2013-12-15             John W                     John W's previous articles

(Comments welcome here)

People are tired of hearing about Church.
They want to hear about Jesus

In his Advent pastoral letter, Hong Kong's Cardinal John Tong calls for a Year of Learning, with the aim of deepening the understanding of our faith and revitalising the Spirit of Vatican II.  The cardinal describes a situation common in many parts of the world:  big numbers of newly-baptised Christians who stop going to church

Joseph Girzone's book The Homeless Bishop has a solution to the above problem: preach Jesus instead of preaching Church

Church and church doctrines are important. But Christianity is meant to be a personal relationship with Jesus, not a certificate of learning

As Girzone says (p. 254): During 500 years of religious division in Christianity
"we have been teaching the medium (the Church) and not the Message (Jesus)....and p. 274 has "the countries of Europe have turned secular mostly because the people are tired of hearing about church. They hunger for spirituality and intimacy with God, and all we give them is church. Carlo was determined to make Jesus real again for the people, knowing from his own experience that when he preached Jesus to the people, it changed their lives"

Girzone is particularly strong on the theme of the Church as the messenger, not the Message. For many centuries the Church has pushed itself as the message. Even today, well-meaning folk like those at the UK's Catholic Voices have the aim of "putting the Church's case in the public square", promoting debates like this one about transubstantiation which leave one wondering what's all this got to do with Jesus? Is Jesus just a doctrine that we should be persuading people about in a machine-gun salesperson-style of rhetoric, or a loving Person we should be trying to introduce people to by calm words and an example of witness?

P. 293 quotes Cardinal Ratzinger: "The church speaks too much about structures. It needs to speak more about God"

On a personal note I can think of two people - they are in this photo - whom I baptised in the last couple of years ...with only a minimum of instruction (both had serious health problems) and both of them are most regular at attending Mass every Sunday

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