Catholic and Loving it!

The Catholic Herald has an interesting interview this week with the Marriage and Family life people who are responsible for the Celebrating Family project which has been going on nationally since Listening 2004 but will be kicking off in our area this Wednesday when our shiny new Diosesan Family Life Person holds a meeting at the Endsleigh Centre.

You can read the interview here.

Personally I have found the Marriage and Family people to be good people who are working very hard to solve the wrong problem.

Ultimately it comes down to this: In the Catholic faith we have the best thing in the world... a living relationship with Jesus Christ. To quote Pope Benedict: "Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.".

If we are aware of and value that relationship then we will do anything to get it. We will be like the man who finds a treasure in a field and sells everything he has to buy the field and get that treasure. We will ask our friends to cut a hole in the roof and lower us down on a stretcher.

When we are willing to go to such extremes, will we be phased by a grumpy priest or a parish where nobody welcomes us as we walk through the door? Certainly not! If being unhappy with the Priest were a reason not to go I would have left ages ago.

If somebody told you they had found a great treasure in a field and were going to sell everything they own to buy the field at great profit. Would you not be a tad surpised when they decided not to do it because the estate agents office didn't have a doormat with "welcome" written on it?

The reason nobody is interested in buying the field is that they think it is just a field. Putting a welcome mat in the estate agents office will not change that. The only thing that will change that is to tell them about the treasure.

That's not to say we shouldn't be nice, or that welcoming is not a great thing to do, or that we shouldn't be sensitive to people in difficult situations. Of course we should do those things! But those things are not the solution to the problem.

What families need is a positive vision. Something to look at and say "Yes! That is what we want to be! That is wonderful! Let us do everything we can to acheive it..."

If we want to help families, we will present the beautiful vision of Marriage as a Sacrament with the potential to transform the family in a living icon of the trinity, the domestic church where all facets of life are sanctified and made holy. No human family matches that standard, but it is a glorious treasure and we will give much in an attempt to acheive something close to it.

Then we should offer them the tools they need to work towards that vision - regular confession (we go every couple of months), weekly Eucharist and regular prayer as a family, at the very least at mealtimes and bedtimes. We will give catechesis and study days for parents as the first teachers of their children, whose need for knowledge is far greater than that of extraordinary ministers.

If all we offer is welcome and affirmation, all we are doing is telling families that what they are is what they are. That they have no potential, that there is nothing greater that they could be. That the Church has nothing to offer them.