"Lies My Catholic Mother Told Me" was the name of the informational session held at Nativity a few weeks ago after all Masses, and again after one Mass today. Let me start with a very necessary statement: my Catholic mother told me no lies. (Well, with one notable exception: that one of my favorite meals as a child, which my mother called "cornish game hen," was actually rabbit. That is a true story, and no, I'm still not over it).The title "Lies My Catholic Mother Told Me" was an attention grabber with a nugget of truth in it. We have all heard myths (if not lies) from friends and family members about the Catholic Church and what it actually teaches on the subjects of marriage, divorce and annulments. In response to this, the Nativity staff worked to provide some small measure of information and pastoral care for people who (incorrectly) believe that there is no mercy in the Church for people who have been divorced or are remarried, and who perhaps have been the recipient of a lack of mercy from individual Catholics, or worse, their own family members.
As Director of Membership, my job, at it's most basic level, is to help people in their search for a church home, and to serve seekers as they come to Nativity to worship, grow and eventually serve. That can be a tall task when people have been told by other Catholics, even clergy, that they are unwelcome in the Catholic Church. I heard no fewer than four stories this weekend that showed how unmerciful "church people" can actually be. How sad, and how utterly opposed to what Christ meant his church to be.
My take-away from this experience is that I need to work harder to discern the issues that affect people's hearts and may serve to keep people away from church instead of draw them into the mercy of Christ. I wonder what Letter Paul would write to us, the modern Christian "church people," if he was here to observe our practices and our words as they related to welcoming people (or not) in the doors of our places of worship.
It's a great rhetorical question to ask myself, to check myself, in this great job that I have. Perhaps the question might be not only, "What Would Jesus Do?" but also, "What Would Paul Write?"
