Lent: Turtles, Frogs, & Giraffes???
Lent is coming up next week and so priests, religious, catechists, just about everyone is busily searching the internet for ideas for Lenten reflections. Msgr. was one of those and was kind enough to share with me the fruits of his search for Lenten reflections on reconciliation.
Well, thanks to the IHM Sisters (if I were to guess I would put my money on the bet that they are having trouble with vocations right now) we find that even after 2000 years we still have not managed to squeeze pantheism out of the thinking of some who call themselves Catholic. Here is a little snippet from their Lenten reflection on reconciliation:
As we are experiencing the impact of the universe story, we feel that something is missing in a sense of reconciliation that excludes the beloved community of life that is other than human. Recently, the members of the Earth Charter Committee decided to place a representative symbol of this community in their prayer corners.
“Universe story”, “Earth Charter Committee”, “community other than human”? This is not sounding good. My hair is starting to bristle already. If I were Shelray, apoplexy would already be setting in (but I have a little calmer disposition).
It is amazing how the presence of a giraffe, a turtle or a frog next to a candle or icon helps bring a deeper consciousness to our prayer.
Yea, but I am not exactly sure what it would be a deeper consciousness of (I tend to let my prepositions dangle when I fight off nausea). I am thinking here maybe the zoo or the cow pond. I don’t recall St. Paul admonishing any Christians to go to the local pound looking for reconciliation.
God is in us and in all. If we are polluting or wasting water, if we help destroy needed habitats by our demands for particular products, if we carelessly dispose of recyclable materials, our relationship to the earth community needs healing. Reconciliation lies in the recognition of the way things really are. Genuine reconciliation is based on the truths that God is in us and in all, working in all. We are bonded to and interdependent with all that is. When we live, respecting these truths, we are reconciled.
Ohhhh, those unpaid bills of the Church. It is true that there is a real connection of man with creation. We are stewards of God’s creation and we must manage and respect it as coming from God. However, it is rank heresy to imply some sort of consciousness to it (which is what I take from non-human community…I hope I am wrong).
Furthermore, the “God is in us and in all” comment seems to reflect a serious lack of appreciation here between God’s immanent presence which is the halmark of pantheism, and Christian truth in which God is transcendent in His nature but omnipresent in His power and in His offer of a close relationship to man.
I am sure the IHM Sisters are very nice and sincere religious. I just wish that they would stay within the bounds of Christianity in their theology (or at least be a little more careful about what they put on the internet).
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One of the most common elements of dissident religious sites is the Earth Charter. Funny how they will reject the Vatican for the most part and turn their allegiance over to the U.N.
Comment by Jeff Miller — February 26, 2006 @ 11:57 am
I usually avoid the Lenten parish missions, group reconcilliations and other assorted “reflective” times like the plague as almost all have speakers that just squeak past being heterodox.
It’s time for serious reading, daily morning (sans Haugen-type jingles) mass and if I can, Sunday mass at St. John Cantius in Chicago.
Between the neo-pagans, wiccan winkers, female ordainers, enneagrams, magic magnets, mazes, Jungian pop slop, touchy-feely Deists, world federation types, Democratic Party recruiters, and book promoters, I’ll sacrifice the thrill of it all. Would I sit in church listening to Shirley McClain or her male clone? Then why would I want to hear the banalities of Sr. Joan Chittister and her legions of middle-aged and elderly semi-heretics?
Comment by John Hetman — February 26, 2006 @ 6:45 pm
I just don’t know how they manage to fit the frog, the turtle and the giraffe in their prayer corner, what with the crucifix, and all the statues of Mary, and the saints and … what’s that? Oh, now I get why they have plenty of room for the menagerie of other creatures!
(it’s great to see others picking up on this whacky stuff!)
Comment by Venerable Aussie — February 28, 2006 @ 4:14 am