Inside ML

Some days it seems that we are only about struggle. Even as we profess to be an Easter people, more often than not our song is something less than a triumphant “Alleluia!” We struggle with our identity as a Christian people and with our identity as individuals within the church. We struggle with issues of inculturation, gender inclusivity, and our eucharistic theology, and we struggle with questions of justice and competent leadership. We wonder about how best to serve our communities at worship when liturgy becomes a source of division rather than a font of unity. Responsible ministry demands support of those who embrace and welcome liturgical renewal, but it also requires attention to those who struggle with or reject these attempts to connect liturgy to life. In pastoral ministry, we are called to be the dreamers, to continue the work of bringing the kingdom on earth a little closer to the kingdom of heaven. Tension and struggle are a part of the package, part of a people growing into a more authentic identity, but there is both power and promise in this challenge. The transformative potential of liturgy is worth the price of the tension caused by its renewal. Our baptism imparts to us the call, the ability and the strength to accomplish what might otherwise seem unlikely at best. The tensions do not diminish, but when we honestly commit to being the people we say we are — a holy nation and royal priesthood — it becomes possible to make liturgy come alive for all people.

Even so, we struggle with questions of our own spirituality, our sense of mission and call and how to respond to that call in an environment in which vision and creativity are not always welcomed. In the midst of all that struggle, the business of the church goes on. We continue to preach and pray, teach and lead, prepare liturgy and form those new to the faith. We offer to our children the best of our tradition even as we become increasingly protective of them.

Ultimately, we choose the struggle, even though no one of us would desire it. For as Joan Chittister says, “The essence of struggle is neither endurance nor denial. The essence of struggle is the decision to become new rather than simply to become older. It is the opportunity to grow either smaller or larger in the process. There is, then, a gift hidden in the travails of forced change. It is the gift of beginning again: conversion” (Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope). May our struggle truly be graced by the conversion that brings new life. ML

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