One of the things that brings blessings to most Catholic Christian communities of faith — in other words, parishes — is the diversity and mix of peoples with their various traditions, customs and languages, styles of prayer and devotions, their stories of good times and difficult times back in the “old country.”
In most Catholic parishes there is a blend of rich and not so rich, educated and otherwise, very religious and those on the fringe of faith — all kinds gathering around the table of the Holy Eucharist and God’s word.
It recalls the words of St. Paul in one of his epistles: “We are neither Greek nor slave nor free.” In other words, a diverse coalition of unique and one-of-a-kind children of God.
We are not a people made from the same “cookie cutter” — we’re from Italy, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Haiti, Poland, Ireland and so on. Far from being a cult that seeks to delete and erase the diversity, these ethnicities fashion the Body of Christ — the Church coming together, especially on the weekend.
Lately, some in government are making moves to whitewash and do away with aspects of American life, history and anything that fosters the diversity among us. Hopefully, the Catholic church and the experience of Catholic culture and life will not fall to recent attempts to put everybody in the same “cookie cutter”