Homily, 7-16-23; 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A:
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a one-day Archdiocesan event hosted by Archbishop Vigneron. It was called a Missionary Renewal Assembly, We heard a variety of speakers give testimonies regarding their Family of Parish activities and successes and stressing the need for new evangelization efforts. We heard about empty pews in our churches. Many are no longer attending Mass regularly, and many never returned after Covid shutdowns.
The archbishop spoke about his evangelization campaign, Unleash the Gospel, which was initiated three years ago as a result of a diocesan synod that he convened. He talked about a need for parishes to shift from a maintenance mode, where the focus is on caring for the current parishioners, to a missionary mode, where the focus is on unleashing the gospel, bringing the Good News to those outside our church doors. The archbishop invoked the example of the missionary zeal of the apostles and early disciples, and encouraged everyone to follow their example.
And as I sat there in the audience, two things struck me that didn’t quite square with the message that was being presented.
First, while there is a need to always have a missionary component of our parish efforts, it is my opinion that our current problems are not the result of being in a maintenance focus in the past. The problem is that there has been an extended period of ineffective maintenance in many of the parishes in the diocese. There are three components that I have observed in parishes that are vibrant and growing: good, reverent liturgies, the availability of the sacraments, and preaching consistent with the truth of Church teachings. These three things seem to be essential to good maintenance. Father often cites the studies that indicate how few Catholics believe in the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The 2019 Pew Research Center survey indicated that only 31% of those who claimed to be Catholics believe that “during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.” This sounds like a major maintenance problem. It is caused, in big part, by the lack of reverence for the Eucharist that occurs in many parishes. And when many lose their belief in the Eucharist, Mass becomes much less important. Why get up on Sunday morning to come receive a symbol? And, of those who are strong in their faith and want to share it with their neighbor, how many hesitate to invite a neighbor to join them on Sunday when they are embarrassed by the quality and casual atmosphere of the liturgy. Bad maintenance not only results in people losing their faith, it also makes missionary efforts more difficult. We need to pray for our priests that they instill a strong sense of reverence by their example, and that their preaching stays true to Church teaching.
So poor maintenance is partly at fault for creating the need to develop missionary programs, and that same time makes them more challenging. This is the first thing that struck me as I sat through the conference. And it led to the second thing. And that is that, while we were called to follow the example of the apostles, our missionary work is much different. The apostles and the early disciples were challenged to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to those who did not know about Him. But we are called to go out to those who know about Him and have walked away or rejected Him. It is much like the Bread of Life discourse in the Gospel of John, when Jesus taught the disciples that they must eat His Body and drink His Blood. Many found it hard to accept and we read: “As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” Is there really anyone in our families, or our communities, who doesn’t know or who hasn’t been exposed to the facts about who Jesus is? Our task is much different than that of the apostles.
And so we can’t just shift from maintenance mode to missionary mode. There needs to be a balance of the two. When we are successful in bringing new members into the Church, how many will we lose if we don’t feed them with the truth and good reverent liturgies and sacraments? Our situation is much like today’s parable about sowing seed, one that we have all heard many times. Unless we provide a well-prepared soil for faith to take root, that new-found faith will be in jeopardy. While I can’t find hard statistics, I’ve heard estimates that only 50% of those who join the Church at Eater Vigil are still attending Sunday Mass regularly one year later. These are people who made the commitment to attend weekly classes for many months and participate in the many prayerful Rites of Christian Initiation of Adults. And, yet, many still walk away soon after becoming Catholics.
We look at our friends and family members who no longer attend church regularly, or maybe not at all, who vote for pro-abortion politicians and for pro-abortion legislation. And we can try to understand why. Like the seed on the path, had their faith never taken root in the first place because they never truly had ears to hear and understand the faith? Or, like the seed on rocky ground, was their faith shaken by some scandal, or because they were offended by someone in authority, or because following the Church’s teaching would lead them to social persecution and bullying because many of the Church’s teachings are hard for our society to accept? Or, like the seed sown among thorns, have they become distracted and put worldly pursuits ahead of storing up treasures in Heaven? Knowing why someone has left the Church can possibly help in guiding them back, but in most cases it is not very effective because their hearts are hardened. I struggle in my mind to come up with something I could say or do to lead one of my many family members to return to the practice of the faith. They don’t have eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus references the prophet Isaiah this morning and says: “Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted, and I heal them.”
We can try to do our part to bring people back to the Church. We can start by understanding our faith better, not just what the Church teaches, but why she teaches it. The intent is not to try to argue someone into the faith, but so we can be prepared to answer questions and criticism when they arise. We can practice our faith and be people of joy even in the face of worldly trials and obstacles. This demonstrates that we truly believe in the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, that we are willing to make sacrifices to be part of it. As we heard from St. Paul this morning: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.” And if we truly believe these words and act accordingly, we can preach by our witness.
We can try to do our part, but ultimately it is the Holy Spirit who softens hearts. If we want to go unleash the gospel, a soil must be prepared that is not hard, or rocky, or full of thorns. And so along with our actions we must pray and fast for conversions of heart. Our path through life leads to one of two eternal destinations: Heaven or Hell. Let our prayers echo the words of today’s collect that father prayed earlier in the Mass: “O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path,”