An Unexpected Lesson Learned

The last few Sundays I have gone to different churches around the city to again look for the priest who would counsel his flock, lead them all to God, gently, humbly, patiently, egolessly, dreamily  and lovingly.  With the exception of one [1] whom I find to be so blessed, he, unfortunately, is not always the priest designated to deliver the homily.  I was happy to hear him speak last Sunday.  Not wanting to be disappointed that he would not be the homilist this Sunday, I went to a different church.

I did not like this church for reasons I cannot pinpoint, perhaps it was the seeming lack of solemnness, perhaps it was some of the attendees I observed, who did not seem to be reverential by their body language, who seemed that they would rather not be there, or perhaps it was the music, the unfamiliar surroundings, the standing (nobody was kneeling) before, during and after the receiving of Holy Communion. (Can one supplicate while standing with their hands on their sides?) Perhaps it was a combination of everything that had led me to think that I would not go back there again.

All that had nothing to do with what I was to take away from the Mass.  During the homily, I caught most of what the priest was saying, but not everything, because the sound system was not all that good and I was spacing out a bit. What I heard was all that I needed to hear.

He said something to the effect that not everyone in the Catholic church in the past was good, that perhaps not everyone with a role in it today is good, that everyone is a sinner, that even the disciples of Jesus were not perfect, that Jesus knew of it but that He loved them anyway, that Jesus would prefer us all to be good but that He still loves us even though we continue to sin.

Here I was being judgmental and trying to escape from those priests and other religious whom I considered to be self-absorbed, egoistical, pompous, self-aggrandizing, hypocritical, political, materialistic, greedy, thankless, and on and on, and finding myself in an unfamiliar church at Mass listening to someone I had never met who was addressing precisely the issue that I have been having: priests who are too much like the ordinary sinner and no holier than the rest.

Does that mean that even though they wear a collar and a habit, who are supposedly celibate (despite the millions and millions of dollars the Catholic church paid out to settle lawsuits that arose from sexual improprieties) and who supposedly have enough self-control to keep their hands off the bodies of others who are usually much younger and who are unwilling or unable to express their disgust as a result of a priest's slimy touch, that their reprehensible behaviors, sexually explicit and sexually inclined, ought to be forgiven?

Does that mean that those who are sheep are to forgive those entrusted with the duty to care for the flock even as they pervert their duties as a shepherd?  Certainly, that would make the forgiver more like Christ even as the supposed followers of Christ continue to reveal shades of Satan's characteristics.

Would that be my lesson today, to forgive those who are in charge of leading the flock toward God even though they themselves are on the path away from God?  If indeed that is the lesson, it is definitely a difficult one to internalize.  But then what words that Jesus had expected all to live by were ever easy?


[1] There is another priest whom I find to be close to what I hope to be looking for but this one is not a dreamer but very much a realist.