How do our Parishes become beacons of heaven in these turbulent times?
Why does the Church call a Council? The Council in Jerusalem had been called to deal with a problem that divided the Church. It was a dispute over whether or not pagans had to become Jews before they could become Christians. When it was resolved Paul, Barnabas, Judas and Silas were sent to Antoich and relayed both in letter and in person the decision of the Apostles and the Elders at the council. Afterwards the whole Church went back to work: living out the Gospel and proclaiming the Gospel to both Jew and Pagan!
Bishop Barron, when he was a priest producing videos and the excellent series called ‘Catholicism’, said that the beige Church after Second Vatican Council seemed to think that the council meant a perpetual series of group meetings, committee meetings and conferences and, yes, even synods too. It is a far cry from what we see happening both at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and its follow up. Indeed, many a parish often ends up being over busy with planning committees, parish meetings and fund-raising activities and for all the activity of such things little actually gets done that is effective, fruitful or long lasting when it comes to the mission of the Church, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and a thorough going formation for the young, couples, families and adults.
Yet, today our parishes are having to deal with the impact of Covid and the government measures that saw our churches closed and the the oblgation to attend Sunday Mass dispensed! Result of this was a scale of reactions ranging from some feeling abandoned to others not really feeling anything but maybe relief from having to attend Mass! Despite attempts to compensate for all this by streaming live Masses the general impression was that the Church, Mass and the Sacraments were no longer really essential.
After lockdown there was the slow trickle back to church which began with the re-opening of churches for personal prayer, then came the first stage of Masses with masks and 2m spatial distancing, then the third stage with a decrease in spatial distancing and an increase of the amount of people able to fit into a church, then came the fourth stage with the option to either spatially distance and mask or not.
The end result of all this is that today those returning to attend Mass regularly are around 60% of pre-Covid attendances. Many Clergy say that their parish finances was significantly reduced by up to 50% of pre-Covid totals. Finally many speak of a malaise among both clergy and laity which ranges from disabling fear, anger, hostility, and despondency to inertia, apathy, numbness. It seems that people have lost their bearings, indeed they seem also to have lost both their spiritual and moral compass as we find that divisions have entered our parishes and our clergy between ‘vaccinated’ and ‘unvaccinated’ such that there is fear of the other, anger towards the other and indeed a hostility towards the other where some have expressed the wish that the ‘unvaccinated’ be incarcerated in camps and others have expressed the delight that the ‘vaccinated’ will get their comeuppance when the adverse effects take hold of their organs and DNA! How can such reactions be found in the hearts of so called Christians and how can they be reconciled with these words of St John?
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the dark. But anyone who loves his brother is living in the light and need not be afraid of stumbling; unlike the man who hates his brother and is in the darkness, not knowing where he is going, because it is too dark to see [1 John 2:9-11].
Something has really gone awry when Clergy and Laity are divided like this; it is as if the enemy has sown tares among the wheat! It seems we must return to the beginning, to the foundations of our faith, back to basics as expressed by the First letter of St John:
We can be sure that we know God only by keeping his commandments. Anyone who says, ‘I know him’, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, refusing to admit the truth. But when anyone does obey what he has said, God’s love comes to perfection in him. We can be sure that we are in God only when the one who claims to be living in him is living the same kind of life as Christ lived. [1 John 2:3-6]
Given that the Sunday obligation to go to Mass is to be ‘reinstated’ by the bishops on Pentecost Sunday [5th June], it might be high time for us to be reminded of or discover the traditional 6 Precepts of the Church which lays out the minimum for one to be considered a real and practising Catholic; precepts that many have seemingly forgotten. Traditionally these are the 6 precepts [or 5 precepts as in Catechism of the Catholic Church nn. 2041-3]:
1. To go to Mass and refrain from servile work on Sundays and holy days;
2. To go to Confession at least once a year (traditionally done during Lent) NB: but you must go if you have committed mortal sin;
3. To receive the Eucharist at least once a year, during the Easter Season (known as the “Easter duty”);
4. To observe the days of fasting and abstinence;
5. To help to provide for the needs of the Church according to one’s abilities and station in life - tithing principle [Mal 3:12ff];
6. To obey the marriage laws of the Church.
Together with the 10 Commandments, the Precepts of the Church outline the minimum required for moral living for any Catholic.
