When there’s something right happening between two, it invites life into itself. That’s what happens in the natural family. Just as a man and a woman can put two bodies together and bring a child into the world, that can have a name but still be a bastard and an orphan if it is not loved. Likewise, we in the Church can gather people together and say because they had water poured over their heads, they are in the family of God. But there will be no spiritual life for them if no one is family, sponsor, spiritual friend, confessor, teacher or master for them. Many of us have discovered we are bastards and orphans within the Church: We have been neither fathered nor mothered in Catholic and Christian faith. It’s nobody’s individual fault but the sin of all together, we have a Church that is largely formed by administrators and programs. It’s not all bad. It’s just not enough. As many have said, “Faith is caught much more than it is taught.”
from The Spiritual Family and the Natural Family
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