ON NOT NEEDING CHURCH

                           

The older generation has difficulty understanding the young mothers who do not vaccinate their children against so many possible diseases. We come from the generation where our mothers had gone through the polio scare. When a vaccine to immunize against polio became available, our mothers lined us up immediately.

 

An interview done with health people in Quebec showed that when the nurse approached the young mother about vaccination of her baby she received the explanation that “there are no measles around. No one has measles.” In the logic of the young mother, why would I vaccinate my child for the disease that does not exist? 

 

In all honesty, the young mothers do not see any need for vaccinations to protect against disease that do not exist (in their own minds that is). 

 

This insight moves over to ‘why belong to a church, service group or the larger community’ when I have no need of these? As an individual I can look after myself completely. 

 

Church is always the first community that people choose not to connect with or participate in. All our volunteer organizations, political parties, school groups and much of family life are disappearing from our society. When people need something they will come but to make a personal contribution by participation and hard work within the community, that is something else!

 

In this individualistic culture, you are on your own. In the past seven decades the social structures have broken down and disappeared. Who tells you how to marry, how to raise your children and to look after the people in your neighborhood? This has been exacerbated by the high mobility that employment brings. It is not uncommon to have the aged parents here in Saskatchewan, one daughter living in England, one daughter in Halifax and the other daughter in Whitehorse. Who is here to help when Mother is taken by ambulance to the emergency ward in the middle of the night?

 

When people identify themselves as spiritual and are very satisfied that their faith is good, they lead a good life, why would I look for a faith community? And there is such a strong perception that Church demands much of us. Why would I want to belong to something that will limit my lifestyle?

 

Our society and culture are headed into a narrow, severe loneliness in our future. There we will be, rich moneywise  but so alone! No one needs us and we are distant from everyone else.

 

Only when people experience a deep emptiness in their lives will they turn back to community. Only then will we recreate the communities we need to thrive as human beings: a faith community, a school community, a town or city community. 

 

Just because an individual may walk away from community does not mean their demanding human needs have disappeared. We are living on the junk food of individualism, while all the while our bodies are crying out for community, for belonging and for identity.

 

We need a second look to where we are going as a society.

 

 

 

 

 

A CHURCH FENCED OFF?

 

An government action that we have not seen except in times of war is a church being fenced off, barring the entry of any persons until April 27.  What is going on in Alberta? The RCMP accompanied the fencing company that began erecting the fence around the church building at 6:00 AM this past Wednesday. 

 

There has been much controversy over the past twelve months between supporters of the church and citizens in the district. The health authorities have tried to work with the pastor and people of the church to meet the health regulations that have been given to worshipping communities throughout Alberta. 

 

Grace Life Church in Parkland County (West of Edmonton) has refused to comply with directives given by the Alberta health authorities to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Their pastor, James Coats, has already spent thirty-five days in prison for violating the law. 

 

What an ego!

 

The people of the church strongly claim that they have a fundamental right to freedom of worship. This means that no one, including civic authorities, can interfere with the exercise of this fundamental human right. 

 

This is correct – but limited!.

 

All citizens have an equal responsibility to care for the well-being of their fellow citizens. We do not have only rights; we have equal responsibilities. It is the absence of any talk of responsibility for the common good that makes all the arguments of the above church congregation empty and very selfish. 

 

The government authorities and the citizens of Alberta are working to protect and promote the common good. Every citizen has a responsibility to protect the health and well-being of their neighbor. 

 

In every disagreement within a society we must be aware that a positive value (i.e., the right to freedom of religion) can be misused and abused by self-serving people. The good can be misused for very sinister purposes! You, the reader, must make an informed decision about the right or wrongness of the actions of this particular Alberta church.

 

Secondly, the parishioners and pastor of  Grace  Life Church must examine why all the other worshipping communities (Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu and Sikh) in Alberta have agreed to work with the directives given by the Alberta Health Department. Are they misguided? All worshipping communities are suffering in this year of pandemic. Some are on the verge of financial collapse. We want to recognize the strong sense of social responsibility these worshipping communities have for the common good of the people of Alberta. Cooperation with the health directives indicates the strong sense of social responsibility that is present in our worshipping communities.

