Can you forgive God for suffering you and so many others experience?
Can you forgive God for creating a world in which the wrong things happen to the people you love?
Can you forgive yourself for inflicting hurt on others?
Can you forgive God for allowing His Son to suffer and to die on the cross?
As you venerate the cross tonight, as you embrace its mystery, please remember that God suffers each time one of His children suffers and dies.
1 comment:
Each Easter and Christmas, I see the usual pilgrimage of nominal, poorly catechized Catholics flock to mass, and yet, knowingly or unknowingly, they are the black sheep of the fold during their semi-annual visits. Are we, by benign neglect or willful disregard, condoning these infrequent visitations by lax or lapsed Catholics as admirable expressions of their Catholic faith that need no modification? It seems to me that there needs to be a proactive effort, while they are a captive audience at mass, to inculcate them back to their Catholic roots. This could be done in a few ways, but here are 2 examples.
1. Orient the homily to address these lapsed sheep of the true shepherd and wayward members of the body of Christ. You or Deacon Mike could easily do that.
2. Have a pamphlet prepared (Evangelization/Catechesis Committee?) that states the basic requirements of being a Catholic, basic beliefs of Catholicism, 12 articles of the Catholic faith, what are the holy days of obligation, etc. This pamphlet should be included with the handout of music that everyone picks up or is handed as they enter the narthex, before entering the sanctuary. It will give them something to read while their memories are jogged as to what will go on during the mass and at the Eucharistic celebration. Our regular parishioners could simply be advised the week before to take it home and return it the following week-end. However, I suspect that many of them would learn a thing or two about Catholicism by reading it as well. If regular parishioners set it on the table in the narthex as they leave, the black sheep will follow their behavior, which is what we do not want. On the top front of the pamphlet it should say 'Please Take This Home With You Today'. On the back of the pamphlet should be the church's website, and a contact email and phone number (person not secretary) to have questions answered or to pursue a dialogue.
It should trouble all parishioners to see this influx of nominal Catholics come so infrequently, and for most of them to receive the Eucharist! We can be fairly certain that many of them have not met the minimum expectations of being Catholic: reconciliation at least once per year, attendance at every Sunday mass and at holy days of obligation, observance of the laws of fast and abstinence, etc. In other words, most of these wanna-be Catholics have a litany of mortal sins that have not been confessed, either through ignorance, benign neglect, or total disregard for the rules of the Church. Isn't that what we are allowing to happen in the Lord's presence? The requirements of Catholicism, Paul's warning in 1Cor 11:17-22, and our own trained consciences should motivate us to act on these episodes of sacrilege by these semi-annual Catholics. Are we not partly to blame for this perennial pilgrimage of sinful Catholics to the communion rail, if we make no attempt to instruct or catechize them on what is proper and improper prior to the consecration and distribution of the Eucharist? There are sins of commission and sins of omission; this is a sin of omission that needs to be acted upon at St. Marys.
Post a Comment