Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
December 27, 2015
Spiritual Ponderings
Hunting for God’s Church

Today will be our last reflection on Allen Hunt’s book: Confessions of a Mega-Church Pastor: How I Discovered the Hidden Treasures of the Catholic Church . Please know that there are many more great insights in his book that I am choosing not to cover because of space. So for one last time let us look at a few more quotes from the book. They will be in bold and my thoughts will be in regular font.

I could find no justifiable reason to be separated from the Church. I remember a quote from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus: “The only alternative to obedience is the cacophony of human beings making it up as they go.” Neuhaus had converted from Lutheranism once he became convinced that Protestants were simply making it up as they go.
In most of the parishes that I have served at that had schools; there was always a yearly game of volley ball between the 8 ^th graders and the faculty. I would often play on the faculty team. The eighth graders should have been able to beat the faculty every year that I played but they never did. Instead of following the rules, proper technique for serving/spiking/setting/etc. and staying in their position they would do whatever they wanted and eventually they would hit the ball way out, let it drop between them, or have other players give up. In other words they descended into Chaos. The teachers on the other hand would follow the rules, help each other with proper technique and eventually win.

When I did so, I experienced the same readings, the same liturgy, the same faith, and the same creed. I shared in the same Eucharist in every setting, whether in America or Europe, or Asia. The Mass expresses and demonstrates the oneness of the Church. It is not every congregation making it up for itself. It is the one Church, standing on the foundation of the twelve apostles, sharing the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Jesus’ major prayer at the Last Supper is that we would all be one. There is no more unified Church than the Catholic Church. We all rally around the pope. We can trace our spiritual heritage all the way back to Christ through the bishops.

Once the focus is moved from that altar, and once the real presence of Christ is removed, there is and can be no unity. His presence is real. The real presence binds the Church together. There is no substitute. By that real presence, His body, the Church, coheres.
Fr. Robert Barron in his book simply called: Eucharist has this to say about the unity we find in the Catholic Church around God’s altar. “There is a famous saying in the writing of the great church Father, Saint Augustine. Whenever he would give communion to someone for the first time, instead of holding up the host and saying, “The Body of Christ,” he would hold it up and say, “Receive what you are.”” We become the Body of Christ.

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser in his book about the Eucharist called: Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist puts it this way: “How separate and divided is our world! We look around us, watch the world news, watch the local news, look at our places of work, our social circles, and even our churches, and we tension and division everywhere. We are far from being one body and one sprit. So many things, it seems, work to divide us: history, circumstance, background, temperament, ideology, geography, creed, color, and gender. And then there are our personal wounds, jealousies, self-interest, and sin. The world, like a lonely adolescent, aches, too, in its separateness. We live in a world deeply deeply divided.”

One last quote from Allen Hunt: “Protesting” reflected my own pride, my own desires, and my own spirit of dissension more than anything else. The answer was the Church. It already existed, and I merely needed to come to it.
Sometimes I did not agree with my parents rules when I was younger and now that I am older I see the wisdom behind most of them. God though is the perfect parent and therefore He has the perfect reason for everything even if we do not understand it. Remember we are time bound and limited and God is infinite and wiser than we can ever imagine.