July 1–4 The Convocation Of Catholic Leaders

[Seven77]

 I just realized that this meeting of Catholic leaders is going on… worth following and paying attention to…

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/get-involved/meetings-and-events/usccb-convocation-2017.cfm

On EWTN and live streaming 

[Seven77]

 I've been watching this… Really edifying.  The Holy Spirit is doing something new. The thing I really like about this event is that it is bringing together people from different Catholic communities that don't usually come together to build. Polychromatic. The theme is the Joy of The Gospel… inviting people to encounter Christ and The Church, without watering down, making the Faith winsome.

Right now they are interviewing my Bishop, Cardinal Wuerl.

[Era Might]

I like the theology of charisms and many parts, one body in the New Testament. I wonder, though, whether the parish structure helps or hinders that. Or rather, in what ways it hinders it, certainly it helps it in many ways. Where I'm at now, a traditionally Catholic state, the Catholicism is very institutional in a way I've never experienced it elsewhere. Religion is sort of a family tradition, very centered around the family...I guess part of it is Southern, but it leaves me cold in many ways, as an outsider who doesn't come from here but also doesn't come to the parish as a member of a family. The preaching is very practically oriented, as you'd expect in an area where the people are institutionally religious...mainly practical advice on religion. Catholicism is different in other areas, e.g., in Latin America it's more cultural and pious, but even in America I've never experienced Catholicism of this sort. I've been to a few men's groups where they had a dinner and a talk by LC priests, but the approach there was mainly geared toward fathers of families, trying to talk about religion in ways ordinary folks would understand....not the kind of venue you'd find a more mystical or even theological focus. I've never felt like a parish is really a good fit for me, it's too big and organized and too many groups, and mostly you get old ladies and family types...so I think it would be good if the church found other ways of organizing locally.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Era Might

[Guest]

I have problems in my parish too.  I am divorced and annulled with private vows.  The parish is long established and most everyone, all I have met anyway, are either married - children have left the nest, married with children or have been in the parish for at least two generations.  We have widows and widowers who have been in the parish for many years, some for a couple of generations in their past. We now have many people from the Philippines too - they are either married with or without children, many too are teenagers of various ages.    A youth club was set up but it did not last very long before it folded due to lack of interest.

Father is always speaking about married people or young people in spiritual contexts in his homilies - never a mention of single people including widows or widowers.  It is as if we do not exist.  One woman whose husband recently died complained to me that though she and her husband and her parents had practised in the parish all their lives, Father did not speak to her nor visit her when her husband died and was buried from the parish.  She now lives alone and struggles with it.  The woman I sit with at Mass has never married and her Catholicism (she has no hesitation to say) is only about going to Mass on Sunday because she has never been made to feel a part of the parish.  She went to primary school in the parish and her parents practised in the parish (they are deceased).  She has lived in the parish since birth into a practising Catholic family in the parish.  Since her parents died many years ago, she has continued to live in the family home and has never been visited by the pp nor pastoral associate.  Result is cynicism about Catholicism.

I am not cynical.  It seems to me that hierarchy in The Church publishes in some form all the right words - sound theological Gospel statements in the footsteps of Jesus.  Putting those words into practise on the parish even diocesan level (and on the internet) can be another matter entirely.  All that is a problem of the human element of The Church.  We are and always have been sinners and will be (until death) on the human level. ("Sin" is from Greek in the NT meaning "to miss the mark or the way" HERE )

If we have social gatherings in the parish where I could meet more parishioners and mix generally on a social fellowship type basis, I am unable to get a lift to the venues.  I asked again (3rd time in 8 years) recently in the parish bulletin without one response.  I have been in the parish 8 years in September 2017.  I need to catch taxis to those events and then another home again.  I am on the age pension and sometimes I just do not have the dollars available.

For some, perhaps many, in The Church - you have to be Catholic for far higher reasons than the people. the mateship and fellowship type reasons.   One might need to be a truly faithful Catholic and follower of Jesus and His Gospel without any recognition (as a particular person let alone person with particular circumstances - i.e. with an identity), neither by The Church nor parish. If you aren't practising your Faith for higher reasons than the fellowship etc., then you might find you are in a house of cards with a very strong breeze on the way.

