A few years ago I used to wait at the school bus stop with the other parents in my neighborhood. There was a young mother who would wait there, and being that both of us had babies in strollers (we pretty much parked ourselves right at the bus stop while other parents with no kids-in-tow would just sort of ramble about or meet their kids half-way down the road) and were Christians, we'd often end up talking about kids and God to pass the time. She was an evangelical Protestant, and I'm a convert to the Catholic Church.
In one conversation, in an attempt to sum up the similarities and differences between Protestant and Catholic approaches to God, I made the point that in the Catholic Church we have one-time Sacraments that are very similar to protestant "sacraments," those that reconcile us with God and prepare us for our state in life; specifically, baptism, confirmation, and holy orders or marriage. Then I made the point that we Catholics are also accompanied through life with Sacraments that we may receive as often as we like, providing that they are worthily received. I mentioned the Eucharist-as-Sacrament-and-Sacrifice and the Sacrament of Penance.
She took special exception to the latter saying, "I would never let someone come between me and my God, especially when it comes to admitting my sin."
I said, "Me either, and it doesn't work that way with a good priest. A good priest is like John the Baptist, he decreases while Jesus increases. In other words, personality, ego, any self-pride, are left outside of Sacramental confession so that what is left is a man who, through Sacramental empowerment, has been set aside from the world specifically to serve God in administering the Sacraments--a good priest will allow his personality to decrease while Christ increases. What happens invisibly through the Sacramental empowerment of the priesthood, has a visual expression in the vestments the priest wears: the vestments cloak the priest's individuality, his person, and present instead, religious symbolism of Christ and the Church. In the days when the priest would offer the Mass facing liturgical east (away from the people) the people would not even see his face, only the vestments, and then, this concept of priest as the person of Christ would be visually complete as well. Only during the readings in the vernacular and the homily would the people see the priest's face for an extended period of time." (I'll admit, I didn't say it exactly this way....)
Well, her family moved away, and as far as I know they remained evangelical Protestants, but regretfully, I have to say that, had she ever let that tiny, intellectual seed grow into curiosity, and from there, evolve into a trip to her local parish, based on my own experience, she'd have a difficult time experiencing what I had described to her.
More and more, as the "Spirit of Vatican II," so recently as the pontificate of Pope Benedict decried as a hijacking of the Second Vatican Council, becomes more and more embedded in parishes around the U.S., we are confronted with priests who routinely promote their own personalities, joyful and zealous though they may be, as the stepping stone to God. Sadly, as Pope Pius XII pointed out in "Mediator Dei," since we are all unique persons and do not necessarily respond the same way to the same stimuli, instead of a stepping stone to God, most of the time, imposing an approach to prayer and worship based on the opinion/personality of the pope/bishop/priest inevitably becomes a wall between us and God, which is...
...exactly the problem my neighbor had with the Catholic Church way back when our babies were babies.
