Hi

I just finished Early Week for the University of Maryland's marching band, so I guess you could say I'm "back." Despite starting at 8:00 am and finishing at 8:30 pm or later I still managed to get to daily Mass, in case you were wondering (long lunch breaks are nice that way). Having it end was kind of like waking up from a long, weird dream, only if you remembered everything and still had stuff like instruments and music when you woke up.

After the Catholic Student Center, the band is really the best thing on campus in terms of camaraderie and making really good friends. When Dr. Sparks tells freshman that they are about to get 300 instant friends, he is not exaggerating much at all. In high school and college my experience is that there are very few things like a really good marching band for having "good community" (if you want to put it that way). In my experience it's far and away better than any other type of concert band or orchestra in this regard.

One thing I have noticed about groups or societies that have "good community" is that they don't get it by trying explicitly to have good community; it develops naturally among people who are working together, united in heart and mind, for something they love. The more excellent the goal and the more selflessly the people love the goal (and put that love into practice), the more "community" they will have.

To be part of a good marching band involves a lot of self-discipline. It's not "fun" the way playing a video game or watching a movie is fun, but even some of the people who complain the most come back year after year because they can't get enough of it. You must let people you may not like order you around even when you don't feel like it, do things precisely their way even when you think you have a better way, rehearse and perform even when you don't feel like it, acknowledge your dependence on the other people in the group, subordinate some of your individuality to the needs of the group and the goal. If you don't like it, you can always leave, but you can't acheive the goal on your own. Each instrument has its own part and though some are more attention-grabbing and just plain cooler (like trumpets) you can't waste your time slacking or bemoaning that you are not as high-profile as others. Sound familiar?

At the CSC we have tremendous "community" because we are devoted to God's holy Church that He gave us to bring us to Him. This is our safeguard against really being devoted to ourselves under the pretext of being devoted to God. Since love of God and neighbor is the object and total selflessness the ideal, there is really no possible communion or fellowship equal or greater in profundity (or even close) than the Communion of Saints (Saints = God's "holy ones" here on earth and those in heaven). And of course this one little Catholic college chaplaincy is not the only place where this occurs; it is wherever there are people who love God and His Church more than they love their own comfort or opinions. I had a demonstration of this this summer with the young men I worked with this summer helping the Dominicans: seven guys whom I had never met, but we all love the Church so we hit it off immediately and were like brothers (I like to think; which reminds me, with all this stuff going on it's been a while since I've written to them). We might disagree (even strenuously) about politics, what sports or movies we like, taste in liturgical music, or any number of other things; those things are still real, but being of one heart and mind in faith transcends them.

Please do not interpret this as a dig at Protestants or "triumphalism," but I really cannot see how this unity can be achieved under the Protestant system. Show me any ten Catholics, whatever their personal opinions, who are on fire with love for God and his Church, and I will show you ten people united in one faith. But show me any ten Protestants, on fire though they may be with love for God and His holy Scripture, and I will show you as many as ten people disunited because their personal interpretations of Scripture may conflict and they admit no transcendent authority to which they can appeal. They It would be vain for them to try to strip it down to the "fundamentals" that they all agree on because they would still be tailoring their beliefs to themselves rather than themselves to the Faith. But if they built their houses (even if they are different kinds of houses) not on the sand of arbitrary human authority but on the Rock that God has given us, then they would be secure.

[Please also note that I am not dissing God's word; the Church, from whom we have the Scriptures in the first place, is most solicitous to open their riches to us and to safeguard their true meaning.]