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Pillars and Caterpillars "There are two kinds of people in the Church - pillars and caterpillars. The pillars hold up the Church and the caterpillars simply go in and out." When I first heard this quotation, I took it to mean the caterpillars are the bad guys and the pillars are the good guys. But the more I thought about it the more I wondered. Pillars do not change. They are made of stone. Sometimes people get so intent on holding up the Church they become too set in their ways. They support the Church but they forget about God, who is the One the Church is all about. Perhaps they hold up the Church in another way and stop it from advancing. Caterpillars, on the other hand, are alive. As long as they keep going in and out - in to receive the Sacraments and to worship and praise and pray and out to spread the Good News in the world - they are moving and changing and becoming. And we all know what happens to caterpillars - the big change which comes when they break out of their cocoons and they lift their lovely wings. So it goes both ways - the pillars would profit by adding 'cater-' to their name and breaking out of their stony shells. And the caterpillars should remember that the second half of their name is -'pillar' and that they had better do their share of the upholding so that there will continue to be a Church to go in and out of. Published in the August 1991 edition of the Church Magazine
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