I have thought of speaking to our pp or religious sister pastoral associate - but I have done my tour of duty being pushed to the "Disgraced Fringe" compartment of parish life because I have spoken up and I suffer a mental illness.  Undoubtedly both my diocese and parish played some part in the fact I was in the revolving door of a psychiatric ward for 20 years where not one person from my parish ever visited me, rang me - nothing.  Sometimes my stays in the ward were 6weeks.  I had been a weekday Mass person regularly at Confession and Rosary.    The pp from the parish where the psychiatric hospital was located would always respond to a phone call from me and visit with Holy Communion and Confession.........and a friendly chat.

When one suffers mental illness one has responsibilities to look after one's mental health both for one's own benefit but also very much for the wellbeing of others.  I think that is much higher indeed on the scale of personal priorities than the priorities, perhaps, of those who do not suffer MI.  Well anyway, I am not prepared to risk my mental health and speak up (unless one suffers serious MI one has no idea whatsoever of the distressing, cruel and life destructive course it can take)  - I have been there done that with disastrous personal consequences for me.  Putting it in a nutshell, it quite literally terrifies me to even think about speaking up. 

Circumstances in one's past do not of necessity repeat - but there might be a lesson to learn one needs to learn, and in order to go forward in life.  Contributing to the fact I have not suffered a serious episode now in probably around 12 years is the fact that I learnt my lesson from the past.  The point, however, from being active on Catholic discussion sites is that what one writes is there forever (that we know of) and those words can be with prayer and God's Grace a pebble chucked into a very big pool indeed.  In the parable of The Sower, the sower does not search for good soil for his seed - he quite randomly just walks along chucking his seed wherever.

Edited July 3, 2017 by BarbaraTherese

[Era Might]

41 minutes ago, BarbaraTherese said:

For some, perhaps many, in The Church - you have to be Catholic for far higher reasons than the people. the mateship and fellowship type reasons.   One might need to be a truly faithful Catholic and follower of Jesus and His Gospel without any recognition (as a particular person let alone person with particular circumstances - i.e. with an identity), neither by The Church nor parish. If you aren't practising your Faith for higher reasons than the fellowship etc., then you might find you are in a house of cards with a very strong breeze on the way.

I have thought of speaking to our pp or religious sister pastoral associate - but I have done my tour of duty being pushed to the "Disgraced Fringe" compartment of parish life because I have spoken up and I suffer a mental illness.  Undoubtedly both my diocese and parish played some part in the fact I was in the revolving door of a psychiatric ward for 20 years where not one person from my parish ever visited me, rang me - nothing.  Sometimes my stays in the ward were 6weeks.  I had been a weekday Mass person regularly at Confession and Rosary.    The pp from the parish where the psychiatric hospital was located would always respond to a phone call from me and visit with Holy Communion and Confession.........and a friendly chat.

Yeah, it's pretty sad and inexcusable that nobody even visited you. Part of it's probably just people see the parish as another sphere of social life, so your place in their attention depends on your place in their social circle. 

For me that's not really an issue. Just the idea of going to church for "fellowship" is foreign to me. Partly, I think, because parishes are sort of reflections of the community. If it's a suburban community parish it's going to be people of a certain social class and respectability. I went to a young adults group for a while, it was fine, we were discussing an Encyclical, but even there the makeup of the group was young urban professionals. Churchy people tend to be respectable people, and that's not me. I'm the guy you see at the bus stop drinking a beer lol...so I don't usually have much in common with respectable or middle class people, and that makes the parish a difficult place to see as a spiritual home. Actually, the place I've felt truly at home is a homeless mission. I felt a community feeling there that I've never felt at a parish...often the volunteers were churchy people, which is good, but it wasn't the volunteers who I felt at home with but the homeless. But, I guess a parish is what it is, an extension of where you live. The parish I go to now is a very wealthy one, but I live in the ghetto on the other side of the tracks (literally), but it's in walking distance. Probably I'd find a more diverse or attractive environment in a city parish...suburbs are for families and middle class people, cities are more fluid.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Era Might

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Era Might said:

Yeah, it's pretty sad and inexcusable that nobody even visited you. Part of it's probably just people see the parish as another sphere of social life, so your place in their attention depends on your place in their social circle. 

