We can no longer ignore the declining numbers attending Mass

The View

As churches begin to re-open, we are full of anxious questions. Will people come back? Will we have to close again? How are we going to live in a post-pandemic world, which has changed utterly?

Everything that is revealed was always there but is only now fully visible”

The greatest danger is that we see this simply as an interruption, after which normal service will be resumed. Instead, we need to see it as a disruption, with the potential to be a holy disruption, something which opens us up to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Crises act as revealers and accelerators. An evangelical megachurch pastor, Carey Nieuwhof, used the metaphor of a lake being drained to describe the impact of Covid-19. Everything that is revealed was always there but is only now fully visible. People were uneasily aware of trends but unsure how to tackle them and often defaulted to the idea, as one priest put it to me, that “the Church will see me out”. The priest meant it in the sense that there would be enough of a recognisable Church around for him to minister to and he could leave the really big problems to whoever comes after him.

Mass

Covid-19 stepped on the accelerator and that option of deferring the facing of problems has been taken away from us. We can no longer ignore the declining numbers attending Mass. Some of our most stalwart attendees may never return, partly because they have discovered that, in the words of a title of an online talk given by Fr John Harris OP, “I enjoy watching Mass with a cup of tea.” Even the vaccinated may be wary of returning to large gatherings for a long time and each delay weakens the habit of Mass going.

Catholicism has been described as a religion of habit. Sometimes this is said disparagingly, as though the word ‘empty’ can always be understood before the word habit. But human beings have been designed to develop habits, to automate everything that can be automated and to reserve costly energy for things that need specific responses.

The ritual embeds values and shapes beliefs even though it is entirely secular”

If we are not developing Christian habits, we are developing something else. The Presbyterian, James KA Smith, in his trilogy of books on liturgy, says that we are constantly being shaped by liturgies, but today, they are mostly secular liturgies.

I live near Dundrum Town Centre in Dublin. In pre-coronavirus times, I was fascinated by young families who had a Sunday ritual. Up early, get the kids ready, into the car and head to Dundrum Town Centre for breakfast, followed by some therapeutic shopping. The ritual embeds values and shapes beliefs even though it is entirely secular.

However, essential as the Eucharist is to Catholics, it alone cannot create faithful, informed Catholics. Recently, in a book by Australian evangelical Mark Sayers, I came across a fascinating account of a British communist called Douglas Hyde.

He was an English political journalist and writer – no relation, to our first president, so far as I know. Mr Hyde was converted to communism in 1928. Ten years later, he became editor of the Daily Worker. He became disillusioned with communism, specifically the Soviet Union, and became a Catholic in 1948. He wrote a book about his conversion called I believed which sold a million copies and then a book called Dedication and Leadership in 1956 which described the small cell methods of the Communist Party.

Dedication and Leadership

He said in Dedication and Leadership that “coming straight, as it were, from one world to another, it astounded me that there should be people [Catholics] with such numbers at their disposal and with the truth on their side, going around weighed down by the thought that they were a small, beleaguered minority carrying on some sort of impossible fight against a big majority. The very concept was wrong. Psychologically, it was calamitous.”

In the book, he describes how small cells of three to 14 were organised among those eager to learn. Each week they had a few pages of communist theory to prepare. Any member could be called upon to present it to the others. More importantly, each meeting began with the question: How did you put this into practice last week? It ended with another question: How will you put this into practice next week?

Imagine if a similar structure were implemented in our parishes?

Online world

This crisis has presented opportunities as well as terrors. The online world has become part of parishes and the potential to use it for small groups is enormous. We need to move from a model of online activities that focuses on passive consumption to one that focuses on active connection. Most of all, we need to recognise that the Holy Spirit has not abandoned us. We need to actively follow hIs promptings and do the practical things that will allow His vision to flourish.