Everybody is in favour of community. Even loners often tell us how much they would like to be part of a community – if only they could find one that suited them. Human beings are social animals. We seek each other out to be friends. We need each other’s company. That has been one of the hardest parts of the recent lockdown. To be separated from our family, our friends, our acquaintances, one companions, our mates. It has been particularly hard for the elderly who have been forced to self-isolate, and who are still damagingly limited in the number of people they can interact with.
For Catholics all this reaches it fullness in the community of the Church. There we not only encounter the Lord Jesus, but we meet too our brothers and sisters in the faith. It is a damaging platitude, repeated by the unthinking, that the Church is the people not the building. Particularly in the British climate, we need a building to shelter us. More than that, the building becomes hallowed by the Masses celebrate there and by the prayers offered there. The very stones become saturated with worship and so support us as we seek to meet God. Most powerfully Jesus Christ is present in every Catholic Church in his Eucharistic Body in the Tabernacle. That’s why the recent and over-delayed opening of Churches for private prayer is so welcome. Once more we can adore our Lord in his immediate presence. But it is all too easy for us to fracture community, to damage the unity of the Church, to fail to recognize others as linked to us. St Augustine was powerfully aware of this, for in his day and place, there was a particularly hard line group who rejected Augustine and his people. He wrote: ‘We appeal to you above all to show charity, not only towards one another. But also those who are outside the fold, whether they are still pagans, not yet believing in Christ, or separated from us, confessing the same head as we do, but separated from the body. My friends, let us grieve for them as our brothers and sisters. Whether they like or not, they are our brothers and sisters, and they will only cease to be if they cease to say ‘Our Father’.’ (On Psalm 32.29) This is an ever more important message for those of us who today live in a society which can be sharply, even fatally, divided by hatred, bigotry and prejudice. The Internet has sadly given a means of publicity to those who are so corrupted. Twitter allows unthinking forwarding of lies and misstatements. If we are to build our community, if we are to recognize our equal value and importance as human beings, then we need to make charity central to our lives together. St Augustine challenged his hearers: ‘Pour out all your love to God on their behalf.’ That challenge remains for Catholics today.
1 Comment
Sylvia Michael
7/8/2020 08:24:06 pm
God so loved the World that He gave us His only son. You are absolutely right Fr Patrick. Let's show kindness, love, charity to one another and strengthen our community in Jesus Name.
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