For me that's not really an issue. Just the idea of going to church for "fellowship" is foreign to me. Partly, I think, because parishes are sort of reflections of the community. If it's a suburban community parish it's going to be people of a certain social class and respectability. I went to a young adults group for a while, it was fine, we were discussing an Encyclical, but even there the makeup of the group was young urban professionals. Churchy people tend to be respectable people, and that's not me. I'm the guy you see at the bus stop drinking a beer lol...so I don't usually have much in common with respectable or middle class people, and that makes the parish a difficult place to see as a spiritual home. Actually, the place I've felt truly at home is a homeless mission. I felt a community feeling there that I've never felt at a parish...often the volunteers were churchy people, which is good, but it wasn't the volunteers who I felt at home with but the homeless. But, I guess a parish is what it is, an extension of where you live. The parish I go to now is a very wealthy one, but I live in the ghetto on the other side of the tracks (literally), but it's in walking distance. Probably I'd find a more diverse or attractive environment in a city parish...suburbs are for families and middle class people, cities are more fluid.

Thanks, Era.  "Dependant on your place in their social circle" ...and social notions.....applies in this parish too for sure.

I confess absolutely that I was having my first gripe for today.  A nasty sort of problem (nothing at all to do with the computer) I am dealing with now - and that raises my anxiety level to "time to take half an Oxazepam - an emergency medication I always have on hand", so I don't have an anxiety attack or worse - panic attack.  These attacks express themselves as signs of heart attack at times  and the ambulance people have told me I MUST call them out because it just could be a heart attack.  I don't like calling them out for a lousy anxiety or panic attack. 

  But what will really assist in getting my mind off the problem reducing anxiety and stress is concentrating totally on some other subject which posting on Pham offers ....... no charge.  Deo Gratius.  I might even burden Catholic Answers too......no charge and Deo Gratius once more.  Also, my hope is that with prayer what I might have to say might be with God's Grace a pebble into a pool.  Or even ( just as good or even far better) -  trigger something in a person's mind that can say it much better and also perhaps put their head up somewhere where it does matters and will have a good and positive effect.

I hear what you say and I agree.  Mind you, in my smoking days in my previous parish and suburb, I would be the one up the shops having an outside coffee and a smoke.  You could even find me sometimes at the local pub having a Bacardi and coke with a smoke - chatting away with all sorts of ('questionable') people.  Jeans and Tshirt in good weather, jeans and jumper with winter poncho in cold weather. It was a very poor parish with all social problems.  I lived in a run down government rental house I had done what I could with the inside and out.  The government authority mandatorily shifted me to my now suburb because my original house had to be demolished, it was falling down anyway.  Mind you, my motto was "If you can't beat 'em, then infiltrate".

Nowadays I am in a quite wealthy suburb by comparison.  I now have only two sets of secular clothing for each season, plus one set for good.  What that is saying I guess is that I do not at all fit into the norm around here.

I said somewhere or other that disagreements are healthy..........while protecting status quo can be possibly even dangerous.  I mean if I can see what is happening in a parish, then I am positive that others can see it too.  Because I do not think for one minute that I am the only one who reflects on parish life.  I would be absolutely horrified indeed if anyone with a head on their shoulders re Catholicism thought that single older people, along with aged widows and widowers do not matte in parish life.  There are too the divorced and single parents........and any other group I have forgotten in our parish community. 

What happened in my previous parish is that status quo was well established and then I come along with MI and rock the boat well and truly both on parish and diocesan level.  I was anathema and banished to the 'anathema section' (AS) in parish and diocesan life.  That is why it was such a huge shock that His Grace gave permission for the Home Mass to renew private vows.  That is the very first time in probably 30yrs or so I have felt possibly I just might be out somehow out of the AS section.   But I do not deliberately push my luck!   In this parish I am staying under the radar quite deliberately as much as I can.  I keep my head down and the status quo continues for 8 years that I know about and through a few changes of pp. 

About 5 years ago our Archbishop visited our parish here - a young teenager pal of mine wanted her pic taken with the Arch and pulled me in with her to have my photo taken too.  I have it mounted on the walls here in Bethany with much pride and as my privatre big joke.  I thought I was still in the AS.  One priest I knew well from my previous parish (pp here when I first shifted here) who gave me voluntary work in our parish office suddenly disappeared.  When he did I was put off at the office about 2 weeks after our new pp appeared - might have one of any reasons or a couple of them.  It turned out it seems only from what I have been told that he upset a couple of lay people in the parish who are 'pillars of the church'.   They complained vehemently it seems to His Grace.  Father was an excellent priest in my book despite the fact I gave him a very hard time in my previous parish.  I think he was sent off to a monastery or similar somewhere to do his penance and then about six months or so re-appeared in a big parish on the other far side of Adelaide as assistant pp.  I am very happy indeed that despite what he had gone through, he remained a priest.

