[An address to the annual Alumnae Reunion of the College of Saint Rose, Albany, N.Y. on 22 October 1966]
As Catholics in the United States today we would be less than honest if we did not admit that we feel much confusion. So much seems to be changing in the Church — Latin is out, English is in; chant is out, guitars are in; Lent is gone; Fridays may be going: new ideas: questioning of customs. All over there is change — and so much change is uncomfortable. It is not just priests and religious — all of us must feel the tensions and anxiety of this time when the whole Church seems to be changing right beneath our feet.
I think that this tension, this questioning, this confusion goes deeper. I think they are symptoms of something far more profound and far-reaching. They are signs of a tremendous work of the Holy Spirit in our day.
The Spirit has always been in the Church. We usually think of the Church as a group of people founded by Christ. Jesus was sent from the Father; he carried out his mission. At the end of his life he entrusted it to others, and they in turn to others even to our own day. But it is more than that. The Lord said he had to leave this world and return to the Father so he could send the Spirit to us. Pentecost was a turning point in history when the Holy Spirit was poured forth on human kind. Not only was the Spirit given to individuals, but came to dwell in the Church as such. The mission of Christ is entrusted to us and to the Spirit. And, even now, the Spirit acts in and guides the Church.
All this change, this work of the Spirit in the Church is like a plowing. To ready the field for new seeding and growth the smooth and familiar must be ripped and wrenched up. It is a violent experience, but a necessary one. Now there is a real plowing in the Church. The Holy Spirit is forcing us to a new consciousness, a new vision. These years of the Council are wonderful ones, but hard for us as well.
Pope John always saw the need for this new consciousness of the Church. He had called for “aggiornamento” — the Italian word does not have an exact English equivalent — an up-to-dateness in the Church. Perhaps we could best say, “renewal”. He felt that we could never invite non Christians to the Church, or even hope for union with other Christians until we first made the true nature of the Church more visible. Like some priceless painting, obscured through age, the Church needed to be restored to her true beauty. She needed to better dress and prepare herself so that all would see what she really is.
Both Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI had always seen this new consciousness of the Church as a great work of the Holy Spirit. When Pope Paul took up the work of the Council in September of 1963, after God in His providence took Pope John to himself, he called for a new Pentecost. And, especially when the Council concluded last December, the Holy Father called then for a Pentecostal experience, a new stirring up of all Christians as the fruits of the Council would be brought to them.
There is a real need for this new image of the Church. For example, suppose we try to see the Church as some non-Catholic sociologist might. We might well regard the Church, or Catholicism — for we mean the same thing practically — as merely a cultural phenomenon. Take the so-called “Catholic” countries for instance, such as Italy or the countries of Latin America. So often what we think of as the faith is part and parcel of the tradition and customs. To baptize your child is the proper thing; to use a knife and fork at the table is the proper thing; to omit either is to be a boor. It may not be personal commitment, but simply convention that is at the root of much “Catholic” behavior.
Even here in the United States a comparable phenomenon exists. Perhaps we could speak of a Catholic sub-culture here. How often our adherence to the faith is tempered by the maintaining of a national identity. Catholics here are immigrants — Irish and Italians, Germans and Poles, and many others. Is our loyalty to the Church personal commitment or perhaps in large measure loyalty to our group and family background? So much of our efforts as Catholics have been to build our institutions, indirected for ourselves. Schools and hospitals, societies of men and women, programs and clubs — is it faith or nationality?
Besides all this. what is our traditional image of the Catholic? The “good Catholic” is the man or woman who goes to Mass each Sunday, who does not eat meat on Friday, who fasts during Lent, who contributes to the support of the Church, and who goes to the sacraments at least once a year, and now we would say, frequently. Is this mostly just a set of loyal observances? With due respect, aren’t we in many ways much like the Pharisees? And they certainly were open to much criticism by the Lord.
