COMMUNITY, HEAD AND HEART

The Gospel this Sunday shows Jesus walking on the waves of a sea storm, and telling his frightened disciples in the boat to not be afraid. He even invites Peter to leave the boat and come walking on the waves to him. Without hesitation Peter leaped into the raging waters but fear, not Jesus, quickly became his dominant concern. Jesus saved him from drowning, saying, 'How little faith you have.'

The traditional interpretation of this incident sees the boat as representing the church, we are represented by Peter, and Jesus is the risen Christ who promised to be with us all the way home. It's a story about faith. I like to see Peter (all of us) being called to keep his eyes and heart on Christ, on finding God. Like most of us, he becomes distracted, overcome by fear in this case. Finding God ceased to be a priority for him momentarily, but for us maybe most of a lifetime.

For today's spiritual mood, some of these stories can seem too good to be true; can make God too obvious to be real. God is never obvious as the story of Elijah in this Sunday's first reading reminds us. God is not found in predictable places - hurricanes, earthquakes and fires (where Moses found God) - but in a 'tiny whispering sound.' Many people today cannot find God in the Vatican or its cardinals, the clear-as-daylight teachings of the church, or even in their own local churches. These might seem to be the obvious places to find God. Young people are obvious in our parishes today more by their absence than by their presence. Unlike us at their age, their experience of life today is defined by secularism, the incapacity of our culture to see or hear God.

An 'institutional' kind of faith, where images of life are shaped by belonging to church tradition, does not appeal to many people born after World War II. I have witnessed the most fervent Catholic parents raise their kids in the best traditions of the church only to see them abandon it all as young adults. My own nephews and nieces are not church-going people anymore. While they have become allergic to institutional religion, they are good people who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and do all those things that Jesus says will get us into heaven - cf. Matthew 25.

Each time I hear their parents blame the religious education their kids received in school I am reminded of a famous 1927 book, 'The Mystical Element of Religion,' by Friedrich von Hugel. Von Hugel saw three dimensions of religion as connected with childhood, youth and adulthood. Children can grow up happily with an 'institutional' kind of faith. A young person then runs into new questions and needs a more 'critical' approach, reasons that make sense of life as they experience it. A third stage goes beyond the institutional and rational dimensions to a more 'mystical' stage. By this he means that religion will need to be experienced in depth, to be felt rather than seen or reasoned about, and to be loved rather than analyzed.

I think von Hugel's little masterpiece is still relevant. He saw these three dimensions not only as chronological stages but also as essential to a gradual maturity of faith: starting from fidelity to the church, facing questions and searching for answers, and finally experiencing a personal depth of spiritual surrender. He sums it up on one concise sentence: 'I believe because I am told, because it is true, because it answers my deepest interior experiences and needs.' All three dimensions - of community, head and heart - can and should live together in healthy harmony. If the institutional element dominates, religion becomes eternally loyalist - as it has for too many Catholics. If the head takes over, we risk neglecting the need for community and affectivity. If spirituality monopolizes the agenda, it can evade the fragile reality of a human church and the personal limitations of human understanding.

The reality of faith today is a stormy business. Can we hear a voice calling across the wind and the waves 'It is I?' Moses heard it, 'I am who am.' Elijah heard the 'tiny whispering sound' amid the hurricane, earthquake and fire. Or have we capitulated to the total systemic surrender of our culture to the powers and dominations of the world?

PASTOR EMERITUS