Ok, I admit it. Sometimes when I’m online, I read the National Catholic Reporter. Am I expecting something uplifting that will boost my faith? No. I’ve known for years that that won’t happen there. It’s mostly bitterness. One thing about my time in North Carolina is that I was able to learn the underlying current of thought that drives the thinking of these people. I went to programs that used their resources and knew people who thought like these people do.
It was very apparent in this article. The author, one of the “young voices,” is “longing for a new, unbroken church.” She describes the Eucharist as a time when they “listened to one another’s stories” and “shared our brokenness.” The people in this church want to “be a part of a community that is relevant” and share with “those we break bread with” and “want our experience of others to be affirmed.” In her church, she is “looking for meaning and authenticity from ourselves, our friends and family, and our institutions.” I could go on as there’s a lot more of this in the article.
Indeed, it’s what is left out that is telling. All of the phrases of what the author longs for are about the people with whom she is present. She even says they went to “uncover the wholeness found in ‘we’.” There is no mention of having an encounter with the living God.
After all, God will “meet us where we are,” but he loves us too much to leave us there. Far more than “sharing our brokenness,” God wants to give us life to the full. There, we can find healing for our “brokenness,” which ultimately has its root in sin. The article seems to imply that the people at this church are content to remain in their “brokenness” and possibly also in their sin. Naturally, they will keep longing for happiness because they will never find it that way.
The Mass gives us our greatest opportunity to encounter Christ and be transformed. It gets better; he is wanting to give us eternal life with him in Heaven where there will be no more “brokenness.” We don’t need to make it “relevant” or “meaningful,” it must change us and make us “relevant” and “meaningful” to it.
We need not simply share our story. We need to know Christ’s. Let him transform our story into something beautiful and joyful for him.