I write out of profound respect for the Church founded by the most eminent personality who 2,000 ago dwelt amongst us – Jesus Christ, man and God.
Church attendance has been too much on top of the agenda for too long- Paul Xuereb
I have followed with deep interest the contributions, penned in The Times and The Sunday Times, prompted by Cardinal Martini’s last interview before he passed to eternal life.
I was also present during the recent debate organised by The Times at the Intercontinental Hotel.
The universal Church has just announced the beginning of the Year of the Faith and is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the second Vatican council. In the local scenario we were regaled with the good news that Mgr Charles Scicluna will soon become our Auxiliary Bishop. I think that all these events are a blessing from above and have come about at a very appropiate time so that all of us who love our Church are energised to propose initiatives for the way forward.
Quite a number of attendees at The Times debate, myself included, wished to contribute but could not because of time constraints and other factors. In this contribution, I intend precisely to raise a number of issues –in my opinion quite relevant to the ongoing discussions and current events – which were not raised during the conference.
Over the years, the Church attached great importance to church attendance. This fact may have inadvertently sent a wrong message, that is, that those who enter the Temple could be counted as Christians against those who do not. Which definitely is not the case. I count myself among those who rarely miss a daily Mass but on the strength of this fact alone I cannot claim to be a Christian.
Indeed, Christianity manifests itself in the way we lead our daily lives – in our families, in our relationships with others, in our behaviour as employers and workers, in our concern for those in need, physically or spiritually, in the manner we do politics, in the way we recreate ourselves, in times of trial and so on and so forth.
In his letter, the apostle James (2, 14-26) explains lucidly how authentic Christians give living witness to the faith which they profess. I have selected some verses at random: “If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.” (15-17). “Do realise, you senseless man, that faith without good deeds is useless”. (20)
The point I am trying to emphasise here is that the Church needs to convey in a much more emphatic way that those of us who willingly choose to follow our Lord’s teachings – because after all this is what Christianity is all about – must bear witness to the faith which we profess to embrace.
Attendance in the Temple is very praisworthy – but what about our behaviour as soon as we walk out of the Temple? And what is the Church concretely doing to reach out to the flock – those of us who for some reason have decided against church attendance? After all, is not what I am stating the core of Evangelisation – or New Evangelisation – which very appropriately has become the clarion call of the universal church?
In his recent contribution in The Sunday Times, Fr Joe Borg refers to church attendance. He writes: “Isn’t it a fact that even in Malta Church attendance is on the decline. We gauged this by periodical Mass censuses.”
And “instead of facing the ever diminishing figures of mass attendance we stopped counting”.
Martin Scicluna, in his September 6 contribution, refers to the “ever diminishing flock” and that “the young are deserting it in their droves”. These quotes give substance to my argument that Church attendance has been too much on top of the agenda for too long and unwillingly conveying a wrong message.
Indeed, one of the reasons for which many young people are staying away from Mass is precisely because they have over the years been watching adults going to Mass regularly, never missing a procession and other outdoor manifestations and then seeing that their day-to-day behaviour is not coherent with what they say they believe in.
The other issue I would like to raise emanates from Scicluna’s penultimate paragragh of his September 30 feature. Referring to Cardinal Martini, he writes that “he was a great leader, encouraging Christians to live in the Bible’s light and going where others hesitated to tread”.
Yes, and I am saying this from experience of many years: an authentic Christian must live guided by the Bible’s light. In this respect, a salient question comes readily to mind: who has the authority to shed light on the Bible if not the Institution founded by our Saviour? Otherwise, as not very infrequently happens, different interpretations are bandied about as if the Word of God is some form of elastic band. This is confusion worst confounded.
Indeed, my decision to delve into the Word of God has enriched my life in more ways than one. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews eulogises thus the Word of God: “The Word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double-edged sword but more finely.” (4, 12). The Bible, which in essence is the Word of God, has become my favourite reference book containing as it does wisdom par excellence. I find solace in its pages: in times when all is clear and more so in times of trial.
I was recently listening to a radio interview of Mgr Charles Cordina by PBS’s Joe Dimech on the significance of the Year of the Faith. I was particularly struck when the charismatic monsignor referred to himself and said that even he as a priest can celebrate Mass daily and administer sacraments but then late at night could fall into the trap and make misuse of the internet.
The point he was emphasising is the need of living the faith one professes, clergy included.
What struck me most was the monsignor’s humanity. May all our clergy emulate him through depicting themselves as fragile human beings like the rest of us all.