Journeying Together Toward Jesus Christ
Gerald
Schlabach
(newsletter
of Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis)
On
Sunday, May 16, I shared with the congregation my plans to be received into the
Catholic Church at the Pentecost Vigil, on May 29, at St. Peter Claver Catholic
Church here in St. Paul, even while maintaining associate membership at Faith
Mennonite. I look forward to opportunities at which to tell my story and answer
people's questions as best I can. I have also placed some copies of the
newsletter of the Bridgefolk movement of Catholics and Mennonites at the back
of the church. Still more information is available at: http://bridgefolk.net
So
why have I decided to join the Catholic Church? I always struggle to answer because
there is no one single decisive reason, but rather a whole bunch of reasons
that have built up over the years. A list of reasons
-- not a complete list, and not necessarily in order of priorities-- would
include the following:
·
Growing appreciation for liturgical and
sacramental spirituality.
·
Believing I have something to offer as the
Catholic Church stresses nonviolence more and more.
·
Finding myself at home in the Catholic
intellectual tradition through the years.
·
Coming to terms with the legacy of Vatican II,
which has fundamentally altered the map of global Christianity and opened the
door to mutual exchange and learning among different Christian traditions.
·
Not being able to accept any longer the view
that has tended to justify the Anabaptist break – that the Catholic Church had
utterly "fallen" for 1000+ years –
·
... and so not being able to justify (at least
for myself) staying out of communion with the Catholic Church when I find it
increasingly possible to take the Mennonite "charism" into the Catholic
Church…
·
... especially when God has opened up a number
of once-unimaginable ways to be Catholic even while staying connected to the
Mennonite tradition.
I
believe our traditions need each other desperately. On one hand this means I
believe Mennonites need greater connection and accountability to the longer
(historical) and wider (global) Christian community. On the other hand, this
means that I am anything but blind to the problems in the Catholic Church. In
some small way I believe God is calling me to help make the strengths of the
Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition more accessible to people within the Catholic
Church – face-to-face community, serious discipleship, lay participation,
principled nonviolence, and so on.
Cardinal
Walter Kasper has said that the proper goal of interchurch dialogue is not that
we move closer to one another but rather that together we move closer to Jesus
Christ. I hope that can be our common goal as my journey, and other journeys of
discipleship at Faith Mennonite, continue to coincide.