Today was by far the funniest communal prayer ever. Father Ponder, we shall call him, is 88 years old, which is one less than infinity. For the psalm today at daytime prayer, we were given instructions to read it silently and share a phrase or word that struck us about the psalm- the same thing done in another type of meditative prayer of the Church, Lectio Divina. Father Ponder sat there looking confused for a while. The person sitting next to him tried to quietly explain what we were doing. He only shouted out “I don’t even know what we’re doing.” Then to put the icing on the cake, when explained to him a second time, he responded out loud (while everyone is trying to meditate on it), “stupid.” It was one of the most amazing and funniest things I’ve witnessed in a long time.
My director just got back from doing a wedding for a friend’s niece down in Florida. The Catholic girl married a Baptist boy from a strong Baptist family. The groom’s side wanted to have his uncle, Pastor Steve, say a prayer for them at the wedding. My director experienced some culture shock. He told me he wasn’t prepared for the “We just praise and just thank you Lord for this beautiful day and just this beautiful couple and just we just come to you in your precious Son’s name and just….” He went on for a minute more. I, being from the south, laughed. Even after we had discussed an article about the Church in Texas, he still was not prepared. It is true that a lot of Evangelicals, and there influence is growing on the southern Catholics, say the word ‘just’ in their prayers more than the word Jesus or Lord. But those two come in a very very close second. It’s very emotional and charismatic and to some, it just sounds like babbling. Anyways, this heavily Baptist family was not too keen on dancing and drinking and the sort, so the Catholic reception was going to be tough. Hence my director decided not to tell them during his homily the story of how the last couple that he married, ended up in a New York newspaper for spending the night in jail after a brawl at the reception started by the couple in which a few people were attacked with a taser. True story.
In all seriousness, Christians are divided and this is a sad truth. There are many differences between Catholics and Baptists and so forth, but is not our primary objective loving people as Jesus love ALL of us. I have heard of a couple incidents recently where Protestant and Catholic groups will not minister together because of differences in theology. Folks, that is just petty and dumb and well against Christ and his message, or anti-Christ. We should all keep our eye on the prize, run the race (St Paul) and remember that ‘the greatest is Love’ (St. Paul).
