Generally a blog should be about my thoughts on a scripture. But today the reading reminded me of one of my favorite writings by another author. Churches are very complicated places where people find great grace and cause each other great pain.
I found this about a decade ago, and I still turn to it regularly and find it to be more true than anything else I've ever read on church life. At least for me. Carlo Carletto - Roman Catholic devotional writer wrote:
"How baffling you are, O Church, and yet how I love you!
How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you!
I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity.
I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false,
and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful.
How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face,
and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.
No, I cannot free myself from you completely, because I am you, although not completely.
And where should I go?"
- from The God Who Comes by Carlo Caretto
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That's a really powerful quote. I often feel the same way (although I could never say it that eloquently).
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