March 1, 2017
ASH
WEDNESDAY (Years ABC)
Lent
is a time to change together
Inventory
Do
you think things can be turned around in our society without a massive
conversion? Do you believe it will really help the world situation
significantly if you yourself begin living more authentically? What is the
point of Lent?
Input
The readings summon us as individuals to
convert as a community. Joel 2: 12-18 is addressed to the whole
People of Israel as a community; not just to individuals who see themselves
acting independently of others. No one corrupted our society independently of
others. And no one will reform it independently of others. Lent is a time to
hear the word of God together and respond to it as a community.
It
is not true to say that if we don’t act together, we should not act at all. But
when we act as individuals in the Church (or in the human race!) we should do
it in a way that will draw others to act with us. In spite of the fiction, the
Lone Ranger is not nearly as effective as a posse. The word “posse” (Latin)
means “to be able.” Anything we accomplish “alone and unaided” we recognize as
exceptional.
Lent,
then, is a celebrated season that calls for a communal response.
When
Joel said: “Proclaim a fast, call an assembly; gather the people, notify the
congregation.” he was talking to the whole People of Israel. To whom should we
address this call today? To individuals? Parishes? Dioceses? Just the Catholic
Church? All Christians? The whole world?
Matthew 6: 1-18 sounds like a
contradiction of what we have just said about communal response. Jesus is saying the first thing we
have to convert from is religion, and the first thing we have to
convert to is spirituality. “Religion” as used here corresponds to what people
mean when they speak disparagingly of “organized religion.” It is not really
organization they oppose (even the most private, individual life must be
organized to be effective), but a system of organized external observances
without interior ordination to God. Since what is interior is, by definition,
individual, personal and private, Jesus seems to be summoning us to convert to
acting as individuals rather than as a community. That is not what he means.
The
watchword for Christian authenticity is “both-and” as opposed to “either-or.”
There are some “either-or’s” — the fundamental choice of the “blessing” or the
“curse”: life or death; to live or not live by the law of God; to remain in the
darkness or be led into the light. But the big errors in living out the
religion of “God-made-human” come when we think we have be either divine or human; either physical or spiritual; either
obedient or free; either surrendered to faith or guided by reason; either
reliant on God or responsible for taking initiatives; either a Catholic or a
Baptist! (Or Presbyterian or Methodist, etc. Is it possible to be both?) The
correct answer to all the choices proposed above is “both-and.”
The
last example was included for shock value. But think about it. The Baptists say
they don’t know who is a Baptist. They accept anyone who is “saved.” They might
not have fellowship with someone they
disagree with, but they claim no authority to declare anyone wrong. “If you
accept the Bible, then we can’t tell you how to interpret it.” So there is no
contradiction in a Baptist who interprets everything in Scripture the way the
Catholics do and joins the Church as both
a “Baptist Catholic” and a “Catholic
Baptist,” living by the best in both traditions. (For example, participating in
Mass on Sunday but singing the hymns and putting twice as much in the
collection!)
Catholics
who accept the fullness of faith can claim or accept “double citizenship”
through membership in any church that does not ask them to deny anything they
believe, affirm anything they don’t believe, or stop doing anything the Church
requires. (And few Protestant churches would demand any of the above). As long
as membership is “both-and” it does not have to be “either-or.”
The
choice we focus on during Lent is not either
external observances or interior
conversion of heart. It is both-and. But the question invites further
exploration.
There
is a new surge among Christians toward unity. Catholics and Protestants often
find themselves participating in each other’s services. The question arises
about Communion.
In
practice we do what the bishop or pastor decides. But we need to ask what
options there are in theory. Laws are always to be obeyed, but always according
to the intention of the lawgiver. And we have to understand that intention in
the light of our belief.
Catholics
believe that “grace” is the favor of
sharing in the divine life of God. The principal acts of grace — divine
faith, hope and love — are in reality acts of sharing in God’s own activity. By
faith, for example, we share in God’s own act of knowing.
Because
we are both divine and human, our interior, divine act of sharing in God’s
knowledge might “take flesh” in human concepts and words that do not perfectly
agree with the truth we possess in faith. What we possess may differ from what
we profess. Examples:
The
Magi were “saved” by believing in whatever
the star God sent was leading them to. “Where is he?” they said to Herod: “We
have come,” not to “check him out,” but “to adore him.” They already adored
Jesus Christ, and knew him as God, before they ever met him. This is classical
“Baptism of desire.”
Scripture
scholars tell us the disciples believed in Jesus long before, through the
Resurrection and Pentecost, they were able to recognize him as God. But if they
knew him by faith, then interiorly they already knew him as God, whether or not
they could have said this in words.
Did
Jesus know he was God? Of course he did. From his birth “he has to be the Son
of God and he has to know it.... But it is not necessary — and it is hardly
probable — that this fundamental experience should from the beginning have
taken the form of an intellectual certitude, of a clear concept.” In other
words, as human and divine he always knew he was God. But as divine and human
he could not always have said that in human words.[1]
Do
saved Baptists, who by grace share in God’s own knowing act through faith, but
who stoutly assert that the bread and wine of Communion are nothing more than a
symbol of fellowship, really know and believe, without being conscious of it,
that they are in fact the Body and Blood of Christ? If we are consistent with
our theology of grace, we have to say they do.
Also,
by our theology of “Baptism of desire,” if they believe unconditionally in the
Bible and everything God does in fact intend to reveal through it, then they
believe what the Bible really says about Eucharist — whether or not their
limited human understanding, distorted by the controversies of the Reformation,
allows them to affirm this particular doctrine.
So
the Baptists may be Catholic after all! Interiorly, if not exteriorly. Where
does this lead us?
2Corinthians
5:20 to 6:2: “We
are ambassadors for Christ, God, as it were, appealing through us” — calling
each other, calling the whole world to turn around together. Is it time we
broadened our ministry to address everyone who will listen? Time to open our
doors to everyone we recognize as having “become Christ” through Baptism? Is it
time Catholics and Protestants applied to themselves what Paul applied to Jews
and Gentiles:
Now in Christ Jesus you who once were
far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.... In his flesh he has
made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, the hostility
between us.
He has abolished the law with its
commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity
in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God
in one body.... for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the
Father.
So then you are no longer strangers and
aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household
of God....
Perhaps
we could make this our principle focus as we recite the Responsorial (Psalm 51):
“Be merciful O Lord, for we have sinned.”
Insight
Do I see Lent now as a “Catholic” season, or one to share with
everyone?
Initiative
Participate in both Catholic and Protestant Lenten
observances — preferably with the same people.
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