So, it's been almost a month, if not more since I've posted something on this blog. It's been busy and then I was home for break and relaxing. I was actually planning on posting tomorrow anyway, but I came across something on facebook that really disappointed me: a somewhat disrespectful argument on whether it was okay to hold hands during the Lord's Prayer during Mass. It was prompted by an article about Bishop Foys of Covington, Kentucky issuing a clarification on the rubrics of Mass. I'm not saying I don't relish arguments, even ones that become heated; you should be able to passionately defend what you think and believe. However, just because one can passionately defend those thoughts and beliefs does not mean there is room for veiled insults, snide comments, or attacks on people who hold the opposite thoughts and beliefs. Actually, especially in this conversation, there is no room for hysterics about the regression or progression of the state of the Church, Pope, Bishops, priests, laity or anyone involved. If people took a minute or two to think before commenting to process their own thoughts and the thoughts and words of others, seeking to understand them, conversations like these would go a lot smoother.
A conversation like that can have immense potential, for the good of the Church, or it can have the potential to start a rift. Oh, it could be a slow rift, unnoticeable at first, but the more it grows, being fed by different issues and arguments like these, the more it will grow in the future. While rifts can be healed in time, one explosive conversation can destroy all the previous work. A large part of the TEC, Koinonia, and Cursillo programs is to be as Christ to one another. Did Christ rebuke people? Yes. Did Christ apologize for what He said? No. Yet in all He did, there was love. Yet, when we're faced with something in the Church we don't like, where is our love? Our love for the Church He founded and the Holy Spirit guides? Our love for those that have committed their lives, in one form or another, to the Church? Those that God has entrusted to caring for the Church have made some mistakes, some of them inflicting horrible wounds that need to be healed. Yet, for all of those mistakes, the blessings outweigh multiple times. For all of the mistakes, God's Church still stands tall and proud. But when we're faced with something we fear could eliminate something in the Church we've grown attached to, even the tiniest of inconsequential things, we give a cry full of bloodlust saying that if you're not with us, you're against us.
I don't claim to know all, or any but of a few of the answers, at least as they apply to me. I'm also not saying that you have to agree with Bishop Foys or the way he went about it, or anything similar. If you don't, then certainly discuss it and try to understand it, but don't put the people that defend it and agree with it on blast. Those who like it, agree with it/affirm it, discuss it, elaborate for those that want you to, and try to understand the viewpoint of those who don't like it. Even if there isn't a fruitful meeting of the minds, at least you can respectfully disagree with those who hold the opposite belief. To put each other on blast because something's new/old, and disrespecting each other serves no one but the devil. All of us are better than that, yet besides a precious few, no one was acting like it. Get a grip. Of course, if you see me acting the same way, I fully expect you to say the same thing to me. True story. In order to lighten it up a little, I'm going to post this video by done to the song, "Why Can't We be Friends", which Smashmouth covered. I actually prefer the version done by War, but it didn't have cute animals with it. Until later, peace and have a good week, till later.
