Moving back from the Human to the Divine
There are those who put me down as an idealist. Yes, many of the things I say or propose are just beyond human accomplishment so we must live in the 'real world'. It was like the night I told an audience that I looked back to the early Church as the model for today, pointing out that young people were chaste and marriages lasted, in contradiction to the pagan culture around them. "Surely he does not think we could get anywhere near that sort of Church today" was the question in many of those listening. 'He is not living in the 'real world'.
Now that is the problem, many priests and laity want a Church that is firmly anchored in 'life experience' or the 'real world'. But this world is no different from the paganism of Rome which the early Christians had to live in. The world today caters for sexual orgies, sexual exploitation, sodomy, and rather than put unwanted babies out to die we slaughter them in the womb. We have a pagan society and we should look closer at what is happening around us. This morning a report on the treatment of children demonstrated that 450,000 children in Britain suffered from abuse. An appalling figure. The majority the report stated suffered within a family situation. Now I need to know more about this 'family situation'. What does it mean? In my experience there are few natural fathers, though they do exist, who abuse their own children. The children are usually abused by step-fathers or 'live in boyfriends' of the mother. And we dare not turn to children homes where a future report will have us staggering and perhaps our media will start ignoring Ireland. The fact is that the Government can do little to stop these abuses. They are a moral question and not a political one. In other words the answers are not found in the 'real world' but in the moral authority of the Catholic Church.
OK, there is no answer to these problems, some will say, for the Catholic Church has no longer any moral authority in the hearts of its people. "This is the way we live - broken families, broken children, and broken hearts, it is the 'living experience' and we cannot change it. At least the last part has a certain truth in that we cannot change it, but God can. Perhaps, of course, I am taking religion too seriously.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life" said Jesus. He was furious about divorce and you can read that in Chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel. He wanted his followers to be chaste until marriage, he wanted marriages to be a permanent arrangement and gave his followers the Sacraments of Penance to heal not just our souls but our relationships within marriages by the GRACE that this Sacrament gives us.
And contradict me if you can but if we had a society where people married and did not divorce the children being abused would be spared. But that takes Faith and we would rather live in the 'real world' God help us all. But the Church is a Divine Church with a Divine Message and it takes real faith to see how doctrines are the rules of life that Jesus wanted us to live so that His Kingdom would come.
Now that is the problem, many priests and laity want a Church that is firmly anchored in 'life experience' or the 'real world'. But this world is no different from the paganism of Rome which the early Christians had to live in. The world today caters for sexual orgies, sexual exploitation, sodomy, and rather than put unwanted babies out to die we slaughter them in the womb. We have a pagan society and we should look closer at what is happening around us. This morning a report on the treatment of children demonstrated that 450,000 children in Britain suffered from abuse. An appalling figure. The majority the report stated suffered within a family situation. Now I need to know more about this 'family situation'. What does it mean? In my experience there are few natural fathers, though they do exist, who abuse their own children. The children are usually abused by step-fathers or 'live in boyfriends' of the mother. And we dare not turn to children homes where a future report will have us staggering and perhaps our media will start ignoring Ireland. The fact is that the Government can do little to stop these abuses. They are a moral question and not a political one. In other words the answers are not found in the 'real world' but in the moral authority of the Catholic Church.
OK, there is no answer to these problems, some will say, for the Catholic Church has no longer any moral authority in the hearts of its people. "This is the way we live - broken families, broken children, and broken hearts, it is the 'living experience' and we cannot change it. At least the last part has a certain truth in that we cannot change it, but God can. Perhaps, of course, I am taking religion too seriously.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life" said Jesus. He was furious about divorce and you can read that in Chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel. He wanted his followers to be chaste until marriage, he wanted marriages to be a permanent arrangement and gave his followers the Sacraments of Penance to heal not just our souls but our relationships within marriages by the GRACE that this Sacrament gives us.
And contradict me if you can but if we had a society where people married and did not divorce the children being abused would be spared. But that takes Faith and we would rather live in the 'real world' God help us all. But the Church is a Divine Church with a Divine Message and it takes real faith to see how doctrines are the rules of life that Jesus wanted us to live so that His Kingdom would come.
Comments
Post a Comment