by Father Bob Bedard, CC
1. Be very convinced that God wants your parish to be transformed. He wants all your people baptized with the Holy Spirit. He wants divine fire to burn in you and in your church. He wants to place there such a strong anointing that everyone who enters the building will sense it and be blessed.
2. Preach the basic Gospel message, the call to surrender all to Jesus. As part of the homily, do it every Sunday. Ask the Lord each week for a new way to say it. Ask the people if they’re satisfied with the condition of the Church, their parish, their families and their own lives. Ask them if they think God is satisfied. Ask them if they believe He has power to turn those things around. Then, ask them if they’re willing to let Him do it. This is only one way to put it. There are many others.
3. Try to spend at least an hour a day in personal prayer (not including the liturgy of the hours or the rosary). Keep a journal. If you have questions to ask the Lord, write them down. Any time you think He is saying something to you. write it down too.
4. Give the Lord full permission to do with you and the parish whatever He wants.
5. Stop doing many of the things you’re doing. Don’t do paper work. Don’t lock and unlock the church. Go to very few meetings. Don’t conduct wedding rehearsals. Get your own visitors to the sick to make regular visitations to them. When Confession is required, go yourself. Don’t take responsibility for the physical ‘plant’. Don’t involve yourself with finances at all.
6. Get hold of a personal (not parish) secretary, someone who can be trained to think with your mind. He can answer most of your mail, make most of your telephone calls and bring your word to most of the meetings. Keep informed, but learn how to delegate.
7. Don’t ask for volunteers. Ask the Lord to point to the people He wants you to have. Volunteers may be making themselves available to fulfill needs of their own.
8. Never use the word “charismatic”. Although it’s a good and useful word and you may understand it very well, it simply scares a lot of people and divides congregations. Speak rather of the ‘way’ of the Holy Spirit and the incredible historical treasure of the Catholic Church. Avoid Pentecostal jargon such as “saved”, “born again”, “Spirit-filled”, “burden for you”, “pray over”, “back-slidden”, slain in the Spirit”, “God told me”, etc.
9. Find Catholic expressions that say the same things, like “sanctifying grace”, “spiritual awakening”, “prompted by the Holy Spirit”, “praying for you”, “pray with”, “in serious sin”, “resting in the Spirit”, “I think the Lord may be saying”, etc
10. Cast away all fear. It doesn’t matter what people think of say. We have to stop being people-pleasers. We have only to please God. Don’t be afraid of what the bishop may say or do if interesting things begin to be happening in your parish. Keep him informed. That’s only being fair to him. And, with very few exceptions in the U.S. and Canada, you’ll probably be quite surprised at how pleased the bishop may be when he hears what’s going on.
11. Ask the Lord for a holy boldness. In the Lord’s time, introduce the altar call. Don’t call it that. Call it something like ‘commitment time’. Have the names and telephone numbers recorded of those giving their lives to the Lord and have them followed up.
12. Seek relationship with other priests who are in the same spiritual space as you are. Ask God to lead you to them. Assemble with them on a regular basis, share your blessings and struggles, pray with one another and simply spend time together.
13. Insist on first-class liturgy. Find someone who can understand it and oversee the whole operation, music included.
14. Keep yourself healthy. Eat the right stuff. Get advice from a nutritionist. Exercise regularly. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a gift from God. Take good care of it and it will be an effective instrument in God’s hand much longer then most people, including you, would predict or expect.
15. Don’t lose your sense of humour. Make sure it comes out when you preach. Poke fun at yourself. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Always take God seriously, but not yourself.
If you’re a parish priest, believe me, Father, I’m on your side. I’ve been there. The above suggestions are based on my own experience and prayer. I’ve seen good things happen. They’re possible. The suggestions actually work. Give them a try. And let’s keep in touch.
I don’t imagine for a minute the above is a complete formula for parish renewal, but how about starting with this?
Thursday, February 21, 2008
An Unlikely Agenda
Fr. Bob Bedard, CC
To suggest that the Church needs renewal is not to place one’s self in opposition to it, but
rather to stand within it at its very heart. To espouse the cause of reform is to obey the
voice of God himself, just the way good Pope John XXIII did when he called the Second
Vatican council, just as all the bishops of the Church did on that occasion where they
assembled in Rome to pray, to share, to invoke the Lord’s wisdom, to listen to the Holy
Spirit’s promptings, and to obey his directions.
The Church has always stood in need of renewal. It is divine in its founder and head, but
very human in its members. The Latin statement “ecclesia semper reformanda” (the
Church always needs to be reformed), used repeatedly by Pope John during the
preparations for the Council and as it actually got underway has set the tone for the
Church in this age.
The council’s decisions and documents have charted the course the Spirit of God has
given even though many years have passed, they have only begun to be implemented.
I am convinced that Vatican II was an act of the providence of God, a very tangible
intervention on his part, designed to begin preparing the Church for the momentous times
we are now only starting to move through.
The timing of the council was remarkable. It began as the foundational structures of
human society, for some years weakening and sagging noticeably, began to fall badly
apart. The elation experienced in the wake of World War II came to a jolting halt. The
family, society’s very basic unit, was crumbling in the face of a soaring divorce rate.
Respect for parents went into a corresponding nose dive. Traditional moral values, now
called freely into question, were everywhere sinking.
Those in the forefront of the entertainment industry began to vie with one another to see
who could contrive the most daring or permissive presentation. Scandals broke out in the
highest political circles. Cults proliferated. Violence in the streets and a general spirit of
lawlessness grew. The so-called ‘cold war’ intensified with the Cuban missile crisis and
other frightening confrontations between nations, some of whom had nuclear capability
and were threatening to use it. The abortion movement began to flourish as never before
and the assault on the most helpless of all human beings, the unborn, escalated to new
levels. Authority was questioned on all sides. Certainty seemed to disappear. the media
became more and more cynical as nothing whatever remained sacred. The word
rebellion’ is not too strong a term to describe it. The rebellious generation had arrived.
The Church itself was not unaffected by all this. Attendance at Sunday Mass
began to drop sharply, even in places that had been universally regarded as veritable
bulwarks of the Catholic faith. Quebec, where the alienation from the Church has been
devastating, is only one example of this phenomenon. Dissent became popular as
scholars eagerly lined up to take issue with official Church teaching. The reaction to Paul
VI’s Humanae Vitae was but the tip of the iceberg. Resignations from the priesthood and
the religious life became commonplace as a badly shaken Catholic population continued
to wonder whatever had gone wrong. Seminaries and religious houses, not so long before
fairly teeming with activity, began to empty. Many closed altogether. The Catholic
divorce rate, once strikingly low, climbed in most places to everybody else’s average.
The overall result has been a wide spread confusion throughout the Church.
Vatican II was planted in our midst just as all this was breaking out. Can we have any
doubt at all that the Lord knew well what he was doing?
The Church is in need of renewal. In this age we have simply not had the power to deal
with all this. The Lord has never intended the Church to live without the power
something that only he has, to carry out the mission he has entrusted to us from the
beginning.
It is not as though the Lord’s power is unavailable to us. It is and always has
been. He withholds it only to call us to a deeper faithfulness to him. He wants us to hear
what he is saying to us today. END OF SECTION 1.
I believe the Lord is saying that, in order to bring us forward to minister to a world that is
in the process of falling apart at the seams, he wants to bring us back to unity that we
have not experienced for a long, long time. He is telling us he will not tolerate the
present situation much longer.
The Church is badly divided. Not only are there hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
different Christian denominations, there are serious divisions within the Catholic Church
itself. Although the present Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, is continually and
with great emphasis pleading with us to come together in a unity of belief and practice, to
“be of one mind and one heart” ( ), as St. Paul would say, we remain badly divided.
We demand the right to dissent from official church positions and we don’t hesitate too
long to disobey directives from those who are in lawful authority over us. The Lord
wants us to hear his word. “Obey your elders,” the author of Hebrews tells us, “for it is
they who must give account.” “( ).
The divisions within the Church are a scandal, not only the factions within our own fold,
but also our separation from the other authentically Christian Churches. This has never
been the Lord’s intention. We have to get very serious about patching up our
differences. The Lord ha actually not left us any option.
The New Testament is filled with relevant references, but, to me, the most telling passage
is recorded for us by St. John. He recounts what I would call Jesus’ most fervent and
impassioned prayer on our behalf: “Father, that they may be one, just as you and I are
one….. (John 17:21)
Jesus puts his finger on the basic reason we do not experience the power to deal
effectively with our present situation. Can we not see it? Our principal mission is to
proclaim the Good News of salvation and call people to embrace it by throwing their lot
in with Jesus Christ, but we fall so badly short.
Do we not know that it is our division that rob our proclamation of the gospel
of the power with which God has always wanted to endow it.
Jesus said it plainly: if we are not one, the world will have trouble believing the truth we
proclaim.
Despite admirable efforts, Catholic non-Catholic alike, to reach the world for Christ, the
world does not believe. Although we are practically covering the globe with a televised
witness, our efforts have relatively small effect. Missionaries in every corner of the
world work tirelessly to bring the message of salvation, but the results are not very close
to what they yearn and pray for. We have not even been able to
reach our own cities. They remain largely unevangelized.
Where’s the power? Where’s the power to reach the great mass of non-believers the
world over? Where’s the power to bring those we call ‘nominal’ Catholics and other
Christians into a lively faith? Where’s the power to transform the comfortable pew and
galvanize it into a body of eagerly committed followers of Jesus, fully yielded to the
prompting of the Holy Spirit, and anxious to carry out every facet of the
Father’s will?
Our divisions have done us in. Our disunity is the principal barrier to a powerfully
effective witness to the truth of Jesus’ gospel. END OF SECTION 2.
I believe the Lord is speaking a rather startling word to us today about all this. Unlikely
as it may seem, God intends to restore his Church to a much deeper experience of his
power and to full unity in our day. He means to deal with our present situation, and, in
fact, has already begun.
This is not the kind of prediction one makes if one wants to sound like an astute observer
of the human scene. To suggest that the Church as seriously divided as it is, is coming
soon to a radically new day, a day of power and unity, is to sound preposterous. To
maintain that such a move is already well underway is surely to lose credibility
in the eyes of all sensible people.
Yet, this is what I maintain. It is, to say the least, a very unlikely agenda.
I believe the signs are all in place. I believe the Lord has given us a clear word and
every indication that he is quite ready and able to intervene at this point in history to
renew his Church, to conform it to his original plan.
Unlikely, you say? No question about it: It is extremely unlikely. But that does not have
to stop the Lord. In fact, if it’s unlikely, all the more reason. I would suggest, to believe
it. The Lord seems to be in the business of doing unlikely things. END OF SECTION 3.
Can we not see the Lords’ hand in many of the vents of the last few years?
Even if we limit ourselves to the Catholic context, the one I’m most familiar with, the pattern, I believe, is unmistakable.
When, Pope PiusXII died in 1958, the cardinals, the present day Church’s principal elders, gathered in conclave to elect his successor. Predictions, inevitably came from all quarters as to who would be called to the chair of Peter. But the man selected as bishop of Rome was an unexpected, or unlikely, choice. Angelo Roncalli, the archbishop of Venice, was in his late seventies and was said to be an ‘interim’ pope and one who would preside for a few years until electors could come to more of a consensus. His summons to the papal office was considered a compromise, and very little was expected of him.
But John XXIII surprised everybody. Several months after he became pope, he to a dumbfounded Roman audience, an assembly which included a good number of curial officials, that he intended to convoke a general council of the Church. There hadn’t been one for almost a hundred years and it came like a bolt from the blue. It was unlikely. Pope John told his listeners that he had felt ‘prompted’ in prayer by the Holy Spirit.
The reaction that most seasoned observers expected from the curia, the Church’s administrative arm, was vigorous protest. The work burden to be thrown upon them was enormous. Organizing a council is a gigantic task. But the various congregations, after a bit of mild demurring, bowed to the pontiff’s wishes and pitched in with a will to make the necessary preparations. This was surprising.
The first document published by the Vatican Council, the one that remains as its major achievement, Lumen Gentium, was a statement on the nature of the church. It is a masterful synthesis of what the church of Christ was founded to be. It is widely quoted and is regarded as a landmark in ecclesiology.
(page 14) Unexpectedly, right in the middle of the document, ( ) specific l mention is made of the charisms of the Holy Spirit as outlined by St. Paul (1Cor12: ). The point is made that these have always been present in the church and are intended by the Lord as ministry gifts. They are to be used to build up the Body of Christ, while we are cautioned to focus not on the gifts of the Lord but on the Lord of the gifts, we are urged to cultivate and to treasure the gifts. Surprising?
At the opening of the Council on , 1962, the Holy Father had led the bishops, advisors, and observers in prayer. The text is well known. He had begged the Father in Jesus’ name to send the Holy Spirit upon the Church in this age “as in a new Pentecost.”
Shortly after the Council’s close waves of renewal began to multiply throughout the Church. The surprising charismatic renewal was one of these. The little seen charisms of the Holy Spirit, made specific mention of in the Council’s Lumen Gentium, began to be experienced at every level of the Church. Another unlikely event.