However, more resilient souls whose reactions are more reflective, thoughtful and considerate have framed their response to the situation that they now find themselves in this post Covid situation. They have kept faith with both Christ and the Church in following his commandments and the Church’s precepts but have also had the grace and the strength to consider this post-pandemic period by asking the following questions:
how did I and how did we as a parish react to the overwhelming and coercive narrative of both Media and Government?
What can I and what can we learn as a parish from our reactions and from this experience?
What do I and what do we need to do to make reparation for sins committed against God, our neighbour and the integrity of our God-given bodies during this period?
What is still standing in our lives and in our parishes that is worth saving and continuing?
What has not stood this test in our lives and in our parishes and whether it needs to be restored or left behind?
What has been my focus and what has been the focus of the parish during this time and has it dislodged Christ from the center of our lives and has it disordered our priorities and duties as followers of Christ?
What do I and what do we as a parish need to put in place so as to heal, restore, shore up and strengthen our Faith In Christ for the times ahead?
These questions, which we will not go into in this blog, may, however, help us to form both a diagnostic and a restoration of both our personal lives and our parishes for the times ahead.
But even these questions will need to have as a background a vision that captures and expresses the beauty of heaven that is given to us in the Book of the Apocalypse for 6th Sunday of Easter:
And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb [Apoc 21:10-14]
If beauty is the language of love than we have to contemplate the glory, wonder and beauty of the Kingdom of God in a life of prayer that draws on the hidden clues of heaven that lie hidden in all our yesterdays as we saw last week when we explored the issue of what makes for a Christian Imagination; and in such a life of prayer we also need to contemplate the glory, wonder and beauty of the Kingdom of God that lies hidden in the future too. Although this future is one that we only glimpse in and through the passages of scripture afforded to us by the Apostles and St Paul who witnessed and exponded to us both the triumph and the significance of the resurrection.
A life of prayer especially mental prayer is hard work. Yet we need to engage in it as this enables us to build our homes in Christ and Christ to make his home in us. Home and Heaven are intimately connected for we all desire to come home, to live in our home and to be at home and home is the first clue we have for what the Kingdom of Heaven truly means for us and for our lives. The glory, wonder and beauty of God’s home must be brought into both our homes and our hearts for “where your treasure lies there lies your heart” [Matt 6:21] and the true desire of the heart is the hearth of our final and heavenly home.
If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home [Greek: μονὴν = monen] with him [John 14:23].
Interesting that the word monastery is connected to the Greek word mono meaning alone and yet the word for home [μονὴν = monen] can also remind us of a monastery. The deepest communion with God is a soul alone with the Lord [mono] yet such a soul becomes a reservoir of grace for others and thus such souls have the deepest relation to other souls who too are made in God’s image. From this heavenly beauty visited on such a well disposed soul becomes a life giving source of love and beauty for the place and people in which he or she dwells.
How many monasteries turn a desert, a swamp, a wasteland into a setting that reflects the peace, music, architecture and rythmnn divine of the heavenly Jerusalem through a fellowship, a brothehood, a sisterhood, a family united by the Holy Spirit? And when the bells of such monasteries ring out over the countryside many a secret soul stops and offers up a heartfelt and hope filled prayer.
So too must the homes and parishes of Catholics start to rebuild, re-live and re-present this rhythm divine where the pagan, the secularist and the lost sinner may see how heaven inspires the life-form of beauty in those who let the Holy Spirit enter them and change them. Such souls that allow the Holy Spirit to dwell within them - the state of Grace - make visible to the world, like a city on a hill, what it is to beautifully love and to love beautifully.
