Real UK Catholics
Since I have 7 mins of Internet time left, I'll make it a quick post!
It seems to me that what is lacking on this blog, which is why I've left it fallow for so long, is a cultural activity among UK Catholics.
As I was remarking to a friend an hour or two ago, suddenly - in Church history, a hundred years is pretty quick! - suddenly no-one is persecuting or publically ridiculing us any more... and we don't know what to do.
Suddenly we have all this freedom of religion, when you think of how it is in many other countries, really a lot of freedom, but what do we use it for? The Catholic Church in the UK is really numerically pretty big and could influence people a lot for the good, but the fact is we don't manifest much unity.
I don't mean that we are not all "trads" or into new kinds of liturgy, or that some of us have more moral probity, education or even dress sense (!) than others. Unity is the characteristic of life that we live, in fact the problem is that the unity exists already, Christ hasn't deserted us for a second, but we have forgotten Christ.
We don't live the unity which already exists among us; instead we reduce our experience to political or cultural or aesthetic or (oh, boy!) some obscure philosophical or textual argument. But it is none of these (primarily, not primarily, though they are all important), it's the truth. We don't acknowledge the fact before our eyes.
That's my experience; the lack of a common Catholic culture in the UK, which would enhance and enliven and help to unite all the extant cultures, is just because we don't acknowledge and live our unity in Christ. That's why Catholic blogs can be (for me at least) a bit boring; we don't speak each other's language.
So, let's pray "Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam" some more... and look for and acknowledge the signs of His presence.
It seems to me that what is lacking on this blog, which is why I've left it fallow for so long, is a cultural activity among UK Catholics.
As I was remarking to a friend an hour or two ago, suddenly - in Church history, a hundred years is pretty quick! - suddenly no-one is persecuting or publically ridiculing us any more... and we don't know what to do.
Suddenly we have all this freedom of religion, when you think of how it is in many other countries, really a lot of freedom, but what do we use it for? The Catholic Church in the UK is really numerically pretty big and could influence people a lot for the good, but the fact is we don't manifest much unity.
I don't mean that we are not all "trads" or into new kinds of liturgy, or that some of us have more moral probity, education or even dress sense (!) than others. Unity is the characteristic of life that we live, in fact the problem is that the unity exists already, Christ hasn't deserted us for a second, but we have forgotten Christ.
We don't live the unity which already exists among us; instead we reduce our experience to political or cultural or aesthetic or (oh, boy!) some obscure philosophical or textual argument. But it is none of these (primarily, not primarily, though they are all important), it's the truth. We don't acknowledge the fact before our eyes.
That's my experience; the lack of a common Catholic culture in the UK, which would enhance and enliven and help to unite all the extant cultures, is just because we don't acknowledge and live our unity in Christ. That's why Catholic blogs can be (for me at least) a bit boring; we don't speak each other's language.
So, let's pray "Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam" some more... and look for and acknowledge the signs of His presence.
posted by Anonymous at 10:50 AM
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