It is a privilege and a joy, as well as a humbling experience, being
invited to share in this great occasion as we turn our hearts and minds to
the subject Christ Our Future.
It seems to me that we cannot contemplate our future, with or without Christ, unless we also are aware of our past and the present. In our consideration of these things for each of us it will necessarily be different, for we all have been and are in different places in our pilgrimage. Though we do have a common heritage, a past we share as members of the Body of Christ, through our Baptismal relationship with him.
There is an evangelical/charismatic song that many of you may not be familiar with, yet its simple words can be helpful to us as we enter into this celebration, Christ Our Future.
We live in a world in which there is an increased interest in "spirituality" and matters of faith. Books on these things sell like hot cakes, and yet our churches struggle to survive. Gone are the days of full churches. There is a need for all of us who love the Lord Jesus to stop paying lip service to that commitment and to show the world what that love for him really means. I see us doing three things of importance in this regard.
First, we must make as a strict priority the saying of our prayers. Whatever we may think of Muslims, they take prayer very seriously, doing it five times a day. No one can ever say that of us, to our shame. We can and ought to pray daily as a matter of first importance, and if we know not how to pray seek out someone who will guide us as to how to bring before God our loving Father all that matters to us. We will learn how to offer adoration, praise and thanksgiving, make our confession and to pray for others as well as ourselves. We will learn about arrow prayers and other forms of informal and formal prayer. The life of prayer is an essential part of being a Christian; without it we are nothing and will die spiritually. All too many Christians seem not to bother or take prayer very seriously. When we do not pray we starve ourselves of the very breath of life. Regular prayer is capable of not only bringing us closer to our Lord and Saviour but also will change our view of life and other people's view of us!
Secondly, the Mass must become once again a source of power for the individual and the wider church. On Maundy Thursday we celebrated with joy the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament by our Lord. This holy sacrament is greatly undervalued by many of us. We say that it is important and we celebrate it often. We take a lot of care in its celebration, sometimes too much care, for the emphasis is sometimes more on the right performance of ceremonial rather than on devout worship!! There are those who will be terribly upset and put out if Fr. so and so or Bishop this and that makes the right liturgical act at the wrong time!! Dear oh dear!! The Mass is greater than all of that kind of foolishness. We must concentrate on worshipping and adoring our Lord Jesus in the beauty of his holiness. Nothing else matters. In the Mass we encounter the Risen Lord and are drawn into an intimate relationship with him and with fellow members of the Body of Christ. That is a union that is capable of transforming not only our lives but also the lives of those around us. As we are changed so will be changed the lives of those we meet as we go about our daily business. However, this will only become a reality provided that we approach this holy sacrament with reverence. That is, we need to be aware of that which we receive in Holy Communion, the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation. I know we all know all of this already, but do we act as if we do? So we must make proper preparation prior to our receiving of the Sacrament. AR too often we simply turn up and receive the Sacrament without having made any preparation whatsoever. We should take note of what St. Paul has to say about this: "Whoever, therefore, cats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord........ Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." I Cor 1 1:27,29. Common sense should tell us that is not the way to come to this precious gift. Yet we do and imperil our soul's health in the process. Familiarity has bred in us a kind of contempt for the Blessed Sacrament. Even those who claim great devotion to it fan into this way of acting. A conscious effort on our part is necessary if we are to avoid this way of thinking and behaving.
Thirdly, the transformation I referred to earlier should be more than a matter of words. If we be not changed by our encounters with the living Lord Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, there is something radically wrong. It may mean that we have come unprepared or that we have partaken of the sacrament expecting nothing to happen. The lives of the two disciples whom Jesus encountered on the road to Emmaus were changed immeasurably when he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to then-L They not only recognized him by these means, but they also immediately went to tell of the experience. They shared this great Good News without delay. We have lost our sense (if we ever had it!) of urgency and immediacy about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We will talk up a storm about every other thing, the soaps and the latest bit of ecclesiastical gossip we've heard, but not a word about what Jesus means to us. Why? We will say it is because it's a private matter and Catholics don't talk about Jesus in that way!! We wonder do we not sometimes, why it is the world neither knows nor cares about us and our faith? Could it be because we appear not to care all that much about it ourselves? We are here today because the apostles were unafraid to speak of that to which they were witnesses, the glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Fourthly, there is a need for us to discover afresh the value of the Sacrament of confession. In our tradition, and even within the Roman Catholic tradition, it is becoming less and less used by the faithful. The general confession in the Mass is extremely non-specific, but exactly as much as people are now prepared to do. Many in the western world seem more than willing to confess their sins and failings on national TV rather than in the privacy of the confessional! This is because we have become like the world in which we live and become desensitized to sin. We are no longer able to recognize it or accept its consequences. The fault for our failings always lies elsewhere; somebody else is to blame! That which was once regarded as sinful and unacceptable behaviour is now rationalized in some fashion. We can always explain it all away. We make all too many easy accommodations to the mores of the world. Repentance, a turning away from the darkness of sin towards the, light of righteousness and new life, is necessary if we are, as a Church, to have a Future.
This is the song with which I began, and it can be instructive if we be open to its message, that is, if we have ears to hear. Its essence is about putting our trust and confidence in our Lord Jesus, in him and no other. We are to look upon him with love and adoration and not allow the things of earth, the pursuit of power, money, influence and the acquisition of possessions, to distract us from our commitment to him. Christ is our Past, our Present and, without doubt, our Future. However, this can only really be true if our commitment to him is sure and certain. Today we have the opportunity to renew our love for and commitment to Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord. We cannot win souls for Christ if we be not committed to him; nor will anyone want to share in our worship if that worship does not evoke in them a sense of awe, love, joy and peace. Neither will they want to listen to our message if that message is uncertain, ambiguous. If there is to be a future for the church, we must, once again, as the Body of Christ, turn our eyes and look upon the face of Jesus and allow the world to see the love of Christ Jesus reflected in us.
Return to The Teaching
Mission table of contents