Tapsearch Com EditorChurch closing close hearts and minds
August 25th 2010 22:38
From Ray Tapajna Chronicles - see summary of sites and articles at Multi urls at Ray Tapajna Tapsearcher links
Bishop closing down our Catholic churches in our city and suburbs prompts me to write about it as it impacts my soul -
Two stories in one running side by side in a journey to His Perfect Love
As long as the the Church is sterile in expressing Jesus in the work day where people spend most of their time and energy, there is very little hope for the Church to succeed in its mission of establishing the Body of Christ on earth. If you close churches in an economic style of the corporate world, we just aggravate the problems and we are doomed to more failures. In the end more souls and hearts are wounded.
Pope Benedict in his recent economic encylical stresses the principle of subsidiarity which is understood to mean - deciding all things at the lowest level possible. A Bishop came into our town and chooses to close churches on his own. It created a greater because planting new seeds on barren ground in new places leads to failure. If the Church resorts to sophist influences and does things for the sake of a useful good they should know a useful good can be intrinsically evil. If a Bishop does things according to the corporate world instead of the spiritual one, a mutation comes that damages hearts, souls and minds.
I took my religion and philosophy professors in college seriously when I graduated from John Carroll University. I had some of the very best Jesuits in the world when I was in college. I had Father McQuade for religion who was the local Bishop Sheen of our times. I provide a survey course on the internet based on two of his courses including Modern Heresies. Father Shell was a saintly man who excelled in the teaching of logic and who later became the President of John Carroll was my spiritual advisor. Father Otting who taught philosophy and who was known to fail up to half of his students at a time, taught me ethics. Father Henninger was masterful in teaching sociology featuring a course preparing his students for family life. He came the closest to connecting the spiritual with the real world. Father Kerner vividly portrayed history in a back to the future mode following the old adage that history repeats itself. Then there was Professor Gavin who seemed to know me better than myself and assigned me the topic of New Harmony Workers Community for my topic as a history major. Everyone else were allowed to select their topic.
I worked in several factories while going to college full time and found a deep void between the work world and from my experience growing up in a family food store. The teachers were the best but somehow did not connect with the real world as I was living it. This deep void led me to write about "communications by rank." ( search under tapsearcher communications by rank for the articles .)
I realized back then that nothing good could happen until the Church tried bringing the monastery and spiritual community to the streets. All the Masses in the world were locked in one place only if the Sunday celebration did not continuein real time Monday morning and throughout the week. The Church has to be in sync with human nature and how Jesus taught us to live. The only time, Jesus became angry was when he confronted the money changers in the temple. Now the money changers are in the background as the churches are closed. The closing of our churches demonstrate how deeply the money changers control the events in our lives. They have saturated everything as our economies based on making money on money instead of making and growing things are burning out as human dignity in the workday has been degraded.
In the 1960s, I made a Cursillo. A Cursillo is a three day session based on deep spirituality and dynamics. The fourth day that follows is the rest of your life. I also went through the leadership school that conducts the retreat. I thought this was a way of merging my spiritual life with the workday. I hosted the regional Ultreyas for about three years too. An Ultreya is a weekly meeting for those who made the Cursillo. It is primarily about sharing the events of the past week with a small group and telling what the closest moment to Jesus was during the week. For me it demonstrated the deep void between the Church and the real world as many faded away because they could not match the two together.
I gave the action talk at a Cursillo with Bishop Cosgrove as the Spiritual Director and this was a highlight of all my attempts at closer Christian community in the real world. Because of Bishop Cosgrove's examples, I felt that somehow there could be a connection of the Church and the real world as we live in it. But, this did not last long. I had a boss tell me that he made the Cursillo too but I had to learn how to live in the real world too. I always prayed for the gift of contemplation and there were times I thought I had it. However, it became obvious that the Lord chose a different more active life for me.