 

The fence will probably not end the conflict west of Edmonton but I want to name this irresponsible non-compliance of the Church for what it is: selfish and motivated by a grossly exaggerated sense of self-importance. 

MAY YOUR EASTER EXPLODE

                                      

It is always hard to see the reality that is right in front of us. How many times do we fume over a speeding ticket but are ever so reluctant to take ownership that ‘we cut corners when we drive.” Everywhere in the world there are strong population shifts. There are different people who are now becoming citizens in my country! But how many people lament that ‘life is not the same,’ which means, there not are enough of my own kind living in this country? How many countries are putting up walls around their borders to try to prevent the change in population?

 

Our Christian faith is all about how God is breaking in (one God’s terms) and giving us a new reality. One of the downsides growing up Christian is to think that how we grasp our religion today is all there is!

 

The Resurrection of Jesus always upsets everything! No one expected this! If the resurrection is true, it is really unbelievable. As the women and men who first followed Jesus began to experience him their world changed radically. This was not just the great healer and teacher returned to life (he eats breakfast with them), but this is the outpouring of God. God has broken into our human reality. All that Jesus said and did is the revelation of God. To get to know the risen Jesus is to encounter God.

 

Our salvation is in the mystery of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Both events belong together. Over the past centuries  almost all our attention was devoted to only the first part of the mystery, the death and suffering of Jesus. For many Christians they had a spirituality of the cross with the resurrection being accidental to their faith experience. This was very incomplete. In this century we want to be reclaim the mystery of salvation and celebrate with equal energy the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

 

We need to be reclaimed by the resurrection of Jesus. It must become in our lives a faith-explosion of God pouring out the very life of the Son into our bones and our thoughts. The resurrection is always the giving of the very life of the divine Jesus into our lives. It broke open the lives and the hearts of the first disciples. The resurrection  now breaks open our lives.

 

This is not just something that we must preach with enthusiasm in our church buildings but it must take root and blossom in our daily lives. Each person who has been joined to Jesus in Baptism shares in the very life and resurrection of Jesus. Each person must become the living continuation of the great mystery of the resurrected Christ.

 

Be the life of the risen Jesus in your daily speech when we seek to speak the good things about other people and are able to walk with them through their struggles, whether it be in their relationships, or their unemployment or simply having a good word to say about everyone. 

 

Live the resurrected Jesus by your willingness to listen to the struggles of your twenty-two year ole nephew who does not know which way his life should go. He struggles with a group of friends whom he knows are not good for him. Be the listening heart and be ready to be the firm voice when he needs some clear direction. 

 

Easter was never meant to be a quiet, sunny day. This is all about God erupting in our lives. This is God extending the mystery of salvation in and through the person of Jesus, Son of God. Now, his very life is given to us. We are meant to be the living continuation of the life and mission of Jesus.

 

May this Easter be explosive in your life. 

 

 

 

BE RECLAIMED BY EASTER

                                    

Hopefully every adult grows into an awareness of who they really are. Who is the personality that other people know and have to deal with on a daily basis? This is hard work because the hardest person to get to know will always be yourself! 

 

Getting to know yourself is hard work for the individual. The Church getting to know the Church is equally hard work!

 

In the Church we have such a high need of security (we need to have the doctrines of our faith clearly mapped out) but we are weak in listening to what the folks actually know and how they practice their faith. How is all this religion-stuff actually lived out in practice?

 

Almost a century ago serious students of the Scriptures recognized that the very center of our faith is the death and resurrection of Jesus. But in actual fact so much attention and energy was focused on the suffering and death of Jesus that the resurrection was almost an afterthought. On practical terms the resurrection of Jesus did not occupy sufficient energy in the life and prayer of the average believer. We were people of the cross, but only weakly, people of the resurrection. 

 

The Second Vatican Council (ended in 1965) called us to make the death and resurrection of Jesus the center of our faith, our liturgy and our prayer. These are not two unconnected events, but like your physical hand, two sides of the same mystery. They must always be held together.

