Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 404

I went down to the potter’s house and there he was, working at the wheel.
Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand, 
he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased.
Then the word of the LORD came to me:
Can I not do to you, house of Israel,
as this potter has done? says the LORD.

Can Jeremiah's analogy of the potter with his object of clay be applied to the Church which is so familiar and dear to us? Or was the Church fired at some point in the kiln of his judgment and calcified into solid, frangible stone? Can we love a Church that is still being molded, which may be periodically remade into another object of whatever sort pleases God?

Certainly our lives are often reshaped by the molding hand of the Lord. What is a life without dead ends, catastrophes, failures, disappointments, and grief? If there were such a thing it would be hugely uninteresting and monumentally dull. That unfortunate person might know what they think they know but they could not imagine what they don't know, neither its dimensions, shape, or importance. Even those with much experience of remolded life have a hard time grasping that mystery. But they should at least recognize failure and have little fear of it.

Nor can a church expect a history without setbacks, reconsideration, and remodelling. Candidates in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) must understand they are joining a work in progress. There are many things that cradle Catholics understand that converts might never get, and more things that cradle Catholics cannot understand as well as converts. (Very often, in my experience, converts have greater curiosity, appreciation, and understanding of our doctrine.) 

Returning Catholics also must expect the neighborhood to have changed since they left, and what was familiar may have disappeared. "Did you expect us to change nothing in the unlikely event that you might come back?" I have heard people complain about the changes in the Church; should we have waited till they died before we made the necessary adjustments?

Your Church and my Church, as Jeremiah reminds us, belongs to the Lord; and if we would remain with him, we stay with the fellowship he has given us for our salvation. We are not entitled to rush into an imagined, preferred future, nor linger in an idealized past. We can hardly imagine what is good for us, much less what God has ready for those who love him.