Is This The Church For You?

"They have too much fun. They don't dress like church people. There are too many children. Even teenagers like going to church now. They make the Bible interesting. The pastor tells jokes. Their music doesn't sound like church music. You might actually understand what's going on. They aren't after your money. And who ever heard of going to church in a movie theater?"

For once, I have absolutely no comment!!!

Is There An Answer?

We will never know the hidden suffering of the murderer who massacred twenty-seven students and five teachers on Monday, April 16th. We know already of his insanity and his suicidal tendencies, but within the quiet, sullen Mr. Cho, lived a terrible fear unexpressed and repressed. I can't begin to imagine the psychic pressure that he used to hold within himself the turbulent emotions that would not be contained for ever. Such suffering continued to isolate him more and more from human community, he was indifferent to those about him, he was impossible to reach.

If only he could have found a language that would have led him out of his incomprehensible suffering that made him mute - a language of lament, a cry - a language which at last would define his situation. Indeed, being speechless, walled off from others, is death. A dreadful hell lived within him.

His crude writings in English Class expressed only the outer boundaries of a life so hidden that the day would come that he would explode.

The Sixteenth Day of Easter

Let your people, O Lord, rejoice for ever that they have been renewed in spirit, and let the joy of our adoption as your sons and daughters strengthen the hope of our glorious resurrection in Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Rule of Saint Benedict, Chapter 65

On the Prior of the Monastery

To us, therefore, it seems expedient
for the preservation of peace and charity
that the Abbot have in his hands
the full administration of his monastery.
And if possible let all the affairs of the monastery,
as we have already arranged,
be administered by deans according to the Abbot's directions.
Thus, with the duties being shared by several,
no one person will become proud.

But if the circumstances of the place require it,
or if the community asks for it with reason and with humility,
and the Abbot judges it to be expedient,
let the Abbot himself constitute as his Prior
whomsoever he shall choose
with the counsel of God-fearing brethren.

That Prior, however, shall perform respectfully
the duties enjoined on him by his Abbot
and do nothing against the Abbot's will or direction;
for the more he is raised above the rest,
the more carefully should he observe the precepts of the Rule.

If it should be found that the Prior has serious faults,
or that he is deceived by his exaltation and yields to pride,
or if he should be proved to be a despiser of the Holy Rule,
let him be admonished verbally up to four times.
If he fails to amend,
let the correction of regular discipline be applied to him.
But if even then he does not reform,
let him be deposed from the office of Prior
and another be appointed in his place who is worthy of it.
And if afterwards he is not quiet and obedient in the community,
let him even be expelled from the monastery.
But the Abbot, for his part, should bear in mind
that he will have to render an account to God
for all his judgments,
lest the flame of envy or jealousy be kindled in his soul.