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Director’s Reflection
Dear Companions on the Journey,
Certainly many have experienced ambivalent feelings about belonging to the Catholic Church, identifying with the Church. state the case mildly.
I have long admired the works, especially the preaching, of now-deceased Jesuit Walter J. Burghardt. wrote the following many years ago. I resonate with it:
LET ME MAKE AN UNCOMMONLY HONEST CONFESSION. the course of a half century [of living], I have seen more Catholic corruption than you have read of. have tasted it. I have been reasonably corrupt myself, and yet, I joy in this Church – this living, pulsing, sinning people of God, love it with a crucifying passion. Why? all the Catholic hate, I experience here a community of love. For all the institutional idiocy, I find here a tradition of reason. For all the individual repressions, I breathe here an air of freedom. all the fear of sex, I discover here the redemption of my body. In an age so inhuman, I touch here tears of compassion. In a world so grim and humorless, I share here rich joy and earthy laughter. In the midst of death, I hear here an incomparable stress on life. all the apparent absence of God, I sense here the real presence of Christ.
What do you think?
And let us pray for/with one another.
Michael
The Paulist Center