Keynoter tells why Catholics need the Church

Spring Enrichment is a three-day series of workshops and courses for catechists, youth ministers and other parish personnel, sponsored by the diocesan Office of Evangelization and Catechesis. It is held at The College of Saint Rose in Albany.

Father Himes, a theology professor at Boston College, began the program by speaking on "Why Do We Need the Church?"

Need for doctrine

One was German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's "Parable of the Madman." In it, a madman goes to a marketplace, crying out, "I am seeking God." People say sarcastically, "Have you misplaced God somewhere?"

The madman tells them, "Is it possible you have not yet heard the great and terrible news? God is dead, and you and I have killed God." He then throws down his lantern and leaves, complaining that the people are not yet ready to face the consequences of having killed God.

"Nietzsche's analysis is superb," Father Himes told the group. In a world where there are no restrictions, the speaker noted, competition runs wild and "you've killed God. You've ruled God out."

As a result, he said, people's claim that they live according to Judeo-Christian principles becomes a personal choice, rather than a fact: "If God is dead, loving your neighbor is a personal prejudice. If you like it, do it."

Russian tale

The monk tells her to set out to love the people around her as practically as possible every day. She becomes angry at the simple answer, but he says, "To love the people around you concretely is a great and terrible thing. It may very well destroy you."

This perspective, said Father Himes, leads to people having an experience of God, rather than just a concept of God. He noted that if Nietzsche is saying God is dead, Dostoyevsky is saying, "If you want God to come to birth again in your world, restore love."

Triune God

The speaker said Christian tradition teaches that God is "agape -- a pure, self-giving love. That is the root of our whole doctrine of the Trinity." He added that St. Augustine refers to the Trinity not as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but as "the giver, the recipient and the gift given" or "the lover, the beloved and the love that unites them."

If a Christian has never encountered agapic love, said Father Himes, the phrase "God is love" means nothing to that person -- God is dead to them. Consequently, belief in God must be expressed in the context of agapic love.

"You can't do it alone; it requires a community. That is the reason you must have Church," he stated. "Outside community, everything else the Christian tradition says is meaningless."

Incarnation

This introduction to John's announcement of Jesus' Incarnation has value because "it's a very specific claim about particular events that happened in a particular time to particular people," Father Himes explained. "It is impossible to know about particular events of the past unless somebody tells you. If the Incarnation is a concrete historical reality, the only way we can know that is if somebody tells somebody who writes it down."

Ongoing community throughout history gives us access to the truth about the Incarnation, the speaker said -- and without that "agapic community," we could not know about Jesus of Nazareth.

(05-17-01) [[In-content Ad]]