Self-Referential Church

It is true that the Church must not be self-referential. Like her greatest saint, John the Baptist, she must decrease so that He may increase.

The Church's mission is to bring the salvation that Jesus offers. She does this in His sacraments. That is where we encounter Him-- in the worship of the baptised of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One of the worst ways of being self-referential is to obsess with reform. Modernists and traditionalists both do this, but especially modernists.

In order to go about one's work, one must know who one is, and be comfortable being one's self. When you are yourself, you can do your work.

The Church must live, and be allowed to live Her life, and be herself. She must put aside the narcissistic  introspection that St. Therese calls, "a waste of spiritual energy." She must quit with this vain self-analysis. She must just be herself and be merrily about her work.

As Pope Francis says, we must take for granted who we are: the Church of two millennia, always the same, always deepening in wisdom about her Beloved. Always starting everyday with a little more insight into her Spouse. Always the same yet always surprised!

Let's be about the work of bringing the medicine of Charity, the sacraments, to a diseased world. Let us have the stability and confidence of character to open our home to the orphans and wayfarers and victims. One cannot welcome another in if one does not stay still. One cannot give if one does not have a richness of being, a calm, abiding self.