By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
A recent weather fluke graced us with a 70-degree Sunday in February: a minor meteorological miracle. As I scanned the faithful congregated at our little church for Sunday morning Mass in a small riverside village, I happened to notice a mom alone with the kids. I don’t know why Dad was absent, but the sight reminded me of the pull of the water for boaters on such a beautiful day.
I called to mind my own days growing up spending many days on the water together with my family as we navigated the largest estuarial bay in the world, the Chesapeake. I still marvel today at the fact that I don’t remember ever missing Sunday Mass or the celebration of its vigil, and this was before cell phones and the Internet came along to make the task of finding the nearest Catholic church easier than ever. Attending Mass together as a family was also a staple of our faith expression, which also seems to be very little valued today.
Many if not most families no longer attend Mass together. Add to that a common pattern of infrequent attendance and the result is a much diminished sense that God is real and worship authentic. I strive to reach parents with a message that will pierce their hearts as well as their minds and move them further in the direction of conversion.
The incidence of St. Valentine’s Day each February brings images once again of arrow-wielding cherubs. The image of a pierced heart recalls the need for pastoral work with families in the parish, the difficulty of reaching the hearts of our parents through the baffle of filters, prejudices, and presuppositions that everyone brings with them to every Mass. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ “pierced for our offenses” is the Source of saving Love thus poured out for us, and we must lead our people to that Heart.
In a recent Tweet, which evidently struck a chord, resulting in 49 “Retweets” and 99 “Likes,” I wrote the following:
“Dear Catholic parents, the younger your children are, the more you are for them the presence and image of God: They will believe what you do.”
I go back to my own childhood and the example of my own parents in my efforts to reach our parents of today, who seem to lack some basic principles of pedagogy. If Sunday Mass is not important to the parents, it cannot be important to their children. Perhaps it is a symptom of clericalism that many parents seem not to appreciate that their role in faith cannot be delegated to the priest.
Parents, who give life to their children by bringing them into the world, by feeding, clothing, and sheltering them, are the nearest thing to God for their children. They are thus the necessary bridge between the child and the presence of the Savior in the liturgy and in the Church. The Sunday liturgy is the privileged presence of encounter with the Risen Savior. By their consistent witness of leading in faith, by prioritizing weekly worship together as a family, parents enable their children to believe in the presence and power of Christ through the Church, in proclamation of His living Word and His substantial Presence in an abiding way through the Eucharist.
Lack of consistency in witness by arbitrary attendance, as a matter of convenience only, results in lack of faith in a real and present God through the Church. A God who becomes so small that He can be manipulated to second or third place after material or earthly concerns may as well be last. A God who is subject to our command cannot be sought as a Savior in time of need. A weakened or broken bond with the Church also results in diminished or broken belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, who comes to us through the Church.
Pope Benedict XVI has been a champion in defense of the primacy of God for the world and for every person. He spoke to our times eloquently when he declared that a “do-it-yourself” God cannot help us when everything earthly fails us in crises or in the temptation to despair. Only the true faith which puts God always first can help us to encounter and love the true God, rather than a mere projection of self.
In remarks Benedict delivered in October 2012, as Catholic News Service reported:
“Pope Benedict said the widespread and dominant nature of today’s secularism, individualism, and relativism means that even Christians are not completely ‘immune from these dangers.’
“Some of the negative effects include faith being lived ‘passively or in private, a refusal to learn about the faith, and the rift between faith and life,’ he said.
“ ‘Often Christians don’t even know the central core of their own Catholic faith — the creed — thereby leaving room for a certain syncretism and religious relativism,’ he said. Without a clear idea of the faith’s fundamental truths and the uniquely salvific nature of Christianity, ‘the risk of constructing a so-called “do-it-yourself” religion is not remote today’.”
In pastoral work, and in particular through homilies, I continue to reach out to the parents present at Mass, a majority of them attending without their spouses. In our love for our young Catholics we must respect God’s plan for faith. God reaches our children through their parents, to whom God entrusts them from their first breath until they grow into mature, adult Christians. In the case of many families we are given a window of opportunity between Baptism and Confirmation to reach and convert our parents and thus also reach their children. The more intentional we can be as parish communities about this task the more effective we can be in the mission with which God has entrusted us.
Our families can learn to enjoy their free time together when the weather or opportunity beckon and learn also to worship together on a regular basis. Let’s work together to consistently encourage and support them in witness of faith on the Lord’s Day as the reference point for the week and for life.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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(Follow me on Facebook at Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick and on Twitter @MCITLFrAphorism. I blog occasionally at mcitl.blogspot.com and ApriestLife.blogspot.com. Email me at mcitl.blogspot.com@gmail.com.)
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