In mid-council, his God given task, we must believe, completed, good Pope John died. His earthly journey finished, he proceeded toward that complete union with God for which he had, like any true believer, long yearned. The archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Baptista martini, succeeded to the papal office.
It was just as Paul VI was beginning his new task that the so many of the underpinnings of human society seemed to begin to give way. The age of protest and rebellion was underway in earnest.
Pope Paul was, by nature, a rather timid and retiring type of man. Though he had accepted his election to the papacy as a call from God himself, the very public nature of his ministry (no office in the world is more subject to such an intense, never-ending scrutiny), was among his greatest burdens. Yet, the way he was able to hold the Church together and keep it on the Lord’s track, despite his being constantly buffeted from all sides, was truly remarkable. It was unlikely.
The death of his successor, Pope John Paul I, was unexpected, of course. But surely the election of the present pontiff was one of the most startling surprises of the modern age. The first non-Italian in hundreds of years and from behind the iron curtain at that! The world was stunned. The hand of God? Unexpected, to say the least.
I was present at the 1954 American charismatic conference at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Among the sharings was one by Sally Lynch, one of the directors of the Association of Christian Therapists. She testified to an unusual experience she felt the Lord had given her sometime in the mid-seventies, while Pope Paul VI was bishop of Rome. One night she had a remarkable clear dream in which she saw the face of a man, a total stranger to her. So vivid was it that she woke with a start. She puzzled over it for a minute or two, then sat on the edge of her bed and asked the Lord if he were saying anything to her. She had the sense he was saying to her: “Pray for this man. He will be Pope.”
When Paul VI died and the college of cardinals chose John Paul I, she knew this was not the man in here dream and she began to question the whole experience. But, a few short weeks later, when she saw the picture of the present Holy Father, she had every reason to believe again in the supernatural (nature of the dream. John Paul II’s face was the one she had seen!
I see the hand of God in all this in an unmistakable way. He has something very unusual in mind these days. These are momentous times, pivotal, I believe in the history of the world, and the Lord is leaving no stone unturned to prepare his people for what lies ahead.
And his surprises continue to this day. Without trying to influence or anticipate the officially appointed commission that is discerning it at present, I feel compelled to give my own unqualified endorsement to a series of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary that are reported to be taking place, even at this writing, in Yugoslavia. I cannot say without reservation that these are authentic. I can say only that I believe them to be so.
She comes as a true prophet, sent by the Father with a message for the Lord’s people. She calls us to turn away from the sinful patterns in our lives and to turn back in total conversion to the Lord. She urges those who are in the process of doing this to pray and fast that millions of others will do the same. Unless we come back to the Lord in great numbers, she adds, the world stands in grave danger of a major calamity of disastrous proportions.
These visits of the Lord’s prophet to the five young Croatians have been occurring virtually every day since June 24, 1981. A truly surprising and unexpected initiative of the Lord on behalf of his people. Very unlikely.
These are but a few of the Lord’s many unusual interventions in this current age. And this is only from a Catholic perspective. I’m sure our non-Catholic brothers and sisters could share similar observations.
Lest we lose sight of the Lord’s overall agenda for this time, let us hear it again: God intends to restore power and unity to his church in our day. We all know how unlikely this sounds. Perhaps all the more reason to believe it. END OF SECTION 3.
The prophet Amos says: “The Lord never does anything without first revealing it to his servants, the prophets.” (Amos 3:7). The Lord is ready and able to intervene in human affairs whenever a faithful, repentant people come persevering before him in intercession. Although his moves will catch the world off guard, his people, provided they are listening, will be ready.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the ‘angelic doctor’, expressed the consistent teaching of the church right from the beginning when he said that the Lord never leaves his people without the prophetic word, that he sends prophets to every age of the Church. Our age is surely no exception.
It is my firm conviction that the Lord has provided us with two major prophets today” the man in white who occupies the chair of Peter and the day clothed with the Lord’s own radiance who comes from heaven to us.
As is customary, prophets agree. It is profoundly enlightening and moving to note how strikingly similar are the words that Mary and John Paul are speaking.
One example might be in order for now. Marty is reported to have said in Medjugorje that as the Lord renews his Church, his glory is going to be manifested most in Russia. One doesn’t say things like that if one wants to sound good. It is a very unlikely word. And yet, she said something very much the same at Fatima in 1917. While it was in the throes of a convulsive revolution, a third rate world power at best, she said that Russia would spread its errors (atheistic communism) throughout the world. This has been fulfilled. She also said Russia would be converted and an era of peace would be granted to mankind.
I recently heard Father Tom Forest relate a private conversation he had about a year ago with Pope John Paul. They got to discussing the present State of the Church in Europe, not especially encouraging at the moment. Father Forest told the Holy Father he thought the day was coming when missionaries from the third world would have to come to bring the faith back to Europe. The pope’s reply was astounding. He said something like” ‘Yes, I believe there’s some truth to that. But I have a very deep sense that the major effort to re-Christianize Europe is going to come from Russia. ‘Amazing’! Are we listening to the prophets the Lord has provided for us? Are we taking them seriously? END OF SECTION 4.
The prophetic word has a remarkable consistency to it. The Lord is pointing us to a time of revival within the church that, perhaps, many of us have only dreamed of. He has been speaking of a rather thorough-going restoration of the whole Church, something that, in all probability, is difficult for us to envision. We are anxious to believe him, but perhaps, find ourselves puzzled as to how it will all come about. Though it may tend to boggle our minds a bit, we can understand what the end product may look like. But the process, how we are to get there, may have us puzzled.
However, the Lord, through his prophetic ministers, has not exactly been silent about the process.
Listen to what Pope John Paul II said in Fulda, Germany in November 1980: “We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future, trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, a total gift of self to Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it. It is only in this way that the Christ can be effectively renewed.”
The pope speaks of a time of trial, of testing, that is coming upon the world. But we are not to be in fear or dismay, he says, because it is only through such an experience that the church can be purified. He even seems to be urging us to rejoice in great anticipation of what the Lord is in the process of doing.
Those who know him well and see him frequently say the Holy Father seems to be driven forward by a great sense of urgency. Despite the pleading of many that he make changes in his schedule, that he reduce his sixteen and seventeen hour working days and cut down on his pilgrimages, as he calls them, of faith, hope and love, he presses on. His work-load is staggering. Those who try to keep up with him for even a few days at a time inevitably wind up exhausted. But, if anything, he is actually picking up the pace instead of slowing down.
He said in Winnipeg (September, 1984) that we must never resist the Holy Spirit. As he repeated the word ‘never’ a couple of times with a rising crescendo, the people responded with a thundering affirmation. It occurred to me that this was the sacred behind his seemingly boundless energy, his ----- will, his never-flagging determination to speak the Lord’s word and do what he’s doing. He does not resist the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God drives him on..
The urgency is not new with him. When, as Cardinal Woytyla from Poland, he attended in 1976 the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, he said: “We are now facing the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever gone through. I do not think the wide circle of American society or the wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now up against the final confrontation between church and anti-Church, Gospel and anti-Gospel.”
His reading of the signs of the times comes, I am convinced, from his openness to the Holy Spirit. I believe the Lord is speaking this within him. Unfortunately, not all of us are listening.
Mary, too, appearing in Medjugorje,sent by the Lord to prophesy to the Church, is saying the same thing. She makes frequent reference to the fact that we stand on the brink of world-wide cataclysm, a profound shaking of the structures of human society, something we are ill-prepared for. As the level of din rises, she says, the degree of breakdown increases. A time of severe judgment just may be on its way. But, through it all, the Church is to be dealt with, trimmed up, purified, brought into a far-reaching state of renewal. Again, the prophets agree. And they are not alone.
Catherine Doherty is the foundress of the Madonna House community in Combermere, Ontario. She is a widely read author of several books on the spiritual life. The community has gained admiration and respect throughout the entire Christian world for the admirable simplicity of its life-style, its aggressive pursuit of the Lord’s wisdom through the use of the pustinia in particular, and its total dedication to the service of the poor. Mrs. Doherty, “the B”, as she is affectionately called, has long been listening with great care to the Lord. For the past ten years she has been sensing the approach of a time of profound universal disturbance, a kind of large-scale breakdown of the structures of human society. She has urged the community to become as self-sufficient as it can so that, if need be, they can teach the rest of us how to live as they do.
The gift of prophecy, never absent from the Church in any age, has been undergoing an interesting revival of late, especially within the ranks of the charismatic renewal. Numerous prophecies, well tested and discerned, have been making mention of the coming time of trial for the world, purification for the Church, and triumph for the Lord through his people. At the international conference of 1975, held in Rome, words of just this kind were spoken in St. Peter’s basilica. “Days of darkness are coming upon the world, but a day of glory is coming upon the Church…victory for your God.” the
Message went on to speak of “a day of evangelization that the world has never seen.” In fact, for the last 150 years, the burden of Catholic prophecy has been precisely the same. Different deeply prayerful people, like
Have spoken of a major series of disasters to fall upon the world in the latter part of the twentieth century. Pope Leo XIII claimed to have had an inner vision from the Lord to the effect that the works of Satan would multiply, that he would plunder and divide the Church, and that it would all come to a kind of climax after about a hundred years. That’s why he instituted the prayers after Mass that some of us will remember, the Leonine prayers they came to be called, which, among other things, invoke the protection of the archangel Michael, the one who battles the great dragon (Rev. ---). He received his word from the Lord in 1884.
So, perhaps, we must look to and be prepared for a series of disasters which will massively disturb and re-arrange the structures under which we live. The roots of some civilizations could even be pulled right up.
The nature of the shaking? Hard to say. Most of us think right away of nuclear war. That may or may not be it. Or all of it. It might involve a string of natural calamities, a collapse of the world’s economy, a breakdown of law and order, a rise of totalitarian regimes, or perhaps a combination of them all.
Am I trying to frighten people? Not at all. The word to concentrate on is the promise of the restoration of the Church. The Lord’s own victory. Let’s not forget that at Fatima Mary promised an era of peace. We’re getting close to that, no matter what happens, we really have nothing to fear. Those who trust in the Lord have him, as their rock of refuge. The real believer knows that, even if he has to pay with his life, the Lord will deliver him to eternal glory. Mary speaks encouraging words at Medjugorje. Pope John Paul tells us not to fear, but to anticipate with eagerness the long-awaited purification of the Church.
Let’s try to sum if all up. It just may be that the Lord is telling us something like the following could occur in the foreseeable future, perhaps much sooner than we think.
1) the world may experience a time of severe trial and see its most reliable structures collapse; The Church may experience a thorough going purification in the Lord’s power and to full unity;
2) An extended era of peace may follow the period of turmoil.
END OF SECTION 5.
A very severe shaking may shortly be in store for the human race and the planet we inhabit. The root cause of it all is our sinfulness, our rebellion against God and his law. We have to expect to suffer the consequences of our own actions. We may be in for an experience of what is called the judgment of God.
But there is an understanding we need to have about this that we do not yet have. It is not so much that God is just waiting till our rebellion against him reaches a certain point so that he can then intervene and give us the treatment we deserve. It is, rather, that our society and the earth we live on tend to get out of order to the degree that God’s law is broken.
The Lord has created the universe and everything in it to follow a certain set of laws. All the inanimate things and the non-human animate creatures obey these laws automatically. But mankind, the highest order of the universe’s creation, is free to choose. Because there is a unity to creation, order tends to break down at all levels in proportion to the degree that we human beings disregard the laws of God under which we are meant to live.
We are talking about sin, the breaking of God’s law. We are one with the earth in a way our native people understand better than we do. As we rise in rebellion against God, are more and more sinful nature tends to use in rebellion against us. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes and the like multiply. Strange weather patterns become more frequent. Drought or flood will be more common, and unfortunate food shortages follow But it isn’t as though God is sending these disasters because we’re offending him. It’s all built into creation’s design. It is planned to follow an orderly set of laws. When the laws are broken, things tend to break down.
If war, crime, violence, poverty, hunger, starvation, disease etc are on the rise, and it would seem they are, we need look no further for the cause than human sin.
It is not that God sends us direct punishment. It is not he who is the cause of our problems. We ourselves are the reason for the ills human society faces. It is our sin, our refusal to submit to the Lord’s order, that does us in.
END OF SECTION 6.
God is on the move. His plans for his people far exceed our own. He means to accomplish nothing less than the restoration of the Church to full power and full unity.
But it will not likely happen without considerable difficulty. The renewal will probably come as the result of considerable purification. It may well be preceded by a period of fairly severe trial.
Is the trial inevitable? It is impossible to say, I guess but it is my own firm opinion that it is. I believe we are headed for very tough times. I feel the intensity of it all can be mitigated by our prayer and fasting. And as well, the length of time it will take can be shortened by what we do.
It is pointless to speculate for very long on the nature of the trial. Most people will think first of a nuclear exchange. This may not be it. It could be an economic collapse. All it would take would be for a few of the nations of the south to renege on their debt payments. The large banks that hold the mortgages would begin to fold and considerable political chaos would not be far off. It could be a proliferation of natural disasters. It could be a combination of many factors.
