Posted on 08/26/2021 9:59:51 PM PDT by ebb tide
Sometimes, when we are clearing out the attic, we come across a dusty cardboard box full, apparently, of junk.
Out of curiosity, we go through the long forgotten items and suddenly, near the end of our search, we find a long lost treasure.
This is treasure, not in the financial sense, but something that meant a lot to our personal story, something that we mislaid on the way and had in fact forgotten about.
As we sift through the collection of faith experiences of a life time, we can get the same sense of surprise and wonderment.
Different experiences are treasures at different times. They help us on our way, we grow because of them, we value the opportunity they gave to each of us. And we move on.
It is not a matter of rejection but a question of growth.
Too often we hang on to a particular experience rather as a child does to a comfort blanket.
It does of course take courage to let go, and sometimes we are fearful of the risk.
We are experiencing something of that in the Church in our times, for there are those whose personal fragility prevents movement as they look back over their shoulder to a supposed golden age of belief and practice that is no longer there.
It would be impossible for us to practice our faith in the Risen Lord as earlier Christians did. We are a different people in a changed world.
But that doesn't fracture our faith, it asks us to look at it through contemporary eyes.
Walbert Buhlmann, in his book The Coming of the Third Church, first published in 1974, writes:
"Renewal is a continuous process, just as life renews itself all the time, or else arterio-sclerosis sets in as a sign of the approaching end. The Council was not a finish, but a fresh start, a thrust forward, after which the post-conciliar Church must go bravely on her way"
A seminal book, whose comments after 40 years are more than relevant to our lives today.
Kevin Kelly expressed a similar view when he said in his book 50 Years Receiving Vatican II, published in 2012, that "The Council is a process, not an event".
The art of making a success of a long journey is to take with you what you need, use what is necessary at a particular time, leave it behind and carry on.
The challenge comes in making the selection, of recognising what we should keep in order that we might be sustained and then setting out afresh each morning with a lightened load
Relieved of the clutter, re-focused by the found fragments of lost treasure, the story continues.
Accept
Accept
Silence
Accept
Stillness
Accept
Self
Chris McDonnell is a retired headteacher from England and a regular contributor to La Croix International.
.............
Kevin Kelly expressed a similar view when he said in his book 50 Years Receiving Vatican II, published in 2012, that "The Council is a process, not an event".
The “Council” has become a god, something to be worshiped, e.g. Pachamama.
What exactly is a "post-conciliar church"? No other councils created their own "post-conciliar churches". They were all in continuity with the same Church founded by Jesus Christ.
It’s illustrative that this La Croix piece is recycling the fantasies of some nearly forgotten author from 1974. The intramural wars of the early ‘70s are suddenly hot again. The Montini pontificate is a little before my time, but my understanding is that the revolution ran hot for about 10 years after Vat II closed in 1965. Then, around ‘75, Paul VI kinda put on the brakes, firing Bugnini and perhaps realizing that things had gone too far. The revolution was pretty much on ice for the next 38 years until Bergoglio’s election. It took them a few years to ramp up, but now the revolution is very much back on... and it’s going to tear the Church to shreds. Some people (even in this forum) don’t believe me, but it seems obvious to me that the German branch of the Catholic Church is very very close to pulling the trigger on women priests, same-sex marriage, out-and-proud homosexual clergy, and Bergoglio has no particular interest in stopping them. But the Church and the anti-Church can’t possibly co-exist in the same entity. There will be time of choosing, and there will be a schism and Bergoglio knows it. Five years ago, Der Spiegel quoted him as saying, “It is not to be excluded that I will go down in history as the man who split the Catholic Church.”
Yeah....just found my tax records going back 30 years.
“His words are the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.” Hebrews 13:6-8.
Couldn’t it be argued that the universal Church already is in “schism”?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.