Search
-
May 7, 2020When we consider the church, what do we think about? Does it mean we step out of our day to day lives for an hour only to return to the same life we left? Or does it engage in going deeper into our lives and transform us?
From time to time it is important to reflect on a few questions? How is it that I exist? What do I believe is the source of all life? If I am more than a cosmic accident, then what must be, has to be, my personal response?
As a child, a bond forms between a child and their parents first. Then, that bond slowly radiates out towards others. If lived correctly, that bond radiates out to hundreds in a lifetime. That bond is a grand word: LOVE.
The Church suggests three levels of LOVE. A love of self, a love of others, and a love beyond our senses. We have a healthy love of self, if we see the good and potential that we have within us and develop a greater giving of ourselves to others. Loving others is at times very easy and rewarding. If we are honest, at times, very difficult for a variety of reasons having to do with attitudes and behaviors from others towards you or yours toward them. Life is a challenge.
The third level, a love beyond our senses has been at the fore front of great thinkers for millennia. Those of the Gilgamesh, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, the prophets, Aquinas, and thousands of others. All concluded that there is an " existence" beyond ours and this "existence" is of limitless LOVE. In time, that "existence " was self-revealed..... many names were labeled by Greeks, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians and other groups in the world . Most of these descriptive words translated into the word.... God.
It became an essential human endeavor to respond to this LOVE, to this named God. Worship began in gratitude for our very existence. Adoration began in the personal hope of drawing closer to God. Forming a Community began to share this belief, this faith, this joining together in common shared faith, prayer and learning.
God has revealed himself in Christianity as Trinity. Three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, complete in themselves and united in love. Jesus, both true God and true Man restored us to relationship with the Father. The Holy Spirit, the breath of life, who strengthens and guides us in our daily life.
So, we now come to our own personal response to God’s love for us. We have two choices: to commit or sadly, a refusal to commit.
Do we look forward to being within the love of God, to joining in the community of faith, prayer, learning, worship and love of self, others, and God in our church here and throughout the world?
Do we limit our response to an hour, or, do we give ourselves permission, a personal willingness to go deeper inside our limited mind and heart to gain a greater grasp God in our lives?
Each of us has a personal response to those two questions and that response changes over the years or perhaps even within a year. We own it. There are hundreds of differing levels of responses by others, but we own ours.
Today, we are physically distanced from one another, as a response to the sanctity of life itself. Our presence within the Church building limited.
Here comes the big " BUT". We can stay connected via great technology, video streaming. We can use cell phones, laptops, various apps to stay in touch with others...to ' make their day'. There are many things to do if we open ourselves to them. Most important in my thinking is to choose to increase our time in prayer and to value the all that our Church is. This is to make a greater commitment to God by using the Sacraments especially Holy Eucharist, the Mass and Reconciliation to and with our loving God. We will rise as a connected, in-person community, soon.
God calls out to us through Church.
Peace, love, and smiles,
Deacon Tim