The door of the heart

Is the "door" of the church and the door of our heart open to our neighbor?

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger

Our relationship with Jesus Christ and his beloved spouse, the church, has its ins and outs, its ups and downs. Like all love stories. Let me just unpack that for a moment. It is true that Jesus loves the church. So much so that he gave his life for her. Before anything else may be said of the church, it is, first and foremost, that she is loved. For that reason alone, if for none other, it can be proposed that its history is a love story.

Scripture is full of references to the unique relationship of patient, forgiving and enduring love between Jesus and us, his church. The entire Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians focuses on God’s desire — passion actually — to save the entire world. To this end, Jesus himself commissioned all his disciples. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). Its majestic chapters emphasize the unity in the church of Christ that has come about for both Jews and Gentiles (Eph 1:15-2:22). The very heart of this message is not so much aimed at the components or structures within the church, for its own sake, as its mission to the entire world. 

Like any real marriage, the love between the spouses is not only for each other but for the family they will engender, the shared love through which other human beings may come into existence. This is what distinguishes the conjugal relationship from all other kinds of friendship and it is patently rooted in the Trinitarian nature of divine love. 

St. Paul describes this patient love in the latter part of his Epistle, reflecting on the sacrifices family life demands, how spouses and children must show patience toward one another at every stage. That this would require ongoing forgiveness was something that Jesus prepared us for. Founding his church, he also gave his apostles, and their successors, the sacramental means of repairing the ruptures and lacerations of sin. No sooner is he risen than he appears to his disciples, offering them peace after enduring a brutal crucifixion. Then he breathes on them, saying “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn 20:21-23).

Such forgiving love clearly implies a certain give and take. Offered unconditionally, it must also be received with an open heart. Love cannot be imposed. As a gift, it requires a space in the heart of the beloved to find a home. Thinking of the church as the home in which the love of Jesus rests calls to mind a vision of the church as a refuge for sinners. Home may be said to be the place that when you knock on the door, they have to take you in. 

Many have felt, sometimes with great pain and passion, that the church is not welcoming. Not every place that calls itself a “church” may feel particularly accommodating, especially for those whose lives, past and present, have not appeared in conformity with the commandments of Christ. Indeed, Jesus himself has shown strong aversion to behaviors that corrupt the innocent, condemning those who lead others — the “little ones” — into sin (cf. Mt 18:6, Lk 17:2). He even turned abruptly on Peter, newly minted as the “rock” upon which he will build his church. “Get behind me Satan,” he said when Peter became a stumbling block to Jesus himself, attempting to walk back and soft-peddle the suffering he would have to endure to save us all, as Jesus had just warned the twelve (Mt 16:23). 

Scripture is not shy about the patience the life of the disciple would entail and the continual need for forgiveness and reformation. At the same time, Jesus leaves no doubt that his love will endure within the church. “The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18). This is encouraging news for us when we may find ourselves worried and fearful of the corruption and waywardness we have seen, even with the church, in the abuse of power and the scandals we have witnessed.

The image of a wayward spouse, still beloved, appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, notably in the book of the prophet Hosea. He himself had suffered with an unfaithful spouse and compares God’s relationship with the people of Israel to that of a troubled marriage. Jesus himself uses this imagery, speaking of himself as the “bridegroom” when the Pharisees asked him about fasting (Mk 2:19-20). He implies that our own patience, forgiveness and endurance will be required when the bridegroom seems absent.

What I have been reflecting on recently is the dilemma of many who would like to be closer to or feel more at home in the church, but are seriously troubled by its seeming insensitivity to their plight, not only from certain individuals but even aspects of the institution itself. Catholics who are able to experience the healing and transforming grace of the sacramental life of the church want to reach out and bring them “home,” so to speak. 

Within every parish territorial boundary — as the law of the church requires as a legally constitutive component — are many more people, actually most, than are typically “in” church regularly. Are they, even the non-baptized or so-called “lapsed” Catholics — not part of that “world” into which Jesus sends us as his disciples? Does he not desire that they be met, heard and offered a taste of the “good news,” the joy that our faith brings us?

Now the question … Is our first task to get others to “come” to church — put crudely, to get those fannies in the pews — so much as it is to bring the church to others. Jesus, after all, commissioned us to “go out” in so many of his parables and instructions (cf. Mk 16:15, Lk 14:23). What I am thinking of here is that the “door” of the church may not only be the physical entrances of our churches, but also — maybe even more so — the door of our heart! Is that door open to my neighbor? The heart is a universal symbol of love. If the church is all about love — God’s love for us — then does not all evangelization begin in the heart of every disciple? As Jesus invites us into his heart, should not his disciples do the same?

 @AlbanyDiocese