January 20, 2012
Taking the Time to Make a Difference
An invitation to a family reunion: Are you going?
BY PAUL R. LEINGANG
It was a pretty simple invitation.
My wife and I received a one-page notice some time ago, inviting us to attend a gathering of cousins on my side of the family. This post-Christmas celebration has been underway for many years, but we have never before been able to attend.
This year, we responded to the invitation and made the trip.
My extended family is complicated — at least it is for me. This gathering was among people in my father’s family and included the people in the families connected by marriage with my father’s family. So these people are among just one-fourth of my relatives.
The age differences are tremendous. I am the youngest child of my father, who was among the younger children of his parents. I have uncles and aunts who died before I was born. I have first cousins who were grandparents before I was a parent.
But we are all connected, by blood, by marriage and family, and by a common faith — at least, most of us.
One person greeted me with a not-surprising acknowledgement: “I don’t know your name, but I know you are a Leingang.”
* * *
In the days since the get-together, I have been thinking about how important it was for me, that we received an invitation to come to this event.
(The invitation came from Shirley, a first cousin once-removed, I think. I have to apologize for not being perfectly clear about the connection.)
As I reflect on the matter, though, I realize that Shirley’s invitation was just the first in a series of many successive invitations.
“Are you going to the cousins’ reunion?” was a question — and an invitation — discussed among my brother and sisters. All five of us responded, getting to the party from three Midwestern states.
A first cousin from California came the greatest distance – and the latest event was also the first time he and his wife had attended.
* * *
What all of this is leading me to is a reflection on the relationships among the people of God. Recent Sunday Scriptures have given us some of the details of how Jesus invited disciples to follow him. A couple of brothers are in the mix, of course, since the beginnings of the greatest ever reunion of God’s family took place — obviously — in the midst of family life.
We were scattered, stretched across distances, drifting farther away from each other until we received the invitation from Jesus to enter into the New Covenant.
We talk about the family being “the domestic church” — and reflect on how the family is church. Some days, I think it might be better to reflect on the fact that the church should be family.
* * *
Sister Magdalena Casas-Nava, writing in the magazine of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, defines “the charism of invitation.”
It is, she says, “a gift or anointing of the Holy Spirit to request from others their presence or participation in building up the Kingdom of God.”
What impresses me is the clear parallel between divine and human — or is it simply the fact that God uses human reality to guide us toward closer relationship with the Trinity?
We don’t need to understand all of the connections, how this one is related to that one, to enjoy their company.
It all starts with the invitation, and that’s the beginning of what it takes to make a difference. And then of course, it is how we respond.
* * *
Who have you invited lately?
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