Fifth Of Easter Of Year B
May 2006
There are some priests whom I know very well and no matter how well cut or how well fitting or how expensive a suit they are wearing, they always look as if they are wearing their grand father's `hand me downs'. One of them also has hair so bushy and unruly that he always looks as if he has just made a parachute jump without a crash helmet.
Even if you dress them up in a beautiful black suit with a sparkling white roman collar they still walk into a room looking as if they just had an unequal encounter with an angry rhino. They make a very poor first impression but are in fact grand people, very popular and a pleasure to be with.
In other words some people do not come in standard shapes and sizes and do not fit into the `normal' pattern.
All organisations, whether Church, State or the private sector, love standard sizes. They love people to fit into their preferred patterns.
If for some reason a person cannot fit into the usual pattern, they always come up against difficulties. Worse again, organisations have the habit of making such a person feel guilty. They make the person feel that it is all their fault. Very often there are sanctions attached to not being able to fit into the preferred pattern. In today's second reading St. John gives us some good pointers on how to deal with such a situation within the Church.
So perhaps there are some Church laws and regulations, which you find yourself unable to comply with. Perhaps something happened in your past life which puts you at loggerheads with some Church rules, about which you cannot reasonably be expected to do anything now. Then, as St John said in today's second reading - and I paraphrase - `Children, if our love for each other is not just words or mere talk, but something active and genuine, this will be the proof that we belong to God, even if our own feelings condemn us, for God is greater than our feelings and knows all things.'
Canon Law and official church teaching must always emphasise the ideal for which we are striving. It is at parish level that things must be tailored to fit the actual situation in which we find ourselves. Parish Priests are occasionally selectively myopic and hard of hearing for the greater good of parishioners. Bishops generally expect this, rather than asking them a direct question to which they can only give the official answer.
Now some of you will have no idea what I am talking about and for that you should thank God. Some of you will understand what I am saying.
And I am certainly not talking about people who just find it too much of a hassle to get up for Mass on a Sunday morning.