The Christian community is like “a group of drunks leaning on a light post,” according to Father George B. Wilson, who gave a Theology Workshop at Christ the King last weekend.

Father, a Jesuit theology professor at Fordham University and Woodstock College, explained that these are happy drunks, singing drunks, groping for the way, leaning on one another, and drawn to the light that is Christ.

The workshop, organized by Sister Rose Mary Cauley, GNSH, was open to people of all parishes and was offered in three sessions.

In Friday night’s session, Father enumerated the expressions in Scripture of God’s love for people as first, the love a father for his child, then as the love between friends.

He stressed that acceptance of these concepts is possible only in the light of human experience, citing the observations of seminarians working with boys in a reform school, where the experience, of a father’s love was memory of senseless beatings administered by a drunken, unloving individual.

The third, and most frequently used, expression of God’s love is that of “a husband for his bride in the bloom of a love relationship.”

With liturgical renewal forming the basis of the second session, Father stated that all too often we are inclined to accept a new set of rules to replace the old, rather than allowing the liturgy to be an expression of the people involved.

He deplored the custom of imposing the expressions of one culture on a different culture, citing the white vestments, symbols of joy, prescribed for feast of Our Lady, as puzzling to the Chinese—for whom white represents grief and mourning.

In the liturgy which followed, participants attained a beginning sense of community and of community expression, and several participants were later heard to express remorse of their own inhibited expressions.

On Sunday morning, Father talked of the meaning in community of the sacraments, saying that Extreme Unction teaches of the meaning of old age and of death. He described as “culturally deprived” the life in suburbia where the young never see the old and are never faced with these concepts.

He cited the richness of life in the ghetto, where the old have no place else to go and the young and old constantly rub shoulders.

Saying that the Christian community has a responsibility of prophet to the world, he stressed the ability to choose between bringing a message of a closed people or of a people opened out to the meaning of Christ, saying the Eucharist should be sign of love, and that community fosters personhood and individuality, rather than imposing uniformity.

He questioned the Christian message to the world expressed in treatment of the “ecclesisatically unacceptable”—the Berrigans and the Groppis—asking if the message was to be one of “Rock the boat, preach that message, and Zap! You’re out.”

Reminding participants that the world questioned the sobriety of the Apostles when they came out of the Upper Room, Father challenged the Christian community to bring a message as happy people, singing people, leaning on one another, drawn to the light that is Christ.