I’m not sure if I already blogged about this or not but it’s something that has been on my mind lately so here we go. I mentioned I was preparing for college this fall, but I am not sure whether I mentioned I am going to Holy Cross. For those who don’t know Holy Cross is a Catholic school, and although I was raised Catholic (like every other Italian in the world) I now go to a Presbyterian church. When I talk to a lot of people in my church community about the Catholic Church I tend to get the same response about how “the Catholic religion is different than Christianity.” For those who have said this before I am not singling anyone out, I just have something to say. While the Catholic and Protestant Church certainly have their differences, fundamentally it is the same thing. Both churches profess a belief in an all powerful God whose son descended to earth to pay for our sins, and also the belief in the Holy Spirit as God’s spirit in us. I’m reading a fantastic book titled Tattoos on the Heart by a Jesuit priest named Gregory Boyle. Not even halfway through this book I’m thinking how cool it would be to be this man. He works on rehabilitating former gang members in a series of small businesses (bakeries, city cleanup, ect.) he calls “Homeboy Industries,” mixed with brief Spanish phrases, mildly course language, and anecdotes from life on the streets is a single truth, and that is the Gospel. That got me thinking, even though we go to different churches, are Greg and I all that different? Yeah he’s Catholic and I consider myself nondenominational but at the heart of the issue don’t we both worship the same God and go out with Gospel in hopes of spreading the good news? So here’s what I think, Paul (whether you call him saint or not) wrote that we are the body in Christ. Body means together, one organism, not two. Imagine if my legs looked at the rest of me and (if they could talk) said, “even though we’re supposed to be together, you’re altogether different than I am, so let’s split.” Yeah I know, crazy right, but that is exactly what the church has done in the past and still does! If we can’t come together in worship then how can the church expect to combat the evils of the world and all the devil does to ruin the paradise God made? Jesus once said that a house divided cannot stand, well this house better get some crazy glue fast because we need to come together.
1 comment:
T
Well said, I was thinking the same thing while I was attending the parent orientation, and reflecting on the Jesuit mission of "Seeing God in everything" or the T shirts your orientation team was wearing that read "Mission in Action" The Holy Spirit was present on that campus and you are so blessed to be joining that community.
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