In any case, the Lord does not want us to concentrate on the trials we may have to face. He wants us to concentrate on him. Jesus continually urged his followers to trust him in such a complete way that there must remain no room for fear. “Fear not, little flock”, he said. “it has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom” ( ).
We have every reason to believe he is giving us the same assurance today. No matter what circumstances conspire, the news is awfully good. A great victory for the Lord is in sight. After all, at Fatima, Mary did promise the conversion of Russia and an era of peace.
These are critical times. Momentous events could well unfold. What a challenge for the Lord’s people, the Church! What a privilege for us if we can be part of it!
As the world endures a through shaking, the Church will undergo an extensive purification. So goes the thinking of many who are trying to listen attentively to the Lord.
What will the Church look like after it is purified? No doubt it will be more conformed to the original pattern left to us by Jesus himself. In any case, we should not really try to anticipate the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit.
My conviction, nonetheless, and it is strictly from me and not from the Lord, as St. Paul would say ( ), is that the Church in its restored condition will be fully evangelical, fully pentecostal, and full catholic.
To suggest that the Church needs renewal is not to place one’s self in opposition to it, but
rather to stand within it at its very heart. To espouse the cause of reform is to obey the
voice of God himself, just the way good Pope John XXIII did when he called the Second
Vatican council, just as all the bishops of the Church did on that occasion where they
assembled in Rome to pray, to share, to invoke the Lord’s wisdom, to listen to the Holy
Spirit’s promptings, and to obey his directions.
The Church has always stood in need of renewal. It is divine in its founder and head, but
very human in its members. The Latin statement “ecclesia semper reformanda” (the
Church always needs to be reformed), used repeatedly by Pope John during the
preparations for the Council and as it actually got underway has set the tone for the
Church in this age.
The council’s decisions and documents have charted the course the Spirit of God has
given even though many years have passed, they have only begun to be implemented.
I am convinced that Vatican II was an act of the providence of God, a very tangible
intervention on his part, designed to begin preparing the Church for the momentous times
we are now only starting to move through.
The timing of the council was remarkable. It began as the foundational structures of
human society, for some years weakening and sagging noticeably, began to fall badly
apart. The elation experienced in the wake of World War II came to a jolting halt. The
family, society’s very basic unit, was crumbling in the face of a soaring divorce rate.
Respect for parents went into a corresponding nose dive. Traditional moral values, now
called freely into question, were everywhere sinking.
Those in the forefront of the entertainment industry began to vie with one another to see
who could contrive the most daring or permissive presentation. Scandals broke out in the
highest political circles. Cults proliferated. Violence in the streets and a general spirit of
lawlessness grew. The so-called ‘cold war’ intensified with the Cuban missile crisis and
other frightening confrontations between nations, some of whom had nuclear capability
and were threatening to use it. The abortion movement began to flourish as never before
and the assault on the most helpless of all human beings, the unborn, escalated to new
levels. Authority was questioned on all sides. Certainty seemed to disappear. the media
became more and more cynical as nothing whatever remained sacred. The word
rebellion’ is not too strong a term to describe it. The rebellious generation had arrived.
The Church itself was not unaffected by all this. Attendance at Sunday Mass
began to drop sharply, even in places that had been universally regarded as veritable
bulwarks of the Catholic faith. Quebec, where the alienation from the Church has been
devastating, is only one example of this phenomenon. Dissent became popular as
scholars eagerly lined up to take issue with official Church teaching. The reaction to Paul
VI’s Humanae Vitae was but the tip of the iceberg. Resignations from the priesthood and
the religious life became commonplace as a badly shaken Catholic population continued
to wonder whatever had gone wrong. Seminaries and religious houses, not so long before
fairly teeming with activity, began to empty. Many closed altogether. The Catholic
divorce rate, once strikingly low, climbed in most places to everybody else’s average.
The overall result has been a wide spread confusion throughout the Church.
Vatican II was planted in our midst just as all this was breaking out. Can we have any
doubt at all that the Lord knew well what he was doing?
The Church is in need of renewal. In this age we have simply not had the power to deal
with all this. The Lord has never intended the Church to live without the power
something that only he has, to carry out the mission he has entrusted to us from the
beginning.
It is not as though the Lord’s power is unavailable to us. It is and always has
been. He withholds it only to call us to a deeper faithfulness to him. He wants us to hear
what he is saying to us today. END OF SECTION 1.
I believe the Lord is saying that, in order to bring us forward to minister to a world that is
in the process of falling apart at the seams, he wants to bring us back to unity that we
have not experienced for a long, long time. He is telling us he will not tolerate the
present situation much longer.
The Church is badly divided. Not only are there hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
different Christian denominations, there are serious divisions within the Catholic Church
itself. Although the present Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, is continually and
with great emphasis pleading with us to come together in a unity of belief and practice, to
“be of one mind and one heart” ( ), as St. Paul would say, we remain badly divided.
We demand the right to dissent from official church positions and we don’t hesitate too
long to disobey directives from those who are in lawful authority over us. The Lord
wants us to hear his word. “Obey your elders,” the author of Hebrews tells us, “for it is
they who must give account.” “( ).
The divisions within the Church are a scandal, not only the factions within our own fold,
but also our separation from the other authentically Christian Churches. This has never
been the Lord’s intention. We have to get very serious about patching up our
differences. The Lord ha actually not left us any option.
The New Testament is filled with relevant references, but, to me, the most telling passage
is recorded for us by St. John. He recounts what I would call Jesus’ most fervent and
impassioned prayer on our behalf: “Father, that they may be one, just as you and I are
one….. (John 17:21)
Jesus puts his finger on the basic reason we do not experience the power to deal
effectively with our present situation. Can we not see it? Our principal mission is to
proclaim the Good News of salvation and call people to embrace it by throwing their lot
in with Jesus Christ, but we fall so badly short.
Do we not know that it is our division that rob our proclamation of the gospel
of the power with which God has always wanted to endow it.
Jesus said it plainly: if we are not one, the world will have trouble believing the truth we
proclaim.
Despite admirable efforts, Catholic non-Catholic alike, to reach the world for Christ, the
world does not believe. Although we are practically covering the globe with a televised
witness, our efforts have relatively small effect. Missionaries in every corner of the
world work tirelessly to bring the message of salvation, but the results are not very close
to what they yearn and pray for. We have not even been able to
reach our own cities. They remain largely unevangelized.
Where’s the power? Where’s the power to reach the great mass of non-believers the
world over? Where’s the power to bring those we call ‘nominal’ Catholics and other
Christians into a lively faith? Where’s the power to transform the comfortable pew and
galvanize it into a body of eagerly committed followers of Jesus, fully yielded to the
prompting of the Holy Spirit, and anxious to carry out every facet of the
Father’s will?
Our divisions have done us in. Our disunity is the principal barrier to a powerfully
effective witness to the truth of Jesus’ gospel. END OF SECTION 2.
I believe the Lord is speaking a rather startling word to us today about all this. Unlikely
as it may seem, God intends to restore his Church to a much deeper experience of his
power and to full unity in our day. He means to deal with our present situation, and, in
fact, has already begun.
This is not the kind of prediction one makes if one wants to sound like an astute observer
of the human scene. To suggest that the Church as seriously divided as it is, is coming
soon to a radically new day, a day of power and unity, is to sound preposterous. To
maintain that such a move is already well underway is surely to lose credibility
in the eyes of all sensible people.
Yet, this is what I maintain. It is, to say the least, a very unlikely agenda.
I believe the signs are all in place. I believe the Lord has given us a clear word and
every indication that he is quite ready and able to intervene at this point in history to
renew his Church, to conform it to his original plan.
Unlikely, you say? No question about it: It is extremely unlikely. But that does not have
to stop the Lord. In fact, if it’s unlikely, all the more reason. I would suggest, to believe
it. The Lord seems to be in the business of doing unlikely things. END OF SECTION 3.
Can we not see the Lords’ hand in many of the vents of the last few years?
Even if we limit ourselves to the Catholic context, the one I’m most familiar with, the pattern, I believe, is unmistakable.
When, Pope PiusXII died in 1958, the cardinals, the present day Church’s principal elders, gathered in conclave to elect his successor. Predictions, inevitably came from all quarters as to who would be called to the chair of Peter. But the man selected as bishop of Rome was an unexpected, or unlikely, choice. Angelo Roncalli, the archbishop of Venice, was in his late seventies and was said to be an ‘interim’ pope and one who would preside for a few years until electors could come to more of a consensus. His summons to the papal office was considered a compromise, and very little was expected of him.
But John XXIII surprised everybody. Several months after he became pope, he to a dumbfounded Roman audience, an assembly which included a good number of curial officials, that he intended to convoke a general council of the Church. There hadn’t been one for almost a hundred years and it came like a bolt from the blue. It was unlikely. Pope John told his listeners that he had felt ‘prompted’ in prayer by the Holy Spirit.
The reaction that most seasoned observers expected from the curia, the Church’s administrative arm, was vigorous protest. The work burden to be thrown upon them was enormous. Organizing a council is a gigantic task. But the various congregations, after a bit of mild demurring, bowed to the pontiff’s wishes and pitched in with a will to make the necessary preparations. This was surprising.
The first document published by the Vatican Council, the one that remains as its major achievement, Lumen Gentium, was a statement on the nature of the church. It is a masterful synthesis of what the church of Christ was founded to be. It is widely quoted and is regarded as a landmark in ecclesiology.
(page 14) Unexpectedly, right in the middle of the document, ( ) specific l mention is made of the charisms of the Holy Spirit as outlined by St. Paul (1Cor12: ). The point is made that these have always been present in the church and are intended by the Lord as ministry gifts. They are to be used to build up the Body of Christ, while we are cautioned to focus not on the gifts of the Lord but on the Lord of the gifts, we are urged to cultivate and to treasure the gifts. Surprising?
At the opening of the Council on , 1962, the Holy Father had led the bishops, advisors, and observers in prayer. The text is well known. He had begged the Father in Jesus’ name to send the Holy Spirit upon the Church in this age “as in a new Pentecost.”
Shortly after the Council’s close waves of renewal began to multiply throughout the Church. The surprising charismatic renewal was one of these. The little seen charisms of the Holy Spirit, made specific mention of in the Council’s Lumen Gentium, began to be experienced at every level of the Church. Another unlikely event.
In mid-council, his God given task, we must believe, completed, good Pope John died. His earthly journey finished, he proceeded toward that complete union with God for which he had, like any true believer, long yearned. The archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Baptista martini, succeeded to the papal office.
It was just as Paul VI was beginning his new task that the so many of the underpinnings of human society seemed to begin to give way. The age of protest and rebellion was underway in earnest.
Pope Paul was, by nature, a rather timid and retiring type of man. Though he had accepted his election to the papacy as a call from God himself, the very public nature of his ministry (no office in the world is more subject to such an intense, never-ending scrutiny), was among his greatest burdens. Yet, the way he was able to hold the Church together and keep it on the Lord’s track, despite his being constantly buffeted from all sides, was truly remarkable. It was unlikely.
The death of his successor, Pope John Paul I, was unexpected, of course. But surely the election of the present pontiff was one of the most startling surprises of the modern age. The first non-Italian in hundreds of years and from behind the iron curtain at that! The world was stunned. The hand of God? Unexpected, to say the least.
I was present at the 1954 American charismatic conference at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Among the sharings was one by Sally Lynch, one of the directors of the Association of Christian Therapists. She testified to an unusual experience she felt the Lord had given her sometime in the mid-seventies, while Pope Paul VI was bishop of Rome. One night she had a remarkable clear dream in which she saw the face of a man, a total stranger to her. So vivid was it that she woke with a start. She puzzled over it for a minute or two, then sat on the edge of her bed and asked the Lord if he were saying anything to her. She had the sense he was saying to her: “Pray for this man. He will be Pope.”
When Paul VI died and the college of cardinals chose John Paul I, she knew this was not the man in here dream and she began to question the whole experience. But, a few short weeks later, when she saw the picture of the present Holy Father, she had every reason to believe again in the supernatural (nature of the dream. John Paul II’s face was the one she had seen!
I see the hand of God in all this in an unmistakable way. He has something very unusual in mind these days. These are momentous times, pivotal, I believe in the history of the world, and the Lord is leaving no stone unturned to prepare his people for what lies ahead.
And his surprises continue to this day. Without trying to influence or anticipate the officially appointed commission that is discerning it at present, I feel compelled to give my own unqualified endorsement to a series of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary that are reported to be taking place, even at this writing, in Yugoslavia. I cannot say without reservation that these are authentic. I can say only that I believe them to be so.
She comes as a true prophet, sent by the Father with a message for the Lord’s people. She calls us to turn away from the sinful patterns in our lives and to turn back in total conversion to the Lord. She urges those who are in the process of doing this to pray and fast that millions of others will do the same. Unless we come back to the Lord in great numbers, she adds, the world stands in grave danger of a major calamity of disastrous proportions.
