The readings for this second of the Easter Sundays are a nice
combination of idealism and realism. The description of the
earliest Christian community that we heard in the reading from the Acts
of the Apostles is so idealistic as to seem implausible if not
incredible. The community of believers lived in peace, we are told, and
they shared everything in common. Everything! They kept nothing for
themselves, they met together daily for prayer and Eucharist, and they
witnessed many signs and wonders done by the Apostles. No wonder we are
told that the community grew by leaps and bounds!
The note of realism
comes in the gospel story of doubting Thomas and I’m guessing that story
rings a bit more true for us than the idyllic one from Acts, we who
sometimes find ourselves struggling to hold onto our faith, struggling
to believe! But both stories are true and we need both in order to
keep our balance as we strive to live as faithful disciples of Christ.
The ideal Church and the
real Church, the Church full of faith and the Church dogged by doubt,
the Church made one by the Eucharist and the Church divided by
controversies, the “imperfectly perfect church” I like to call it - this
holy Church of sinners is the Church in which we meet the Risen Jesus as
Thomas did: meet him, touch him, and find ourselves touched and
transformed by him.
And, my friends, this
holy Church of sinners is the only Church there is. At times we glory in
its goodness (I think of that hauntingly beautiful moment not long ago
when Pope Francis appeared alone in St. Peter’s Square to quietly bless
the world stricken with the coronavirus - that was the Church at its
best, I thought); at times we glory in the Church’s goodness and at
other times we are disheartened – or worse - by its flaws, so many of
which we have had to deal with in recent years. And, let’s be honest:
those flaws, those terrible failings, have completely disillusioned many
people and driven them away from the Church in search of something more
authentic, something more pure, something that won’t fail them when they
need it most. Some of you who have tuned in this morning may be among
those people. I’m glad you’re here. It’s possible that the pandemic
we’re living through has prompted you to take another look at the
Church, to think – however cautiously – that there may, in fact, be
something here for you after all – that there may be more good here than
all the evil that has come to light.
If so, God
is at work, and I just want to say to you that I get where you’re coming
from. I do. I sympathize with your struggles and understand your anger.
Terrible sins – crimes - have been committed by Church leaders, and the
Body of Christ has been gravely wounded. But, without making any excuses
whatever – and acknowledging the truth of the old Roman aphorism,
Corruptio optimi pessima (corruption is the worst when it comes from
those from whom we should be able to expect the most) – still, maybe we
shouldn’t be entirely surprised or scandalized by the Church’s sins and
shortcomings because, no matter how divinely guided, the Church is made
up of human beings and, as we know only too well, human beings sin and
lose their way.
So, for me, the wonder is not so much that these
dreadful things have happened or that other equally dreadful things have
happened down through the Church’s long history, the wonder is that,
despite it all, and through it all, God has continued to work wonders of
grace in the lives of countless people and that great things have and
are being accomplished. For me, that’s the greatest proof that God is at
work in the Church.
Over the past weeks in telephone conversations I’ve had with many of
you, you have awakened me to how good your understanding of Church is as
you’ve shared with me your deep sadness at not being able to gather with
the community in the Cathedral, your sadness at not being able to
receive the Eucharist. In so many of those conversations you have made
it clear to me that you know that the Church is not some abstract
impersonal entity way off in Rome; no, you know that the Church is,
before all else, God’s people, God’s holy people, God’s sinful people,
people alive with the Spirit of God, people weighed down by the spirit
of evil, people who can be very flawed and very holy at the same time.
You know, in other words, that we are the Church and that whenever we
come together even virtually, as we do today – and whenever we serve in
the name of Christ - we are doing more than fulfilling an obligation, we
are coming alive as the Body of Christ, touching the Divine Mercy that
we cannot live without, the Divine Mercy that lives, however
imperfectly, in this community of believers we call the Church.
Dear friends, I began by
speaking about the ideal Church and the real Church. The longer I live,
the more convinced I am that there is only the real Church. The
community of believers in the Acts of the Apostles may seem to have done
everything just right, but only a couple of chapters after today’s
passage, there’s the story of two members of that community, Ananias and
Sapphira, wealthy property owners who did everything wrong. Ananias was
struck dead because of his scheming ways, his lies, his selfish
duplicity. From the very beginning, then, the fresh, eager, and innocent
Church turned out to be less than met the eye. It has always been this
way, and it always will.
Some words of
Andrew Greeley, Chicago priest, gifted writer, sociologist and social
commentator of the late 20th century come to mind: “If you can find a
perfect Church,” he wrote, “by all means join it, but realize that when
you joined it, it just ceased to be perfect…!”
And now, my
friends, it’s time to stand and profess our faith together. The Creed we
proclaim is full of soaring, confident idealism. Think of it as our way
of saying, along with the all-too-human and doubting Thomas, “My Lord
and my God!”
Father Michael G. Ryan
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