Experience of Church

We read in our school guide, In the Footsteps of Marcellin Champagnat, that "we are to provide our Christian youth with an experience of Church and foster their love for it."  This morning a speaker, Carl Wilkens, who remained in Rwanda during the Genocide, told us that he saw the role of Church as two-fold:  to help us build our relationship with God and with our neighbor.  During the Genocide, the churches basically ignored this second goal and for the most part stood mute while a million of their church members were slaughtered by other church members solely because of fear and hatred: it was a we against they situation.  In come instances, the churches even aided in the killings.  When an institution thinks only about its survival and not about the well-being of its members, it is doomed to destruction.  We hope and pray that the experience of Church we give our students in our Marist World is the one that embodies its total purpose.
Bro. Rene