We Are Family
Journeying Together
In earlier issues, we have explored several aspects of spiritual maturity. Spiritual travelers in these rich, complex, confusing, and exciting times do well to consider carefully who our role models and companions are. As Christians we find a true compass in our relationship with Jesus Christ. On the spiritual path, as in any path that pulls together our best talents and deepest callings, we will grow only by facing pain. Think of what it takes to achieve something you love. Play a musical instrument? Practice hurts your fingers. Play a sport? Discipline, frustration, routine—and getting up after falling—are unavoidable.
If we dare to love another person, growth happens as we enter the stories of others and endure pain, experience misunderstanding, and try again. But the fruits of those efforts are deep connection, insight, and shared interdependence. As we struggle through difficult moments together, we come to identify our real selves. Thus we begin to accept God’s great love for us as we have experienced it through others. This is the foundation that draws our passions into compassion. Would we expect the intertwining of our spiritual lives to demand less of us?
The New Testament word for church is ekklesia. The Greek root here tells us we are called out to gather together in Christ. If we are willing to face being a real church in the real world, being an ekklesia will require tough gatherings from time to time. (Acts 15:1–29 shows how the early Church struggled to agree.) But ekklesia, the gathering of the assembly or church, is exactly where both the beauty of our spiritual selves and the flawed lives that need healing and growth can find their home.
Our spiritual journey together is going to take, at times, our best and hardest work, our best selves. Would we expect a mature church to ask for less? In a real church with real people and real flaws, this could mean gathering where real, difficult issues are addressed. Here hope and healing are real possibilities.
This is very practical, very down-to-earth stuff. Our fellow parishioners and Church leaders play roles on our path that are both supportive and uncomfortable. They make demands of us. People who don’t make sense ask us to be understanding. Strident, belligerent voices test or challenge us. Poor people with real needs teach us to see with new eyes, requiring us to look at our spending habits. Church leaders ask us if we have understood and if we will follow the demands of Church teaching. The gospel challenges much that is vain in our culture. How do we navigate our Church to radically live the gospel?
Our Spiritual Compass
At the core of our faith we stand in awe before the realization that God steps onto the human stage. Jesus is true God and true man. Think of Christmas; even with commercialized celebrations, we still see the real light of a simple morning during the darkest time of the year revealing the presence of a tiny child. All the distractions we encounter during this holiday cannot shake off the truth: the Divine entered the world as an infant. In tiny, vulnerable ways, God is with us.
One of the biggest challenges on the Christian path is to be convinced that the divine life is living in the body of Christ, the Church, or the people of God. Ordinary people are called to be Christ’s presence in simple, vulnerable ways here and now.
Could this flawed group of people be where God lives? Does Christ really expect us to see him in these others? I don’t mind loving my neighbor when he is in a parable, someone cleaned up by Jesus, making him into a story. But I’m not sure I want to talk to the guy two houses down. (You know, the one with the dog.) It is amazing to reflect too that my flawed self is also the place where God chooses to dwell.
Where Are We Headed?
We need real relationships in our spiritual life. We are not just traveling alongside others, we need one another. We meet Christ in others. These others are not idealized stained-glass figures, but flesh-and-blood beings like us. They are saints in progress and thus difficult to relate to at times. They are relatives and coworkers, neighbors and politicians, friends and foes. Some whine a lot, and others formulate seemingly ridiculous ideas
Much is expected from the body of Christ. Though the institutional Church is visible for all to see, the makeup of the Church, in essence, is the mystical body of Christ, the people of God. The Second Vatican Council reminds us that the institutional Church and the mystical body of Christ are not different things—“the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly riches” are one reality; the place where the divine and human come together. (Lumen Gentium, 8.)
Committing to the community of faith means facing our failures, entering the confessional, and not being afraid of our imperfections. In community, our hearts change and align with Christ and one another. Here we rest, known as we are—fellow travelers created in the image of God.