IEC2012 Pt. 1: The Church in the Modern World

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.


Part 1
The Church in the Modern World
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland
Monday, June 11 - 11.30am


Archbishop Martin had the honor, before the Papal Legate and the chock-full concert hall at the Royal Dublin Society, of giving the opening address for the Congress, the first remarks following the opening mass the day before.

Archbishop Martin on stage in the RDS Concert Hall

Early in his address, Archbishop Martin quoted Pope Paul VI, who called the Church an "expert in humanity."

We get our example for Christian life from the One who became man Himself. Christ is God Incarnate, the man who was and is our God who chose to become man and walk among us. In Jesus Christ, we have the perfect human example. Christ gave us the ultimate way of being. In the example of Christ, we as Christians and our Church as a whole are entrusted with realizing this example of Christ.

In a reflection paper I wrote as a high school junior about where I was in the progression of developing faith, I felt I was still short of owning my faith because I'm not able to live up to Jesus' example 100% of the time; my delightfully wise religion teacher wrote above that remark, in red pen, "Then, you'd be God." Her insight was contextualized the thought I had: we can't put excessive pressure on ourselves to achieve perfection when we are limited and flawed, but the ideal of Christ - to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect - is the measure we must strive toward.

Our Church is the way that Christ ordained for us to share in communion with Him and with one another, by living a Eucharistic life together in this social community that is the most effective means toward salvation in Christ. Our Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, with Christ as its head, but it is a society of humans. We are limited and flawed; our leaders and our members are human (let's not just cite the humanity of our priests and bishops when they screw up; let's remember too that all of us are human and make mistakes). And though being human encompasses the inherency of shortcomings and making mistakes, our being human is ultimately oriented toward Christ, whose being human was perfect. We have an ideal within our grasp that hopefully permeates our lives and the life of the Church as we all seek to make our lives Eucharistic.

Later, Archbishop Martin wondered, where are the points of contact? Where can the Gospel, Truth, and the Church get inserted into culture? He pointed to The New Evangelization, something which I'm not entirely clear on, which perhaps isn't his fault. It's a kind of abstract term that I hear or read from Church leaders. I know to what it's referring, but I feel as if it's in danger of becoming an abstraction for which there isn't a clear definition or mission.

Archbishop Maritn did add some depth to that, even if it wasn't direct definition. He wants believers, especially those doing evangelization, to be prepared for spreading the Gospel with "competence and idealism." He hopes that such a process will embolden other people to join the wave and give witness themselves. Archbishop Martin also pointed forward instead of looking back, citing John Paul II's insight that we must not restore the past per se but rather take the risk of walking new steps together.

As a young person, I found myself looking for more concrete direction and wanting some examples of what could be done from many of these speakers. I don't really blame bishops, especially of larger dioceses, for not providing empirical witness since they oversee so much at once and must seek to encourage and inspire on wider levels and to so many people. I only hope that, if and when believers in this archbishop's diocese and others do seek to take new steps forward, they have the support of their priests and bishops to do it - to empower lay people to sing and respond and participate audibly and together as one in the mass; to enlist parishioners (including young people!) to become Eucharistic Ministers, lectors, and ushers/ministers of hospitality; to discover singers and musicians that will form sturdy choirs; to provide community and formation for teens and adults to bridge the gap between the gray-haired faithful parishioners and the young, dutiful parents seeking sacraments for their children.

The Archbishop added that the modern world is experiencing the "ambiguity of progress," a phrase he quoted from Pope Benedict XVI. He told us that progress is not linear; as we've moved forward into an age of amazing technology and discovery, we've overlooked the dark sides of progress. I thought personally of the proliferation of easily accessed pornography all over the internet, which has always been a temptation for me, of the gap between rich, developed countries and those that remain third world, and of the cloudy ethics of stem cell research and the treatment of embryos by those researchers and in vitro fertilization programs.

Archbishop Martin feared that we'd overlooked the lessons and insights we could have gained while moving forward. He pointed to the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes, which stresses the negative effects of egoism and self-interest, things that I view as extreme, gotten-out-of-hand versions of sometimes positive factors like self-confidence (believing in one's ability and capacity) and stewardship (utilizing the earth and one's surroundings to support life).

Toward his conclusion, Archbishop Martin expressed his hope and his intention that the Church must become a builder of community throughout society - an aim right in line with the life and ministry of Jesus, the Christ who is the expert in humanity.