Making Disciples: The Rules Changed (31B)

“What did I do wrong?” sad parents ask me and every pastor. “I sent my kids to Catholic schools, brought them to church every Sunday, and now none of them comes to Mass.”

Every priest has talked to these faithful people. Their pain is very deep, matched only by their confusion. What happened?

In his book Divine Renovation, Father James Mallon explains this painful aspect of modern parish life using a simple example.

Imagine that you were playing a game of rugby. (Personally, I can’t imagine that, but stay with me!)  At half-time, without warning, the rugby match becomes a game of soccer. The rules have all changed, but no-one told you. You get penalized, without knowing why.

That’s what happened in our Church and in our families. The rules changed, but nobody told us. Parents raised their children exactly as their own parents had raised them—but with tragically different results.

As you know, I’m less into sports than cooking, so I can offer my own analogy. You can follow your grandmother’s famous cake recipe perfectly, but it will flop completely if you’ve moved to La Paz, or Quito or Bogota. Recipes designed for sea-level baking require significant adjustments to be successful at high altitudes.

We’ve been following our grandmothers’ recipes for raising Catholic kids without noticing that the environment has changed dramatically, and in numerous ways. Father Mallon says that priests share responsibility for this and need to acknowledge our failure to recognize the signs of the times and to sound the alarm.

  

I don’t need to tell parents how serious this; for years now I have shared their pain. But our first reading today reminds us that forming our young people as disciples of Jesus is the concern of the whole parish and the whole Church.

Moses is preaching to the people of Israel at a time just as crucial as our own—at long last, they are about to be settled in the new land God has given them.

Even the place of his speech is significant. Moses is speaking near Beth-peor, where the Israelites had earlier turned away from the Lord. It was a place that reminded them of their infidelity. On the other hand, Beth-peor is within the borders of the Promised Land, so the setting is also a reminder of God’s fidelity.

Suffice to say this is a very, very important address. And it is, at least in part, about the religious upbringing of children—and its consequences.

Moses teaches the people that God is not only concerned with them, but with their children and grandchildren as well. Following His commandments and laws has tremendous consequences---bringing long life and prosperity. And one law is more important than any other: “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

It’s not just Moses who tells us that this is the first of all commandments: In today’s Gospel Jesus himself cites this verse when he is asked about the greatest commandment of the law.

And if we read just a little farther in this sixth chapter of Deuteronomy we discover that this is not only God’s most central commandment but also the core of religious instruction. A few verses later, Moses says “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away…”

Parent to child, heart to heart.

The Catholic Church has devoted enormous resources to forming children as disciples. But Father Mallon’s remarkable book points out that we’ve done much, much less to form their parents. Yet it is from the parents’ hearts that God’s words must flow to their children.

Father Mallon says that the Church—and the parish—must change how we minister to adults—and what we expect of them—if we’re to succeed once again in handing on the faith to the young.

We must, in the words of Divine Renovation, “rediscover our [missionary] identity and place the heart of the Lord’s mandate for his Church at the heart of everything we do, so that at the heart of every parish there will be a community of growing, maturing believers who are committed to a lifelong process of disciplined learning, who are discovering their God-given talents, who are prepared to serve and eventually to become apostles.”

What does that mean? More than I can say in one homily.  More than I can say in ten. But as the Parish Pastoral Council and eventually all parish leaders work their way through this amazing book, we will discover how to play by the new rules that confront the Church, seeking the blessings that God promises to each of us, our children, and our children’s children.

Stay tuned—there’s much more to come.