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Opening faith's arms I believe that the Church is supposed to give humans more freedom and happiness through faith; yet, it oftentimes restrains people spiritually and socially. The total teaching of Church can be so fundamentally rigid that they give no alternatives to the mindsets of believers. Its "I-am-right-and-nobody-else-is" attitude makes many Christians turn away from the Church. The teachings cause disturbances not only within the Church, but also in the relationships with other religions. The Church has a history that proves its disrespectfulness towards other faiths. The Church needs to open its arms more toward different views, cultures and religions. There was an incident in my life in which I saw such an openness of the Church. As soon as I arrived at a small town called Medjugorje, in Bosnia, to participate in a world Catholic youth festival, I began to notice differences (people’s appearances, colors, languages) and a similarity — the unity of everyone as the family of God. At the Masses that were held during the 95-degree burning afternoon, we all praised God enthusiastically, sang hymns in each person’s own language and dropped tears from the awareness of how blessed we were. At 9 p.m., we started to climb a mountain with a flashlight in one hand and a Rosary in the other. While I stayed up at night on the top of the mountain along with 500 other youths from all over the world, I listened to my new friends’ stories about their faith and culture. When the sun rose, another Mass commenced. At this time, we were surrounded by nature and a wonderful view of the rising sun. How beautiful the day was! How moved we were at the sights of the rising sun and the Eucharist at the same time! We embraced each other during the Sign of Peace. There was no boundary between us. We were the family of God. (11/10/05) |