Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

I suppose it would be something of a dis-service this afternoon to simply go on as usual and comment a bit on the Scriptural readings, as though nothing particularly out of the ordinary were happening. It would be a dis-service, because it would not be true. Something unusual is happening, and special events call for special reflection, or they are wasted. And the unusual thing is that this weekend, for what I imagine is the first time in quite a while, if not ever, there will be no Mass celebrated here in this community on Sunday morning. Certainly satisfying the weekend obligation with the celebration of a Saturday afternoon Mass is nothing especially new in Catholic tradition. It has been common practice in quite a number of places, for quite some time. It can come as no news to anyone that there are now any number of parishes around the diocese, around the country, that never have a Sunday Mass. Saturday afternoon, or in some places, even a weekday, is the norm, rather than the exception. But not here. In a community such as this, one centered in many ways much more explicitly around the liturgy than would be a parish community, the emotional if not theological attachment to Sunday morning as the "Lord's Day", is a great one.

And because that is so, I really do want to express my thanks to all of you for your willingness, flexibility in this. It certainly makes life a good bit easier for me, and it is a kindness to the people of Kindred as well. The Mass there tomorrow will be longer than usual, because we are going to incorporate a ceremony enrolling the Confirmation candidates. Following the Mass there is going to be a parish breakfast at the City Hall. That they do every few months, I understand. But this is to be as well a formal recognition and welcome to all of those who have moved in to the parish over the past year. There are a half dozen or so families in that position there. So it is to be a morning full of those special little parish rituals that may not have much to do with formal liturgy, but which are really very important in the life of a parish. Ritual is a powerful thing. It is a bonding thing between the members of the parish, and between the pastor and the parish. For me not to be there would be a mistake. So again, I do appreciate the ease with which the opportunity to be there is afforded.

But even with all of that being the case, this small change in schedule is still a pretty direct experience of a pressure, even a frustration, that is being experienced pretty regularly by a lot of people all across the diocese, perhaps all across the country. We are far from the only ones in the Church who are facing renewed demands for flexibility, for adaptation to the reality of the situation. As I say, in our own diocese, there are a pretty fair number of parish communities in which there is no longer any Sunday Mass celebrated, let alone daily. There are a pretty fair number of parish communities facing closure, situations where the only alternative open to the people is to travel, 20, 25 miles to attend Mass.

All of that, I suppose may be really just another way of underlining what has become almost a catch-phrase, the shortage of vocations. As the size of the Church increases, the number of priests and sisters continues to dwindle, the dis-proportion grows... grows to the point really at which what we have always considered the most basic of ministries, simply the celebration of the sacraments, is seemingly threatened.

Well, the trouble with a response like that, simply to say that the trouble is the shortage of vocations, is to really run the risk of bogging down in the obvious. Clearly there are far fewer priests and sisters in the Church than there could be, than there should be. Lots of reasons for that, I am sure. Some of those reasons I don't believe we have begun to address very realistically. I doubt that it all has much to do with bigger and better vocation promotion campaigns, though those are fine things, certainly. From what I hear being said, I think at the heart of it is the fact that we've got some real image problems out there. Earlier this week I had lunch with four of the relatively younger clergy, and the talk drifted, as it usually does, to the fact that we are all stretched pretty thin. And not a great deal of relief was seen to be anywhere very near. The best guess is that we are going to be a lot shorter as years go on. But I think what struck me the most forcefully was that everybody there had the same story to tell, that of parents, good decent, Christian people, presumably, who quite forthrightly say that they would never encourage their children to pursue a religious vocation. Apparently the common perception is that priests and sisters work too hard, are not particularly happy people, find too little joy in what they do, get sick too quick, and die too young. Not a real positive assessment. A couple of months ago, National Catholic Reporter ran a series of articles on the public image of priests, and it was dreadfully bad. I think a person has to take the National Catholic Reporter with a grain of salt, perhaps, but there was still something being said there. In the perception of a lot of people, we are a pretty broken lot. Not the sort of image that makes a young man or woman say, "That's what I want to be".

So, for a range of pretty complicated reasons, it is safe to say "We don't have enough vocations." But I don't think we can stop with that. I think we have to add, "But I really can't say how much is enough." I think we have to pretty reflectively ask ourselves how much of this perceived shortage is really a failing, a shortcoming, and how much of it is an urging, a prodding, even the work of the Spirit, renewing the face of His Church, in quite unexpected ways. I think the question is really this. What really are we doing in making the sort of adaptation we are making here this afternoon? Are we begrudgingly adapting to a shortfall evil, just making the best of a bad situation until we can somehow find enough vocations to bring things back to the way they should be? Or is there in all this irritating adaptation something far more important, more creative, holier going on? Are we in fact actually responding to a genuine call of the Spirit to rebuild in ourselves and in our Church a new awareness, a new sense of prayer and of worship, one far less dependent on particular schedules and particular places and particular people. Are we perhaps being prodded to realize that the Mass should really never have been allowed to become such a regular religious exercise, should never have become quite that familiar a thing, but should rather be seen again as something much more of an event, a recognizable high point in one's life of prayer. Are sacraments to be the ordinary stuff of prayer, or are they to be somehow extraordinary? Not rare, mind you, but extraordinary, simply enough an event? I don't know for sure how the mind of God would have us answer those questions, but I do know He would have us ask them. Of those two attitudes I underlined, I understand the first well enough, as do all of you. Everyone feels it. But I would also hope that in each of us, there is something of the second as well. Strange as it may sound, I am not so terribly sure that I would like to see a real sudden upsurge in the number of vocations. I think that would remove something creative that is afoot in the Church, soften the prodding point of those questions.

So. This afternoon is a small, if irritating, example of adjustment, adaptation that is going to have to continue in the Church, in us, for quite some time. I think part of our challenge will always be not to give in to the temptation to see all of that as simply a failing, something to be endured as patiently and charitably as possible. Our challenge is to be on the cutting edge, the creative edge of that adjustment, to see in it a call not simply to be pushed about, victimized by un-understood and un-controllable circumstances, but rather a call to move ourselves in unexplored directions. It seems to me pretty clear in the history of the Church, that when something is obviously happening, as is this shortage of vocations, and when there doesn't seem to be any really good, charitable reason why it is happening, that's a pretty good sign that that there is more at work than human hands. It is, I suppose, as it always has been, the ultimate challenge to the spiritual life of the Church, and of the individuals that make it up, to come to see in our experience of deprival, the creative hand of God's plenty.

Readings: Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28-34. Preached October 30, 1994.