 

We are working to re-establish Easter as the central, three-day festival our redemption. Like all good celebrations it takes a lot of energy. When parishioners say they are tired at the end of the Easter Vigil, I caution: “If it is meaningful, you will be tired!”

 

We must be recaptured by the resurrection of Jesus. This is the great work of God revealing and sharing the very Son of God with us. The resurrection was an actual historical event (it happened during the night) but it is a revelation that must now happen in the lives of each one of the believers (the present moment). The very person and salvific power of Jesus, Son of God, must now happen in each one of us!

 

We in the West (Catholic and Protestant) have grown up with almost all our focus on the suffering and death of Jesus. We are Christians of the cross.  But we are weakly embraced by the outpouring and revelation of the risen Jesus. The resurrection is all about the Son of God being given to the people (i.e., the disciples). We must now become the living continuation of the mystery of Christ in our time and our place. 

 

This means that we must work hard to make the fifty days of Easter (Easter to Pentecost) as meaningful and as spiritually enriching as Lent has been. This is an entire season to deepen the mystery of the resurrection within the people of the Church. This process will  take another two hundred years but we are on the right tract to creating a balanced understanding and practice of the death and resurrection (the Paschal Mystery) of Jesus Christ. 

 

Have a great Holy Week! We have a lot of work to do!

 

 

YOUR CHILDREN ARE WATCHING

                          

On the morning that our elderly mother died in the nursing home, one of the staff members who knew our family, came up to me, shared her condolences and then said, “But you were here so often.”

 

I was taken aback by that observation. I said to myself, ‘No, only once a week.’ (I had to drive 150 km. to visit.) If my presence once a week appears to be so often to the staff member, how many of the residents hardly ever see a family member or a visitor?

 

As a family we had time to reflect on this observation. At the same time there was the recent memory of the daughter who did not come back to visit either her aged mother or father when they were in the care home. This woman had other sisters and brothers who were very present during the last years of their parents’ life.  Her absence was noted!

 

In our minds we looked at her adult children (all in their early forties) and concluded: “Remember, your children are watching.” If we were not present when in the last years of our parents’ life, in their diminishment, then we should not expect our children to be present either. Remember, our absence to our own parents set the example for our children to follow when it is our turn to arrive at the nursing home.

 

Sometimes we have to be very firm with these adult children when they say, “But Mom doesn’t  know us anymore.” Honey! This is not about you! It has nothing to do whether or not she recognizes you or can carry on a conversation. This is your mother (or father). Even if they no longer can communicate and need to be fed and diapered, they have not changed. This is still the person who loved you, raised you, struggled with you in the frustrations of moving into adulthood and rejoiced when you reached adulthood. This is your parent!

 

Adult children need some assistance in caring for a parent who suffers from serious diminishment. Adult children must be taught how to handle their mother in her dementia. Do not ask questions, it only confuses and frustrates them because the aged parent cannot give the answer (and they know they cannot give the answer!).  Visit with two people so you can have some conversation and not become frustrated because you cannot talk (people who talk a lot are very frustrated by the inability to their aged mother to enter into conversation). 

 

Real love can be harsh and dreadful. Just holding your mother’s hand (i.e., human touch) for long periods of time can be very boring – but it can be very reassuring to your mother. 

 

Now, all sixty-year olds must ask themselves: What kind of example (i.e. teaching) have I presented to my adult childred? They have been watching, and what are they learning?  How we will be treated in the nursing home (it could easily be the last five years of your life) is being determined right now.

 

Remember, your children are watching!

AFTER PANDEMIC: WILL WE BE A LITTLE LESS SELFISH?

 

 

Canadians can see an end to the pandemic by mid to the end of summer 2021. Predictions are made that there will be a great swirl of spending as people take the money they could have spent on last winter’s holiday and jump on a plane for a holiday. Or maybe we will make a much longer road trip to visit our grandchildren in Calgary and Vancouver. 

 

But could we turn to being less selfish in our lifestyle? In our economic activity? between countries? The upcoming period of coming out of the lockdown will be a time of testing: will we turn towards our fellow human beings or indulge ourselves in our privileged culture?

