Well, this morning it was warm enough so that I did not need any jacket. Now, if it would just stay this way till about October and then start cooling off!
But I started thinking a bit more about that money. What St. Paul writes sticks in my mind. “Which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1 Tim. 6,10.
Think about that. They took their eye off the goal. The result was disaster for them. “Many sorrows” describes so much that need not happen, doesn’t it?
And the most troubling word is that they “erred from the faith”. Something distracted them, and they left their first love, as St. John writes to the church. They lost their faith. The pursuit of ‘things’ took their attention from what was real, their faith and trust in God to provide as He promised He would. They forgot they were a children of the heavenly Father.
Which reminded me of the Church today in this culture. Just this morning I was reading of a church that had met in a bar, using one of those mechanical bulls as an illustration. “We seek to be relevant” said the pastor who did this. He attracted about 100 people and termed it a success. Relevant to what? The world we live in?
Today more and more people are attracted to liturgy. I find this interesting. Attracted to a form of worship that has existed for a thousand years. Why? Because the liturgy begins as a real separation from the world. In order to make religion understandable to modern man we forget this separation.
And the very first thing the liturgy does is draw us into a place where God is taken seriously, and where worshippers are taken seriously. The liturgy, from beginning to end, is not about us, but about God. It is about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The liturgy show us someone more worthy of our attention who lies outside ourselves.
The liturgy shows us God who comes because He wills to be present. In the Sacrament, in the Scripture readings, the very words of God, and in the sermon , which show how that word applies to us today where we live.
That is why liturgy is relevant. It is not shaped to attract one “target audience’, but is useful, and is prayed for kings as well as slaves. It directs our gaze from self to God, and when we return home, we are never quite the same.
Just some food for thought about the state of the church in today’s world.
GPD 4/22/08
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