I could be better focused,and I "should raise my hand before speaking".This is the reminder I was faced with growing up by countless teachers frustrated at my clowning antics and such. If a squirrel ran by the classroom window I'd be the first to yell it out during the taxing lesson of Math or other such items. I did indeed get my fair share of payback when I became a teacher myself!
But there's something immense learned by focusing on the most important, while also value found in knowing that the squirrel resides outside of the window. Not to distract us from what demands our prominent attention, but to have us informed of our surroundings in a healthy way. There are plenty of squirrels, to put it kindly running around the Church at moment. But the centrality of our attentiveness belongs to Christ alone.
Currently our parish is being built and it is a construction zone of noise, filth, chaos, beeping machines, and hard working men. Sundays they do not work. For those of us attending daily Mass we are greeted by their hammers, the piercing sound of steel being cut, machines backing up with loud beeps.
Still, they do not drown out the bells rung at the Altar. When Christ our Lord is there in our midst the peripherals are silenced. As I knelt down following the Eucharist one day this week I had to almost remind myself that there was clanging outside, it remained unnoticed at the moment of Consecration. There was a presence of Peace untouched by the chaos of machinery.
I couldn't help but think about the current climate of the Church, the noise, mess, and chaos that is haunting it outside and oozing within. The most important of tasks for us as faithful begins at the Altar in silence before our Lord. The centrality of focus on Him is far more worthy than any algebra lesson, I'd say, or feisty squirrel.
There is noise and mess in the building of the Church. But we're reminded by faith that we do not build alone , with human hands or limitations. We need embrace the reality of mess to deal with it properly. We need to call it sin, to name the noise of Satan's evil, to conquer it in Christ's name. To begin to clear out what demolishes the building and what preserves Her structure, we must rest primarily in prayer. We must recall daily the promise of our Lord to His Church, entrusting ourselves desperately to Jesus lovingly, to show us the light in this darkness and to lead us accordingly to help build His Church.
By faith and love of Christ alone we join the Master Builder to aid the Church, and there is found the clarity to clear out the mess and noise.
Policies and protocols most sufficient take their form from efficient prayer and reverent silence before Christ.
Do we add to the chaos and noise of the building? Or do we help nurture the silence needed to build with our Lord?
St.Peter, Pray for us.
