NOTE: This is one of a continuing series of blogs on the current situation in our West Chester, Ohio parish.
IF YOU AND your family are planning to go to Christmas Mass in some hotel room this year, you should be able to give a very precise answer to the question Why?
I don’t mean a reason built on wooly abstractions — “the truth,” “justice,” “save the children.” Nor do I mean a reason based on the horror stories and slimy calumnies that others who worship with you at the hotel have endlessly and breathlessly repeated as fact.
You’re now going to Mass in a hotel room ultimately because there was a dispute over our parish school. How did the issue of our school policies or who our principal should be affect you personally?
Many of you have no children at all, or your children are all grown. Others of you live at a great distance, and it would be physically impossible to send your children to our school. Some of you are perfectly content with public school; some prefer home schooling.
For you, the issues that sparked the dispute in the first place have no real effect on your life and the life of your family. There’s no proportionate reason for you to get agitated about these issues, still less to abandon your parish for Christmas in a hotel.
A few of you did indeed have kids in our school sometime in the past, and were not content with it. We were too strict, too liberal, had too much religion, didn’t teach geo-centrism, didn’t have enough company for your daughter, or didn’t believe that your children never ever lie. Fine. Other parents think our school is absolutely fantastic.
But a parish school cannot please every parent, and our failure to do so in your case is not a proportionate reason for you to head for the hotel.
At this point, of course, the sowers of contention will trot out the abstractions, the horror stories and the calumnies — fighting for truth, saving the children, evil triumphing, blackmail, dark spirits hovering, wronged clerical whistle-blowers and child abuse.
This litany is intoned solemnly or huffed with indignation, and then concluded, perhaps, with a slow, sad shake of a clerical head. Listen to the music, sing with the rest, and make the petitions your own. You are part of A Noble Cause.
But it is all just hype.
Because for most of you, the issue of who our school principal is or what our school policies are have no effect whatsoever on you or your family. There is simply no proportionate reason to explain why you’re going to Mass in a hotel.
So instead, look to your own heart for the reason: an eagerness to listen to gossip, a willingness to believe the worst about people or an unwillingness to forgive.
Pray for the grace of charity, and the gift of peace of heart — the true spirit of Christmas.
Come in from the Inn this Christmas. There is room.