I took the Gabriel Richard course and later the instructor course. Gabriel Richard course is a dynamic course to get people to speak out and act out their convictions. I privately had a deep spiritual conversion experience after reading Carl Jung book about speaking in tongues. Jung approached the phenomenon from a secular research of this Gift of the Spirit and this proved to be better than any spiritual analysis of the subject. I joined the
Charismatic Movement in the Church and thought perhaps the door was finally open where I could fill the terrible void between work and the Church. Many who made the Cursillo seemed to naturally flow to seeking closer Christian community and we have many examples of these efforts in several churches in the region where I live. Those of us who flowed to the Charismatic movement, seem to go deeper into the search for closer Christian community. Personally, the dark void was even more apparent as different efforts arose in this search.
Mr Gavin's insistence about assigning me the topic of New Harmony Workers Community came back to haunt me. The biblical account of communities in the early church continued to haunt the Church as a whole especially about the descriptions in the bible about communities sharing everything in common. This all came back when I read Alan Greenspan's book - The Age of Turbulence. In his book, Alan Greenspan spends a large segment of the book exploring the New Harmony experiment. He suggests that all attempts at idealic workers communities are doomed to failure and that Capitalism is best at accomodating human nature as it is. He takes a sophist approach to the matter.
Evidently, Greenspans believe human nature is not something that can be perfected. However, Jesus came and said the opposite. Jesus came to perfect human nature flowing from His Perfect Love. The closings of the churches tell me that Greenspan's concepts are alive in our Church. The closings represent a sophist useful good even though it may even be an intrinsically evil thing that has penetrated deep into our thinking processes.
I became part of a group who sought deep spiritual and real world Christian community. I even wrote the convenant for one group and all the leaders in the group signed it except one. I was the exception because after writing it I realized the group was far from being ready for it. My conclusions were confirmed when one of the members of the community got up and said he had quit his job and was unable to find a Christian job. He had a large family and the community tried to support him and his family but it was apparent that the community was not up to the challenge.
I traveled to Houston Texas and other places that had apparent successes. However when I saw attempts at community co-op food stores based on Christian principles and people assuming that they could compete with the stores in the system, I knew again that they would hit the rail and crash too. It seems like the money changers always win in these kind of contests.
One glorious new year's eve in the late 1960s, three priests concelebrated Mass in our home. There were seventy people or more in attendance. One of the priest was the assistant pastor at our St James parish. Another was a Marynoll Missionary and God knows we now need missionaries to evangelize us here at home. The other priest was a saintly Monsignor. In our search for community, we later elected him as the Pastor. He accepted the role even though he did not agree with some of our ideas and we gathered at St Andrews on Superior Avenue in the inner city.
The pastor at St James back then was "old school" and had a beautiful power of holy indifference about the Mass in our home. The only thing he never told me was that I would only get hurt trying to do the things that I was doing and perhaps he was more right than wrong in the final judgement of things.
Our current Bishop closed St Peter's church in Cleveland. The people were trying to gather in closer Christian community. I am told that there was plenty of money coming. They moved to a building and formed an association to support all their ministries. They gathered together in this building and celebrated a Mass with their original pastor. The Bishop rejected the celebration by this community as being something bad rather than good.
The Bishop was wrong from the beginning in taking a corporate type approach in closing the churches. He should have first called for a new laymen ministry to maintain the churches and promote events in these churches where money could be collected or have paid tickets to events. There could have been periodical celebrations, prayer meetings, passion plays, christmas events and musical events where paid tickets could be promoted. High schools could hold their graduation ceremonies too. Top missionaries from around the world could be invited to speak and have altar calls for people to turn over their lives to Jesus. I would call this new laymen group - God's Doorkeepers, named after a title to a book about three doorkeepers with one being a saint already and the other two on their way to becoming saints.
It also should be noted that two of the first five saints Pope Benedict cannonized were "workers" priests. And the principle of subsidiarity that Pope Benedict expressed in his encyclical should be studied and activated in both spiritual and money matters with all decisions being made at the lowest possible level. Until then the money changers will rule in our society and sophism pressing useful good over intrinsic good will rule. The closing of so many churches really represents the old way of throwing new seeds on barren land.
See one of our sites dedicated to a review of Pope Benedict Economic Encyclical and more about our own journey in the global economic arena Review more related articles here at The Rationale or search under tapsearcher, tapsearch, arklineart or Ray Tapajna for thousands of more results and references.