These visits of the Lord’s prophet to the five young Croatians have been occurring virtually every day since June 24, 1981. A truly surprising and unexpected initiative of the Lord on behalf of his people. Very unlikely.
These are but a few of the Lord’s many unusual interventions in this current age. And this is only from a Catholic perspective. I’m sure our non-Catholic brothers and sisters could share similar observations.
Lest we lose sight of the Lord’s overall agenda for this time, let us hear it again: God intends to restore power and unity to his church in our day. We all know how unlikely this sounds. Perhaps all the more reason to believe it. END OF SECTION 3.
The prophet Amos says: “The Lord never does anything without first revealing it to his servants, the prophets.” (Amos 3:7). The Lord is ready and able to intervene in human affairs whenever a faithful, repentant people come persevering before him in intercession. Although his moves will catch the world off guard, his people, provided they are listening, will be ready.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the ‘angelic doctor’, expressed the consistent teaching of the church right from the beginning when he said that the Lord never leaves his people without the prophetic word, that he sends prophets to every age of the Church. Our age is surely no exception.
It is my firm conviction that the Lord has provided us with two major prophets today” the man in white who occupies the chair of Peter and the day clothed with the Lord’s own radiance who comes from heaven to us.
As is customary, prophets agree. It is profoundly enlightening and moving to note how strikingly similar are the words that Mary and John Paul are speaking.
One example might be in order for now. Marty is reported to have said in Medjugorje that as the Lord renews his Church, his glory is going to be manifested most in Russia. One doesn’t say things like that if one wants to sound good. It is a very unlikely word. And yet, she said something very much the same at Fatima in 1917. While it was in the throes of a convulsive revolution, a third rate world power at best, she said that Russia would spread its errors (atheistic communism) throughout the world. This has been fulfilled. She also said Russia would be converted and an era of peace would be granted to mankind.
I recently heard Father Tom Forest relate a private conversation he had about a year ago with Pope John Paul. They got to discussing the present State of the Church in Europe, not especially encouraging at the moment. Father Forest told the Holy Father he thought the day was coming when missionaries from the third world would have to come to bring the faith back to Europe. The pope’s reply was astounding. He said something like” ‘Yes, I believe there’s some truth to that. But I have a very deep sense that the major effort to re-Christianize Europe is going to come from Russia. ‘Amazing’! Are we listening to the prophets the Lord has provided for us? Are we taking them seriously? END OF SECTION 4.
The prophetic word has a remarkable consistency to it. The Lord is pointing us to a time of revival within the church that, perhaps, many of us have only dreamed of. He has been speaking of a rather thorough-going restoration of the whole Church, something that, in all probability, is difficult for us to envision. We are anxious to believe him, but perhaps, find ourselves puzzled as to how it will all come about. Though it may tend to boggle our minds a bit, we can understand what the end product may look like. But the process, how we are to get there, may have us puzzled.
However, the Lord, through his prophetic ministers, has not exactly been silent about the process.
Listen to what Pope John Paul II said in Fulda, Germany in November 1980: “We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future, trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, a total gift of self to Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it. It is only in this way that the Christ can be effectively renewed.”
The pope speaks of a time of trial, of testing, that is coming upon the world. But we are not to be in fear or dismay, he says, because it is only through such an experience that the church can be purified. He even seems to be urging us to rejoice in great anticipation of what the Lord is in the process of doing.
Those who know him well and see him frequently say the Holy Father seems to be driven forward by a great sense of urgency. Despite the pleading of many that he make changes in his schedule, that he reduce his sixteen and seventeen hour working days and cut down on his pilgrimages, as he calls them, of faith, hope and love, he presses on. His work-load is staggering. Those who try to keep up with him for even a few days at a time inevitably wind up exhausted. But, if anything, he is actually picking up the pace instead of slowing down.
He said in Winnipeg (September, 1984) that we must never resist the Holy Spirit. As he repeated the word ‘never’ a couple of times with a rising crescendo, the people responded with a thundering affirmation. It occurred to me that this was the sacred behind his seemingly boundless energy, his ----- will, his never-flagging determination to speak the Lord’s word and do what he’s doing. He does not resist the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God drives him on..
The urgency is not new with him. When, as Cardinal Woytyla from Poland, he attended in 1976 the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, he said: “We are now facing the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever gone through. I do not think the wide circle of American society or the wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now up against the final confrontation between church and anti-Church, Gospel and anti-Gospel.”
His reading of the signs of the times comes, I am convinced, from his openness to the Holy Spirit. I believe the Lord is speaking this within him. Unfortunately, not all of us are listening.
Mary, too, appearing in Medjugorje,sent by the Lord to prophesy to the Church, is saying the same thing. She makes frequent reference to the fact that we stand on the brink of world-wide cataclysm, a profound shaking of the structures of human society, something we are ill-prepared for. As the level of din rises, she says, the degree of breakdown increases. A time of severe judgment just may be on its way. But, through it all, the Church is to be dealt with, trimmed up, purified, brought into a far-reaching state of renewal. Again, the prophets agree. And they are not alone.
Catherine Doherty is the foundress of the Madonna House community in Combermere, Ontario. She is a widely read author of several books on the spiritual life. The community has gained admiration and respect throughout the entire Christian world for the admirable simplicity of its life-style, its aggressive pursuit of the Lord’s wisdom through the use of the pustinia in particular, and its total dedication to the service of the poor. Mrs. Doherty, “the B”, as she is affectionately called, has long been listening with great care to the Lord. For the past ten years she has been sensing the approach of a time of profound universal disturbance, a kind of large-scale breakdown of the structures of human society. She has urged the community to become as self-sufficient as it can so that, if need be, they can teach the rest of us how to live as they do.
The gift of prophecy, never absent from the Church in any age, has been undergoing an interesting revival of late, especially within the ranks of the charismatic renewal. Numerous prophecies, well tested and discerned, have been making mention of the coming time of trial for the world, purification for the Church, and triumph for the Lord through his people. At the international conference of 1975, held in Rome, words of just this kind were spoken in St. Peter’s basilica. “Days of darkness are coming upon the world, but a day of glory is coming upon the Church…victory for your God.” the
Message went on to speak of “a day of evangelization that the world has never seen.” In fact, for the last 150 years, the burden of Catholic prophecy has been precisely the same. Different deeply prayerful people, like
Have spoken of a major series of disasters to fall upon the world in the latter part of the twentieth century. Pope Leo XIII claimed to have had an inner vision from the Lord to the effect that the works of Satan would multiply, that he would plunder and divide the Church, and that it would all come to a kind of climax after about a hundred years. That’s why he instituted the prayers after Mass that some of us will remember, the Leonine prayers they came to be called, which, among other things, invoke the protection of the archangel Michael, the one who battles the great dragon (Rev. ---). He received his word from the Lord in 1884.
So, perhaps, we must look to and be prepared for a series of disasters which will massively disturb and re-arrange the structures under which we live. The roots of some civilizations could even be pulled right up.
The nature of the shaking? Hard to say. Most of us think right away of nuclear war. That may or may not be it. Or all of it. It might involve a string of natural calamities, a collapse of the world’s economy, a breakdown of law and order, a rise of totalitarian regimes, or perhaps a combination of them all.
Am I trying to frighten people? Not at all. The word to concentrate on is the promise of the restoration of the Church. The Lord’s own victory. Let’s not forget that at Fatima Mary promised an era of peace. We’re getting close to that, no matter what happens, we really have nothing to fear. Those who trust in the Lord have him, as their rock of refuge. The real believer knows that, even if he has to pay with his life, the Lord will deliver him to eternal glory. Mary speaks encouraging words at Medjugorje. Pope John Paul tells us not to fear, but to anticipate with eagerness the long-awaited purification of the Church.
Let’s try to sum if all up. It just may be that the Lord is telling us something like the following could occur in the foreseeable future, perhaps much sooner than we think.
1) the world may experience a time of severe trial and see its most reliable structures collapse; The Church may experience a thorough going purification in the Lord’s power and to full unity;
2) An extended era of peace may follow the period of turmoil.
END OF SECTION 5.
A very severe shaking may shortly be in store for the human race and the planet we inhabit. The root cause of it all is our sinfulness, our rebellion against God and his law. We have to expect to suffer the consequences of our own actions. We may be in for an experience of what is called the judgment of God.
But there is an understanding we need to have about this that we do not yet have. It is not so much that God is just waiting till our rebellion against him reaches a certain point so that he can then intervene and give us the treatment we deserve. It is, rather, that our society and the earth we live on tend to get out of order to the degree that God’s law is broken.
The Lord has created the universe and everything in it to follow a certain set of laws. All the inanimate things and the non-human animate creatures obey these laws automatically. But mankind, the highest order of the universe’s creation, is free to choose. Because there is a unity to creation, order tends to break down at all levels in proportion to the degree that we human beings disregard the laws of God under which we are meant to live.
We are talking about sin, the breaking of God’s law. We are one with the earth in a way our native people understand better than we do. As we rise in rebellion against God, are more and more sinful nature tends to use in rebellion against us. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes and the like multiply. Strange weather patterns become more frequent. Drought or flood will be more common, and unfortunate food shortages follow But it isn’t as though God is sending these disasters because we’re offending him. It’s all built into creation’s design. It is planned to follow an orderly set of laws. When the laws are broken, things tend to break down.
If war, crime, violence, poverty, hunger, starvation, disease etc are on the rise, and it would seem they are, we need look no further for the cause than human sin.
It is not that God sends us direct punishment. It is not he who is the cause of our problems. We ourselves are the reason for the ills human society faces. It is our sin, our refusal to submit to the Lord’s order, that does us in.
END OF SECTION 6.
God is on the move. His plans for his people far exceed our own. He means to accomplish nothing less than the restoration of the Church to full power and full unity.
But it will not likely happen without considerable difficulty. The renewal will probably come as the result of considerable purification. It may well be preceded by a period of fairly severe trial.
Is the trial inevitable? It is impossible to say, I guess but it is my own firm opinion that it is. I believe we are headed for very tough times. I feel the intensity of it all can be mitigated by our prayer and fasting. And as well, the length of time it will take can be shortened by what we do.
It is pointless to speculate for very long on the nature of the trial. Most people will think first of a nuclear exchange. This may not be it. It could be an economic collapse. All it would take would be for a few of the nations of the south to renege on their debt payments. The large banks that hold the mortgages would begin to fold and considerable political chaos would not be far off. It could be a proliferation of natural disasters. It could be a combination of many factors.
In any case, the Lord does not want us to concentrate on the trials we may have to face. He wants us to concentrate on him. Jesus continually urged his followers to trust him in such a complete way that there must remain no room for fear. “Fear not, little flock”, he said. “it has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom” ( ).
We have every reason to believe he is giving us the same assurance today. No matter what circumstances conspire, the news is awfully good. A great victory for the Lord is in sight. After all, at Fatima, Mary did promise the conversion of Russia and an era of peace.
These are critical times. Momentous events could well unfold. What a challenge for the Lord’s people, the Church! What a privilege for us if we can be part of it!
As the world endures a through shaking, the Church will undergo an extensive purification. So goes the thinking of many who are trying to listen attentively to the Lord.
What will the Church look like after it is purified? No doubt it will be more conformed to the original pattern left to us by Jesus himself. In any case, we should not really try to anticipate the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit.
My conviction, nonetheless, and it is strictly from me and not from the Lord, as St. Paul would say ( ), is that the Church in its restored condition will be fully evangelical, fully pentecostal, and full catholic.
Interim
The August 2005 edition of the pro-life newspaper, the Interim, published a very insightful article on Canada’s record on matters of basic human rights. The author is Paul Tuns. He says that, for the last 40 years, “Canada has been a laboratory for dreadful social experiments.” It all started with contraception 1967. Sale of devices became legal. It separated pleasure from procreation. Self-sacrifice was replaced by self-fulfilment at any cost. It has led to narcisism run wild.
Divorce laws were loosened up beginning the following year, 1968. If children could be delayed or avoided because they were deemed to be burdens, surely spouses could be abandoned for the same reason. Marriage ceased to be a sacred covenant, broken only by death and the marital commitment became conditional. The proliferation of broken marriages produced broken families and broken children. Contraception had become quite clearly a human right, the right to choose. And divorce the same.
All abortion constraints were lifted in 1969 ushering in the current era of the silent holocaust. From this point on, Canada placed no restriction on abortion and essentially abandoned its Christian heritage. We have reached 100,000 abortions a year, all in the name of “choice” and at government expense. The state and the media have done their best to silence the lifers so that women do not know the grim procedure they are considering. Abortion has become an industry and the butchers who do the job are getting very wealthy. The 75% of Canadians who do not want unrestricted right to abortion have been effectively disenfranchized.
Along with the above and the undermining of the sanctity of marriage, the homosexual juggernaut is in the process of destroying the country’s soul.
One outrage followed another. Sodomy was legalized between consenting adults. Same-sex marriage was legalized through the courts. The definition of traditional marriage was ruled discriminatory. Polygamy, multiple marriage, is not far off.
Assisted suicide is on the way. Embryonic stem cell research is trumpeted to be the answer to cures for all kinds of disease. Canada is on the cutting edge of bio-research, if destroying embryonic persons means anything. It is so hard to understand how we have been seduced into allowing it when there are easily acquired stem cells that do not require the destruction of human life. But, parliament made embryonic stem cell research legal and opened the doors for human cloning.
The author of the article, Paul Tuns, maintains that embryonic cells, the use of which requires the destruction of human life, does not help doctors to heal patients and only satisfies the morbid curiosity of research teams, eager for prestige. He says: “As Canada pumps more and more money into these depraved projects, there will be calls for liberalizing the already-loose restrictions on such research, all in the name of progress.”
Mormons in western Canada, taking their cue from the Mormons in Utah, as well as a good number of Muslims, are talking about getting governments and legislatures to legalize what they’re calling “multiple marriage”. As they say, the majority has no right to impose its morality on the minority.
Quoting again: “Same sex ‘marriage’ is an assault on the rights of children because it denies them a mother or a father. Polygamy confuses children by giving them a father and several mothers. But even this may be only the beginning. In recent years the prohibition against child pornography has been relaxed. Guess what is coming next – a call for tolerance on behalf of those who are attracted to children. With abortion and same-sex marriage, society has collectively abandoned its children. The latter have come close to being either a burden or a commodity.”
Institutional care for children is becoming the norm. The government of Canada has set aside at least 5 billion dollars so that children can be cared for outside the home and the family. Day care facilities are a big priority for any political party or individual hoping lot be elected to public office. Such facilities effectively dismantle the traditional family and create a whole new problem constituency – latchkey children.
Is there hope? What a question for a believing Christian to ask! Of course there is hope! As long as the Holy Spirit hasn’t left us, and he hasn’t, the power of God can sweep all that culture of death garbage into the trash barrel in the twinkling of an eye. I’m not going to quit praying for that. Are we all together on this resolve?
Divorce laws were loosened up beginning the following year, 1968. If children could be delayed or avoided because they were deemed to be burdens, surely spouses could be abandoned for the same reason. Marriage ceased to be a sacred covenant, broken only by death and the marital commitment became conditional. The proliferation of broken marriages produced broken families and broken children. Contraception had become quite clearly a human right, the right to choose. And divorce the same.
All abortion constraints were lifted in 1969 ushering in the current era of the silent holocaust. From this point on, Canada placed no restriction on abortion and essentially abandoned its Christian heritage. We have reached 100,000 abortions a year, all in the name of “choice” and at government expense. The state and the media have done their best to silence the lifers so that women do not know the grim procedure they are considering. Abortion has become an industry and the butchers who do the job are getting very wealthy. The 75% of Canadians who do not want unrestricted right to abortion have been effectively disenfranchized.
Along with the above and the undermining of the sanctity of marriage, the homosexual juggernaut is in the process of destroying the country’s soul.
One outrage followed another. Sodomy was legalized between consenting adults. Same-sex marriage was legalized through the courts. The definition of traditional marriage was ruled discriminatory. Polygamy, multiple marriage, is not far off.
Assisted suicide is on the way. Embryonic stem cell research is trumpeted to be the answer to cures for all kinds of disease. Canada is on the cutting edge of bio-research, if destroying embryonic persons means anything. It is so hard to understand how we have been seduced into allowing it when there are easily acquired stem cells that do not require the destruction of human life. But, parliament made embryonic stem cell research legal and opened the doors for human cloning.
The author of the article, Paul Tuns, maintains that embryonic cells, the use of which requires the destruction of human life, does not help doctors to heal patients and only satisfies the morbid curiosity of research teams, eager for prestige. He says: “As Canada pumps more and more money into these depraved projects, there will be calls for liberalizing the already-loose restrictions on such research, all in the name of progress.”
Mormons in western Canada, taking their cue from the Mormons in Utah, as well as a good number of Muslims, are talking about getting governments and legislatures to legalize what they’re calling “multiple marriage”. As they say, the majority has no right to impose its morality on the minority.
Quoting again: “Same sex ‘marriage’ is an assault on the rights of children because it denies them a mother or a father. Polygamy confuses children by giving them a father and several mothers. But even this may be only the beginning. In recent years the prohibition against child pornography has been relaxed. Guess what is coming next – a call for tolerance on behalf of those who are attracted to children. With abortion and same-sex marriage, society has collectively abandoned its children. The latter have come close to being either a burden or a commodity.”
Institutional care for children is becoming the norm. The government of Canada has set aside at least 5 billion dollars so that children can be cared for outside the home and the family. Day care facilities are a big priority for any political party or individual hoping lot be elected to public office. Such facilities effectively dismantle the traditional family and create a whole new problem constituency – latchkey children.
Is there hope? What a question for a believing Christian to ask! Of course there is hope! As long as the Holy Spirit hasn’t left us, and he hasn’t, the power of God can sweep all that culture of death garbage into the trash barrel in the twinkling of an eye. I’m not going to quit praying for that. Are we all together on this resolve?
Normal Catholics
by Father Bob Bedard, CC
When I started at St. Mary’s in ’84, my first attempt at being pastor of a parish, I was very clued out. I didn’t have any clear idea of what my priorities were to be, what specific things I needed to take responsibility for, what services (or ministries) the parish actually required, and what things I could recruit some parishioners to take on.
To say that St. Mary’s was quiet in those days would be putting it mildly. Most of the people were actually older than I was, and I was no rookie. The great majority were quite uninvolved in the parish, and generally disinclined to change that. They had very few expectations of the Church and were content simply to have Mass and the Sacraments available along with some decent care for the sick. They were without question really very decent types. In fact, as I’ve been pondering it over the past few days, they would qualify as fairly typical Catholics, a thoroughly good lot.
I was talking recently with a fine young woman, wife and mother, parishioner of St. Mary’s parish here in Ottawa, the parish that I myself belong to. She reports that both she and her husband have both pretty well had it with the parish and alerted me to the very strong possibility that they would soon jump ship and sign up with another parish. The problem? Her better half has been saying lately that “normal” Catholics don’t come to St. Mary’s any more. Normal? But how would he (and you) describe the people, I asked, who do come to St. Mary’s at this time. Without any hesitation she suggested a few types: feet not on the ground, the overly excitable kind, those who lack an average dose of common sense, those who come to be entertained, very unsophisticated folks, and a good number who are semi-neurotic. They acknowledge, of course, that there are a good many pretty solid people as well.
Her comments set me to thinking. Just what would qualify a Catholic as normal, the kind not seen less and less at St. Mary’s at the present time.
First of all, I believe normal Catholics are important. What would we do without them. They’re the ones who keep the parishes on the go. They maintain each diocese and its services. They are the backbone of all important Catholic fraternal and beneficent societies such as the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Women’s League and many more. They provide the teachers and officials for the Catholic schools. Some become professionals and serve the general population. Others fill out the myriad of tasks that keep the wheels of society turning.
Secondly, normal Catholics are, with some exceptions, good people. Some are very good, a few others even excellent. Even though they don’t think religion and politics should not be discussed in public, they are faithful citizens, contributing to the nation’s welfare in various ways. They go to Mass on a fairly regular basis, pray by times and are good neighbours. They quite often help others. They’re very generous. In addition, while they are faithful to Church attendance, they don’t like to be kept too long at Sunday Mass, one hour being the outside limit. They prefer their homilies short – ten minutes tops. They want to hear about how their faith should be lived out, practical things that relate to real life.
There are some things however, the pastor needs to be aware of, things most normal Catholics would have difficulty swallowing and would rather not hear about. They don’t like to be challenged too much. And the stickier points of Catholic morality are best kept under wraps. Contraception is definitely taboo. After all, didn’t the Canadian bishops offer us a sensible compromise back in ’69 with their Winnipeg Statement? And none of those preparing for marriage or those young enough to bear children want to hear a suggestion that they might be open to having six or seven children, good old Catholic style, recognizing that the little ones are blessings and not burdens.
Normal Catholics, too, tend to be very low key regarding same sex marriage. They reason that the governments and the courts are going to make it valid anyway, so it’s a waste of time and energy to fight it. They forget, of course, the ramifications – the incursions of the life style into the school classrooms with invitations to try it out, the adoption of children, eventually a quota hiring system in all areas of human endeavour.
The normals tend to feel the same about abortion (women’s rights) euthanasia (mercy, of course), stem cell research (obviously good healing possibilities). Vasectomy and tubal ligation are decent solutions to an awkward problem. Normal Catholics tend to be on the fence about the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the existence of angels and demons, the effectiveness of the Sacraments. Most of them would like to see the clergy with the right to marry, the ordination of women, probably the election of bishops, and a lot more independence from faraway Rome.
To teach that all Catholics should be evangelists is, to most of the normals, taking things too far.
The above listing is not intended to be exhaustive. Quite a number of other things could be added. Neither is there a suggestion that all normal Catholics would fit every category. Many normal Catholics would not go so far as to be so vacillating on the moral questions. But, by and large, I believe the general gist of the overall description is very fair and quite correct.
So much for normal Catholics. What about Jesus? Was He normal? If we were to say so, I believe we would be missing the mark completely. Would the normal Catholics be the disciples He is looking for today? I don’t think so. Jesus was anything but normal. He challenged most of the priorities of the religious establishment as well as their way of life.
Jesus was radical. He stood the normals on their collective ear. He wanted total commitment. He invited people to die to all their desires so that they could discover the pearl of great price. He wants us all. He wants us entirely for Himself. He wants us to give entry to the Holy Spirit who will unfold the Father’s will for each of us so that we will fit into the Divine plan to capture the whole world for the Kingdom of God.
Don’t get me wrong. The Lord loves all the normal Catholics, madly. So much did He (and does he) love all of us that the divine Son of God was willing to give us everything, including His life.
Review Second Chronicles 16:9 – “The eyes of God range across the whole of the earth to discover those who are wholehearted for Him so that He might encourage them.”
I think that says it all.
When I started at St. Mary’s in ’84, my first attempt at being pastor of a parish, I was very clued out. I didn’t have any clear idea of what my priorities were to be, what specific things I needed to take responsibility for, what services (or ministries) the parish actually required, and what things I could recruit some parishioners to take on.
To say that St. Mary’s was quiet in those days would be putting it mildly. Most of the people were actually older than I was, and I was no rookie. The great majority were quite uninvolved in the parish, and generally disinclined to change that. They had very few expectations of the Church and were content simply to have Mass and the Sacraments available along with some decent care for the sick. They were without question really very decent types. In fact, as I’ve been pondering it over the past few days, they would qualify as fairly typical Catholics, a thoroughly good lot.
I was talking recently with a fine young woman, wife and mother, parishioner of St. Mary’s parish here in Ottawa, the parish that I myself belong to. She reports that both she and her husband have both pretty well had it with the parish and alerted me to the very strong possibility that they would soon jump ship and sign up with another parish. The problem? Her better half has been saying lately that “normal” Catholics don’t come to St. Mary’s any more. Normal? But how would he (and you) describe the people, I asked, who do come to St. Mary’s at this time. Without any hesitation she suggested a few types: feet not on the ground, the overly excitable kind, those who lack an average dose of common sense, those who come to be entertained, very unsophisticated folks, and a good number who are semi-neurotic. They acknowledge, of course, that there are a good many pretty solid people as well.
Her comments set me to thinking. Just what would qualify a Catholic as normal, the kind not seen less and less at St. Mary’s at the present time.
First of all, I believe normal Catholics are important. What would we do without them. They’re the ones who keep the parishes on the go. They maintain each diocese and its services. They are the backbone of all important Catholic fraternal and beneficent societies such as the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Women’s League and many more. They provide the teachers and officials for the Catholic schools. Some become professionals and serve the general population. Others fill out the myriad of tasks that keep the wheels of society turning.
Secondly, normal Catholics are, with some exceptions, good people. Some are very good, a few others even excellent. Even though they don’t think religion and politics should not be discussed in public, they are faithful citizens, contributing to the nation’s welfare in various ways. They go to Mass on a fairly regular basis, pray by times and are good neighbours. They quite often help others. They’re very generous. In addition, while they are faithful to Church attendance, they don’t like to be kept too long at Sunday Mass, one hour being the outside limit. They prefer their homilies short – ten minutes tops. They want to hear about how their faith should be lived out, practical things that relate to real life.
There are some things however, the pastor needs to be aware of, things most normal Catholics would have difficulty swallowing and would rather not hear about. They don’t like to be challenged too much. And the stickier points of Catholic morality are best kept under wraps. Contraception is definitely taboo. After all, didn’t the Canadian bishops offer us a sensible compromise back in ’69 with their Winnipeg Statement? And none of those preparing for marriage or those young enough to bear children want to hear a suggestion that they might be open to having six or seven children, good old Catholic style, recognizing that the little ones are blessings and not burdens.
Normal Catholics, too, tend to be very low key regarding same sex marriage. They reason that the governments and the courts are going to make it valid anyway, so it’s a waste of time and energy to fight it. They forget, of course, the ramifications – the incursions of the life style into the school classrooms with invitations to try it out, the adoption of children, eventually a quota hiring system in all areas of human endeavour.
The normals tend to feel the same about abortion (women’s rights) euthanasia (mercy, of course), stem cell research (obviously good healing possibilities). Vasectomy and tubal ligation are decent solutions to an awkward problem. Normal Catholics tend to be on the fence about the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the existence of angels and demons, the effectiveness of the Sacraments. Most of them would like to see the clergy with the right to marry, the ordination of women, probably the election of bishops, and a lot more independence from faraway Rome.
To teach that all Catholics should be evangelists is, to most of the normals, taking things too far.
The above listing is not intended to be exhaustive. Quite a number of other things could be added. Neither is there a suggestion that all normal Catholics would fit every category. Many normal Catholics would not go so far as to be so vacillating on the moral questions. But, by and large, I believe the general gist of the overall description is very fair and quite correct.
So much for normal Catholics. What about Jesus? Was He normal? If we were to say so, I believe we would be missing the mark completely. Would the normal Catholics be the disciples He is looking for today? I don’t think so. Jesus was anything but normal. He challenged most of the priorities of the religious establishment as well as their way of life.
Jesus was radical. He stood the normals on their collective ear. He wanted total commitment. He invited people to die to all their desires so that they could discover the pearl of great price. He wants us all. He wants us entirely for Himself. He wants us to give entry to the Holy Spirit who will unfold the Father’s will for each of us so that we will fit into the Divine plan to capture the whole world for the Kingdom of God.
Don’t get me wrong. The Lord loves all the normal Catholics, madly. So much did He (and does he) love all of us that the divine Son of God was willing to give us everything, including His life.
Review Second Chronicles 16:9 – “The eyes of God range across the whole of the earth to discover those who are wholehearted for Him so that He might encourage them.”
I think that says it all.
Abusing The Sacraments
by Father Bob Bedard, CC
Children are presented to the pastor for Baptism. What is he to do? If he knows the parents as faithful members of the parish, there is no problem. After a little preparation program for the parents, a joyful moment of Liturgy will follow.
However, if the pastor doesn’t know the parents, he must investigate. Are they, in fact, members of the parish in regular attendance at Sunday Mass? If no, what then does he do?
The simplest thing to do is baptize anybody who comes along. That’s the way it was when I was ordained. It may have been simple, but it wasn’t right. It was Sacramental abuse.
What is the point in baptizing a child who will not be brought up in a household of faith? The very rational for infant Baptism is the presumption that the little one will be surrounded by a situation as he/she grows up in which Christ reigns.
The Sacrament in such a case should be delayed until the pastor can be assured the child will be reared in a faith-filled atmosphere. If it has to be put off indefinitely, so be it.
The same has to go for the other sacraments that are customarily administered to children – first Confession, first Communion, and Confirmation. If the parents are in no way prepared to nurture the young ones’ faith, postponement is in order.
If Catholic schools are in the picture, the pastor needs to be sure the preparation program for Sacraments is directed by the parish. If people associate Sacraments with Catholic schools, when the school days are over, so will sacramental participation. People need to have opportunities to contact and relate to the pastor.
In my early years, when I was in Catholic elementary school, we were taken once a month by our teachers to the church for Confession. Although it probably would have been better had our parents taken us, it nonetheless did make a bit of sense. After all, almost all my classmates and I came from faithful, church-going families.
Today the tradition persists to some extent. More commonly now, however, the pastor, with a few other priests to help, will go to the school two or three times a year. But the bulk of the children do not any more come from faith-filled families. Just the opposite.
So the same pastoral decision should hold as with Baptism. Since most of the children don’t go to church and are not being brought up in the faith, the Sacraments should be delayed.
Although the responsibility for this state of affairs lies mainly with the parents, there is no real motivation for true repentance on the part of the youngsters. To attempt to celebrate the Sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation in this situation is pointless. It is an abuse of a marvellous Sacrament. Let parents of children who are practising the faith bring them to church for Confession.
Maybe board trustees and administrators and school principals feel better when Sacraments take place in the schools, but it is not our task to please officials. It is our duty to please God alone.
I have to confess that one of the lowest points in my Liturgical year is First Communion Sunday. To see the children all gussied up in their finery – beautiful white dresses for the girls, natty black suits for the boys – sets my heart to sinking. In a class of 30 or so, there might be 5 or 6 from church-going families. Most of the adults accompanying the children are complete strangers to me. Cameras are all over the place. Flash bulbs are popping all through. An important cultural event is taking place. But the Sacraments are not meant to be settings for cultural events. This is Sacramental abuse.
It is common practice to celebrate Mass in Catholic schools, either for the whole school or for individual classes. I’m against it. What’s the point of having non church-going children receiving Communion two or three times a year? Sacramental abuse, I say.
The same goes for high schools. It does something bad to me to celebrate the Eucharist for bored teenagers and dispense Holy Communion, knowing only a small percentage come with the necessary dispositions to receive the grace of the Sacrament. What’s the point? Abuse, again.
Matrimony is a Sacrament. Like all the Sacraments, it gives grace. And the grace given at the time of the exchange of vows continues to be available throughout the ensuing years when the couple call upon it. Surveys tell us about 80% of young people coming to arrange weddings are already living together. What percentage really understand matrimony’s Sacramental character? I’m afraid it’s very low.
What is a pastor to do? At the least, he must challenge the co-habitating duos to separate until marriage and have them enrolled in a marriage preparation program that will highlight its Sacramental character and place an important emphasis on natural family planning. All contraceptive methods of birth-spacing should be thoroughly trashed. Surrender of their entire lives to Christ has to be emphasized with a strong emphasis on becoming involved in a Holy Spirit seminar some time during the first year of marriage.
If the pastor (or his delegate) cannot come to a degree of certainty about the couple’s readiness to celebrate the Sacrament, he must postpone the wedding until he has such assurance. He has to know they will separate before the wedding and make every effort to abstain. He has to be sure, as well, that they’re buying the teachings of the marriage preparation program. He should see them in church on a regular basis.
Does it sound as though I’m advocating making it difficult to get married? I hope so. Perhaps if we do so we’ll see a remarkably greater percentage of successful marriages.
The Sacraments are external signs established by Christ to give grace. Grace is a share here on earth of the very life of God. Every time a Sacrament is validly administered, grace is poured out upon the participant. That’s called the “ex opere operato” principle. However, the degree of grace received depends entirely on the readiness of the recipient. That’s the “ex opere operantis” principle. If serious sin is present or understanding is not there, no grace is received.
To celebrate Sacraments knowing the recipients are not disposed is Sacramental abuse. What’s the point? Let’s stop playing games and letting on everything is OK when it isn’t.
Children are presented to the pastor for Baptism. What is he to do? If he knows the parents as faithful members of the parish, there is no problem. After a little preparation program for the parents, a joyful moment of Liturgy will follow.
However, if the pastor doesn’t know the parents, he must investigate. Are they, in fact, members of the parish in regular attendance at Sunday Mass? If no, what then does he do?
The simplest thing to do is baptize anybody who comes along. That’s the way it was when I was ordained. It may have been simple, but it wasn’t right. It was Sacramental abuse.
What is the point in baptizing a child who will not be brought up in a household of faith? The very rational for infant Baptism is the presumption that the little one will be surrounded by a situation as he/she grows up in which Christ reigns.
The Sacrament in such a case should be delayed until the pastor can be assured the child will be reared in a faith-filled atmosphere. If it has to be put off indefinitely, so be it.
The same has to go for the other sacraments that are customarily administered to children – first Confession, first Communion, and Confirmation. If the parents are in no way prepared to nurture the young ones’ faith, postponement is in order.
If Catholic schools are in the picture, the pastor needs to be sure the preparation program for Sacraments is directed by the parish. If people associate Sacraments with Catholic schools, when the school days are over, so will sacramental participation. People need to have opportunities to contact and relate to the pastor.
In my early years, when I was in Catholic elementary school, we were taken once a month by our teachers to the church for Confession. Although it probably would have been better had our parents taken us, it nonetheless did make a bit of sense. After all, almost all my classmates and I came from faithful, church-going families.
Today the tradition persists to some extent. More commonly now, however, the pastor, with a few other priests to help, will go to the school two or three times a year. But the bulk of the children do not any more come from faith-filled families. Just the opposite.
So the same pastoral decision should hold as with Baptism. Since most of the children don’t go to church and are not being brought up in the faith, the Sacraments should be delayed.
Although the responsibility for this state of affairs lies mainly with the parents, there is no real motivation for true repentance on the part of the youngsters. To attempt to celebrate the Sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation in this situation is pointless. It is an abuse of a marvellous Sacrament. Let parents of children who are practising the faith bring them to church for Confession.
Maybe board trustees and administrators and school principals feel better when Sacraments take place in the schools, but it is not our task to please officials. It is our duty to please God alone.
I have to confess that one of the lowest points in my Liturgical year is First Communion Sunday. To see the children all gussied up in their finery – beautiful white dresses for the girls, natty black suits for the boys – sets my heart to sinking. In a class of 30 or so, there might be 5 or 6 from church-going families. Most of the adults accompanying the children are complete strangers to me. Cameras are all over the place. Flash bulbs are popping all through. An important cultural event is taking place. But the Sacraments are not meant to be settings for cultural events. This is Sacramental abuse.
It is common practice to celebrate Mass in Catholic schools, either for the whole school or for individual classes. I’m against it. What’s the point of having non church-going children receiving Communion two or three times a year? Sacramental abuse, I say.
The same goes for high schools. It does something bad to me to celebrate the Eucharist for bored teenagers and dispense Holy Communion, knowing only a small percentage come with the necessary dispositions to receive the grace of the Sacrament. What’s the point? Abuse, again.
Matrimony is a Sacrament. Like all the Sacraments, it gives grace. And the grace given at the time of the exchange of vows continues to be available throughout the ensuing years when the couple call upon it. Surveys tell us about 80% of young people coming to arrange weddings are already living together. What percentage really understand matrimony’s Sacramental character? I’m afraid it’s very low.
What is a pastor to do? At the least, he must challenge the co-habitating duos to separate until marriage and have them enrolled in a marriage preparation program that will highlight its Sacramental character and place an important emphasis on natural family planning. All contraceptive methods of birth-spacing should be thoroughly trashed. Surrender of their entire lives to Christ has to be emphasized with a strong emphasis on becoming involved in a Holy Spirit seminar some time during the first year of marriage.
If the pastor (or his delegate) cannot come to a degree of certainty about the couple’s readiness to celebrate the Sacrament, he must postpone the wedding until he has such assurance. He has to know they will separate before the wedding and make every effort to abstain. He has to be sure, as well, that they’re buying the teachings of the marriage preparation program. He should see them in church on a regular basis.
Does it sound as though I’m advocating making it difficult to get married? I hope so. Perhaps if we do so we’ll see a remarkably greater percentage of successful marriages.
The Sacraments are external signs established by Christ to give grace. Grace is a share here on earth of the very life of God. Every time a Sacrament is validly administered, grace is poured out upon the participant. That’s called the “ex opere operato” principle. However, the degree of grace received depends entirely on the readiness of the recipient. That’s the “ex opere operantis” principle. If serious sin is present or understanding is not there, no grace is received.
To celebrate Sacraments knowing the recipients are not disposed is Sacramental abuse. What’s the point? Let’s stop playing games and letting on everything is OK when it isn’t.
AVAILABILITY
Fr. Bob Bedard, CC
We are not priests for ourselves. We are priests for the Church, for the people. That means we must make ourselves available to them.
Gone are the days when the priest lived almost in a world apart. The pedestals have all been put away. And thank God for that. I’ve always been uncomfortable with heights anyway.
I have found the best time to make contact with the people is before and after Mass. Escaping to the shelter of the sacristy the minute the celebration is over just won’t do. The people should have a chance to see the priest and know that he is approachable.
A pencil and small note-pad are part of the necessary kit we should carry with us at all times. People have all kinds of things to say, some of them worth noting. Names and phone numbers are almost impossible to remember if we don’t write them down.
Speaking of names – they’re very important. There is nothing more closely identified with us than our names. The Bible reflects this as a matter of course. When we say, “Praise the name of the Lord”, we are saying “Praised be the Lord” Himself.
When someone calls me by name, I am affirmed. I feel as though I matter. I learned this when I was teaching high school. I worked hard at remembering students’ names and used them every chance I got. It made a difference. It was amazing how many of them told me even years later, how much that meant to them – to be called by name by a teacher. It made them feel important, they said.
Grown-ups are the same. We all like to be called by name.
Often people remark how envious they are of my so-called ‘gift’ for remembering names. Actually, I have no gift for it at all. It’s just plain hard work.
When someone says to me: “I have a terrible time remembering names,” I usually respond, “that’s because you don’t really care about people” I don’t mean it, of course, but it’s a good way to get the conversation going. I explain to them just how I manage so often to call peoples’ names from my memory.