The thing to me is that there is all sorts of very intelligent discussion at times about why parishes are the way they are.  But not of necessity ideas about how things can be changed and then following through with action - and if you don't succeed, then try try again.  It is a willingness to get creative and experiment and not be discouraged by failure of the objective - reflect on what happened and then have another go different clothing.   I have no intention of putting my head up in any way in this parish, but I do pray someone will and soon.  Miracles can and do happen.  Pre V2 I was very restless about much, then out the blue came V2 and our post V2 years as problematic and troublesome these years are and will be.............it is a sign of health.  The status quo has been rocked well and truly and is still rocking.........but will never sink.

It really is good to catch up with you, Era, now and then - despite the fact we do not see eye to eye at times. .............oh Era, please be merciful to me for I am indeed a sinner with a mental illness.......

.......................................................that just might work..............

                        ..........if you can't beat 'em - try the sympathy vote - that just might work.................

Edited July 3, 2017 by BarbaraTherese

[Era Might]

17 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

The thing to me is that there is all sorts of very intelligent discussion at times about why parishes are the way they are.  But not of necessity ideas about how things can be changed and then following through with action - and if you don't succeed, then try try again.  It is a willingness to get creative and experiment and not be discouraged by failure of the objective - reflect on what happened and then have another go different clothing.   I have no intention of putting my head up in any way in this parish, but I do pray someone will and soon.  Miracles can and do happen.  Pre V2 I was very restless about much, then out the blue came V2 and our post V2 years as problematic and troublesome these years are and will be.............it is a sign of health.  The status quo has been rocked well and truly and is still rocking.........but will never sink.

It really is good to catch up with you, Era, now and then - despite the fact we do not see eye to eye at times. .............oh Era, please be merciful to me for I am indeed a sinner with a mental illness.......

.......................................................that just might work..............

                        ..........if you can't beat 'em - try the sympathy vote - that just might work.................

lol, I always appreciate your posts.

And yeah, I don't think the point is to just give up on everything because parishes aren't perfect...just maybe find new ways and not treat the parish like it's the only way to create the body of Christ, because it's not. What sparked my OP on parishes was this quote from Pope Francis (in Seven's original link to the Conference):

"I dream of a "missionary option," that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything so that the Church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today's world rather than for her self-preservation. (Evangelii Gaudium 27)"

I love that idea, not evangelizing for self-preservation. I'll never forget the first time I went to Sunday Mass in Central America, here I am expecting a regular Sunday Mass, until somebody informed me...um, we don't have priests here (I was in an mountain area where some still didn't even have electricity).  It never occurred to me that priests don't exist in some areas. I thought it was sad that there was no model of married priests to draw on, the only model was a Western one (seminary institution, long education, career clerics, etc.).

"For it has been reported to me by Chlo'e's people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apol'los," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" (1Cor 1:11-13)

[Era Might]

18 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

 .............oh Era, please be merciful to me for I am indeed a sinner with a mental illness.......

.......................................................that just might work..............

                        ..........if you can't beat 'em - try the sympathy vote - that just might work.................

I heard a guy say one time, "I'm just a drunk." Ever since I've had an idea that would make a great short story...what he meant (or what I projected onto what he said) was he's not mentally ill, he's just a drunk, he likes to drink lol. Better if he were mentally ill, then he would have an excuse, or at least he would have an explanation, a reason for being the way he is. But no, he's just a drunk, just likes to drink.

I think we'd all be better if we were "just a ....whatever." Not saying mental illness isn't a real thing, but, you're just you, and I'm just me. I've never been blind, but just the very fact of blindness transforms it into a good, in its own way. You can't undo your blindness (just as you can't undo your sight). Whatever we are is our curse and our blessing: we are all doomed to be ourselves (isn't that what we were talking about in the Hopkins thread). 

I have many rules in life, but one of them is, never apologize for anything except what is not you. And sometimes that means apologizing for your vices, but sometimes it means apologizing for your virtues. Like Thoreau said, "If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior." Nothing is usually more false.

[Guest]

Thank you for the posts, Era.  I have to go out today and so am here to acknowledge your posts and to state that I will answer them later.

One thing............please, Era - my mental illness is my excuse for most everywhere on any matter and it usually works - people are very understanding when I stick my foot in things "She has a mental illness, you know".  Please don't take my excuse away from me.  .........LOL

2 hours ago, Era Might said:

"For it has been reported to me by Chlo'e's people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apol'los," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" (1Cor 1:11-13)

The above is one of my favourites.  Catcha later.....

......Barb