Can we go further? What about our own “self-image”? What do we teach about our faith when we wish to pass it on? The traditional summary has been the Baltimore Catechism. You are familiar with those three main divisions: Creed, Commandments, and Sacraments. To present the doctrines we believe we take the Apostles’ Creed and tack on to it a brief summary of St. Thomas’ Summa. “I believe in God…” and we talk of unity and attributes, of eternity, omniscience, omnipotence. We speak of trinity, of one nature and three persons; of the Incarnation; of one person and two natures. Is not our concern with the particular interests of the Scholastics and their philosophy? We jump from the Incarnation to the Crucifixion and then on — but the heart of the matter is Christ, and the Catechism give him very little treatment indeed!
For a dynamic we use the ten Commandments. What is specifically Christian about this? The Commandments are really the heart of the Mosaic law, the covenant between God and the Israelites. Yet we take them as our basic ethic, and hang all sorts of negative norms on them. Look what we do with the sixth one! And it is only a statement about the obligation of marital fidelity.
Even the Sacraments are somewhat distorted. Sometimes we almost — and with due reverence, I say, “almost” — treat them as magical. Perform this action correctly,and you receive grace — especially in that large quantity we call sanctifying! How little attention we pay to them as mysterious encounters with Christ and His people; how little we stress the disposition and faith of the recipient!
Yes, there is a great need for a better vision of the Church, a better perspective. And what is it? Simply this: Christ. A Christian is a person completely caught up by the person of Jesus, a person who lives by his word.
Even as children we seek a model for our lives. For the very small child his or her mother or father is everything. When a little older, it is a kind of hero-worship. The mature person knows that all human idols have clay feet, but even so we ever seek to acquire the virtues we see incarnate in other lives. If we seek the perfect, the fullest of human perfection we look to Christ.
You and I have never seen Jesus, nor spoken to him, nor heard him, nor touched him. Yet we take him for our model and guide. He must have had the greatest personality ever. Through the testimony passed on from those who knew him and through the work of His Spirit we imitate him and try to keep his word.
It is hard to keep a true perspective on the words of Christ. He was a revelation. No one ever knew the true dignity of a human person until he revealed it. God loves each person, each of us, you individually, personally, more than anyone else loves you. How much this knowledge must influence our attitude towards the poorest and most abject of persons.
Another revelation of the Lord was that of our destiny. He showed us a vision of full human maturity and life, he revealed to us that we are invited to an unhoped for happiness now and intimate union and full life with God forever.
The dynamic that Christ called for is truly radical. The ethic he gave contradicts all human tendency. We naturally seek self-fulfillment in the acquisition of the good. The Lord told us that it is all the opposite — by giving of ourselves we receive. “The one who seeks to find his life will lose it, and the one who seeks to lose it will find it.”
Jesus gave only us one commandment: the night before he died he said: “A new commandment I give you; love one another as I have loved you.” And he said, “Greater love than this no one has than to lay down his life for his friend.” The Lord gave to us unstintingly. He gave up his eternal glory in becoming man; he took a poor and humble human life rather than affluence; he gave up his job, home, and security to minister to us; he gave his time, effort, compassion, power; he gave up, finally, his name, reputation, bodily integrity — even his life itself. His love was total.
What are we then? People committed to Christ, persons trying to live by his word and his example. What is the Church then? The great teaching of the council is this: the Church is the people of God. We are no clannish group, indirected upon ourselves. We are a leaven and a light to the world, with the task of penetrating all human society. We have as our dynamic and motive, love.
What we are growing into under the Spirit is this — a great, new vision of the Church. It is not a group of any one culture or race; it is not a collection of customs and laws; it is more than Hebrew legalisms, Greek philosophy, Roman laws and language, imperial purple, feudal class distinctions, renaissance dress, baroque excesses, the nineteenth century’s patronizing attitude towards the non-Western peoples — all these are externals and peripheral. The Church is those committed to Christ, and its task is the betterment of all human persons and institutions.
Your responsibility, as a Catholic college graduate, your job is to become so like Christ, to have such love, to give of yourself so generously that your home and family, your work, all with whom you are in contact grow always better, and so always closer to Christ. It is a life caught up in Jesus and that will end in one final moment of generosity — when at death you too will give all, even your life.
(Published originally in
Keynote, the College of Saint Rose Magazine,
1:3, December 1966)