Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard that the pope is in the United States. Most of his visit will be spent in Washington, DC and because we live outside DC, we have heard about nothing but "the papal visit." (well that and Hillary and Obama........)
I cannot believe the excitement and anticipation of the few Catholics that I know. These are people who attend church rarely, at best, and view First Communion as a chance for a big party with lots of alcohol. From what I have observed, for most of them, their Catholic faith is a chore they have to fit in occasionally so they don't feel guilty. Yet, when the pope is in town, they are like totally different people. It's gotten me thinking.
To my knowledge, most of my readers are believers, so I have a few questions for you: How would we, as believers, react if Christ was coming to our area for three days? Would we take the day off work to get a glimpse of him? Would we pay any amount of money for a souvenir of his visit? Would we speak about him with awe and amazement?
And that's when it hit me: Christ IS HERE with us all day, every day. He is worthy of our awe and amazement every single day! Yet how many of us behave like so many Catholics are behaving over the papal visit? Maybe Sundays are our day to get "worked up" over Christ but the rest of the week is touch and go. Maybe Sundays are our day to "give our tithe" but we can breathe easy the rest of the week feeling like we've "paid our dues" until next Sunday. Maybe we go to church on Sunday morning just to "get a glimpse" of Christ but our eyes are far from him until the following Sunday.
Sadly, maybe I'm more like those Catholics than I would like to admit...........
4 comments:
Great thoughts! Your right, Christ IS HERE! Our actions should be reflecting that.
I was raised Catholic, and my entire family is still Catholic. It can be frustrating at times. However, the Catholic church IS making progress. I had the sad occasion to attend Catholic Mass last week, for the funeral of my daughter's friend Emily, and in the service the priest actually said that all we needed to do was to believe in Jesus and we would be saved!!! I wanted to shout out "AMEN!"
In 20 years of attending Catholic mass, I have NEVER heard that said there. Since I was saved, 7 years ago, I have been intensely listening any time I have had the opportunity to attend a mass, just to see if the message was indeed there, and I had somehow missed it. I can't tell you how happy I was to hear those words.
Awesome post!!
tamera
Thanks so much, Jen!
just linked to your blog because i saw that you live in md. we live in st. mary's county, home of the stuffed ham! :) neither of us is originally from here, though, but it's home for now. where in md do you call home?
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