Tonight, the write nearly got away from me so I'll pull back the fourth wall and write about what I WAS writing.
I lead a congregation of church trauma victims, and I'm currently glad none of them are going to be able to make it to the funeral of one of our members because in her dying days I learned a lot more about the tight knit friend group from her Roman Catholic high school years - and how I was being asked repeatedly to let one or another have their illusions that I was a lot closer to Roman than I am - or than she was, that yes she came back to catholicism but NOT the church of her youth and its ways.
But who's a funeral for? Who am I serving? How do I keep them from stumbling, and yet keep ME from stumbling too? How can I walk close enough to the Roman liturgy they've heard (more and more frequently as they all age) and not walk too far from our inclusion and grace? Heavens, I just watched a recording of a RC funeral where the priest is still off microphone for his most important eucharistic prayers!
So, I'm here wrestling my way between the Rock of my faith and my God of Grace, Parent not Father, Healer not Judge, who's ALREADY brought Dorothy home, thankyouverymuch why if we're claiming certain faith of this are we begging for what we claim we know has already happened - or do they really think it takes the funeral mass a few weeks later to finalize what I prayed with her and prayed over her body just after she passed?
I'm getting a little salty here, struggling to figure out how to be true to MY catholicism and not TOO jarring to theirs when what they need is the comfort of familiarity. Their stumbling blocks and mine are way too close for comfort. I really see myself as the one who, knowing there is no sin to eat meat, does not eat it in front of those he worries he'll cause to stumble by seeing him do it if they themselves aren't to that point of belief.
And so I wrestle, not with God but with the unexamined theology of too many who haven't found their way to where I am - and it's not my place and it isn't the time for me to force them.
So here I am, winding between my Rock and their Stumbling Blocks, seeking how to do the greatest good for the greatest number of them.
May the God of Mercies show me how...
— FriarMir
I lead a congregation of church trauma victims, and I'm currently glad none of them are going to be able to make it to the funeral of one of our members because in her dying days I learned a lot more about the tight knit friend group from her Roman Catholic high school years - and how I was being asked repeatedly to let one or another have their illusions that I was a lot closer to Roman than I am - or than she was, that yes she came back to catholicism but NOT the church of her youth and its ways.
But who's a funeral for? Who am I serving? How do I keep them from stumbling, and yet keep ME from stumbling too? How can I walk close enough to the Roman liturgy they've heard (more and more frequently as they all age) and not walk too far from our inclusion and grace? Heavens, I just watched a recording of a RC funeral where the priest is still off microphone for his most important eucharistic prayers!
So, I'm here wrestling my way between the Rock of my faith and my God of Grace, Parent not Father, Healer not Judge, who's ALREADY brought Dorothy home, thankyouverymuch why if we're claiming certain faith of this are we begging for what we claim we know has already happened - or do they really think it takes the funeral mass a few weeks later to finalize what I prayed with her and prayed over her body just after she passed?
I'm getting a little salty here, struggling to figure out how to be true to MY catholicism and not TOO jarring to theirs when what they need is the comfort of familiarity. Their stumbling blocks and mine are way too close for comfort. I really see myself as the one who, knowing there is no sin to eat meat, does not eat it in front of those he worries he'll cause to stumble by seeing him do it if they themselves aren't to that point of belief.
And so I wrestle, not with God but with the unexamined theology of too many who haven't found their way to where I am - and it's not my place and it isn't the time for me to force them.
So here I am, winding between my Rock and their Stumbling Blocks, seeking how to do the greatest good for the greatest number of them.
May the God of Mercies show me how...
— FriarMir
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