Something To Think About

A message from a friend of Voice of the Faithful Please send your thoughts to leaderpub@voiceofthefaithful.org

Two years of involvement with VOTF have left me persuaded that a profound transformation in it will be required if we are to engage our fellow Catholics in achieving VOTF’s fundamental mission: to renew our beloved Church. A new spiritual dimension for VOTF is needed to accomplish this goal and to distinguish our cause from the legal wrangling now underway in California and other parts of the country while consuming the attention of the hierarchy.

Basically, this dimension involves embracing wholeheartedly the concept of incarnation theology eloquently described in Chapters 4 and 5 in Ronald Rolheiser’s The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality.

In brief, this concept means that incarnation did not end with Christ’s thirty-three years on earth. He continues to dwell within each of us in the sense of the words attributed to St. Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
He is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which
He is to bless us now.

Rolheiser succinctly summarizes the consequences of this concept. “We are also charging ourselves, as part of the Body of Christ, with some responsibility for answering [our prayers]. To pray as a Christian demands concrete involvement [emphasis added] in trying to bring about what is pleaded for in the prayer.”

This charge opens new dimensions of motivation and action for each one of us. Thoughtfully cultivated, it has the potential, in the short run, of engaging the laity in responding to the challenges laid out by Vatican II. In the long run, VOTF could simply disappear (as it should) and be absorbed in the renewed Church.

As a point of departure for engaging the laity, two or three evenings of guided reflection on the incarnation theology (described by Rolheiser) could be effective for core members of the VOTF affiliates. Such an initiative, replicated for other groups of the laity, would likely be more productive than a sequence of bold organizational initiatives and inspiring conferences.

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