Verse
Homer, Joyce
they are called to do will tax the ingenuity of the bishops. Even if they do their best and their best is very good, they are unlikely to escape criticism. But here the critics themselves have...
...I,t lies, therefore, within the very nature of the Church to be always open to new and greater exploration...
...This is the model that will make it easier to see how action for justice could be a constitutive element in Catholic life...
...Outlining these distributed responsibilities is itself a necessary educational task of the bishops...
...And with what resources...
...The instrument they are forging is clearly imperfect...
...If the Catholic community in this country is to emerge from .the "confusion and uncertainty" that Monsignor Ellis attributed to it, much will depend upon the course taken in May...
...They promised to respond...
...And I would appropriate for that prayer these words of Rilke, applying them to what might be a springtime for the Church in America: "Now, let us believe in the new year that is given us, new, untried, full of things that have never been...
...They could not have known how much there would be to listen to, how eagerly their response would be awaited, how truly significant an opportunity they had created for themselves...
...Some of these have, in fact, already started working on plans inspired by the bicemennial program...
...The course must go forward along untried paths, not backward along the familiar well-marked avenues...
...Two documents of Vatican II, "The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church" and "The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World," carry us some distance beyond the understanding of the Church that most Catholics had in the early '60s...
...It is a reality imbued with the hidden presence of God...
...But here the critics themselves have the responsibility of assessing what can be done realistically in the days of the May meeting...
...In opening the second session of Vatican II, Pope Paul said: "The Church is a mystery...
...When ,the bishops meet in May, they will be taking part in that process launched with hope and uncertainty years ago...
...But to see the flaws should be a spur to repair them, to perfect the instrument, not to discard it...
...In various parts of the world that model of the Church that emphasizes the institutional and hierarchical aspects of the Church, the historical model that is comfortable in its familiarity, is being modified, transcended, by a model that stresses the communal and human, a model that can more readily cope with the strong historical currents that stress justice, liberty, human rights...
...The third point how the bishops approach their task, with what attitude they deliberate on the myriad issues placed before them, how they consider their responsibilities to other Christians in the community of faith may be the most significant, indeed the crucial, point of the May meetings...
...Who is going to do what...
...The Catholic community of America, this segment of the people of God, has been properly bold and innovative in their exploration...
...I believe the bishops can help discover .those new paths...
...It is easy to see flaws in the process of consultation, reflection, study and action that we have gone through in the last two years...
...If this is done well, one will be able in a year or two or three to evaluate, however roughly, what has been developed successfully, what has failed, and why...
...to understand better what shared responsibility means, how it would be carried out at different levels within the Church...
...29 April 1977:272...
...They promised to listen...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 JOYCE HORNER WORDS FOR MUSIC Come without sound Now, while the leaves float brilliant Through the air Down, As the leaves noiseless part from the tree, Come to me, Not with the apple's commotion, The thud in the grass, or the late shut roses' Slow inward decay, Let the last life-thread whatever it be Give way With the leaves' lightest severance, So, on such a day, Now...
...This is the model more appropriate to the kind of discussion the bicentennial program has initiated...
...I pray they will...
...Nevertheless, we have seen that, in moments of stress and pressure, some people wish to regress to those earlier, apparently less-troubled times, to assert or to accept on the basis of authority what should be the result of collective thought, action and prayer...
...After priorities are assigned, .in whatever fashion, there is the second problem: What are the structures through which plans will be implemented...
...When one listened, at the plenary session in Detroit, it was impossible not to feel that too much was being placed on the bishops' desks...
...Do not wait for the wind and rain Thrashing, the boughs' crack and rending, But on silent final wings, landing In the garden where we began, Come This stillest day of fall-Leaves in the air, leaves still on the tree Leaves to cover me...
...Much of what was recommended can best be carried out through national and diocesan organizations, religious communities and issue-oriented organizations...
Vol. 104 • April 1977 • No. 9
