Dear John
No, this isn't a 'dear John letter'. You must be tired of that joke and it's our shared childhood at St Joseph's Convent School, Waipukurau, that tells me I can still call you John.
I call your name urgently, hoping you will hear me out.
The Catholic Church is not a social agency! We are not WinZ, we are not Oranga Tamariki or ACC, not even a Women's Refuge.
Dear John, we in the pews are STARVING. It's people in pews who are "struggling", not knowing what to believe any more, or even if they should believe at all.
Pope Francis wants "a poor church for the poor": dear John, we fill the bill! We do need to be "radical" in our thinking. We need to go back to our roots in Jesus Christ and the Gospel, but we need guidance from our shepherds to find our way back. And if the shepherds are lost, what happens to the sheep? They wander off into the wilderness, as we know from falling Mass counts and closed churches.
Yes, "the Church is here to be the service of the world", but only through preaching "the gospel of the kingdom" (Mt 24:14), and that's exactly what the Church is not doing. That's basically why the world is a horrendous mess. May I refer you - if it's not beneath the dignity of the cardinalate - to Facebook, to a post by Mark Metzger just yesterday, comparing the 'Bible Jesus' with the 'Modern Jesus'. It's Protestant, but proper to this discussion: https://www.facebook.com/mark.metzger777/posts/10156735902778787 (If this link does not work, please copy to a url.)
The "lack of priests and potential amalgamations (of parishes)" which even if it doesn't worry you, worries many of the faithful, is caused by the failure of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church to preach the faith. The rot started with failure to preach Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, and has spread via contraception and abortion - as a confessor, you will know that - throughout the Church, turning it into a Church of Nice which avoids unpleasant truths and instead preaches heart-warming pop psychology and doubt, ambiguity and confusion.
God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die a hideous death on the Cross not to save souls from a mortal life of poverty ("The poor are always with us" - this morning's Gospel) but to save souls from eternal death. We are indeed meant to be "out there serving the poor" but it's the spiritually impoverished and sinners that Jesus came to save - and He did it by being highly visible, speaking openly (and offensively, to the Pharisees whose hearts were hardened) in the Temple .
Dear John, you're right. The Church "is about living the Gospel". But nowhere in the Gospel do we find Jesus setting up soup kitchens and night shelters or saving the planet. He preached the kingdom of God and how to get there, not by saving people from material poverty (c'est impossible), but in teaching the narrow way of the Cross, in helping everyone endure their own form of poverty - lack of health, of friends, of family, of employment, or of income, etc. That was His mission, and it's ours too. It's prayer that is the appropriate use for "unused church buildings", not soup kitchens or night shelters or refuges.
And I humbly suggest that it's not "a constant conversation within the Church" which will "help find young men who are contemplating the call". What will help find young men is constant listening within the Church, praying as the infant Church prayed with Our Lady in the upper room.
"No one lights a lamp to hide it under a bushel". Priests and monks who hide the light of faith by dressing like ordinary guys are hiding the Light of Christ from the lost and the lonely, giving the message that witnessing to Christ with a roman collar is going to offend people.
Yes, "few men are able to discern that call (to the priesthood)", mainly, I believe, because they don't know how to pray contemplatively, how to listen to the Lord. And they don't know because priests don't know, because they've never been taught.
How often do we see priests just sitting with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, in that meditation which should lead to contemplation? Did the seminary teach them anything of the great masters of the spiritual life, like St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila? Priests may say they know and practise meditation, meaning 'Christian Meditation' which surely, with the passing of years and no fruits of vocations to the priesthood, has been eloquently demonstrated as a dead end.
And if any priest says he doesn't have time for contemplation, that great work Fire Within, by Thomas Dubay SM, will surely change his mind.
The programme director of Religious Studies at Victoria University Wellington, one Geoff Troughton, knows "what it means to practise Catholicism" - and in the next breath opines that "it is about what the church (sic) is supposed to be, rather than the number of people attending mass (sic)".How often do we see priests just sitting with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, in that meditation which should lead to contemplation? Did the seminary teach them anything of the great masters of the spiritual life, like St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila? Priests may say they know and practise meditation, meaning 'Christian Meditation' which surely, with the passing of years and no fruits of vocations to the priesthood, has been eloquently demonstrated as a dead end.
And if any priest says he doesn't have time for contemplation, that great work Fire Within, by Thomas Dubay SM, will surely change his mind.
But it absolutely IS the number of people attending Holy Mass which is critical - which is why 'lay-leaders' are leading us in the wrong direction, away from the Mass, as the devil intends.
It's only the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the divine Victim sacrificed mystically on our altars, which stands between the world and the wrath of God.
WOT??? In homilies we hear repeatedly that "God is never angry, God is kind, compassionate and merciful." Yes. But Scripture tells us God is also angry, particularly at the sins that cry out to him for vengeance:
- murder (abortion)
- sodomy (homosexuality)
- oppression of widows and orphans (abuse of children in care) and
- cheating labourers of their due (minimal rates of pay, harsh treatment of migrant workers, wrongful dismissal).
Yes, "many parishioners are already involved in charitable work, often outside the realm of the conventional church". But the Catholic Church needs Marys more than Marthas. Mary chooses "the better part".
Dear John, cheer up. You want the Church to be "bruised and hurting". Well, she is. But we do indeed need to be "introverted", in the sense that God dwells within us and we need to get to know Him. Rather than being "obsessed with itself" the Church must become obsessed with God.
The only mandate Pope Francis has "to change things … within the world" is by first changing the Church. Changing ourselves. Not one another, ourselves. And only by the grace of God.
You say, "it means everyone being involved in the life of the Church. So yeah, I'm not worried."
My dear John - with respect - you should be.
with love
AMDG
Julie
'Anonymous' says: Hey Julia, just read your blog... Brilliant! I think in cricket that's called a 'S--I--X!!!!!' Outa the park! Nice one 😁
'Anonymous' II says:
I have that little bit of trepidation in that I am a product of the church in the modern world and I agree with you. And yet if we were real Church, real people of faith and sharing in and of the Eucharist, that would be manifest in acts of social justice. I suppose I mean we need to get the Church back to its main role of creating faithful, God-centred people who can then walk humbly on this earth.
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