Thursday, September 20, 2007

Catholic La La Land

of the good variety.

In a post over at Intentional Disciples on declining attendance at Mass in Milwaukee, Fr. Philip Powell, OP, contributed the following in a combox:

Truly, I am living in some sort of Catholic La-La Land here at the University of Dallas. We have two daily Masses--pretty full, a Sunday vigil Mass--full, three Sunday Massess--all full to overflowing, then we have the Dominican priory daily Mass, the Cistercian abbey daily Mass, five to six hours of confession a week--we never see the end of the line, adoration, and overflowing service projects. I have a project this weekend to paint a house and we already have close to fifty volunteers signed up! Last week I had almost forty for the same house...

Preach Christ, his Church, the truth of the apostolic faith, and do so with some...errrmmm...guts and style and young people will come. Programs, studies, surveys, plans, mission statements, questioning sessions are all (excuse me for saying this but...) crap, little more than control-freak, Baby Boomer techniques for getting folks to tell them what they want to hear. Get food, fellowship, charitable work, solid preaching/teaching, faithful liturgy, and leaders (lay and ordained) who know their place and let the Spirit do his fiery work.Fr. Philip, OP

All I can say is: "Amen, Father!" (oh, and that's where vocations flourish.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In the one of the finer traditions that holds over from my Southern Baptist roots..."Preach it, Father, Preach it!"

During my conversion, the clear, unadulterated preaching during Mass by the priets at my parish of Christ crucified, Christ risen, redemption, forgiveness, mercy, love made all the difference to my evangelical heart.

DO NOT BE AFRAID...the world hungers for the truth of Christ's mystical body, The Church to be the light and salt to the world.