Tag Archives: Catholic

Every day, more news comes out about abuse in the Catholic church all the way from cardinals to parish priests.  We hear about the ‘nones’ who don’t believe in any kind of religion, or being part of a parish community. Supposedly, Catholics are leaving the Church in droves, disgusted with the lack of the hierarchy’s grasp on reality.I gave up once on the Catholic Church in the 1970’s after the loss of a child and a failed marriage.

Yep, I blamed God.  My pastor refused to let me receive Holy Communion after my divorce – this was the parish I grew up in! This guy knew me from the time I was 3 years old.   I loved the Mass, the Eucharist and even went to Mass during the week most of the time.  When I was told I could not receive the Eucharist (which I only found out later, he was wrong), I lost my desire to go, and decided to just be pissed at God.

Move ahead 10 years and God put a man in my path in the form of a hippie priest who befriended me on my daily lunch walks at work.  I did not know he was a priest, just that he was pretty friendly, unassuming and didn’t talk my ear off.   I learned he was a priest one day when we were chatting about work – he asked me where I worked and I pointed to the 7-story building tucked away on a side street.  I asked him what he did and when he told me he was a Catholic priest at the Catholic church next door to my company’s building, I just stopped in my tracks.

Thus started our conversation about the Church, my situation, my anger and the fact that my pastor at home would not help me get an annulment. The hippie priest told me that he would be my advocate.  He and I met at least once a week to talk, and although I attended Mass every day at noon with him, I would not receive the Eucharist; I did not feel reconciled with the Church. Maybe She wanted me, but I was not ready to want Her.  After 3 months, he had secured a Church annulment and 8 months later, I received the Eucharist for the first time in over 12 years.

I will never leave again.  I will stay and be a part of fixing what is broken, which the laity in the Catholic Church should have been doing all along . The laity is as much at fault for the problem with our clergy as the Church leadership.  For too many years, priests, bishops, cardinals were put on pedestals, treated like royalty.  In fact, we lay members of the Church do need to be compassionately challenging our clergy on a regular basis when it comes to concerns in our society today.

Even with the bad news coming out every day, I will never leave. This Church is our Church. It’s not a building that a mortgage is paid on, cooled in the summer or heated in the winter.  It is our Church. It does not belong to a single person other than Jesus Christ, our founder.

Please do not abandon our Church in times of trouble. Stick with it and help fix Her. Where else will you go to be able to received the Body and Blood of Our Lord?  Isn’t this why you participate in the un-bloody sacrifice? It is the only Church founded by Jesus Christ. There is no other like it.  Stay with it because you love our founder, Jesus Christ.

So….I went to the Convocation of Catholic Leaders in July.  This was something historical in our Catholic Church, where over 3,000 lay Catholic leaders from throughout the United States met in one place, with the leaders of our Church to pray, learn, discover, and to talk about issues facing our world and our Church today.   You might want to know what a convocation is.  From wikipedia,

from the Latin convocare meaning “to call/come together”, a translation of the Greek ἐκκλησία ekklēsia) is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose, mostly ecclesiastical or academic.

It has been a challenge for many of us who attended to put into words what we walked away with.  But I’ll try.

To start out with, this for me was the Catholic version of Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within.  We did not walk on fire, but we certainly did have a fire lit in our hearts and souls, hearing and proclaiming the joy of the Gospel with over 3000 of our brothers and sisters.  We spent from July 1 – July 4, in deep prayer every morning, every evening and Mass every day. Our days went from 8am to 10pm.  We heard our Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Sisters and others speak so lovingly of our Lord and our Catholic Church.  I honestly did not have any expectations because I did not know what to expect. I only knew this would be something very special. I loved every moment of it.

Breakout sessions were held during the day so that we could talk about issues facing our Church today and what our concerns were.  We had the chance to talk with others – from around the US – and realized that we are all facing similar if not identical issues in our respective Dioceses’.   Subjects that can be difficult to have conversations about were put out there, like homosexuality, same-sex marriage, transgender issues, abortion, birth control, domestic violence, the role of women in the church, immigration, single life as a vocation and many more. Notice the word ‘conversation’. It is different than a ‘discussion’ and is definitely not an argument.

Even though we are facing some challenging issues, we must not let that overtake the love and joy we have for Jesus and our faith. As one Cardinal said, ‘we must not be sourpusses’.   We as Catholics cannot just say we believe, we must be what we believe. For too long, we have depended on our clergy to evangelize, to ‘take care’ of us, to be the ‘boss’ when it comes to all things church. It’s time for us, the lay people of the Catholic Church to get out to those thirsting for the message of the Gospel and be disciples.  Can you imagine what would have happened after Christ’s death and resurrection if all of the apostles had gone back to their old ways, their families and just left their stories of Our Lord to wither away? What if they had kept the good news to themselves?  The message was clear that it is our time to step up, be missionaries of conversion and evangelize the joy of the Gospel as we know it.

So many moments are etched into my heart from this event.  Seeing Matt Maher on stage the last night, having the entire room standing and singing with him ‘Your Grace is Enough‘, ‘All the People Say Amen’, watching this young Catholic man proclaim his love for Jesus and our Church through song that was so inspiring, and then watching Archbishop Tobin dancing and high-fiving the young people he was standing near.  Oh, you can find that video on the USCCB’s Facebook page.  Listening to Audrey Assad and her hauntingly beautiful voice, and her awesome version of Psalm 23, not at all what you or I have ever heard, called I Shall Not Want.   Hearing testimony of people who had been forever changed through the Holy Trinity.   The Prayers of the Faithful at every Mass were said in 6 or 7 languages, and it was breathtaking.

The pivotal day for me was day 3.  I had every intention of walking the Eucharistic procession, but wimped out because it was so hot and humid.  I know now it was probably God’s plan for me be wimpy.

We were watching the Eucharistic procession from inside the large meeting room, on the theater size screen.  EWTN was broadcasting so we could see and hear it.  John Angotti and his band was playing some prayerful music and we were all pretty transfixed on what was taking place outside.

I sensed a changed in how I was feeling as the procession made its way into the convention center. Almost as if I could not contain my joy.

At around 27:00 into the video, the procession entered the convention center where we were gathered. At 29:59 I saw the look on Archbishop William Lori’s face as he gazed at the Blessed Sacrament and I broke into tears.  Even those of us who have terrible knees fell to them, in humble adoration of the Blessed Sacrament arriving. At 33:49, I was standing on the aisle as Archbishop Lori walked by and the Blessed Sacrament was so close I could have touched it.  I simply could not stop the tears of joy as I cried along with many around me.

It was that moment, I can say now, that I felt I was changed for life. And had I not wimped out, I don’t know if that moment would have happened.

I was blessed to be invited to attend this convocation, as a woman and a leader in our Diocese.  We hear so many complaining and criticizing the Catholic Church and many of them are Catholics themselves.  It’s ok to find fault, and acknowledge the sins, but please don’t stand in the shadows, unwilling to be a part of making things good, of sharing what you know is good and true about our Catholic faith.

All of the videos from the Convocation can be found at http://www.usccb.org/convocation.