Vacation Bible School

This week I am working Vacation Bible School. And since I am helping out with the P.E. section, I get to interact with all of the ages. I never thought I would be able to do anything successful with kids this young, especially the 4 and 5 year-olds. But the Holy Spirit has definitely been at work in me, giving me the patience and energy needed to survive!

Of course, the kids are wild and loud. The younger they get, the harder it becomes to keep their attention. Nonetheless, I love every single one of them. Sure, I think it would be awesome to have a son or daughter. It would be awesome to take part in the creation of life and watch that life grow physically, intellectually, and spiritually. The first words, the first prayers, and the first love. Baptism, First Communion, and Confirmation. The first day of school and the last! What a blessing it must be to be a parent!

But when I stop to reflect on it all, I realize just what an awesome place the Parish Priest plays in all of these occasions in the life of a person! The Priest is the one who administers the Sacraments and tends to the spiritual well being of all of his flock. He is there for the tears of both sorrow and joy. But he isn’t just there for one person, one child. Rather, he is there for so many. I won’t merely be at the confirmations, marriages, and funerals of just one of these kids. I might actually get to oversee them for almost all of these kids! What a blessing that would be!!

The priest, nun, and religious brother don’t just have one, two, or six kids. They have thousands! Pope John Paul II used to say he was responsible for every soul in the world. And each one of those souls was his own child. How beautiful a love is that?

Multi-site Churches?

In today’s edition of the Clarion-Ledger (Jackson’s newspaper) there was an article about “multi-site churches”, based principally around the growing New Jerusalem Church in Jackson. New Jerusalem Church is in the process of buying a piece of property to expand to three congregations, all of which will be administered and preached to by the same man. According to the article: “Called multi-site churches, the franchise congregations enable churches to grow exponentially, without worrying about how many people can fit into one sanctuary.” You know, the universal Catholic Church has been doing this since St Peter and the Apostles. Only, St Peter didn’t try to preach to each congregation himself.

The article goes on further to point out some other “non-denominational” churches that are opening “satellites.” This just furthers the idea that “non-denominational” is indeed becoming its own denomination. Only, it is a denomination without any structure. I would like to further that claim (if I may be so bold) by saying it is actually fueling a large enemy of proper Christian morality—Relativism.

Why do we need to start new churches when we can’t even get the ones that already exist to agree and unify? If we really want Christian unity, then should we not take what we already have and work with that, as opposed to saturating the problem all the more? I understand that there are people out there who despise the concept of denomination. I agree. I, too, want a unified Church. But why are there denominations in the first place? Basically—someone thought he/she knew more than a group of extremely learned people and so decided to leave an age-old, Apostolic Church and begin his/her own. Case-in-point—Kind Henry VIII.