The bishops’ pastoral letter, read in churches last weekend, has many pluses. The bishops are challenging us. They clearly assert that change is a positive, as “it is not beneficial for a person to remain stagnant”.
The analysis was good enough; but what about the solution?- Fr Joe Borg
They strongly appeal that we should have the courage to change. Resistance to change is compared to putting spokes in a wheel. “Stagnant water smells nasty. Running water, on the other hand, is pure!”
The bishops point to several instances of resistance to change that are doing harm to the Catholic community in our islands.
I will list some of them:
• We live in a culture where we tend to repeat the same things over and over again.
• Religious customs are not commendable if they reduce religion to a convention.
• Repetition is sometimes cheapening the Word of God by considering it as only one voice among many others.
• Routine prayer is rendered a burden instead of a pleasurable experience.
• When participation in Mass becomes customary its beauty and power is not appreciated.
• The sacraments are requested as a social convention, not as a transforming meeting with Christ.
• At times, ecclesial communities rest upon their laurels and rely on their usual routine, with the result that their message is repetitive and their rituals do not change.
• There are those who close an eye to the present, preferring to dwell nostalgically on the past.
This pastoral letter reminds me of a courageous speech by Archbishop Paul Cremona during one of the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops. He identified those who look nostalgically on the past as one of the biggest pastoral problems of the Church in Malta.
The bishops quite rightly point towards the problem of language: “we are still speaking in yesterday’s language”, a language which is “no longer comprehended in this day and age”.
This is the core of the matter. An analysis of the homilies we deliver every Sunday, our liturgical texts, a number of pastoral letters and several statements by the Curia and ecclesial actions (language is here used in its wider sense) would undoubtedly show how right the bishops are in pointing towards this basic problem.
The analysis of the problem was good enough; but what about the solution?
Most of the problems mentioned in the pastoral letter have been with us for a long stretch of time. As the bishops are now on the vanguard of this courageous analysis of the problem they should also be on the vanguard of the movement for reform.
The bishops, for example, point out to the danger that “our liturgy becomes theatrical”. Should they not then refuse to participate in liturgies which are theatrical?
Following every Mass census and the announcement of the ever-decreasing figure of Mass attendance, many promises of renewal are put forward. The pastoral letter is indirectly suggesting that not a lot was done in this direction. Ironically, this year we will not have the same problem as a decision was taken not to hold the Mass census!
However, it would be wrong to reduce the radical changes asked for by the bishops just to the renewal of the liturgy. The pastoral letter refers also to the spiritual and organisational renewal mentioned by Pope Paul VI decades ago.
Our problems are structural as much as they are spiritual andas much as they result frominadequate personnel.
This courageous analysis of the situation has to be followed by a courageous programme of reform.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt