Perhaps you know the story of the call of St. Francis of Assisi? Praying in a run-down chapel, he heard the Lord saying, “Francis, go and repair my house; look, it is falling into ruins.” Now, God wasn’t speaking about that particular chapel; he was speaking about the challenges facing the whole Church at the time.
Francis was never a priest, though he was later ordained a deacon under his protest. Francis was not a reformer; he preached about returning to God and obedience to the Church. Francis must have known about the decay in the Church, but he always showed the Church and its people his utmost respect.
Slowly companions came to Francis, people who wanted to follow his life of sleeping in the open, begging for garbage to eat...and loving God. With companions, Francis knew he now had to have some kind of direction to this life so he opened the Bible in three places. He read the command to the rich young man to "sell all his good and give to the poor," the order to the apostles to "take nothing on their journey", and the demand to "take up the cross daily." "Here is our rule," Francis said -- as simple, and as seemingly impossible, as that. He was going to do what no one thought possible any more -- live by the Gospel. Sound familiar? Maybe about another man named Francis? Pope Francis from the begin of his pontificate has been the example of how to live the joy of the Gospel. Yet some in the Church have characterized his actions as distorting the church they know.
Nehemiah had a similar call, to go and rebuild Jerusalem. In fact, in every age and in every generation, God has called his people to rebuild his Church. For decades society has done everything in its power to take God out of virtually everything. This week I was reading Facebook posts about the Las Vegas shooting. The discussion went to "freedom" but in the same post the person said we have to be alert and careful about "high risk venues" like the country and western concert. This is not freedom to me! When we consider what is a "high risk venue" they have become the theater, the sports arena, the subway and airways, it has become the mall and the workplace, most disheartening it has become the college campus, high schools and even elementary schools. It has even become places of worship.
You might be thinking, what in the world can I do to rebuild God's Church? A couple things come to my mind right away, one easy, one not so easy, both necessary to rebuild God’s Church (with a capital “C”). The easy thing is to do something simple, do something that makes sense. Ask yourself, what would be helpful? Where are the greatest needs? What are my gifts best suited for?
The not so easy thing, live the joy of the Gospel at all times. Like St. Francis of Assisi, like Nehemiah, Pope Francis and so many of the Church Fathers, in the midst of the messiness of the Church and the world we must live out the love Christ pours out to us in this mystery we participate in. All we need to do is take the first step. To love our neighbor as ourselves, to rejoice when we a persecuted because of our Lord, to take up our daily cross and be the loving, compassionate, and merciful image of our Lord and savior in this age and time. Let us rebuild His Church.
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