CLOSE ENOUGH TO TOUCH: Excellent post from Dappled Things on living in imperfect communion with the Church. A lot of this is stuff that’s relevant both to my own life and to my work at the pregnancy center, so it might be especially worth reading for those who volunteer in Christian ministry. Excerpts:

…The first thing I would consider is the fact that conversion (and this is what we are talking about) is rarely, if ever, a total and absolute change in a person right away. Vices (which are ingrained habits of sin) do not go away overnight, and belief always stands in need of strengthening. …

A second thing to consider is what one does agree with and how one is practicing the Faith. Before talking about your dissent from the Church, lay out what you do assent to. Start with the Creed. …A person should ask himself what doctrines he does believe, and why he believes them, starting with the central ones. He should ask himself how the Gospel impacts his life and changes his behavior. Only after all that should he start to highlight what he rejects and how he diverges from orthopraxy — and what the reasons are for those

divergences. I think a lot of people would be surprised by how much they do believe.

A third point I’d make is that, even though God does want our all, it’s not true that if we can’t give all we might as well give nothing. God wants you in Mass every Sunday. But, once a month is still better than nothing at all, and that will at least maintain some contact with Christ’s Sacrifice and the community of the faithful. Even if you’re not keeping all of the Commandments, don’t abandon them all. Even if you’re not the most faithful Christian, for God’s sake don’t give up on prayer altogether. Just because you can’t receive the Sacraments, don’t boycott the Mass. In the inscrutable calculus of grace, it’s impossible to tell what acts of religion will make the difference between one’s salvation and one’s loss. What one hopes will happen is that these little acts will be the seeds that lead to an eventual full embrace of everything that the Church offers.

I guess what I’m saying in these three points is that no one should feel he must cut himself off from the Church out of some all-or-nothing approach to Faith. People can, I believe, recognize that their beliefs or actions put them at odds with the fullness of the Faith but, at the same time, remain within the Church in an imperfect way. Recognizing that their communion with the Church is seriously compromised, they should refrain from sacramental Communion, but there are still plenty of ways to get the most out of the imperfect communion that they do share. …The acts of piety and witness of prayerfulness and Christian sacrifice that have impressed me most have not been those of the walking saints (because, in a way, I expect it of them), but rather of the obviously flawed people whose relationship with God and the Church is visibly messed up. When I learn that one of them is in the perpetual adoration chapel everyday, or that they have practiced heroic acts of charity toward a neighbor, or they faithfully say the rosary even though it’s been years since they could go to Communion: this fills me with great hope — for them, for me, and for all sorts of people who might be tempted to think that God and the Church have written them off.

whole thing!