 

The past year has brought to the fore the weaknesses and the cracks within our society. The area that received the most attention was our long-term care homes for the elderly. It has been highlighted that so many of these homes are understaffed and the care workers poorly paid. But a greater need is the absence of family and supportive friends that should accompany the last years of our seniors. Care homes are very lonely places. Will we just go back to the emotional neglect that we practiced before the shutdowns?

 

What are the thousands of Canadians who suffered unemployment during this season? Many had financial support from the CERB program but how do people fill their days with meaning when they have no work (i.e., no purpose in their lives)? Can we hear the frustrations of the women and men who ask ‘why am I getting out of bed this morning?’

 

This morning (March 12) there was an item in the news that noted that the province of Ontario had experienced a fifty-nine percent increase in overdose deaths during the first eleven months of 2020. Almost every one of these deaths (primarily male) were accidental, caused the drug fentanyl. Each overdose was a human being with serious struggles with their addiction. Each one belongs to a family. Few Canadians pay attention to this serious loss of life. 

 

With all the discussion of the vaccines there is very little discussion about the needs for vaccines in Third World Countries. The first thing on the agenda in the First World is to get all our citizens vaccinated but what about the majority of humanity? Is our sole preoccupation to protect our own citizens a form of national selfishness? 

 

Do we want to return to what we knew before the pandemic or will we move away from being self-centered to become more compassionate and sharing? 

 

After our vaccinations what will the next year tell about ourselves? Selfish or a bit more generous? 

 

 

TAKING OWNERSHIP OF THE SIN OF INDIFFERENCE

         

Pope Francis speaks on a world stage. He has brought the sin of indifference into our daily consciousness. In fact, he refers the lack of caring for the poor of this world on the part of the rich and powerful, not only as indifference, but it is a ‘armor plated’ indifference. The only place where armor plate is used is to reinforce the vehicles that drive the heads of states as they move from event to event. Armor plate is installed in a vehicle to make a vehicle bullet proof.

 

Could you find a stronger image to define the lack of compassion that is exhibited today towards the poor of this world? 

 

There is a powerful story in the teachings of Jesus that point out indifference (Lk. 16, 19-31). There is a rich man and the poor man, Lazarus, who grovels in destitution at the rich man’s gate. Both die. Lazarus ends up with Abraham; the rich man ends up in Hades (punishment). The rich man did not go to Hades (hell) because he was rich. He ended up in punishment because he did not care about the poor man right at his gate.

 

The rich man was punished by his own indifference!

 

Where is the indifference today?

 

Wherever human beings do not care about the well-being of the neighbor, there is indifference.

 

We have indifference in our families when the other siblings just do not come forward to help in the care of the aged parent. One daughter and her husband look after the aging mother. The other daughter never volunteers to help or says, “I’ll come and look after Mom for a week so that you can take a little holiday.”

 

There is indifference to the sufferings of men and women addicted to drugs and the pain their families endure. The society can read the headlines of the huge number of drug overdoes each year but we just turn the page. There is an indifference of listening to the addicted individuals and their suffering families. 

 

What of the indifference towards the great number of men and women who are unemployed during this covid year? Who supports them in their struggles to make life meaningful when your employment is an essential part to your personal well-being?

 

There is indifference to future generations. What responsibility do we have (the present generation on this earth)  to hand on a sustainable and healthy earth to the fifth, sixth and seventh generations after us? We cannot get into thinking about the well-being of future generations.

 

There is still great indifference towards our care for the earth. How many industries and cities dump their toxic waste products and sewage into our rivers? Do we not have a responsibility to ensure that our rivers flow with clean and healthy water? How do we move out of our indifference towards the earth into a healthy future?

 

Indifference is not a new sin. The label may be new, but the evil is ever so real. But Pope Francis is challenging the world and the church to come to grips with its reality. We are challenged to how we can distance ourselves from the sufferings of others, from the daily grind of the poor of this world. How have our hearts grown hard?

 

Pope Francis is challenging believers, all religious people on the earth and non-believers to take ownership of the indifference to the plight of the poor: our personal indifference and the indifference in our culture and our governments.