More creativity is needed to get young back to Mass – bishop

More creative ways are needed to draw young people towards the Mass and into a vibrant faith life, Bishop Phonsie Cullinan has said.

Explaining how the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore has is seeking to employ a diocesan co-ordination for Faith formation and New Evangelisation, Bishop Cullinan told The Irish Catholic that huge efforts are needed in “the whole area of evangelisation which is the mission of the Church, especially in these days when priests are under so much pressure”.

Stressing the urgency of the need for coordinated and thorough evangelisation in Ireland, Dr Cullinan said the new position was first mooted at a recent meeting of the diocesan senate of priests, he said, but was expanded so as to enable the diocese to reach out and do “old things in a new way”.

Language

“In the West especially we have to find new ways of telling old truths, of putting across the Gospel message in a way and in a language that connects with the modern mind,” he said, continuing, “we can’t just do the same old things in the same old way.”

He witnessed an excellent example of evangelical innovation on June’s diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes, he said.

“The Irish had a Mass for everything – we had an opening Mass, we had an anointing Mass, we had a grotto Mass, we had a final Mass,” he said.

While this pilgrimage experience was “wonderful”, he was intrigued to see what a French pilgrim group to the shrine was doing, describing it as “a real eye-opener”.

“They gathered a very large number of young people in one of the big halls across the river in the Cote du Grotte, and had a young person being interviewed about their Faith, witnessing to their Faith, they had really good music, they had catechesis, and they didn’t have Mass for those youngsters on that day” he said.

“That’s thinking outside the box, that’s doing something different – you want to lead people to the Mass, but first of all there has to be a connection with the person of Jesus,” he said, asking, “How many Irish people understand that they’re meeting Jesus in the Mass?”