Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter
by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“For with the Lord is mercy
with him is plenteous redemption”.

(PSALM 130:7)

“When we look at church life today, especially within parishes, it is obvious that it is made up of much more than only the core, committed congregation, namely those who participate regularly in church life and accept (at least for the main part) the dogmatic and moral teachings of their churches.

The church also contains a wide variety of the less-engaged: people who practice occasionally, people who accept some of its teachings, guests who visit our churches, people who don’t explicitly commit but are sympathetic to the Church and offer it various kinds of support, and; not least, people who link themselves to God in more private ways, those who are spiritual but not religious.

This does not mean that there are tiers within discipleship, where some are called to a higher holiness and other to a lower one. The Church may never be divided into the perfect and less perfect, the better and the half-baked, full participation and partial participation. Each individual chooses how deep he or she will go. Some go deeper than others, though everyone is meant to go its full depth.

We are all around Jesus in our different ways, and we must be careful not to judge each other” (9).