From Holy Name Parish in South Deerfield, Massachusetts and Fr. Randy Calvo: Not Compliant, But Challenge
January marks the beginning of a brand new year, and it also marks the 100th anniversary year of the declaration of the Word of God Heard and Preached as a sacrament of our church. This unique sacrament of our church, which the diocese will formally celebrate this summer at the Cathedral of the Pines, and which we at Holy Name will honour throughout the centennial year on the pages of our monthly newsletter, heralds in a most profound way that we are called to be a new kind of religious organization. Bp. Hodur set about trying to recreate the organizational structure of the earliest church which dynamically combined the formal structure of office with the equally valid charism of baptismal authority.
The earliest church was judged by the world at large as an enthusiastic sect of Judaism. Enthus-iastic in its original meaning was not comparable to a fan’s support of an athletic team. It is derived from the Greek words en and theos, meaning in God, possessed or inspired by God. The Jewish faith was highly regulated either by Temple authorities, or by legal and/or pious scholars of the religious law. The earliest Christian communities, by contrast, trusted in the immediacy of the Spirit for its legitimacy (cf. 2 Cor. 3:5-6). Consensus was the paradigm. Office holders had leadership authority within the community not above it, and they derived their authority from the community not vice-versa (cf. 1 Cor. 12:27-31 where leadership is listed as the seventh of eight charisms, and the —still more excellent way— is the gift of Christian love expressed poetically in 1 Cor. 13.).
Based upon the earliest church, Bp. Hodur had idealistic hopes for the future. He wrote in 1930: —The priesthood of the future will not be a cast of men mercenaries growing rich and fat, but rather it will be a free association of individuals dedicating themselves to higher purposes. It will be a brotherhood of men and women chosen by God, prepared and ordained for this purpose …— (Apocalypse, p. 219) In the meanwhile, he pushed for practical measures that would begin to empower all church members with the ability to participate fully in church life. And a fundamental reform instituted by our church was the elevation of the Word of God Heard and Preached to the dignity of sacrament. The Ordained ministers of the church would teach and advocate so that all in the church would be informed and thus prepared for the decision making responsibility of a church democracy, of restoring the pristine church’s respect for the authority of consensus.
Church, therefore, cannot be a spectator sport. Church demands involvement and participation. During this first month of the year, I fill out my yearly calendar, and as I look at so many of the events listed I am disappointed by the amount of apathy associated with them. Let me ask if I may, will you participate in Mass on New Year’s Day, Epiphany, Feast of the Presentation, Ash Wednesday, Stations of the Cross, our Ecumenical Lenten Discussions, the annual congregational meeting, Holy Week, Ascension Day, May Devotions, Corpus Christi, Memorial Day, Bible study, the Cathedral of the Pines, Feast of the Dormition, All Saints and All Souls Days, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Ecumenical Service, Divine Love, the Advent Penitential Service, even Christmas or the days the follow it? Or count the Sundays you actually attend Mass, the principal gathering and purpose for our parish church. Are you proud of the number? How often is your name listed as a volunteer worker at the church? We have had to discontinue Advent and Lenten retreats for lack of interest. We have canceled Mid-Week Worship for the same reason. Will we continue down this path, or does faith require more not less from us? Does such a church as ours require more not less from us?
As we begin a new year, please do not take this inquiry as complaint, but as a challenge. We are supposed to be a different kind of church, one based on choice and consent. We are not forced or scared into church membership. We are to be sufficiently informed to choose to follow this church and to be capably empowered to affect this church. To be uninvolved, inactive and unconcerned is to be opposed to the direction and hope of our institution, which is to be a —free association— of believers seeking after the —higher purposes— of religion. The Word of God is essential in this quest because it empowers us to act, but all is for naught if we watch church rather than participate in church.
