my first mass

Gloire a toi qui etais mort, gloire a toi qui est vivant,
Notre sauveur et notre Dieu, viens Seigneur Jesus!

So the irony is obvious enough. I went to my first Catholic Mass my first Sunday at the international program I'm attending as part of my studies at a small, private, Church of Christ university. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.
But there is truth at both ends. As well as truth forgotten.
I am more quick, I suppose naturally, to critique my own end and it's lack of color and mystery and to soak up the fresh perspective on the other side of the swinging pendulum, but I would like to think that's a sign of hunger for some sort of balance where I believe balance is seriously lacking.
Somewhere across the spectrum of Christianity I think the vision has been lost. Or really, maybe it's the relationship with Christ that has been lost. The body has been severed from the head.
And we are stumbling around without him.
The good news has lost its goodness, its power to redeem, restore, and unite. Or maybe we have forgotten the message altogether. Maybe we aren't even preaching the gospel anymore.
Somehow our familiarity is beginning to breed contempt. It certainly isn't breeding intimacy.
The church is characterized by division, lack of depth, and charade--not exactly the oneness Jesus prays for in John 17.
Bottom line is we've strayed. And it's time to remember who we are.

"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." --John 17:22-23