My Word is my Bond

I began this blog with the observation that for some people church attendance can be an issue. That's because attendance is one of those "external realities that we can see and touch" as Avery Dulles (Models of Church) puts it, and hence for some an important way of defining 'Church'.

Dulles continues with a quote from Robert Bellarmine, who called the Church "a specific type of human community [. . .] brought together by the profession of the same Christian faith " inter alia. Dulles notes that 'profession' of true faith is understood by Bellarmine to be distinct from, and more verifiable than, actual belief.

I'm reminded at this point of a confirmation class I once helped take. We asked the youngsters present what confirmation would mean for them. Last to speak was the youngest and arguably the wisest, who thought it important to make promises to God in public "because there may be someone there who doesn't believe but who sees me making promises and then might believe too".

However for Dulles, Bellarmine's definition (of which profession is but a third) comes at a price. This is that the essential difference between the Church and other, secular, organizations - its mystery - is overlooked.

"There is something of a consensus today that the innermost reality of the Church - the most important constituent of its being - is the divine self-gift. The Church is a union or communion of men with one another through the grace of Christ."

So now to 'Sunday' worship. In a time when rural parish churches are lucky if they have one Eucharistic act of worship a month, where does the union or communion of men (sic) with one another most significantly take place?

When a friend left this parish some years ago, my absence from his last Sunday service and the lunch which followed was noted. In fact I was at a rally for trade justice, marching on the Labour Party Conference that year. That fact too was duly noted, and a few months later another member of the congregation joined in a similar rally at the G8 summit. I dare to suggest that between us we were more in communion with others in those acts than we would have been if nailed to our pews on those particular Sundays.

Funnily enough, she was never that regular in Church either.