For and Against

September 30, 2019 | Uncategorized

In the span of one week, at my job as a Church communications director, I had two people separately accuse me of completely opposite — and equally untrue — realities. One person sent me an online message implying I was ignorant at best and a heretic at worst for running a column in the diocesan newspaper written by a religious sister who mentioned her use of Centering Prayer. The other sent me a handwritten, anonymous screed because our newspaper had run a single image of a Latin Mass. This writer accused me of taking the entire diocese to a “pre-conciliar” time.

Those two letters made me wonder how we can bring peace and unity to our world when we can’t even find it in our own Church. The beauty of our faith is that we have an almost limitless supply of prayer possibilities that offer us the opportunity to deepen our relationship with God daily, whether we do that in silence on a cushion, on our knees before a candlelit altar, or even in our sneakers on a jog through the neighborhood.

Today’s Gospel message is one we would do well to take to heart in this climate of growing intolerance: “Whoever is not against you is for you.” If we are praying and working and acting in the name of Jesus as we go about our lives, what does it matter if my way isn’t your way and vice versa? As long as we are all on The Way, we can’t go wrong. Division serves no one, least of all the One who matters most.

Mary DeTurris Poust, “For and Against,” from the September 2019 issue of Give Us This Day www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2019). Used with permission.

Photo by Robert Koorenny on Unsplash

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