News Item: : Evangelization - Some Helps and Hindrances (Part 1 of 4)
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Wednesday 04 March 2015 - 21:00:26

Quarant' Ore - Forty Hours Devotion - English Martyrs,

Litherland. Circa 1990.

I was updating the recent tribute to Dad earlier on: There was an extra photograph that I had meant to put in and a bit more about how the Blessed Sacrament Shrine in Liverpool had helped him. I also wanted to tidy up and clarify the paragraph about Dad's last Confession and Holy Communion.

Whilst adding these elements, the recollections of my own conversion and journey into the Church from Protestantism, in the late 80's - early 90's, were refreshed. This got me thinking of some of the things which helped and hindered me. I'm putting these down here in case some readers find them helpful in reaching out with the Catholic Faith to others. 

Et Verbum Caro Factum Est 

There is a key text in Catechesi Tradendae, which speaks of the need for fidelity to God and fidelity to man in a single loving attitude (CT 55). 

God became man in Jesus Christ. The 'incarnational principle' helps us to keep our focus on God and His glory, without losing sight of man and his needs.

Experiencing reverent offerings of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Quarant' Ore, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and traditional devotions; such as Stations of the Cross, Rosary and parish novenas, all helped my family, whilst still Protestants, to encounter the Blessed Trinity, the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and a living community of the Catholic faithful. This was a work of grace, drawing us to God through His Holy Church.

We were blessed to find a Catholic parish where: the Novus Ordo was offered with reverence; the two old priests regularly reminded the congregation that the Mass was the Holy Sacrifice and that Jesus Christ was truly present in the Blessed Sacrament; where the art, architecture, the demeanor of the priests and people, and much of the music expressed these realities and fostered reverence and devotion for them; where traditional devotions drew the faithful deeper into these mysteries and extended their influence into daily life; where priests and people showed an interest in each other and their spiritual/temporal well-being; and where this concern was given practical expression through prayer groups, Legion of Mary and SVP. 

Today, reverence has been lost in many parishes in the West, much devotional life has ceased and outward-looking parish groups have given way to inward-looking meetings and information gathering. In many ways, the questionnaires and agendas surrounding the Synod in Rome have exacerbated this trend.

There exists a video on YouTube about a retired lady in the Archdiocese of Liverpool who wishes to be a priest. Some of those continuing to push this theologically impossible agenda gathered a group of lay-women into the central pews of a local church, (not English Martyrs), together with the lady concerned, to discuss on film why they think she should be allowed to become a priest. Throughout this disconcertingly un-Catholic video, respect for the Real Presence, and the official teaching of the Magisterium, falls prey to the self-referential focus of this small and clearly uncatechized community. Non-Catholics viewing this footage would be hard-pressed to discover the mystery and wonder of the Mass, Real Presence or the Sacred Priesthood.

Aside from its agenda of radical dissent from the Magisterium, one of the most nauseating things about A Call to Action (ACTA) - the group welcomed into the Archdiocese of Liverpool last November by Archbishop Malcolm McMahon - is their consuming focus on lay-governance and the desire to turn the Church into a slickly-efficient institution on the lines of a modern bureaucracy. ACTA's website links to another site which interprets Sensus Fidelium in terms of a coldly-efficient lay-bureaucracy; picking future bishops according to their own leftist ideologies. The imagery is not so much City of God as Capital City. Only without the trendiness and youthful dynamism.

The organic growth of the Sacred Liturgy, its related devotions and the art, architecture and community life that It fosters, have all been hacked away to make way for a bureacracy of campaigning, group-discussion and self-assertion. Saintliness has too often given way to a narrowly-understood professionalism. 

Nothing could be more exclusive of God and of potential converts than this. Had we encountered many parishes in the form they are today, it is unlikely that we would have ever converted. So obscured has the nature and mission of the Church become in so many places. More positively, this helps us to realize something of the wonder of God's timing and Divine Pedagogy in the life of our family. In so many ways, Our Blessed Lord brought us in at just the right time. But what of those who come after us when the engineered shortage of priests has heralded the era of widespread lay-leadership at the parish level?

In the late 80's, when Capital City was 'in', I already had a professional job in a high-street bank. I was therefore quite temporally - though not spiritually - satisfied with money, status and things. What I needed was God and His Church.

When I first encountered Quarant' Ore - as pictured above at English Martyrs, Litherland late in 1990 - I was given the grace to know that God was Present in the Monstrance on the Altar. 

This was an example of sheer grace. Deo Gratias! 

If we are serious about evangelization - new or otherwise - we need sometimes to set aside our pastoral plans, questionnaires, tick-lists and circular discussion groups. Instead we need to fall prostrate before the Living God.

Perhaps then we will become so in awe of the fact that we are made in the imago Dei, that we will be less inclined to try and re-make the Church in our image. We may become so interested in being changed by the Church, that we will have less time, or will, to try and change Her. This - rather than fashion - partly explains why so many Catholics are giving up on Novus Ordo parishes and travelling fair distances to join communities where the Traditional Liturgy is normative. 

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (Last Gospel, Traditional Latin Mass). 

In Part 2 of this brief 4-part series, I hope to offer some reflections on the part of apologetics in my conversion to the Catholic Faith.

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.891 )