My buddies are older than me: pushing 80. They are arch-conservative, uber-Catholic Culture Warriors, like me, maybe worse! Their idea: "Let's get together, us Knights of Columbus, and pray to the Holy Spirit and work to revive our parishes!" I laughed spontaneously at the youthful idealism and enthusiasm. I responded positively and I meant it: "Any time anyone gets together and prays to the Holy Spirit it is a win-win-win!" But I also thought: "Really? At this stage, we old white guys are going to renew the Church?" I wondered: "What are you taking? I could use some!" More cynically, I considered: "Can this be early-onset, hypo-manic, grandiose senility?"
The reformer impulse, of Luther and Calvin and others, to reform the Church is always a bad idea. It is very Protestant, extremely anti-Catholic! It is not for us to reform the Church: not by our enlightened theology, not by synodality, not by institutional reform, not even by our favorite renewal movements!
The Church Herself, in her interiority, nothwithstanding the glaring corruption of her members, is never in need of reform. In her soul, her interior form. she is perfect! She is the Bride of Christ, cleansed, immaculate, purified. She is the Body of Christ, whatever infrections and wounds present. She is our Mother, however flawed.
It is you and I who have to be reformed, not the Church. We need ourselves to be reformed, renewed, converted by the Church because She is the visible, incarnate presence of Christ on earth. Christ is present:
Physicaly, ontologically in the Euharist
Efficaciously in all the sacraments.
Infallible in the Magisterium. Wherever the Word is proclaimed.
Radiantly, extravagantly, anonymously, eventfull in the lives of the holy ones...not only the great ones, but the little, humble, grateful ones.
The Catholic respose to the Church is always gratitude, obedience, surrender, participation, consent.
My uncle Billy (whom we all adored as a decorated WWII hero, lifelong convert operative for military intelligence, brilliant and charming eccentric, voracious reader, golfer, fisherman, dysfunctional businessman, Graham-Greene-type-Catholic) once told me: "I hate do-gooders!" I laughed because I was by most standards a "do-gooder" but I also knew he told my mother, his sister, that I was his best friend. But I know what he meant. Reformers, social activists, do-gooders...it is the self-righteousness, the moralism, the indignation! Sorry, a Catholic is NOT a reformer, an activist, or a do-gooder.
What a relief it was, in mid-life, to discover the 12-step approach: work my own inventory, tend my own garden, sweep my own side of the street.
More recently, in old age, I happily recall what we learned in parochial school: my first concern is the salvation of my own soul. And it is not my doing, but God's. And as I allow the Holy Spirit to sanctify me, this mysterious influence spreads to those around me, and even beyond to the entire Creation.
Now THAT is a Good Idea!
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