There’s no big secret about it. It’s really quite a simple system. Here are the steps:
1) When you speak with a person whose face is somewhat familiar, ask him/her
for a name;
2) Write it down in your note-pad;
3) Transfer it later to a list that you’re keeping that’s called: Names to
remember;
4) Review the list every few days by reciting each name and trying to visualize the face that goes with it;
5) Grab every opportunity you can get to call the person by name.
Once you’ve used the name a few times it will work itself into your memory and become quite easy to recall.
If we’re going to allow ourselves to be seen and spoken to before and after Mass, we’re going to have to do the processions up and down the middle aisle. This goes for weekdays as well as weekends. People get to rely on seeing us at our posts. They know where to find us. That’s reassuring for them. “Father is available any time I want to see him,” they will say. “He cares about us.” Most of them won’t speak to you very often, but that’s what they’ll say.
As pastors, we have to be ready to make appointments. Although we won’t be able to see everybody, one-time or occasional meetings should always be possible. People have problems, questions, and suggestions to make. They may need counsel or want prayers.
Working with individuals can be rewarding. It can also be exhausting. While we’re quite within the parameters of our mandate to give counsel, we have to remember we’re not counsellors. We have to resist the desire, if we have such, as well as pressure from those in need, to take people on as regular directees. We can find others to carry out this much-sought after ministry. I’m convinced the gifts to do it will be present in any developing parish community. God does not leave his Church without the gifts to carry out the appointed tasks.
The pastor’s role will be to identify the gifts, call the people forth, get them some training and commission them to do the job. He will keep in on-going touch with those who are working with him.
In some ways, today’s pastor has to act the way a bishop does. He must try to surround himself with competent, gifted, discreet, prayerful people, people he can count on, who have his ‘mind’ on most things, to whom he can confide about people and situations that need attention. How to find them? Pray hard and ask God to point them out.
In our amazingly computerized world, wonderful machines are doing more and more of our work. While it is important that we be effective labourers in the Lord’s vineyard, I feel we are in danger of making a god out of efficiency. God’s ways are not always ours. It seems to me that, if we are going to leave the Lord room to make the many surprising moves he may well have in mind, we are going to have to put up with a certain amount of pleasant disorder. Some times even orderly chaos. God is effective, but he isn’t always very efficient.
Telephone answering machines are a useful invention, but I think it’s possible we leave them on too long. I’m against office hours. While I like order, that’s just too business-like to suit me. Better to recruit more volunteers to answer the phone than to cut down the hours of availability. I realize there are differing opinions here, but the most appealing pastors of my acquaintance have been those who have opened the doors and the phone lines.
They’re quite available.
Fr. Bob Bedard, CC
We are not priests for ourselves. We are priests for the Church, for the people. That means we must make ourselves available to them.
Gone are the days when the priest lived almost in a world apart. The pedestals have all been put away. And thank God for that. I’ve always been uncomfortable with heights anyway.
I have found the best time to make contact with the people is before and after Mass. Escaping to the shelter of the sacristy the minute the celebration is over just won’t do. The people should have a chance to see the priest and know that he is approachable.
A pencil and small note-pad are part of the necessary kit we should carry with us at all times. People have all kinds of things to say, some of them worth noting. Names and phone numbers are almost impossible to remember if we don’t write them down.
Speaking of names – they’re very important. There is nothing more closely identified with us than our names. The Bible reflects this as a matter of course. When we say, “Praise the name of the Lord”, we are saying “Praised be the Lord” Himself.
When someone calls me by name, I am affirmed. I feel as though I matter. I learned this when I was teaching high school. I worked hard at remembering students’ names and used them every chance I got. It made a difference. It was amazing how many of them told me even years later, how much that meant to them – to be called by name by a teacher. It made them feel important, they said.
Grown-ups are the same. We all like to be called by name.
Often people remark how envious they are of my so-called ‘gift’ for remembering names. Actually, I have no gift for it at all. It’s just plain hard work.
When someone says to me: “I have a terrible time remembering names,” I usually respond, “that’s because you don’t really care about people” I don’t mean it, of course, but it’s a good way to get the conversation going. I explain to them just how I manage so often to call peoples’ names from my memory.
There’s no big secret about it. It’s really quite a simple system. Here are the steps:
1) When you speak with a person whose face is somewhat familiar, ask him/her
for a name;
2) Write it down in your note-pad;
3) Transfer it later to a list that you’re keeping that’s called: Names to
remember;
4) Review the list every few days by reciting each name and trying to visualize the face that goes with it;
5) Grab every opportunity you can get to call the person by name.
Once you’ve used the name a few times it will work itself into your memory and become quite easy to recall.
If we’re going to allow ourselves to be seen and spoken to before and after Mass, we’re going to have to do the processions up and down the middle aisle. This goes for weekdays as well as weekends. People get to rely on seeing us at our posts. They know where to find us. That’s reassuring for them. “Father is available any time I want to see him,” they will say. “He cares about us.” Most of them won’t speak to you very often, but that’s what they’ll say.
As pastors, we have to be ready to make appointments. Although we won’t be able to see everybody, one-time or occasional meetings should always be possible. People have problems, questions, and suggestions to make. They may need counsel or want prayers.
Working with individuals can be rewarding. It can also be exhausting. While we’re quite within the parameters of our mandate to give counsel, we have to remember we’re not counsellors. We have to resist the desire, if we have such, as well as pressure from those in need, to take people on as regular directees. We can find others to carry out this much-sought after ministry. I’m convinced the gifts to do it will be present in any developing parish community. God does not leave his Church without the gifts to carry out the appointed tasks.
The pastor’s role will be to identify the gifts, call the people forth, get them some training and commission them to do the job. He will keep in on-going touch with those who are working with him.
In some ways, today’s pastor has to act the way a bishop does. He must try to surround himself with competent, gifted, discreet, prayerful people, people he can count on, who have his ‘mind’ on most things, to whom he can confide about people and situations that need attention. How to find them? Pray hard and ask God to point them out.
In our amazingly computerized world, wonderful machines are doing more and more of our work. While it is important that we be effective labourers in the Lord’s vineyard, I feel we are in danger of making a god out of efficiency. God’s ways are not always ours. It seems to me that, if we are going to leave the Lord room to make the many surprising moves he may well have in mind, we are going to have to put up with a certain amount of pleasant disorder. Some times even orderly chaos. God is effective, but he isn’t always very efficient.
Telephone answering machines are a useful invention, but I think it’s possible we leave them on too long. I’m against office hours. While I like order, that’s just too business-like to suit me. Better to recruit more volunteers to answer the phone than to cut down the hours of availability. I realize there are differing opinions here, but the most appealing pastors of my acquaintance have been those who have opened the doors and the phone lines.
They’re quite available.
Parish Entry
By Fr. Bob Bedard
My tenure at St. Mary’s in Ottawa did not begin until 1984. But it was in preparation for a few years prior to that.
Archbishop Joseph-Aurele Plourde was the ‘ordinary’ of Ottawa and had been since 1967. He was quite a good fellow when you’d get to know him, but he was enigmatic (very hard to figure out) and he was volatile. He could blow up, always unexpectedly, and create havoc in all directions at once.
But, along with his peculiarities, he was truly very prophetic. He had a great sense of Church and was, I believe, adept at reading the signs of the times. Into the eighties, he began to tell me how good he thought I could be as a pastor. Each year for four consecutive years, he would call me in for a discussion and outline the parish situation he had in mind for me. For the first three of those years, I was able to talk him out of it by suggesting other moves that could help solve the ad hoc problems. At the third occasion he had asked me what I myself wanted to do. I told him that I would do anything he said. His response was: “That is no damn help to me. I want to know what you think God is saying to you!”
I actually had not, since I started teaching, wanted at all to be a pastor. During my years at St. Pius X High School, twenty in all, I customarily helped weekends in various parishes – St. Theresa’s, St. Monica’s. The pastors all seemed to be under siege. The job description since Vatican II had grown to amazing proportions, and the men appeared to be extremely busy. There were frequent programs to initiate. There were agendas being suggested and embraced by the lay people, newly conscious of their vital roles in the whole ministry of the Church. The pastors were often men trying to catch up. Some were wearing out others were becoming frustrated, some others even bitter. Their ministry did not often look to me as though it were life-giving for them. I didn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. So, I avoided it like the plague.
I stickhandled successfully around the archbishop for three straight years. Because I continued to make the daily offer to the Lord that I would do anything he wanted, he began to change my heart. I commenced to feel that I would finally have to assume a pastor’s role before too long if I were to stay in the Lord’s will.
During the summer of 1984, I spoke at three conferences across the country – one in the east, one in the west, and one in central Canada. The conference themes were similar, so I gave basically the same talk at all three. My topic became ‘the renewal of a parish’. In it, I described what I called the ideal parish: one in which the Sunday worship would be #1 priority (joyfully enthusiastic and quietly reverent); evangelization to inform everything done; wide-scale delegation of sensitive pastoral ministries to prepared lay people, chosen by the pastor himself; pastor freed up thereby to concentrate on prayer and the service of the word a la Acts 6, relationship-building venues for parishioners, teaching programs for the average Catholic to fill in the many blank spaces in his less than impressive compendium of Catholic truth strong youth presence and participation. It was very well received.
Along with the conferences and the many talks I gave during a country-wide tour on Medjugorje here, there, and everywhere, I sensed the Lord saying to me in prayer that the time was coming soon when I would have to assume the mantle of pastor. I was to return home by September and shut down my travels because God’s word seemed to be that he would shortly change my agenda.
I thought I’d better apprise the archbishop of my musings. After all, he had said he wanted to be kept current on what I thought the Lord was saying to me. I told him I was finished stickhandling around him and would now be willing to take on a parish. He was delighted, but told me there were no openings at the moment. All appointments had been made in June. This was now September. I assured him I knew that, but was simply trying to give him heads up for the inevitable personnel board meetings next spring.
He then asked what kind of parish I had in mind. I replied that I wouldn’t care for one of the big ‘plum’ parishes, but rather one that was somewhat down at the heels. “Some place like St. Mary’s (in danger of being closed) or Blessed Sacrament where I grew up”, (now not much more than an empty shell). He thanked me, and I left.
About two weeks later, I received a call from the auxiliary bishop asking me to come in. I settled into a chair in his office, waiting for him to say something. He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary, but said nothing. Just then, the archbishop appeared at the door with a big smile. “I have seen the finger of God,” he said. “The Holy Spirit wants you to go to St. Mary’s.”
It seems a situation had arisen at St. Theresa’s and the pastor had to be replaced. The pastor from St. Mary’s had offered to go to the now-vacant St. Theresa’s, and St. Mary’s was without a pastor. I was to go there in a month.
Before moving in, I had to meet with the pastor for the compulsory take-over tour. He showed me the books, the accounts, the parish records, the safe, the fire extinguishers, the fuse box ,etc. All of those things just bore me to tears. I didn’t want to know anything about any of them.
He took me through the church. Everything looked fine. Out the front door, he pointed at the disrepair of the front steps. Those will have to be fixed, he said. If there’s an accident, you could be sued. I couldn’t have cared less. The front steps could fall off entirely, I thought, and I wouldn’t even notice.
We went through the hall. It looked clean and unused. As it turned out, only one group used it regularly -–a local Brownie pack – not even a parish concern. He showed me the furnace and how to deal with it. He gave me the plumber’s number. “You’ll need him, for sure,” he said. He reported that the roof was in bad shape and needed serious work – about $40,000. “But we don’t have the money,” he lamented. “We’re barely making it. I’ve pared down the expenses as far as I can. I’m glad you’re taking it on.”
By this time, I was semi-depressed. I have no use for administrative matters and, in fact, refuse to deal with them.
“Nobody comes here anymore,” he continued. “In fact, at any of the Sunday Masses, you can throw a snowball from front to back and not hit anybody.”
“How about music?” I asked, hopefully anticipating something positive by way of an answer. “Well,” he replied, “I don’t sing and I don’t care much for music. There’s a small choir at one of the Sunday Masses, but they’re way back in the balcony and can barely be heard. Besides, the organ is pretty broken down. A lot of the keys don’t work.. It’s a pretty strange sound. It’s a good thing you can’t hear them.
The Sunday collection amounted to about $900 on a weekly basis. And there’s not much to do besides Sacraments. “You’ll have lots of time to read.”
I headed for home that day with a large cloud of gloom hanging over my head.
I was close to panic. What can I do? I’m stuck. I have to go there. I dreaded the very thought.
The week before I got there, all the ushers and the money-counters quit. And a couple of dozen parishioners left the parish. This is before I got there! How bad can this get, I wondered.
I tried to keep calm. I’ll need some help, I thought. I recruited my very close friend Ed Noah, who was between jobs at the time. He would know how to take care of all that administrative stuff. Unlike the former pastor, I do like music and consider it of vital importance in the carrying out and the celebration of the Church’s Liturgy. I got in touch with a young man I knew very well, whom I had taught in high school, and who was a very gifted, prayerful besides, worship leader and musician. His name was Marcel Dion. He agreed to give it a try.
