Michael Kelly
In business as in life, one of the killer phrases is “we’ve never done it that way before”. In the Church context we might well add: “We tried that before and it didn’t work.”
Those who seek to calibrate our lives and actions by the light of the Gospel would do well to be wary of such cynicism and avoid such pessimistic voices.
This is not a rallying cry to folly or to dismiss challenges, rather it is a signpost to the need for proper discernment within the Church.
The temptation to pessimism was something Pope St John XXIII was acutely aware of when he convoked the Second Vatican Council. He wrote that: “In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, it sometimes happens that we hear certain opinions which disturb us — opinions expressed by people who, though fired with a commendable zeal for religion, are lacking in sufficient prudence and judgment in their evaluation of events.
“We feel that we must disagree with these prophets of doom, who are always forecasting worse disasters, as though the end of the world were at hand,” John XXIII wrote.
A key part of the ministry of Pope Francis has been to call the Church to discernment. And what is central to discernment is to read the signs of the times not merely as they are, but in the light of the Gospel.
Challenges
There can be a tendency in the Church to look at the present challenges (fewer people attending Mass, less appetite for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a dearth of vocations, etc.) and see in them the work of the Holy Spirit.
That’s bad discernment. For sure, the Holy Spirit is there in the midst of the challenges and difficulties but to put the blame for our own lack of pastoral success at the foot of God is to renege on our baptismal mandate to work to build up the Body of Christ.
It’s not enough to throw one’s arms in the air while yelling “no one is interested”. Pope Francis constantly insists that if the Gospel is to be lived anew in every generation, the Church must find new ways to reach people.
Sometimes, the new ways will be not so much new, but re-finding tried and tested things like the sacraments in a new way.
As Fr Eugene O’Neill writes on page 15 of this week’s paper, the parish of St Patrick’s in Belfast, after years of dwindling numbers at penance services, went back to the drawing board. What they found was that when the Sacrament of Penance – Confession – was re-presented to parishioners and when they were equipped with the practicalities of how to avail of the sacrament, they jumped at the chance.
This is in stark contrast to the view articulated in some Church circles that would see Confession as a thing of the past.
Unnourished
Too often people turn their backs on the Church when they experience a felt need or turn to the Church and find themselves unnourished.
Successful pastoral strategies and initiatives are not magic. In some ways, there’s nothing new under the sun – but what the experience of St Patrick’s shows is that people are open to seeing things in new ways.
Maybe you did try it before, and maybe it didn’t work – but maybe it’s time to try again.