...to the many catechists and family members who collaborated on the wonderful “kickoff” to our year of faith formation and religious education last Sunday! From the picnic-and-play event on the church lawn to the celebration with Lifeteen and Edge participants in the evening, the energy and attitude were wonderful as we take up another year of bearing witness to Christ across the generations.
I believe that we cannot focus on this enough or too much – bearing witness to Christ. Out in the world, perhaps including even in our homes, the challenges of our world invite us, even seduce us to do something else. In an area of activity or concern that has been touched by politics in some form (and what hasn’t?), we are experiencing an era of political climate that is polarized and polarizing. We are living in a time when our economy is measured primarily by those who succeed or excel overwhelmingly at the expense of those who bear the burdens for those successes but not their benefits. We are seeing the results of a social struggle that is regularly portrayed and waged as if it is only possible to “make progress” when someone is declared the victor, with someone truly “winning” and someone else truly “losing.” And the language of engagement, of victory, and of loss is too often dripping with harsh invective.
The prospect of Church ministry and faith witness in our pluralistic society being reduced to just another group with a political axe to grind saddens me. The stance that everything important to us is another arena in which to prove ourselves and vanquish someone else seems distant from the Jesus who calls us to see grace at work in us so that we can see how grace might be at work in others; to accept the need constantly to be conformed to God’s will for us not by pointing out someone else’s sin or failure but by witnessing fully to Christ’s mercy for us all!