Before getting to the heart of the strike you might be surprised to know what the young acolytes call the new practice of having the Mass candles rest on the floor rather than the altar.

With their technological background of stick shift, impact compact and the psychosomatic overdrive, the young liturgical set had a phrase all ready: “Four on the floor.” A Balance?

What do a match, a harp, a job and a military target have in common? Easy - each can be struck. A strike is an asset in bowling; a setback for the ball player who is at bat. A man may strike his wife; and a printer, a word in his copy. Those solid Texans, John N. Garner, former vice president and Sam Rayburn, the late speaker of the House, used to gather in a Senate office to “strike a blow for freedom.” The word “strike” is as empty as the word “thing.” It can be used for almost any object.

Probably that is why we say so glibly, “Strike an attitude.” What is your opinion of Vietnam, civil rights, traffic? The advantages of a loose phrase like “striking an attitude” are obvious. We can strike a dozen attitudes in one day, all different. They leave our prejudices intact, and our inconsistencies unnoticed. They are uncomfortably close to what Newman called “newness,” opinions on every subject, thoughts on none. When he cites “off-hand sayings, flippant judgements and shallow generalizations,” he is foreshadowing our day when movie stars give their views on marriage and physicists reject a God-creator because he cannot be measured.

Law Or Love?

During the Synod, many laymen commented on the fine and free manner in which the priests maturely discussed every topic. In my opinion, this came about because very few of them have developed the blind spot that interferes with the vision of Catholicism today.

You can describe this blind spot in either the right or left eye. The former exists in those whose religion is a list of details, doctrinal and moral. Over the retina is a glaze of legalism, juridicism in its technical use. All is law, love is nothing.

This emphasis is on a rigid religion which allows for minimum growth, maximum security. They have forgotten (and all of us are at times guilty of this) the scathing words of Christ against the law keepers of His time. They never did come to understand the questions leveled at us on our appearance before God: did you feed the hungry, visit those in prison, and help the sick?

But the blind spot can exist with equal damage in the other eye too. “All is love; law is nothing.” To these, faith is unformed, worship is loose, prudence is no virtue and extremism is no vice. They abhor church laws, which conveniently allows them to practice adultery or racism as they please. They distrust organizations and buildings and other temporal elements of the Church.

Repelled by harsh points of the porcupine, their symbol is rather the unstructured ameba. Bound to nothing definite in behavior, they are free to act on impulse and then rationalize it by dismissing the law that came on Sinai through Moses and the law that Galilee then the world heard through Christ.

It is discouraging to try to speak of the gentle strength and the unseen reality of our faith to those who can see only the law, or on the other hand, only love. But it is a joy, as it was during the Synod, to watch dedicated men tackle the personal and social problems of being a Catholic today -- without a blind spot. They know that without love, our religion would grow rigid and die. But without law, it will never be the Church founded by Our Lord.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta