Things My Father Taught Me
By Mary Morrell
Freelance columnist
Called to be a light in life’s storm
You cannot pray at home as at church, where there is a great multitude, where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more; the union of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of the priests. — St. John Chrysostom
Spending a good deal of the summer with my friend Rose means spending a good deal of time at garage sales. And this summer was one of the best, not only for what we bought but simply for the fun we had! On one of our early outings I was intrigued with a small rubber stamp buried under books in the bottom of a cardboard box. It bore the image of a sailboat and the following words: “Ships are safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are made for.”
I thought a lot about those words later in the month as I watched boat owners scramble to moor their boats in the harbor because of an impending storm, and again, as I sat in a small wooden church, huddled with other parishioners as the storm whipped around the 150-year-old structure.
At that moment the church was our safe harbor, a port in the storm, but when the pastor said, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” it was a reminder that we were meant to go into the world to be Christ to others, not stay at home in the harbor where it is safe. The experience made clear the words of another priest who often affirms for the congregation, “It is good to be here!” but then adds, “But you can’t stay here.”
This first time I heard it, the words were jarring — “you can’t stay here.”
Initially a person is likely to experience feelings of rejection, of being sent away. But those words are meant to jar us back into the reality of the Christian life. We are meant to serve, to embrace, to sustain, to love, and it can’t be done solely from our pews on a Sunday morning.
Still, it is comforting to know that when our spiritual supplies are low, when we need “repairs” or a place of calm and rest, we can find, through the parish, sustenance in the reception of Eucharist, God’s Grace in the sacraments and a family of believers ready to welcome us home before we begin our journey again.
The Catechism of Catholic Church teaches us what the parish should be:
“A parish is a definite community of the Christian faithful established on a stable basis within a particular church; the pastoral care of the parish is entrusted to a pastor as its own shepherd under the authority of the diocesan bishop. It is the place where all the faithful can be gathered together for the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. The parish initiates the Christian people into the ordinary expression of the liturgical life: it gathers them together in this celebration; it teaches Christ’s saving doctrine; it practices the charity of the Lord in good works and brotherly love (2179).”
If we as parishioners and pastors were to truly embrace the language of the Catechism and live what the words meant, our parishes would be flourishing places of worship and love, true harbors in any storm.When a pastor fully accepts his vocation as shepherd then his devotion to God, his genuine love for all his parishioners, his personal presence will draw the people to him.
When parishioners remember that the God who loved them into being calls them to be disciples, and so much more than simply “good people,” then our Eucharistic celebrations will be filled with those who understand that priests and parishioners alike are called to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.
And whether we are pastor or lay person, when our parishes fail to be all they can be, it is because we have failed to be all we can be. When we hide our light “under a bushel basket” — by lacking in charity, humility, hospitality or forgiveness — then we diminish the light of our parishes.
If we truly have the heart of Christ in us, then our Church, our parishes, our people, should be radiating with love like the brilliance of the sun.
It would be a very sad day indeed to hear someone ask, “Who turned out the lights?”
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law