us are searching, yearning for a wholeness.We are promised that in this whole-hearted business of seeking God (fullness, wholeness, meaning, pure love), we will find Him/Her/It. (Jeremiah 29:13). The Church, as the body of Christ, teaches us the Christian message so that the ultimate divine joy may live in us and so that our joy may be complete (John 15:11). We are offered a reason to hope and trust, we are promised complete joy and to top it all off, we are deeply and sacredly cherished as individual human beings (Isaiah 43:4). Sounds like a good deal to me.

So why find all this in Church? What is lacking in finding God and/or spiritual practice on our own terms? There is something about sharing the journey. We can receive solace and assurance in community. Together we admit that we are broken, that we have wronged one another and not honoured our best selves. It's not a guilt trip but rather a release of guilt.

I feel that the idea of “[Catholic] guilt” does us few favours. It is time for an understanding of "sin" which is not about condemnation, fire and brimstone and a demonisation of all that is fun. We instead need to hear “sin” as that which interferes with our life force, which degrades and demeans and which prevents us from being the best we can be. To be sorry, then, ought not be about beating ourselves up with blame and regrets, but acknowledging flawed actions and readying our hearts to put it behind us.

Our Church is a space for solidarity and honesty in vulnerability. It can be a source of strength and support to start again from a place of love for one another and for ourselves. In Our Church, we wish each other the ultimate peace and love in our lives and we in turn receive this from the hearts, prayers, words and energy of those with whom we are in communion- the body of Christ.

We are welcome in any Church around the world, however long it has been, wherever we have come from and no matter what we have done. We can go to the four corners of the earth and hear the same message of hope, in countless languages, in a familiar format, in a sacred space of which we have an innate knowledge. We have a family, a community, a source of inspiration, a comforting parent. There is a message for us, a plan for us and Our Church can help us to unlock it.

In Our Church, we will be challenged to figure out what is right for us and for society. We won’t agree with everything we hear, either from the pulpit, from one another and probably not in the media. We can run away, dismiss it all, distract ourselves with “drunkenness, debauchery and the cares of life”, but we risk letting our minds be narrowed and our hearts coarsened (Luke 21:34). We are challenged to seek out our own relationship with God, but not in a vacuum. Faith isn’t something purely self-satisfying. It involves believing in a better world and Way for all. We are brothers and sisters, and when one hurts, we are all lessened. We must listen to one another, be there for one another, learn from one another, challenge one another. This is true in the Church as in any family.

Finally, we know that authority figures in the Church have done great damage to people’s lives along the way. People have walked away in despair. Although this is completely understandable, it does not challenge the horror of events and actions. ["If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into hell" (Matthew 5:30). Admitted this passage relates to adultery and it can be dangerous to take scripture out of context. That said, there are also references to the Church as the Bride of Christ and actions which abuse the authority and position of the Church seem to be unfaithful to Him.] Walking away will not reclaim Our Church. Nor does honour all that has been done in the name of God to combat poverty, sectarianism, alienation, depression, the effects of war and much more. If we have, or even wish we could have, any faith in the Christian message, its vision for peace and the importance of hope, we are the hands, minds and parishioners who are responsible for making it happen. Church authorities must be humble, ask for the forgiveness and help of all of God’s children to realise the Kingdom of God.

“And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8.