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Page 2 • Faith Today
Evolution...not revolution
By Father David K. O’Rourke, OP
NC News Service
N ext September Pope
John Paul II will visit
the United States. The
crowds of clergy,
Religious and laity ex
pected to participate in the papal
Masses in the cities he visits will
not look all that different from the
crowds present at the first papal
visit to the United States: the visit
of Paul VI 22 years earlier. But
there are differences, important
ones, and they have to do with
the central point of church life for
the average American Catholic: the
parish church.
Let me illustrate by telling you
about a friend I will call Carol. She
is planning to attend the Mass this
September at San Francisco’s
Candlestick Park. But this is not
her first papal Mass.
As a youngster Carol went with
her parents to the Mass celebrated
by Pope Paul VI in New York’s
Yankee Stadium. Her father and
mother were active in their subur
ban New York parish, and the
work they did there is worth noting.
Carol’s mother and father were
both active in the Catholic school’s
parents association. Her father
helped organize the annual parish
bazaar, and her mother was a great
friend and supporter of the sisters
in the convent. When the parish
established its first parish council,
Into
By Father John Castelot
NC News Service
T he earliest Christian
communities felt little
need to plan for the
future. They were con
vinced that the risen
Lord was going to return at any
moment. It was a matter of hang
ing in there and being prepared to
welcome him.
Missionary activity during this
period was not designed to build up
the church of the future so much
as to get as many people as possi
ble ready to enjoy the blessings of
the imminent Second Coming. One
detects a definite sense of urgency
about this in the mission instruc
tions of Mark:
“Jesus summoned the Twelve
and began to send them out two
by two, giving them authority over
unclean spirits. He instructed them
to take nothing on the journey but
a walking stick — no food, no
traveling bag, not a coin in the
purses in their belts” (6:7-8).
The sense of urgency about the
community’s mission is also seen
in the feverish activity of St. Paul,
for example.
However, circumstances changed
and the Christian communities had
Carol’s mother was one of the first
members.
In fact, Carol’s parents gave most
of their free time to parish ac
tivities, and they were a logical
choice for some of the available
tickets when the pope came to
New York.
Carol was then just a high school
junior, but the event impressed her
deeply. It was, she told me, one
reason she decided to attend a
Catholic college and major in
religion.
In her classes, Carol studied the
recently published documents of
the Second Vatican Council. She
always maintained an interest in
religion and drew on her education
to help with her own children’s
religious formation.
Two years ago, when her
youngest child entered high school,
Carol decided to enter more for
mally into teaching religion in her
parish. After further studies in
religious education, she became
religious education director in the
parish near San Francisco where
they now live. As she told me, “I
had the time, the training and the
parish had the need. It seemed a
logical move.”
Carol’s story symbolizes a change
that has affected many an American
parish in the last 20 years and, ac
cording to projections, will typify
even more in the years ahead. The
laity are entering into parish work
in formal and official roles.
We are all familiar with lay
presence as lectors and ministers of
the Eucharist. But the laity’s
presence goes beyond that. It
enters into the ongoing, Monday-
through-Friday work of the parish.
Programs like organized visting
of the sick, marriage preparation
programs, religious education and
care for the elderly now rely in
many parishes on the efforts of
trained lay personnel.
Carol’s parents were active in
their New York parish. But 20
years later, their daughter is active
in a different way, as part of an of
ficial ministry. Specialists who
study the shape of parishes predict
that Carol’s situation will be even
more common in the future.
Of course, the typical Catholic
parish will still be based around the
liturgy, especially the Eucharist,
which has typified Catholic com
munity life since the time of the
apostles. But the education and
nourishing of that community may
more and more involve not only
priests and religious, but lay
members.
This is a development — not a
revolution — based in the call of
the laity in baptism to take an ac
tive role in the life of their
community.
(Father O’Rourke is on the staff
of the Family Life Office in the
Diocese of Oakland, Calif)
the second century
to plan for their futures. The
church Matthew addressed in his
Gospel was a community in the
throes of transition from the old
order to the new. Made up to a
large extent of Jewish Christians,
the community Matthew addressed
was dismayed at what was
happening.
Jerusalem, their center, had been
destroyed by Roman legions in the
year 70. James, their leader, had
been martyred. In the city of An
tioch, where they took refuge,
they found communities with an
alarming number of gentile
members. They found all this
unsettling.
What to do? Matthew had to
lead them as gently as possible in
to the second century. So, in his
Gospel written in the 80s A.D., he
makes concessions to their sen
sibilities. He admits that Jesus sent
his disciples to preach to Jews
(10:6) and that Jesus personally
limited his activity in the same
manner (15:24).
But times changed. The earth-
shaking event of the death-
resurrection ushered in a whole
new era, an undreamed of future.
The same Jesus seen as limiting the
preaching of the Good News dur
ing his public ministry, now, as
the risen Lord, tells the disciples:
“Go, therefore, and make disciples
of all the nations. ..Teach them to
carry out everything I have com
manded you. And know that I am
with you always, until the end of
the world” (Matthew 28:19-20).
The future was now unlimited.
In each succeeding generation
Christian communities would have
to come to terms with changing
circumstances and make plans for
their futures.
Christian communities ensure
their continuance by a combina
tion of fidelity to the past and
fearless openness to the future.
They must be like the learned
scribe described by Matthew, one
who “is like the head of a
household who can bring from his
storeroom both the new and the
old” (13:52). Matthew knew from
personal experience how impor
tant that is.
(Father Castelot is a professor of
Scripture at St. John s Seminary,
Plymouth, Mich.)
Watching tl
take si
By Father Herbert Weber
NC News Service
A woman in a parish Rite
of Christian Initiation of
Adults program was
very interested in
becoming a Roman
Catholic. A long search was en
ding; she liked what she saw in
the church.
But the woman hesitated to
complete this faith journey because
she wasn’t sure whether what she
experienced at the present time
would remain in the future. Un
doubtedly, the accelerated changes
occurring in the lives of church
members gave rise to her concern.
Much of my ministry as a priest
is with young adults who happen
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