Inside ML

In the beginning of ML’s 32nd year, we proposed to keep a firewatch. Thomas Merton revealed in his classic “Firewatch” that “the firewatch is an examination of conscience in which your task as a watchman suddenly appears in its true light: a pretext devised by God to isolate you, and to search your soul with lamps and questions, in the heart of darkness.” So it seems ML’s task as the “watchman” has appeared in its true light. In these difficult times in our church, we continue to search with lamps and questions, even as we move onward to a new year and an ongoing mission. For all who labor on despite discouragement and obstacles, we pledged to keep the flame of hope and renewal still burning, and so we have. We keep watch against destructive fire, even as we tend the inner fire of the Spirit. This is not a dismal time, for there is still much to celebrate in the church. But we recognize that for many, most perhaps, the church structure today is a challenge to faith and vocation. 

Still, it’s not the first or worst challenge of the church, and so we carry on. We look for sparks of life and we seek the wisdom of those who have found ways of living and ministering as God has invited them despite adversity within the church or without. It is no accident that we hear the voices of courageous and visionary men and women religious echoing in the pages of this issue. They are, and have been, the keepers of the flame of faith, history, and lived tradition throughout the life of the church. Their numbers now are small, but we have a great deal to learn from their example. When asked to reflect on the coming challenges facing lay ministry, Bill Graham wisely looked to the men and women whose courage and perseverance built up the church, sometimes brick by brick. Interestingly, he mentions the Caldwell Dominicans, who literally hauled bricks uphill to build their motherhouse at what is now the campus of Caldwell College in Caldwell, N.J. It was in response to a question about Eucharist posed by Caldwell Dominican Sister Margaret Thomas McGovern that led me to write a reflection on the Year of the Eucharist. Their example of faith and community, adaptability, vision, and just plain joyfulness is a model of what we’re all called to be in this time and place. 

Community is the key. If we could come to an understanding of what it means to be community, where the gifts of all were valued and leadership were developed rather than entitled, our path would be headed in the right direction. Taking steps in that direction is Leisa Anslinger, who in this issue offers methods in forming communities in a grace-filled model. Leisa will continue to explore community formation with her new column Keeping the Faith beginning with ML’s February (33:01) issue. Ken Davis knows that certain community celebrations have something to teach us about living and growing as community. He explains for us how the Mexican practice of the Christian initiation of children is a community process rather than just the single step of infant baptism. Anne Louise Bannon shows how ministry of the word should progress to community leadership, for when we understand and believe what we proclaim, we have quite a gift to offer. Ministers of the word — all of them, not just those privileged to preach among the Sunday assembly — have an obligation to leadership. 

All of us called by God to follow Christ have an obligation to nurture our spiritual lives and, empowered by that spirituality, to proclaim the good news in word and action. Joan Chittister, OSB, sees that type of empowerment in the Samaritan woman and notes that, like her, those so empowered will not be silenced. She says, “And what the church really needs is more of them to spread the faith instead of the law, to be a sign of hope and contradiction — rather than authority and legalism — in a world that is hungry and ignorant and spending more money and talent and time on the potential destruction of the world and the definition of heresies than on the development of innocent people and the challenge of hard love in a poor, oppressed, groaning, wailing world” (In the Heart of the Temple: My Spiritual Vision for Today’s World [New York: BlueBridge, 2004], 50). 

So as we move onward, may we do so with renewed passion: to do as we have been called, to share faith, to be signs of hope and contradiction, and to always love as we have been loved. ML

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