Father Ron Rollheiser provides inspiration (again!) to K. C.

Father Ron Rollheiser's heroine, Dorothy Day was big on kneeling for Holy Communion....will Father put two plus two together and say we should still be kneeling? From Father's latest South Texas Catholic column: ....(K.C.'s purple and he's black) ....


>>>>>famous historian Christopher Dawson decided to become a Roman Catholic, his aristocratic mother was distressed, not because she had any aversion to Catholic dogma, but because now her son would, in her words, have to "worship with the help."

She was painfully aware that, in church at least, his aristocratic background would no longer set him apart from others or above anyone. At church he would be an equal among equals because the Eucharist would strip him of his higher social status.

She intuited correctly. The Eucharist, among other things, calls us to justice, to disregard the distinction between rich and poor, noble and peasant, aristocrat and servant, both around the Eucharist table itself and afterwards outside of the Church. The Eucharist fulfills what Mary prophesized when she was pregnant with Jesus, namely, that, in Jesus, the mighty would be brought down and that lowly would be raised up.

It was this that drew Dorothy Day to Christianity. She noticed that, at the Eucharist, the rich and the poor knelt side-by-side, all equal at that moment.



(Father, K. C. must interrupt. Dorothy Day died in 1980. She had to endure most all of the post Vatican II innovations, and surely she witnessed the new North American standing Communion line. Why did she hark back to kneeling Communion as the Church's most attractive feature to outsiders? If 'kneeling side by side' emphasized equality, what does marching- around-one-behind-the-other emphasize? This tends to put the churchiest people in the front of the line and the unwashed towards the back!

K.C. does not understand why people of your ilk put so much energy into eradicating kneeling when even Dorothy Day saw kneeling for Holy Communion as our most winsome, beautiful, and evangelistic feature. Really!)


Sadly, we often don't take this dimension of the Eucharist seriously.



(K.C. again!....Father is there any dimension of the Eucharist that we do take seriously?)



There is a common tendency to think that the practice of justice, especially social justice, is an optional part of being a Christian, something mandated by political correctness rather than by the Gospels.



(We have been hearing this, your sermon for the past 40 or so years and K. C. agrees with you! that along with your prevailing message - "concern for the poor is more important than reverence for God Almighty" - we have not only lost fear and reverence for God -- perhaps success in your eyes-- but we've also lost concern for the poor. Your tired message has not worked to better the poor's conditions. Maybe your message is wrong!)



Generally we don't see the call to actively reach out to the poor as something from which we cannot exempt ourselves.

CREATE JUSTICE
But we are wrong in this. In the Gospels and in the Christian Scriptures in general, the call to reach out to the poor and to help create justice in the world is as non-negotiable as keeping the commandments and going to Church.

Striving for justice must be part of all authentic worship.

In the New Testament, every tenth line is a direct challenge to reach out to the poor. In Luke's Gospel, we find this in every sixth line. In the Epistle of James, this occurs in every fifth line. The challenge to reach out to the poor and to level the distinction between rich and poor is an integral and non-negotiable part of being a Christian, commanded as strongly as any of the commandments.

The Eucharistic table itself calls us to justice, to reach out to the poor. How?

Here we go again, with Father sneaking in the word 'table' (instead of altar) to signal on which side of the liturgical divide he stands. Father just has to throw in a word for 'dancing clown masses'! Lucky for Father we have one of his buddies...a 'dancing-clown-mass, social-justice' Catholic as our vice president! Unlucky for for Father the V.P. of the U. S. had to make public his contributions to the poor..... speaking of 'tables' here you go!

.......Income Charity
1998 $215,432 $195
1999 $210,797 $120
2000 $219,953 $360
2001 $220,712 $360
2002 $227,811 $260
2003 $231,375 $260
2004 $234,271 $380
2005 $321,379 $380
2006 $248,459 $380
2007 $319,853 $995

fyi that is not even 1/2 of one percent! Will you accuse him, Father, like you do us?

Father Ron, if you want us to help the poor, teach us to kneel! <<<<

K.C.