Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Storm at Sea

Today's gospel is very similar to the gospel from two Sundays ago, except today is Mark's account of the calming of the storm and the other was Matthew's account.

In his sermon for the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Fr. Robert Barron spoke about the boat symbolizing the Church in history, and the crossing over from one side of the sea to the other as being the journey through time. The Church occasionally has to weather storms, be they persecutions, martyrdoms, institutional corruption, violence, or just plain stupidity. But then Fr. Barron makes a stretch. The worst storm in the history of the Catholic Church in America, he says, is right now.

Really?

I while back, my wife and I were conversing, and we concluded that no matter how bad things seem to us now, at least we don't have to deal with all the foolishness of the sixties, seventies, and early eighties. We were happily unaware children then. Maybe it's because of where we live in the northern hinterlands of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, but when you put all things in the balance, things don't seem too bad. Not that there aren't things that distress us and need to be corrected, but at least we don't have clown masses or other "alternative liturgies" (the Easter Bunny made an appearance at mass a few years ago -- thankfully, we had gone to the vigil mass).

Unless Fr. Barron's current crisis reaches back to the post-Conciliar foolishness, I'm not buying his assertion without a lot more supporting evidence.

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