With an aunt a Poor Clare nun and an Uncle a Jesuit Missionary, the church, change, and Vatican II became frequent topics of my family’s conversation.  Just like the man landing on the moon, we saw ourselves as living a “moment in history.”

             Experimental liturgies marked by religious formation through undergraduate years, and the “new theology” in an ecumenical setting characterized my seminary education.  Around 1988 I began teaching a new undergraduate course “The Theology of Vatican II.”  The Council itself stood as history to the young women and men in the classroom.  Fifteen years later, at another university, I taught an honors course entitled “The Church in the Modern World.”  I had the students read select documents from the Council.  While the students found a certain humor in the datedness of particular references – like those on social communications - they likewise marveled at some of the great ideals and forward looking proposals.  I recall at least one student remarking, “how come we never hear about this in church?”  I likewise recall my cynical response, “the documents are only forty some years old; some people haven’t had a chance to read them yet.”

Today, as an academic, I would reflect on the reception of the Council using some of the fine work of Massimo Faggioli and John O’Malley, along with others.  But more than academic, I would like to reflect on the Council in a pastoral way – from my perspective as priest, teacher, and “child of the Council.”  My reflection considers a basic question: Can we use history not only to “avoid the errors of the past” but also to open new horizons?  In one sense, for me, this is the heart and soul of Vatican II.

Challenging “persons who see nothing but prevarication and ruin” John XXIII notes that they seem to have learned nothing from history, “the teacher of life.”  In this opening address to the Council, “the good Pope” sees the hand of Divine Providence guiding the world to a new order fulfilling “God’s superior and inscrutable designs.”  As I often enough remark now to both undergraduate and graduate students, once you see that we have never always done this this way, you can raise the question, “is there a better way?”  When one appreciates that we know different things, and we know things differently, then one has to appreciate that one probably needs to act differently.

Given that few of us interpret our world using Thomistic Aristotelian categories, do we not have a responsibility to find new language to explore the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist?  Can we not be helped by emerging notions of symbolic consciousness along with a dynamic and evolutionary notion of Being?  Recognizing that modern psychology sees a homosexual orientation as a positive category in the 20th Century, does that not challenge everyone to re-think this life experience?  Identification of a global economy, as well as the vast disparity of wealth, raises even more significant questions about the Christian’s moral responsibility in the world.  With the changed place of women in much of the world’s cultures, is it not time to re-examine the place or women in the church?

The documents of the Council do not provide clear and precise answers for these or other profound questions in our day, let alone the future.  While I and so many others appreciate Pope Francis for “rekindling the spirit of the Council” he is not the answer to our questions.  What he does seem to offer is the opportunity to raise the questions, and to look at our rich history as a path to move forward.  At the time of the 60th and 75th anniversaries of the Council, even fewer people will be familiar with the content of the documents.  As with some of my undergraduates today, it will seem like ancient history.  Still, I find it all very exciting.  I feel privileged to have “lived a significant moment in history” even as a young boy.  I feel very excited because most of the young people I teach “get the questions” and they are not afraid to move forward.

 Of course the institutionalized elements of the community we call church give me pause.  Do we have the confidence to believe we have a rich history to offer?  Do we have the courage to allow the richness of our tradition to be something more than a prison of the past?  Can we allow our history to be a real “teacher of life.  Believing that the Spirit has moved “as if in a new Pentecost” I am most hopeful.  God’s designs surpass our own in “superior and inscrutable” ways.