It was when I was studying theology at Heythrop College, I was feeling of non-youth category, because, the majority of lay students were just out of their high school. This was a real struggle as a person who is preparing to be a Catholic Priest. There was a feeling of aloofness from the usual class. Every young student felt at home in the class and I was in a dilemma to remain within my small world or mingle with the young class. A few attempts made me to realize that the young class was not very comfortable around me. This experience had a great impact on me and that experience corresponds to my reality as a priest in the parish. There is gap between young church and olden church. This is not an unenthusiastic remark. It is natural for any organisation to have gap, because of the moving times. Every organisation has to try its utmost to lessen that gap between young and olden, old times and modern times, old school and new school. It would be the duty of every individual to strive and persevere to lessen that gap. If not, the organisation will have more challenges to make peace between those two points, hence, its energies are squandered in this alone. Scholars strive to analyse the gap to give an accurate reasons and solutions towards a better world.
The preparatory document for the 2018 world Synod of Bishops on youth instructs the church to “give major importance to young people’s involvement in the structures of participation in diocesan and parish communities, starting with pastoral councils, inviting young people to make their creative contribution and accepting their ideas, even when they appear challenging.”
The Church needs everyone so that it is truly a Body of Christ. Failure to have everyone in the Church will be a failure of the Body of Christ. If older generation were missing from the Church, it would be a Body of Christ without arms and limbs, and if the younger generation were missing, it would be Body of Christ, which will be weak because older arms and limbs need young support to carry on. In our modern world, the Church needs to accommodate and enable the needs to everyone. There has to be a common goal or vision in the Church but ways to reach this goal or vision could differ. Our vision or goal has to be, to remain in the Head, Jesus Christ. Is this possible in our Church today? It is possible if we do away with the following.
Suspicion: Young persons have to catch-up with the modern times and this requires their time and their resources. This is why; the tendency will be to sacrifice everything else to catch-up. Sacrifice is good, but what we sacrifice is momentous for our lives. What we sacrifice now will help us to build our future.
Older Christians have to keep up the traditions with their wisdom and experience. The tendency could be to impose strongly the traditions and experience on the others, when a younger person might take time to understand and to live.
Thus, suspicion about each other must not be on the horizon. We need a Church without any suspicion about each other. We need a Church that understands and respects each other. This could be a gigantic challenge for our Church today.
Empty rhetoric: The Christians are good preachers. Preaching takes priority in our Church both altar preaching and non-altar preaching. It is natural, as Christians we want to guide others through our words and deeds. But very often our guidance through words takes priority than guidance through our deeds. St. Teresa of Calcutta says, ‘preach and if necessary use words.’
We are flooded with rhetoric through media, books, Internet, social media, politics and so on. Information is so great; it is hard to rely because information and counter information goes hand in hand. There is a whole of lot of junk being disseminated through the media, and we might be prey for that junk. We have to guard against this empty rhetoric that might mislead our tender minds and hearts. We have to keep the teachings of Christ at fore of our decisions in the Church. We have to rely on Christ’s teachings so that we can follow the true Master and Teacher.
True leadership: Jesus Christ called, empowered and sent Peter to catch people as the rock of the Church. Peter was the true leader who listened and learnt from His Master. This teaching empowered him to a true leader of the Church. For Peter, Jesus was the Master and Jesus knew that Peter would fail but would be true to his mission. Peter embraced humility and openness, humility to accept his mistakes and openness to learn from the Master.
We need leaders like Peter in our times both at the Church and in the world. Span and see our leaders today, do they have the qualities of Peter? If our leaders in the Church truly exhibit the qualities of Peter, our Church is in the right place; Body is in the Head, Christ. If your answer is no, then we are following not the Master but our own whims and fancies. True leaders will have the humility to accept mistakes and learn from it. True leaders will have the openness to learn from others without any individualism. We have to guard against those prophets who will come in the sheep cloth to devour the sheep.
Hearsay heresy: This is a common temptation to act on hearsay. It is natural for humans to depend on someone else for guidance. When Jesus asked a question, ‘who do people say I am?’ The answer was, ‘some say you are Elijah, some say you are John the Baptist and others say one of the prophets.’ But Peter gives a true answer, ‘you are the Son of the Living God.’ Peter gives that Messianic response not from hearsay but unlike others he had a true encounter with Christ as the Living God. Hearsay is a heresy that we have to fight and defeat.
Empty rhetoric also could be paralleled with hearsay or gossip. We need to rely on proper sources and not to depend on hearsay. When we depend on hearsay, we allow ourselves to be fooled by a few powerful people who can convince us with their empty rhetoric without any reliable and true source. This happens in our day-today life too, bigmouths win the debate. We have to unpack the bigmouths before we can believe. Hence, search before believe.
Shedding-skin culture: There is a phenomenon in our Church that we are saints in the Church; hence, we must behave like one. This is the separation of Church from our day-today lives. We shedding our skins at the door of the Church and wear it as we leave.
When the woman came to wash the feet of Jesus, the disciples rebuked her, but Jesus allowed the woman to wash his feet; a woman with ill reputation was allowed to touch Jesus. She was able to encounter Jesus without shedding her usual self. We need to do this in our Church too. We must allow sinners and saints to pray together in our Churches. We have our own little secrets but when we come before God, we have to bring it along with us to offer it God so that God can help us to improve. If we come before God with our human imperfections, God will surely make us perfect. Let us not pretend before God; rather let us pour out our lives like libation because God knows our entire self. Shedding-skin culture has to be replaced with wearing-skin culture.
Vibration conscious culture: Advancement in technology resulted in us to be vibration conscious. We need our mobile phones all the time. We sleep, wake up, walk, eat and do every possible thing by always being conscious of our mobile phone. We are mobile phone conscious generation. We have to look at our phone every so often. There is a tendency to feel the vibration of the phone even if the phone has not vibrated. In other words, we might feel lonely without a smartphone in our hands.
Jesus said to the disciples at the garden of Gethsemane, ‘could you not keep away with me?’ The Church is all about keeping awake with the Lord. To keep awake, we have to let go of our vibration conscious and allow ourselves to be immersed in the Lord. It is a enormous challenge for us to let go of our vibration culture and give fully to the Lord. Our Church needs persons who can dedicate fully without any preoccupations and distractions.
“Crisscross” philosophy: Often the people in the Church do not have their own peer group with whom they can communicate. It is an extreme of old school or new school. This is unfortunate that these two groups do not crisscross because they don’t express on the same level. Sometimes, one group will not come to Church because the other group’s way of doing things does not correspond to their way of doing things. At times, we might street talk that Church is for old people or Church is for women. This is parallel philosophy, which will not help us to build the community. There needs to an exchange of ideas, creativities, and faith with each other without any suspicion and backbiting. Modern Church needs a ‘crisscross’ philosophy so that old school can hear new ideas and new school can benefit from experience and wisdom. This way our Church can truly grow to our changing times by reading the signs of the time. We will witness a true communion of minds and hearts.
In conclusion, let us remember that our Church is strongly built on the Rock and on the apostolic foundations. Each of us needs to support this foundation through our prayer and sacrifice. We need to work towards strengthening this foundation when it is weak and rejoice when the foundation is strong. We have to accommodate everyone in our Churches, irrespective of their age, race, language, culture and background. Everyone needs is part of the tapestry and the Church is the true tapestry of people. Let the Church truly be a place of revelation of God. God comes to meet us in the Church.
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