Oddwalk Ministries

Category: reflection

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The Most Important Catholic Word

Robert Feduccia at NPM

I (Orin) just returned from a week in Baltimore attending the National Pastoral Musicians (NPM) 41st annual convention. This gathering is a time for seeing old friends, hearing wonderful speakers and breakout sessions, and encountering new music for the liturgy.

Oddwalk friend Robert Feduccia gave a fantastic keynote Wednesday morning, titled “The Liturgy and the Church’s Mandate to Grow.” There were so many takeaways from the presentation; I want to share just one here.

Robert told the story of a conversation he had once with Bishop Caggiano of Bridgeport. The Bishop had asked Robert what the most important Catholic word was. After a couple failed guesses, the Bishop informed him that, to him, the most important Catholic word was “and.”

And.

So deceptively simple and so important to our faith and world today. Those of you who know me reasonably well know I have been beating the “Both/And” drum for at least a decade now. When our faith paints, I think, far too many things as “black and white,” and when our world seems to create more and more “us vs. them” moments all the time, it is important for us to remember that our faith calls us to both/and, just as our savior Jesus was himself an earthly both/and: both God and human.

Now, of course there are times things truly are black and white, and there are times where some subset of humanity must be distinct from some other subset for valid reasons. We do well, though, to limit those times to only the most necessary and not try to superimpose distinctions where there are none really to be had and especially when they are not helpful.

Our faith is one pf paradox – one where things that seem to be opposites dwell together in mystery and without conflict: death is life, weakness is power, being last is being first. That is, we are called to both death and life, to both weakness and power, to both being last and being first. Just as Jesus himself lived as a both/and, so we too must try to first see the “and” in every situation, every person, and every relationship. Only then are distinctions and discussions of them coming from a place of love and dignity.

And: the most important Catholic word.

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We Are Welcome, We Are Love

As a sort-of follow up to last week’s Jesus-Justice-Joy post from Shannon, Orin writes this week to share a new lyric video of a song he recently wrote which has also been published.

The song has two Hebrew words as its title and part of the refrain: Hachnasat Orchim. This most simply translates to “hospitality,” but in the world of the Jewish faith, it’s more specifically about the welcoming of the stranger.  This song is included in a book of music for the Reform Judaism movement (you may recall a few times a month Orin plays for services at Temple Shaare Emeth) titled, in English, “Jewish Songs of Protest and Hope.”  While writen for Judaism, I think it’s also not hard to hear in the lyrics Jesus’s similar teachings of welcome and love – He was, of course, himself a Rabbi and teacher during his earthly ministries.

I hope the music inspires singers and listeners to prayer, and then to action: bringing hope into the world, and making that hope real by action and change.