Graduation at Concord-Carlisle High School
It's the season for high school and college graduations: rites of passage for our young people. There have been articles in the press recently noting how fewer and fewer politicians are being invited to give commencement talks because of tension between Catholic institutions and policies in law that some Catholic office holders support. Here and there a Catholic bishop has announced that legislators in his diocese who support pro-choice policies are not welcome to receive Communion.
While the Church teaches that to receive Communion we should be in communion with gospel values, it rarely draws the line in the sand as clearly as these bishops have. Most bishops work to persuade their people and individual politicians of the critical importance of such teachings but do not issue ultimatums.
Many people, for any number of reasons, experience the Church as an institution whose doors have been closed shut on them. I believe that leaving the doors ajar so all are free to come and go will best serve the teaching Church, the gospel's values and God's people - especially in times as difficult and complicated as our own.
Graduation can be a difficult and complicated time for young people - in spite of its being a day to celebrate accomplishment with great joy. This coming weekend we'll take a few moments at one of our Sunday liturgies to pray over the high school students who are graduating in a few weeks. We'll give them a copy of Thomas Merton's beautiful prayer, My Lord God, I have no idea of where I'm going... which I adapted in a homily a few weeks ago.
Perhaps you have high school or college graduates you're praying for. A few days ago I came across this poem by William Stafford. I offer it here for you to read as you pray for graduates in your families and parishes.
For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot -- air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go a way; it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.
-William Stafford in The Way It Is
-ConcordPastor
I hope that we won't be subjected to another election that focuses on hot button issues, particularly ones that appeal to a certain Catholic constituency. It is so nonproductive. I am already dreading the mean, hateful tone that erupts like clockwork every four years. I agree with the open door policy you cite that welcomes all. We all are sinners. We all are loved and forgiven by a merciful God. If that is good enough for God, it should be good enough for the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteElections should and must focus on hot button isues: all of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Concord Pastor on this issue. There is way too many, and too much trouble, turmoil and trauma in this world we live in. Complacency should not even enter into the subjects. We must find a way to deal with the "hot button issues"...all of them. We are in the crisis we are because we have chosen not to address the most meaningful issues at hand. And we are in big trouble and wider divides because of our neglect.
ReplyDeleteSorry to disagree, but, in my opinion, some hot button issues have been hot button issues for so long it's time they were given a rest. I would like to see a much stronger focus this election cycle on social justice and environmental issues. I think John Edwards' "Two Americas" is very powerful. I would hope that the candidates would strongly address the growing inequities in our country and that they would use the price of gas and the recent polar bear announcement to hammer home a wake-up call to all of us about our fragile planet. An example of a hot button topic - marriage amendments to state constitutions - is to me an utter waste of time and money. We have so many pressing needs in our country. Those should be our focus, not hot button issues.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I don't think God would agree that hot-button issues (abortion, right to die, the definition of marriage) should be "given a rest" and that we should now turn our attention solely to polar bears and the price of gas.
ReplyDeleteGod is indeed loving but He is also just. He has told us that our every day choices have eternal consequences. We need to bring the values that we learn and profess at church out into the public square. Didn't St. Paul write about fighting the good fight?