Bishop closing down our Catholic churches in our city and suburbs prompts me to write about it as it impacts my soul -
Two stories in one running side by side in a journey to His Perfect Love
As long as the the Church is sterile in expressing Jesus in the work day where people spend most of their time and energy, there is very little hope for the Church to succeed in its mission of establishing the Body of Christ on earth. If you close churches in an economic style of the corporate world, we just aggravate the problems and we are doomed to more failures. In the end more souls and hearts are wounded.
Pope Benedict in his recent economic encylical stresses the principle of subsidiarity which is understood to mean - deciding all things at the lowest level possible. A Bishop came into our town and chooses to close churches on his own. It created a greater because planting new seeds on barren ground in new places leads to failure. If the Church resorts to sophist influences and does things for the sake of a useful good they should know a useful good can be intrinsically evil. If a Bishop does things according to the corporate world instead of the spiritual one, a mutation comes that damages hearts, souls and minds.
I took my religion and philosophy professors in college seriously when I graduated from John Carroll University. I had some of the very best Jesuits in the world when I was in college. I had Father McQuade for religion who was the local Bishop Sheen of our times. I provide a survey course on the internet based on two of his courses including Modern Heresies. Father Shell was a saintly man who excelled in the teaching of logic and who later became the President of John Carroll was my spiritual advisor. Father Otting who taught philosophy and who was known to fail up to half of his students at a time, taught me ethics. Father Henninger was masterful in teaching sociology featuring a course preparing his students for family life. He came the closest to connecting the spiritual with the real world. Father Kerner vividly portrayed history in a back to the future mode following the old adage that history repeats itself. Then there was Professor Gavin who seemed to know me better than myself and assigned me the topic of New Harmony Workers Community for my topic as a history major. Everyone else were allowed to select their topic.
I worked in several factories while going to college full time and found a deep void between the work world and from my experience growing up in a family food store. The teachers were the best but somehow did not connect with the real world as I was living it. This deep void led me to write about "communications by rank." ( search under tapsearcher communications by rank for the articles .)
I realized back then that nothing good could happen until the Church tried bringing the monastery and spiritual community to the streets. All the Masses in the world were locked in one place only if the Sunday celebration did not continuein real time Monday morning and throughout the week. The Church has to be in sync with human nature and how Jesus taught us to live. The only time, Jesus became angry was when he confronted the money changers in the temple. Now the money changers are in the background as the churches are closed. The closing of our churches demonstrate how deeply the money changers control the events in our lives. They have saturated everything as our economies based on making money on money instead of making and growing things are burning out as human dignity in the workday has been degraded.
In the 1960s, I made a Cursillo. A Cursillo is a three day session based on deep spirituality and dynamics. The fourth day that follows is the rest of your life. I also went through the leadership school that conducts the retreat. I thought this was a way of merging my spiritual life with the workday. I hosted the regional Ultreyas for about three years too. An Ultreya is a weekly meeting for those who made the Cursillo. It is primarily about sharing the events of the past week with a small group and telling what the closest moment to Jesus was during the week. For me it demonstrated the deep void between the Church and the real world as many faded away because they could not match the two together.
I gave the action talk at a Cursillo with Bishop Cosgrove as the Spiritual Director and this was a highlight of all my attempts at closer Christian community in the real world. Because of Bishop Cosgrove's examples, I felt that somehow there could be a connection of the Church and the real world as we live in it. But, this did not last long. I had a boss tell me that he made the Cursillo too but I had to learn how to live in the real world too. I always prayed for the gift of contemplation and there were times I thought I had it. However, it became obvious that the Lord chose a different more active life for me.
I took the Gabriel Richard course and later the instructor course. Gabriel Richard course is a dynamic course to get people to speak out and act out their convictions. I privately had a deep spiritual conversion experience after reading Carl Jung book about speaking in tongues. Jung approached the phenomenon from a secular research of this Gift of the Spirit and this proved to be better than any spiritual analysis of the subject. I joined the
Charismatic Movement in the Church and thought perhaps the door was finally open where I could fill the terrible void between work and the Church. Many who made the Cursillo seemed to naturally flow to seeking closer Christian community and we have many examples of these efforts in several churches in the region where I live. Those of us who flowed to the Charismatic movement, seem to go deeper into the search for closer Christian community. Personally, the dark void was even more apparent as different efforts arose in this search.
