I have just returned from Lourdes where we (representatives of the Brentwood diocese) joined the annual diocesan pilgrimage along with several other English dioceses including Liverpool and Lancaster.
I was very encouraged to see so much vitality from English Catholics on pilgrimage. Lourdes is where the Catholic world comes together and if you are a Catholic you cannot help but feel part of something glorious when you visit. As my eleven-year-old daughter said, “this place is so Catholic I feel as if I am at home!”
Walking the high stations with my children and seeing their devotion moved me to tears and the Torch Light Procession filled me with joy at being Catholic.
We all know about the miracles, but many less well reported individual theophanies are an established part of the Lourdes experience. If one makes a nocturnal visit to the grotto, one can quietly watch the spiritual drama unfold all around as people are touched with the beauty and prayerfulness of the place, as if the veil between heaven and earth is especially thin in this remote Pyrenean town. Lourdes plays a part in many conversions and even vocations to the priesthood: one priest told me how he came to a new recognition of the saints in Lourdes and this led him to ordination.
I spent a good amount of time in the company of clergy while away and got to hear many individual perspectives on the challenges we face in the Catholic Church. Some were even manifest during the week.
Much of the discussion concerned the Sacraments. On numerous occasions at our diocesan Mass in Lourdes, brave clergy were forced to run down the aisle after a communicant did not consume the host. Bishop Alan Williams even did so at one point, much to his credit. This seemed to me to be clearly aligned with another complaint I had heard voiced by a number of priests regarding Confirmation. Fewer of our young people are being confirmed and later are confused when they are told they need to be so in order to be married (canon law states that “Catholics who have not yet received the sacrament of Confirmation are to receive it before they are admitted to marriage if it can be done without grave inconvenience” CIC 1065.1). Other stories from priests told of lay people wanting to change the liturgy and getting cross when it is explained that their modifications may not be appropriate.
All familiar issues I am sure, but not ones we can’t do something about. A simple fix to the problem of lay people running off with Jesus at Communion, for example, would be a simple catechesis.
If we don’t teach them, can we be surprised when people are frustrated or ignorant about the Mass and the Sacraments? The faithful have a right to the Sacraments but clergy are their guardians and have a duty to ensure they are entered into with the proper disposition. This is not to deny them, but to ensure their efficacy and avoid their profanation. And yet the chasing down of communicants seems nothing if not remedial considering this sacred duty of our priests and bishops.
A lot of Catholics seem to think the faith is transmitted by osmosis and no actual teaching needs to take place. It seems obvious that a little bit of instruction (perhaps even during the Mass) would go a long way. And what better place to introduce our young people to the importance of the Mass than on a retreat in Lourdes?
Unfortunately, the incongruity of a frenetically strummed jazz-hands guitar version of the great Amen immediately following the solemn intonement of the doxology by a full contingent of diocesan clergy, as happened at every Mass we attended, was not helpful to those of us with a true heart for worship, and very confusing for the young.
We have to take these opportunities to use the lex orandi to illuminate the lex credendi: this is a moment of great importance and solemnity because of what Jesus did for us on Calvary and what He continues to call each one of us to.
Notwithstanding these points for discussion, our pilgrimage was extremely positive. It was a chance to see our communities growing in service and prayer along with providing opportunities for honesty, quiet reflection and contemplation. After the reconciliation liturgy, our youth descended on the grotto in large numbers to pray. There is little so powerful as seeing young Catholics earnestly engaged in prayer and worship. Let’s not let them down through our own apathy, but rather do our best encourage and confirm them in their faith.
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