I took up residence at St. Mary’s in the middle of November, 1984. My first Sunday is hard to forget.
There were three Masses Sunday morning in addition the Saturday evening celebration. There was only a corporal’s guard at each one. The weather had turned quite cold. With the furnace clanking away at less than half strength, the people had all their winter clothing on throughout Mass. The lights in the church were very dim (less than half the necessary candle power for the space, we learned later). The sound system was very poor, quite difficult to hear what the new pastor had to say.
My debut was pretty much a disaster. After each Mass I posted myself outside the main door of the church to be available for anybody who might want to talk to me. I might as well have saved my energy. Nobody even came near me, let alone talk to me. I don’t remember if I expected to see some friendly faces, hear some friendly voices, and shake the hands of some friendly people welcoming me to the parish. But, if I did have such expectations, they were most cruelly dashed. Not one word of welcome. The weather was cold, but the parish atmosphere was deep freeze.
I decided not to let it bother me. After all, I was where the Lord and the bishop had placed me. I would bite the bullet and soldier on
I realized that, although I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to see happen in the parish, I didn’t have a clue as to how to get there. I had no strategy, no plan. I wasn’t used to that. I always had different ideas in my head about things to try.
After 2 or 3 repeats of the opening weekend drill, my spirits were down, dragging badly. I moved again into panic mode. What if nothing ever changed? Each week the attendance went down and the collection with it. I wondered if I had been sent here to preside over the demise of the parish. Perhaps I would simply be the last pastor of St. Mary’s and close the place.
Can I possibly get out of here, I wondered? I felt trapped. One last desperate idea occurred to me. What if I faint at the altar next Sunday? They would lug me off to the hospital where I would receive treatment for exhaustion. With deep regret, I would have to tell the archbishop he needed a replacement. I would be free!
It didn’t take long for my conscience to confront me on that one. It would be a lie. I couldn’t do it. So I had to face the music.
My prayer went into a frantic phase. That lasted a week and was replaced by a kind of not-so-holy resignation. At the rate people were leaving the parish, I would soon be talking to myself at St. Mary’s. I could take my predecessor’s advice and read books. I would join a few book clubs. Maybe I could start one myself. That was it. I’d start a little business, a book exchange or something.
As I dithered along in this vein, it began to occur to me that perhaps God had a plan that hadn’t hit me at all. I began to ask him some fairly pointed questions. At the same time, I remembered to pledge to do whatever He might tell me. That, of course, is the key to hearing from the Lord.
Shortly, a word began to drift in and out of my daily personal prayer that I’d never before heard in that context. The word in question was “permission”. It was just another distraction, I told myself. But, try as I might, I couldn’t chase it away. Three or four days in a row, there it was. I asked the Lord if it was his word and, if so, what did He mean by it. It began to take flesh in a very distinct form:
“I want your permission to do what I want to do here. I don’t want your bright ideas and plans to get in my way. As well, I want you to tell the people you’re giving this permission to me. And furthermore, I want their permission, too. If I get enough permissions, I’ll move. When I do, you’ll see it and can then explain it to the people and support it”.
I was quite struck by the cogency of the word and scared to death at the same time. “O Lord, if I start talking like that, they’ll think I’m crazy.”
When He starts getting across to me, I’m not always very sure I’m interpreting it correctly. But this time, it was crystal clear. “Look: they know you’re crazy. What have you got to lose?” He was right. My reputation as a charismatic cuckoo had preceded me.
My tenure at St. Mary’s in Ottawa did not begin until 1984. But it was in preparation for a few years prior to that.
Archbishop Joseph-Aurele Plourde was the ‘ordinary’ of Ottawa and had been since 1967. He was quite a good fellow when you’d get to know him, but he was enigmatic (very hard to figure out) and he was volatile. He could blow up, always unexpectedly, and create havoc in all directions at once.
But, along with his peculiarities, he was truly very prophetic. He had a great sense of Church and was, I believe, adept at reading the signs of the times. Into the eighties, he began to tell me how good he thought I could be as a pastor. Each year for four consecutive years, he would call me in for a discussion and outline the parish situation he had in mind for me. For the first three of those years, I was able to talk him out of it by suggesting other moves that could help solve the ad hoc problems. At the third occasion he had asked me what I myself wanted to do. I told him that I would do anything he said. His response was: “That is no damn help to me. I want to know what you think God is saying to you!”
I actually had not, since I started teaching, wanted at all to be a pastor. During my years at St. Pius X High School, twenty in all, I customarily helped weekends in various parishes – St. Theresa’s, St. Monica’s. The pastors all seemed to be under siege. The job description since Vatican II had grown to amazing proportions, and the men appeared to be extremely busy. There were frequent programs to initiate. There were agendas being suggested and embraced by the lay people, newly conscious of their vital roles in the whole ministry of the Church. The pastors were often men trying to catch up. Some were wearing out others were becoming frustrated, some others even bitter. Their ministry did not often look to me as though it were life-giving for them. I didn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. So, I avoided it like the plague.
I stickhandled successfully around the archbishop for three straight years. Because I continued to make the daily offer to the Lord that I would do anything he wanted, he began to change my heart. I commenced to feel that I would finally have to assume a pastor’s role before too long if I were to stay in the Lord’s will.
During the summer of 1984, I spoke at three conferences across the country – one in the east, one in the west, and one in central Canada. The conference themes were similar, so I gave basically the same talk at all three. My topic became ‘the renewal of a parish’. In it, I described what I called the ideal parish: one in which the Sunday worship would be #1 priority (joyfully enthusiastic and quietly reverent); evangelization to inform everything done; wide-scale delegation of sensitive pastoral ministries to prepared lay people, chosen by the pastor himself; pastor freed up thereby to concentrate on prayer and the service of the word a la Acts 6, relationship-building venues for parishioners, teaching programs for the average Catholic to fill in the many blank spaces in his less than impressive compendium of Catholic truth strong youth presence and participation. It was very well received.
Along with the conferences and the many talks I gave during a country-wide tour on Medjugorje here, there, and everywhere, I sensed the Lord saying to me in prayer that the time was coming soon when I would have to assume the mantle of pastor. I was to return home by September and shut down my travels because God’s word seemed to be that he would shortly change my agenda.
I thought I’d better apprise the archbishop of my musings. After all, he had said he wanted to be kept current on what I thought the Lord was saying to me. I told him I was finished stickhandling around him and would now be willing to take on a parish. He was delighted, but told me there were no openings at the moment. All appointments had been made in June. This was now September. I assured him I knew that, but was simply trying to give him heads up for the inevitable personnel board meetings next spring.
He then asked what kind of parish I had in mind. I replied that I wouldn’t care for one of the big ‘plum’ parishes, but rather one that was somewhat down at the heels. “Some place like St. Mary’s (in danger of being closed) or Blessed Sacrament where I grew up”, (now not much more than an empty shell). He thanked me, and I left.
About two weeks later, I received a call from the auxiliary bishop asking me to come in. I settled into a chair in his office, waiting for him to say something. He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary, but said nothing. Just then, the archbishop appeared at the door with a big smile. “I have seen the finger of God,” he said. “The Holy Spirit wants you to go to St. Mary’s.”
It seems a situation had arisen at St. Theresa’s and the pastor had to be replaced. The pastor from St. Mary’s had offered to go to the now-vacant St. Theresa’s, and St. Mary’s was without a pastor. I was to go there in a month.
Before moving in, I had to meet with the pastor for the compulsory take-over tour. He showed me the books, the accounts, the parish records, the safe, the fire extinguishers, the fuse box ,etc. All of those things just bore me to tears. I didn’t want to know anything about any of them.
He took me through the church. Everything looked fine. Out the front door, he pointed at the disrepair of the front steps. Those will have to be fixed, he said. If there’s an accident, you could be sued. I couldn’t have cared less. The front steps could fall off entirely, I thought, and I wouldn’t even notice.
We went through the hall. It looked clean and unused. As it turned out, only one group used it regularly -–a local Brownie pack – not even a parish concern. He showed me the furnace and how to deal with it. He gave me the plumber’s number. “You’ll need him, for sure,” he said. He reported that the roof was in bad shape and needed serious work – about $40,000. “But we don’t have the money,” he lamented. “We’re barely making it. I’ve pared down the expenses as far as I can. I’m glad you’re taking it on.”
By this time, I was semi-depressed. I have no use for administrative matters and, in fact, refuse to deal with them.
“Nobody comes here anymore,” he continued. “In fact, at any of the Sunday Masses, you can throw a snowball from front to back and not hit anybody.”
“How about music?” I asked, hopefully anticipating something positive by way of an answer. “Well,” he replied, “I don’t sing and I don’t care much for music. There’s a small choir at one of the Sunday Masses, but they’re way back in the balcony and can barely be heard. Besides, the organ is pretty broken down. A lot of the keys don’t work.. It’s a pretty strange sound. It’s a good thing you can’t hear them.
The Sunday collection amounted to about $900 on a weekly basis. And there’s not much to do besides Sacraments. “You’ll have lots of time to read.”
I headed for home that day with a large cloud of gloom hanging over my head.
I was close to panic. What can I do? I’m stuck. I have to go there. I dreaded the very thought.
The week before I got there, all the ushers and the money-counters quit. And a couple of dozen parishioners left the parish. This is before I got there! How bad can this get, I wondered.
I tried to keep calm. I’ll need some help, I thought. I recruited my very close friend Ed Noah, who was between jobs at the time. He would know how to take care of all that administrative stuff. Unlike the former pastor, I do like music and consider it of vital importance in the carrying out and the celebration of the Church’s Liturgy. I got in touch with a young man I knew very well, whom I had taught in high school, and who was a very gifted, prayerful besides, worship leader and musician. His name was Marcel Dion. He agreed to give it a try.
I took up residence at St. Mary’s in the middle of November, 1984. My first Sunday is hard to forget.
There were three Masses Sunday morning in addition the Saturday evening celebration. There was only a corporal’s guard at each one. The weather had turned quite cold. With the furnace clanking away at less than half strength, the people had all their winter clothing on throughout Mass. The lights in the church were very dim (less than half the necessary candle power for the space, we learned later). The sound system was very poor, quite difficult to hear what the new pastor had to say.
My debut was pretty much a disaster. After each Mass I posted myself outside the main door of the church to be available for anybody who might want to talk to me. I might as well have saved my energy. Nobody even came near me, let alone talk to me. I don’t remember if I expected to see some friendly faces, hear some friendly voices, and shake the hands of some friendly people welcoming me to the parish. But, if I did have such expectations, they were most cruelly dashed. Not one word of welcome. The weather was cold, but the parish atmosphere was deep freeze.
I decided not to let it bother me. After all, I was where the Lord and the bishop had placed me. I would bite the bullet and soldier on
I realized that, although I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to see happen in the parish, I didn’t have a clue as to how to get there. I had no strategy, no plan. I wasn’t used to that. I always had different ideas in my head about things to try.
After 2 or 3 repeats of the opening weekend drill, my spirits were down, dragging badly. I moved again into panic mode. What if nothing ever changed? Each week the attendance went down and the collection with it. I wondered if I had been sent here to preside over the demise of the parish. Perhaps I would simply be the last pastor of St. Mary’s and close the place.
Can I possibly get out of here, I wondered? I felt trapped. One last desperate idea occurred to me. What if I faint at the altar next Sunday? They would lug me off to the hospital where I would receive treatment for exhaustion. With deep regret, I would have to tell the archbishop he needed a replacement. I would be free!
It didn’t take long for my conscience to confront me on that one. It would be a lie. I couldn’t do it. So I had to face the music.
My prayer went into a frantic phase. That lasted a week and was replaced by a kind of not-so-holy resignation. At the rate people were leaving the parish, I would soon be talking to myself at St. Mary’s. I could take my predecessor’s advice and read books. I would join a few book clubs. Maybe I could start one myself. That was it. I’d start a little business, a book exchange or something.
As I dithered along in this vein, it began to occur to me that perhaps God had a plan that hadn’t hit me at all. I began to ask him some fairly pointed questions. At the same time, I remembered to pledge to do whatever He might tell me. That, of course, is the key to hearing from the Lord.
Shortly, a word began to drift in and out of my daily personal prayer that I’d never before heard in that context. The word in question was “permission”. It was just another distraction, I told myself. But, try as I might, I couldn’t chase it away. Three or four days in a row, there it was. I asked the Lord if it was his word and, if so, what did He mean by it. It began to take flesh in a very distinct form:
“I want your permission to do what I want to do here. I don’t want your bright ideas and plans to get in my way. As well, I want you to tell the people you’re giving this permission to me. And furthermore, I want their permission, too. If I get enough permissions, I’ll move. When I do, you’ll see it and can then explain it to the people and support it”.
I was quite struck by the cogency of the word and scared to death at the same time. “O Lord, if I start talking like that, they’ll think I’m crazy.”
When He starts getting across to me, I’m not always very sure I’m interpreting it correctly. But this time, it was crystal clear. “Look: they know you’re crazy. What have you got to lose?” He was right. My reputation as a charismatic cuckoo had preceded me.
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