Cleaning House Under My Roof

I think one of the more profound changes that have been made to the English version of the Roman Missal is the change from the first person plural to the first person singular - that is, we no longer start the Creed with "we believe in one God," but now, "I believe in one God."

My personal opinion is that this is a great help to Catholics.  For many years, it has been "we, we, WE" which I know was an attempt to remedy "me, me, ME."  We are the Body of Christ and we are all in this together, folks . . .

However, as with ideologies like socialism, human nature got in the way.  For many people, I think it is a natural - and often unconscious - inclination to slack off because someone else is doing all of the hard work.  If I fail on my part, no biggie, the rest of the Body of Christ will make up for it.  In fact, I think you have seen people even think, hey, I'm that person who they need to minister to, and take on the status of someone who should be the beneficiary of the Church's social justice . . . without any contribution on their part.  I have felt that all the attention that the Church focused on the "disenfranchised" - the Poor, the Undocumented, the Alien, the Homosexuals (and I am capitalizing the first letter for a reason) - they have done a disservice to the dignity of the individual.  In a sense, the Church has created a welfare state within itself.  Certain people are excused from their own responsibility to their membership in the Body of Christ, arising out of a well-meaning but displaced caritas.

I know in my old parish in Southern California in all too often a large family, say ten people, would crowd into a pew for Mass.  First, let me say I think it is wonderful that they are there - it is a great thing to see three, sometimes, four, generations gathered to celebrate the Eucharist.  But come time for the Collection and their collective contribution would be . . . $1.  A buck.  I used to be a money counter and on a Sunday afternoon have opened many a collection envelope that it cost the church to print and mail to find . . . two quarters.  That is a loss to the church.  How much would it cost to give, say, $1.50 instead of $1?  $1 instead of fifty cents?  Multiplied by the number of people doing it, it can add up to a significant increase in the income of a parish that runs perpetually in the red.

But I have hope now, because of the change in the language.  I think it is time for folks to realize that their identity as Catholics starts with themselves, and becomes a part of the whole Church.  We are catholic, which means universal, not homogeneous.

Consider this:  when you are flying on an airplane with a child, in the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop.  Whose do you put on first, your own or the child's.  For people who have flown, you know the answer is that you put on your own first - not because you are more deserving of the oxygen than the child, but because if you are trying to first place a mask on perhaps a resisting child, and you pass out, you are not going to be much help to the child in an emergency situation.  You cannot help other people until you can help yourself.  It doesn't do anyone much good to be a unusable part of the Body of Christ.

One of the changes that resonates most with me is this - before receiving the Eucharist, we recite:

Lord, I am not worthy
that you should enter under my roof,
but only say the word
and my soul shall be healed.

 

What's under that roof?

I was at a diocesan event this past summer and got into conversation with one gentleman as we were both transplants to Eastern Tennessee.  He was telling me how he was happy to leave his parish in his former state because of the "gross injustice" towards his family:  the priest there, he said, was "obviously gay" and this gentleman thought it was "unfair" that his sister could not receive Communion because she had married outside the Church to a non-Catholic.  I asked if the priest had denied her Communion,  He said no, but his sister went by the Church's teaching and how is it she cannot receive, but a gay priest can distribute, Holy Communion.

I don't think he liked my answer.  I told him it was quite fair, because his sister's state remains her  responsibility as a presumably practicing Catholic regardless of who is distributing Communion.  Let's say the priest is gay.  Who knows if he acts on his orientation?  None of us know whether the man consecrating the bread and wine before us is a saint or a sinner - and, most likely, a combination of both, as we all are.  In this case, the gentleman did not like that I did not share his sense of fairness - or the lack thereof - and that I pointed out his sister's impediment to the Sacrament was hers that she made and hers to remove.

Saints and others help us to become good Catholics - only we actually make ourselves that.