Wednesday of the twenty-seventh week of ordinary time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101012.cfm

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Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test."

Fifty years ago today Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council with virtually all the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, and a host of representatives from both Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches.

Only 17 years after the end of World War II, all of the bishops had seen the devastation of that war, and most of them remembered the horror of the First World War. Even as they gathered, the United States and the Soviet Union blustered through the Cuban Missile Crisis and a third world war – an all-out nuclear war far worse than the first two -- was narrowly avoided.

But the world was also enjoying a new age with unprecedented prosperity, increasingly rapid transportation, instant communication and amazing technologies. In many ways things were looking up -- more so than today. More and more nations were calling themselves republics – the R in USSR, for instance. They obviously emulated the United States, which had miraculously recovered from a vicious civil war and become a model of economic and political stability.

Despite this incipient optimism, Europe foundered in the hopelessness of atheistic existentialism. After millions of civilized, educated men and women suddenly rose up and slaughtered one another for no apparent reason – not once but twice! – could anyone suppose there is a caring God above? The Catholic Church -- mired in the philosophical thought of medieval scholasticism; embedded in anachronistic biblical scholarship; with its leaders dressed in quaint ceremonial dress; and its triple-crowned pope carried on the shoulders of papal guards -- could not inspire European nihilism. Nor could it speak intelligibly to American pragmatism.

The Roman Catholic Church needed new direction, new vision and new energy if it expected to offer anything of value to a world both traumatized and hopeful. It had to reexamine its ceremonies with their portals into mystery. It had to speak in the philosophical languages of a new age even as it disagreed radically with their philosophical conclusions. It had to engage in serious conversation with a troubled world, rather than making pronouncements from the pillar of self-anointed infallibility.

Fifty years later we realize we have only begun the conversation. But both the church and world are more open to the word of God and the hope God offers. The Age of Enlightenment with its brilliant sciences and astonishing technologies has yet to find its roots in the Truth of God’s everlasting love. It still throws itself blindly, hopelessly into pointless wars. The world needs a renewed, reunited Christian Church which can demonstrate real charity despite its bewildering diversity.

Pope Benedict XVI invites us through porta fidei – the portal of faith – first to reexamine our resources in faith; and then to reengage the world in a loving, reverent embrace of all that is true, good and beautiful. He says of the Second Vatican Council:

I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the Council as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.

He asks us especially to study the Documents of that great council, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church; and to pray daily with the Credo. We the Church were sent to be salt for the earth and a light to the nations. If you want to make a difference, you must be different. You must be holy.