Continuing our look at Lumen Gentium
Wow, wow, wow! The pope just told a million youth at World
Youth Day that he wants them to go home and make a mess of their dioceses! He wants to set them on fire and then send
them home drifting on the winds like sparks to land where the wood and grass of
faith is dry and set those places on fire.
Luke 12:49, “"I have come to bring fire
on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”
Gads, I hope they have the energy to keep
burning when they hit barriers to this missioning. What I wouldn’t give to have the resources to
hire a team of ministers (and send them for schooling) at the parish just so
that we might implement all of the great ideas that come our way. I imagine more than a few of these firebrands
coming home and finding overworked, over harried, (or lazy) pastors and their
sparks growing dim – or worse yet – finding a mega-church that will say, “We’ll
take your energy and ideas and help them grow.”
But it need not be so, even if you have such a
pastor. Somewhere along the line we got
the idea that in order to be Church, we have to do EVERYTHING through the
parish. Granted, there are a lot of
advantages not the least of which include a common space, perhaps a budget, and
some legitimacy. But if we focus
everything we do at the parish, then we become a Catholic ghetto and those
places that most need exposure to the Word will never get it. The faith needs to seep into the fabric of
our society if it is to have any effect at all.
Not too long ago I spilled tomato sauce in the
refrigerator. Before I caught it, sauce
had dripped down behind shelves and under drawers – it was a mess. I had to take the refrigerator apart to clean
everywhere that needed cleaning. Places
that come in regular contact get cleaned now and then, but these hidden spaces
almost never. (It is an old bachelor
house.) If it hadn’t been for the sauce
reaching those hidden spots, they would have never been cleaned.
That is where to focus attention! Not only these youth, but all the People of
God need to soak in to those areas that “hierarchical Church,” or “parish,” or “diocesan
programs” don’t reach, which, quite frankly, is most of the world. According to paragraph 33, “The laity . . .
are given the special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in
those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can
become the salt of the earth. . . All the laity, then, have the exalted duty of
working for the ever greater spread of the divine plan of salvation to all men,
of every epoch and all over the earth.”
3 comments:
Please tell me that is not really your fridge. If so, that is probably where my red bowl is.
Very well written, Father. I am thrilled that Pope Francis has energized so many so soon in his Papacy. After "friending" him on Facebook my non-Catholic husband mentioned a number of comments and articles by some "old-timers" who are bothered by his changes and how he is modernizing the Church. I quickly corrected him and assured him that the Pope is not changing any doctrine, he is simply making the teachings more widely available to a new audience...exactly what is needed to grow.
Ha!
Not its not. Just a picture I found on line.
Good Ro!
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