Raising the Dead, Part I

There is a real suffering in seeing the gap between what the Bride of Christ – the Church – could be, and what it is. This suffering is like the Lord’s suffering throughout the Old Testament. The prophets cried out at the gulf between the vision the Lord had for Israel, and the desperate state Israel was actually in. They pulled no punches: their words were like hammers, like fire; upsetting enough to get Isaiah sawn in half and Jeremiah thrown into a well for daring to challenge the priests and rulers who had abandoned their covenant with the Lord in their zeal to become just like the pagans. Sounds frighteningly familiar.

Often over the years, as Western civilization stands on the brink of – I believe, if nothing halts the trajectory – the worst persecution of the Church in history, I have sat in the pew, listening to another deadly dull or at best nice-but-shallow sermon with a sense of frustration that has had me climbing out of my skin. Thank God, my current parish has some good preaching. But the more common experience has been “My gosh! He’s got a captive audience. The readings are so rich. There’s a feast to be had, and he’s feeding us stale porridge! We don’t need platitudes: we need power! We don’t need soothing: we need waking up!”

One reading it seemed the Lord gave me years ago was from Jeremiah 19:9 – “I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones. I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.” Not to speak became so very difficult. But speak to whom? Where? On the street corner? Stand up in church and shout? Who would listen? Who do I think I am, anyway?

My wife Mary and I attended Catholic charismatic prayer meetings for years. We were distressed by the fact that virtually all of our peers, after having experienced a relationship with Jesus and the reality of the Holy Spirit, ended up leaving the Catholic Church for nondenominational or Pentecostal churches. The reasons were always the same: “I’m not getting fed by the sermons at St. such-and-such’s; this new church has in-depth Bible studies/wonderful worship/real fellowship/scads of young people/a dynamic pastor who preaches with power. They are giving me the tools to grow in holiness and with my walk with the Lord.” Some missed the Eucharist – but not enough to give up the rest.

 A sense of “That’s IT! I can’t take it any more!” hit me several years ago when a lifelong, prayerful Catholic told me he had switched to a Protestant church in the area. The same, predictable reasons: not fed by the preaching, not inspired by the services, excruciating music – and finding a delightful contrast at the other church. We all know these people – there are a lot of them; maybe some of you have been these people for a period; maybe some of you are toying with the idea right now. And it’s rarely the blasé or the unenthused who do so: it’s some of “the best and the brightest”, the people who are starving for a feast that they’re not finding in the Catholic Church as experienced on Sunday mornings, or through the week for that matter.

My wife Mary experienced the following, which is scandalous if you think about it: during her years teaching high school theology, she brought a number of students to know the Lord. And then she didn’t know where to send them. To the prayer meeting we attended? But they’d likely end up using it as a doorway out of the Catholic Church, like our friends. To the local parish? The preaching was excruciatingly dull and the median age was decades older than they. Do you set teenagers on fire only to send them back where their enthusiasm will be at best looked upon as unusual and at worst actively discouraged? Or even if they’re welcomed, where they have no one anywhere near their age for support?

I am very pleased that there are signs of the “new springtime of evangelization” St. John Paul II prophesied. There are some young people, including young priests, whose zeal puts us older Catholics to shame. There are points of renewal like “That Man Is You” for men, Fr. Bob Barron’s “Catholicism” series, and Jeff Cavins’ “Bible Timeline”, around which parish faith sharing groups have formed.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is in crisis. Not the sexual abuse scandal, although that’s a very alarming symptom of a much deeper disease in the Body. The elements of the crisis are not generally spoken out loud – rather, there’s a vague or strong uneasiness regarding the unfilled pews; the Protestant church up the road that’s bursting at the seams with young people, great worship, “solid preaching”, comprehensive and broad ministries with dedicated, well-paid ministers; the lack of young priests on the altar and of young people in the pews; the steadily more anxiety-provoking question, “Who will be in the pews after the 40+ generation dies? Am I one of the rats on a sinking ship?”

This last point is the most telling: I may feel strong in my faith, but how confident am I that my children’s children will also be committed, lively Catholics? How many in my immediate or extended family, and their peers, have dropped nearly all church involvement?

To be continued…

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About admin

I am a Catholic clinical psychologist with a solo practice in Omaha, NE. In the Franciscan seminary, I completed about 2/3rd of an M.Div./MA in Scripture. In my 3rd year of temporary vows, I discerned a call to the married life. My lovely wife Mary and I have a son, Michael, as well as a number of children preceding us to Heaven through miscarriages. We are delighted to be in the Omaha archdiocese and love the Heartland.
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