Do We Really Need Church?

Why do we need Church?  Why can’t we follow Jesus without going to Church?  It’s important for us to know the “why” because our understanding affects how we live out our faith and become Church. The New Evangelization offers an opportunity to rediscover our Catholic faith as a complete way of life that is inseparable from the Church and its liturgy, sacraments, preaching, and mission.

A lot has changed in the Church in the past 50 years. The Church of my youth is not the Church of my present.  The world I grew up in was Catholic.  When asked where I was from, I answered, “Sts. Simon and Jude.”  My parents marked time by the Church calendar.  Holy Days of Obligation and Feast Days were more important than birthdays! “Buon Onomastico!” (Happy “Saint Name Day”) were the well wishes I would receive from Aunts and cousins on the Feast of St. Anthony.  Though I never had a birthday party, my First Communion and Confirmation parties were beyond grand!  Everyone was there! Lent began with a huddle of all my cousins bragging about what they were going to give up. Wednesdays and Fridays were meatless.

Going to Church on Sunday was not something to be negotiated; it was expected.  My brother and I walked to Church by ourselves.  My mother went to the early morning Italian Mass, so she could get home in time to start the sauce.  “Going to confession” wasn’t terrifying; at least once a month, the Catholic school took us to church and we lined up outside the confessional.  No one complained.  Actually, we would giggle when someone lingered longer in the confessional wondering what their penance would be! At the center of all my experiences and memories is the “Church.” As I look back on it, the church was at the center of my Catholic identity. I belonged to something larger than myself that somehow lived inside of me too. 

Sadly, for many the Church no longer stands as the center of Catholic life.  Of those raised in the Church from childhood, a Pew Forum Study (2008) found that one in three cradle Catholics leave. Catholics, who leave, leave early.  By age 18, about 50% leave the Church and by mid-twenties, 80% are gone. Those who identify themselves as “practicing Catholics” report going to Mass only about once a month.  Church attendance is plummeting from 47% in the 1970s to 24% in the 21^st century.

It seems we want Jesus minus the Church. Young people believe the Church is old-fashioned and outdated and needs to change its stance on issues of homosexuality, contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage. Others are turned off by the Church’s history with the Crusades and the Inquisition and most recently, the sex scandal.  Others still object to the Church as an institution of rules demanding obedience.  But the most disheartening is not the “objections” to Church but the indifference. Most people are absent from Church not because they are brooding about its faults, but rather are sleeping in, mowing the lawn, shopping, or playing sports.  People consider themselves spiritual, not religious.

Sometimes it feels like it’s a losing battle.  We are tempted to throw up our hands in defeat.  But it’s not a lost cause.   Even though people don’t attend Church often, they do want church.  How else can we explain the packed churches on Ash Wednesday, Christmas and Easter? This is a perfect opportunity to connect again with members of our church family and invite them “back” next week and the week after that.  Pope Francis reminds us, “The Church is not a refuge for sad people. The Church is a house of joy.”

The heart needs a vision to ignite passion for the Church, because “Where there is no vision, the people will perish” (Proverbs 29:18). We need a vision for this place and time that will inspire people, young and old, to rediscover the beauty of the Church. The Church is a love story Pope Francis tells the crowds of young people gathered on World Youth Day in Brazil.  It’s not a bureaucratic organization.  The Church, he said, is "something else. The Church begins in the heart of the Father, who had this idea . . . of love. Each of us is a link in this chain of love. And if we do not understand this, we have understood nothing of what the Church is."

After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, to assure his continuing presence on earth, Jesus gave us the Church.  The Vatican Council II describes the Church as the universal sacrament by which Jesus continues to be present to us, speak to us, and act among us. A sacrament is defined as a sign revealing God’s presence. Jesus is a sacrament of God, because when we look upon the face of Jesus, we look upon the face of God and experience his compassion, forgiveness, and mercy.  The Church then is a sacrament of Jesus as it prays, teaches, works, and gathers its people in Christ.

We go to Church because God calls us there.  God calls us to worship Him and link ourselves to each other.  In doing so, we follow the two great commandments:  Love God and love your neighbor.  Truly, it is more precise to say that we don’t belong to a Church; we are the Church.  The Church is people, you and me, each using with our unique gifts and talents to build God’s kingdom on earth. As Saint Avila prays, “Ours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. Ours are the hands with which He is to bless others.”  Together we have one common call from Jesus; we are one Body called to serve.

Our spiritual memories of growing up in the Church show us it is through relationships that we come to see the face of Jesus.  God’s own life is lived in relationship with the son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  God is a communion of persons.  God invites us to live in communion with one another in the Church.  In the sacrament of Baptism, we become members of the Body of Christ in the Church, and the Church becomes our mother who nurtures us throughout life with her preaching, teaching, and sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

If we only see the church as a hierarchical institution, we will never love and appreciate the beauty that the Church is.  Jesus asks each of us to take the Church into our hearts and love and care for her, not as we’d like her to be, but as the Church Jesus intends her to be—His bride and our mother.  

 

Journaling with Jesus

Begin with a few minutes of silent prayer to become aware of God's presence and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart. Then focus on the questions for personal reflection and journaling.

What do you love most about the Church? How did you come to value this?

What teachings do you struggle with? How do you go about living with the tension?

 If someone asked you, "Why go to Church?" how would you respond?

Listen for Jesus' response through Scripture, personal insight, and encounters with others. What do you think Jesus might be saying to you at this time?