Where Has Religion Gone?

A couple of weeks ago, I was travelling to another church for a conference and forgot to bring directions. I thought… lucky me… I have a GPS system with me. So I plug it in and try to locate Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton. No luck! Apparently my GPS does not list churches, not even as a category or as a point of interest. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, parks are listed but no churches, temples or mosques. And yesterday I got an invitation from Twitter (a social networking service on the Internet) to link up with people who share my interests. I thought, “How wonderful!” I can connect with other Catholics and see how they use the Internet to share the faith. So I logged in and looked over the list of categories… no religion! Have faith and religion in our world completely faded from the public view? Do people see God as not important anymore? I look around me at Mass and see the empty pews and wonder how we got into this mess. Have we lost our sense of mission?

During the Easter season we hear selections from the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The Apostles, after Jesus’ death and resurrection are sent forth into the world to baptize and make disciples of all nations. This mission is carried on by all of us today. How are you carrying out this mission? Are you spreading the God News? Are you sharing your faith?

Last weekend Fr. John Swencki, in his homily at the
11 o’clock Mass, gave us some great advice. He told us that we each carry out the mission in our own way just by sharing our faith. We do not need to go to Africa to be missionaries but we can be missionaries right here, at home, school, work and in our everyday lives. Fr. John told a 7/8 year old boy that he was a missionary and to talk about God with his friends at school and that he would be carrying out Jesus’ directive just like a foreign missionary would be doing. He told us older folks that we are missionaries too by living the faith, sharing the faith and not being afraid to show our joy and love of Jesus. Imagine what the world would be like if we all shared the light of Christ with those who are in darkness! (We’d all be happier and perhaps GPSs would be programmed to help us find our Churches!)

This week, let us reflect upon what little ways we can share our faith with our family and friends and people whom we don’t know. Make an effort to invite someone to come to Mass with you. Take the time to sow some seeds, you never know what will grow! Ite missa est!
God Bless, Holly Clark