vatican ii

I was grateful to have a wonderful conversation with a good friend who is the administration of a school that I visit. She is a Catholic. I brave and strong catholic that was delighted to let me know that her daughter is taking communion for the first time this coming Sunday. She explained to me her daughters great concern with dealing respectfully with the elements since, according to most Catholics, communion represents the true flesh and blood of Jesus. This made the little girl very nervous to drop the crumbs, lest Jesus be scattered on the floor. Her mother assured her that worse has been done to Jesus and that he understands. It is good to have a God who understands the respectful fear of children ("Unless we become like these..."). I do not agree with the Catholic view of transubstatiation, but this does not mean that I do not appreciate the sense of reality that the Catholics have held onto in action of taking communion. What I mean is that I do not think Jesus is was the physical temple because he compared himself with it, but he is explaining spiritual matters with concrete physical objects. In some way the evangelical church needs to work harder at maintaining the physical realities of Christ's physical sacrifice on the real wooden cross. After our conversation on the Eucharist we got to talking about other things, especially our concern for social justice and she mentioned the Vatican ii documents. Here is the first paragraph of one of these documents:

The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.

I enjoyed what I read. I pray this is true of all Christians, that the "joys and anxieties" of all humanity "raises an echo in [our] hearts." I want to be more tender. It is my opinion that evangelicals should converse more with catholics. After all, we do share one Bible.