Mr Gavin's insistence about assigning me the topic of New Harmony Workers Community came back to haunt me. The biblical account of communities in the early church continued to haunt the Church as a whole especially about the descriptions in the bible about communities sharing everything in common. This all came back when I read Alan Greenspan's book - The Age of Turbulence. In his book, Alan Greenspan spends a large segment of the book exploring the New Harmony experiment. He suggests that all attempts at idealic workers communities are doomed to failure and that Capitalism is best at accomodating human nature as it is. He takes a sophist approach to the matter.
Evidently, Greenspans believe human nature is not something that can be perfected. However, Jesus came and said the opposite. Jesus came to perfect human nature flowing from His Perfect Love. The closings of the churches tell me that Greenspan's concepts are alive in our Church. The closings represent a sophist useful good even though it may even be an intrinsically evil thing that has penetrated deep into our thinking processes.
I became part of a group who sought deep spiritual and real world Christian community. I even wrote the convenant for one group and all the leaders in the group signed it except one. I was the exception because after writing it I realized the group was far from being ready for it. My conclusions were confirmed when one of the members of the community got up and said he had quit his job and was unable to find a Christian job. He had a large family and the community tried to support him and his family but it was apparent that the community was not up to the challenge.
I traveled to Houston Texas and other places that had apparent successes. However when I saw attempts at community co-op food stores based on Christian principles and people assuming that they could compete with the stores in the system, I knew again that they would hit the rail and crash too. It seems like the money changers always win in these kind of contests.
One glorious new year's eve in the late 1960s, three priests concelebrated Mass in our home. There were seventy people or more in attendance. One of the priest was the assistant pastor at our St James parish. Another was a Marynoll Missionary and God knows we now need missionaries to evangelize us here at home. The other priest was a saintly Monsignor. In our search for community, we later elected him as the Pastor. He accepted the role even though he did not agree with some of our ideas and we gathered at St Andrews on Superior Avenue in the inner city.
The pastor at St James back then was "old school" and had a beautiful power of holy indifference about the Mass in our home. The only thing he never told me was that I would only get hurt trying to do the things that I was doing and perhaps he was more right than wrong in the final judgement of things.
Our current Bishop closed St Peter's church in Cleveland. The people were trying to gather in closer Christian community. I am told that there was plenty of money coming. They moved to a building and formed an association to support all their ministries. They gathered together in this building and celebrated a Mass with their original pastor. The Bishop rejected the celebration by this community as being something bad rather than good.
The Bishop was wrong from the beginning in taking a corporate type approach in closing the churches. He should have first called for a new laymen ministry to maintain the churches and promote events in these churches where money could be collected or have paid tickets to events. There could have been periodical celebrations, prayer meetings, passion plays, christmas events and musical events where paid tickets could be promoted. High schools could hold their graduation ceremonies too. Top missionaries from around the world could be invited to speak and have altar calls for people to turn over their lives to Jesus. I would call this new laymen group - God's Doorkeepers, named after a title to a book about three doorkeepers with one being a saint already and the other two on their way to becoming saints.
It also should be noted that two of the first five saints Pope Benedict cannonized were "workers" priests. And the principle of subsidiarity that Pope Benedict expressed in his encyclical should be studied and activated in both spiritual and money matters with all decisions being made at the lowest possible level. Until then the money changers will rule in our society and sophism pressing useful good over intrinsic good will rule. The closing of so many churches really represents the old way of throwing new seeds on barren land.
See one of our sites dedicated to a review of Pope Benedict Economic Encyclical and more about our own journey in the global economic arena Review more related articles here at The Rationale or search under tapsearcher, tapsearch, arklineart or Ray Tapajna for thousands of more results and references.
Where once families ventured into closer Christian Community
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It reminds me of the picture of St Andrew Catholic Church being demolished that was once at East 51st Street and Superior Avenue in Cleveland . It was one of four churches that were closed down under a consolidation plan a few years ago.
St Andrew Church was where a large group of us gathered in worship in an attempt to establish a closer Christian Community under our chosen Pastor Monsignor Novicky.