Some will call it show.Some will ask why should we participate, what do we have to atone for, we didn’t abuse children or cover it up. The anger is real and deep, and the question deserves an answer.
To answer the question we need only look at the word atone. It doesn’t come from Latin or Greek. It is a truly English word, a contraction for “at one.” Something that was once united has been broken. Something must be done to heal the break, to make it whole, to restore the unity. To atone is to do what is necessary to make it one again, to be “at one.”
At every level of the Church the unity has been broken. Many of the laity look at the clergy with suspicion and distrust. Priests look at their bishop and wonder if he covered something up or will he throw them under the bus to save himself. Bishops and Cardinals attack the Pope, even when it was his predecessors who promoted the bishops in question. The Church is fractured like a piece of glass.
The original act of atonement was of course that of Jesus Christ. Did he suffer and die on the cross to make reparations for His sin? Of course not. He suffered an agonizing death for the sins of others, for the sins of all, for our sin.
The Church, as St. Paul tells us is a single body with Christ as the head. What happens to one part effects the entire body. It is because of that unity that the death of one is able to save all.
We know that we are called to imitate Christ. This means more than being nice. It means that, like Jesus, we must, of our own free will, embrace acts of penance, not just for our own sin but for the sins of others within the Church, other members of the body.
Many of those who abused and those who covered it up are now dead. There is no penance they can do, no earthly punishment that can be inflicted on them. But we who are alive can walk in the footsteps of Christ. We can offer ourselves up. We can take up the cross and follow him.
Tonight in our Cathedral it will feel much like Good Friday. And that certainly seems to be where we are a Church, probably where we are called to live for some time to come. And we need to live there for a while because the only path to Easter is through Good Friday. There is no way around.
Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself take up his cross and follow me.
No one is naive enough to believe that a Mass of Atonement is going to fix the problem, but it is the right place to start. If we truly believe that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” then where better to start than with the Eucharist. If the bishop is the visible sign of unity then who better to celebrate the mass than him.
In John’s gospel before Jesus goes to his death for us, he utters his great prayer for the unity of the Church. Now we must pray for that unity. In our prayer let us offer up our hurt, our anger, our frustration, our disappointment. Let us lay it all at the foot of the cross. And in the original sense of the word, let us do it as one, in the power of the one Holy Spirit, that the unity of our fractured Church be restored.
