On the Feast of Corpus Christi Fr. Ron
of Christ the Good Shepherd opened up his homily with something a
little bit different. In his eyes it was not so much of a homily than
it was a reflection. It was a look into the heart of a priest about
the state of the parishes in the Saginaw Diocese and in many ways the
entire Catholic faith as a whole. It was at times sorrowful and a
nearly heart breaking reflection on the state of the parishes and the
too few priests who are able to serve. Many of them already serving
more than one parish community as it is. Fr. Ron was giving us a head
up that down the road. Probably sooner than later our Mass time that
we have had for ages would probably be changing. He talked about the
parishes Pastoral Council and their efforts to evangelize to the
surrounding neighborhoods in an effort to try and bring more people
to Mass. But also expressed sorrow at the too few people answering
the call to vocations. Mind you this was by no means a lesson in self
pity. This was not a “woe is me” kind of view. But rather it was
shepherd who was probably way more frustrated at the state of things
than he has ever let on. For almost ten minuets he poured out his
heart to the congregation. For that moment we felt as he felt. It was
not necessarily Fathers intention to pass his personal anxieties on
to us. However it was probably way more needed than he realized.
Fr. Ron's reflection bothered me heart
and soul. For many years I have, with the Lego Church Project, put a
deep focus on the importance of the Mass. I use the project to share
the faith and to try and evangelize on how important the Mass should
be. My Projects are always filled with as many mini-figures as I can
because it is not a reflection of the past but rather a reflection of
how things need to be. That if we do not make the Mass more than a
priority in our lives then we could very well lose our ability to be
able to attend and miss out on so much. Fathers words are a reminder
that such a reality may very well happen given the state of things in
many dioceses.
The answers to the problems at hand
will not be easy to find. Mainly because there is no single root
cause for what we are dealing with. It is not a simple matter of men
and women answering the call to vocations. Or even people attending
Mass again. While those would indeed help with the matters at hand
they would only be a band-aid over much bigger issues. The reality is
that we have lost our way. We do this when we allow the distractions
of the world to remove us from the path of Christ. This happens when
we don't make an active effort to spend quality time in prayer.
Either by ourselves or as a family. Prayer becomes something to do in
times of crisis rather than something we do to open up our hearts to
the will of God. We tend to water down the importance of our faith by
allowing ourselves to embrace the sins of the world. This becomes
more of a problem when the “laws of the land” says such sins are
OK. We tend to make too many compromises and in the end we put God on
the back burner and no longer take our Catholic faith seriously. Such
issues remove us from the Body of Christ and the community that
becomes the core of our faith.
Homilies like Fr. Ron's show us the
passion that our Priests have for the faith and their concerns for
the future. It is also a wake up call to us as parishioners. A
reminder that we also have ownership in the fate of our communities.
Our personal goals should always live for Christ the best the we are
able to. We do this by living our lives the best that we can. Making
sure that we do not let these distractions take us away from God and
by extension the Mass itself. From there our ability to reach out and
evangelize will begin to plant the seeds that can help restore our
parishes. We should always use our talents to the best of our
abilities and to make use of those to help show people how important
our faith really is. If we can start from with in our own hearts then
perhaps we can open up the hearts of others to come home to the
Catholic faith. Even in this current age of so many distractions.
Till Next Time
-JM
