‘Staggering friendliness.” That’s how one reporter described his encounter with People of Praise, the apostolic community that Amy Coney Barrett and her family belong to. I’ve always heard wonderful things about Barrett, knowing more than a few people who teach or have studied at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., where the Barretts have lived. No doubt some of that goodness has to do with People of Praise. And yet, I just finished a piece that used the word “sinister” in association with People of Praise. Evidently because we no longer have the capacity as a people to recognize that there was a world before Margaret Atwood novels. The use of the word “handmaid” now has to be about A Handmaid’s Tale instead of the greatest of the Christian apostles, Mary, most holy, as some of us pray daily. Some pray the Magnificat every evening, remembering the words of praise Mary proclaimed in her humble ascent to God’s miraculous work for her — to be the Mother of Jesus. This is Christianity 101. But many of us in the current culture never took that class.
Of course, I understand why the lived life of Christianity can seem so exotic. What do many see of Christians? A debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris and Mike Pence? If you have no knowledge of or experience of Christianity, it may sound a lot like fights over abortion. Maybe it sounds more like an ideology or a political platform than a way of life. So I apologize on behalf of some of us Christians who aren’t always overwhelming the world with love, when that’s our mission! To show Christ in the world. We are about more than wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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