Church of the meek will pull us out of scandal

“Bless me, Father for I have sinned, it’s been about two months since my last confession. Maybe three months. So, that’s my first confession – laziness in coming to confession. I want to come every month, but I haven’t made it a priority.

“Then there’s laziness in prayer. I’m proud and vain, unwilling to admit when I’m wrong. I look for praise and attention.  I’ve laughed at inappropriate jokes. I wished bad things would happen to my neighbour ... but he swore and yelled at my kids. I don’t know if that’s a sin. I prayed for him afterwards.

“I think about myself before my husband. I’m impatient with the kids. I’ve yelled at them and been sarcastic to them. And I’ve guilt-tripped them. I’ve rolled my eyes at people who have annoyed me, muttered under my breath, made people feel stupid, hurt their feelings. I’ve been a stumbling block, Father.”

I’ve been a stumbling block. I’ve often thought that the worst possible purgatory would simply be a re-living of all the times I’ve hurt someone. Having to watch the results of cutting remarks, or putting someone “in their place” would be an absolute torment to me. And because of the pain and regret it would cause me, I’m sure it will be my purgatory. How many people have walked away from me feeling worse, instead of better, unloved, instead of cherished, like Christianity is a scam, instead of filled with hope?

And this is the great scandal: that I may have been responsible for the turning of someone’s precious soul away from the God who created them to know him. This is the scandal of scandals: a Christian counter-witness. My selfish, thoughtless acts may have taken a soul open to Christ and pushed them out the front door. In worrying more about being right than in being compassionate, I have made someone believe that my faith is a lie. One person walking away from a future with God because of my actions, and it’s better that a millstone be hung about my neck. Am I allowed to say that I don’t believe I am alone in this scandal?

Yes, the perverted, nausea-inducing scandals that keep coming to haunt us are pushing people out the doors, but they do not stand alone, and they are a sign of sickness amongst all members. While it is easy to blame the loss of numbers in the pew on something so vile, it is the day-to-day actions of humble, believing saints that draw people to Christ. We are in a time of great tumult, and walls are crashing down upon us. But if we believe what we ought to believe, that Christ died for our sins and founded one Church to lead us to salvation, led by the Spirit who would lead us in all truth, then there is nowhere else to go, and nowhere else to bring others.

In his 1969 book Faith and the Future, Father Joseph Ratzinger answered the question, “What will become of the Church in the future?”

“ The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial ...

“From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge – a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning ... It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. 

“And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”

I hope you will read the rest of Pope Benedict’s words on-line, and that you will join me in confession. God bless the Church of the meek.