From the bulletin for The Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Sep 22, 2024)
25th Sunday
Remember when I was away for almost five weeks this summer?
Some, in fact, may not have even noticed. Others perhaps noticed but were unconcerned. (I think Fr. Patrick and the PES brothers are in that category.) Others, for all I know, have been stewing ever since about Fr. David’s five-week thumb-twiddling retreat… when the fate of eternal souls is at stake!
In case any are of that category, it might be worthwhile clarifying again (as I tried to before I left) that this was no extended retreat or exercise in clerical lollygagging. It was back to school with abandon for an intense semester of study crammed into the marrow of yet another too-precious summer, the choicest portion of our ever-fading mortal lives. Four classes in five weeks, with six hours of class a day for seven thousand in tuition (after scholarship!) all made for a rather intense, if costly time, in Detroit!
I sense it was worth it. However, it was, of course, hard to be away from you all. But lest you think Fr. David was off counting dancing angels on the head of a proverbial pin in Theological La La Land, be assured: the program of study is eminently useful for pastors. The focus, after all, is evangelization. And to prove its practicality: one of my classes was called Small Christian Communities. That’s right: I had a graduate course about small groups.
It was not, in the end, the most engrossing of classes. There is probably only so much you can say about Christians coming together regularly in communities of 8-12 persons. Nevertheless, I did walk away with a deeper sense of the importance of these “spaces” in the Christian life. Enough motivation, for instance, to write a bulletin article about the very same!
It’s good to recall that many of the Christian communities we see in the New Testament were essentially “small groups”. Think of the twelve disciples of the Baptist whom Paul baptized in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7). Or the Church at Thessalonica: Paul was with them for only about three weeks. How many members could that church possibly have had? And though Jesus’ ministry is characterized by several concentric circles (“the crowd,” “the disciples,” “the seventy two”), at its core is a small group of Twelve with whom He shared His life and very self. Looking at the scriptural data, “small groups” seem to be part of the structure of the Christian life.
Looking at how Christian life has been lived, especially in recent centuries, however, that element has often been missing. In our nation, for example, especially in the past fifty years, many have fallen into what might be called a “Catholic minimalism” or as George Weigel calls it, “Catholic Lite.” For such, Sunday Mass attendance and certain rituals of cultural Catholicism exhaust their practice of faith.
When the broader culture more or less supported Christianity, the insufficiency of Catholic minimalism was not as glaring (though to hear reports of how Catholics engaged the Mass in the decades leading up to and following the Second Vatican Council is enough to sense that something crucial was missing). Now that the broader culture is positively opposed to the following of Christ, its shortcomings are woefully apparent. Those who are unwilling to embrace a more robust and integral living of the Faith are, simply put, abandoning it.
In the face of all this, our Archbishop has communicated a vision: every Catholic in a small group. Each Christian needs a community of brothers or sisters where he or she can be known, share faith, and encounter Christ in a personal way that is not possible in the equally essential encounter with Him we must have every Sunday in the Mass. The Christian life cannot be lived alone; we are all parts of a Body, we all participate in a shared Life, and we are all called to contribute intentionally to a shared task called Communion, which the evangelizing mission of the Church is intended to serve. Simply put: alone we will wither and die like branches off the vine. Together we will grow and bear fruit provided Christ is in our midst, who promised to be present where 2 or 3 (a small group) are gathered in His name.
I know that at St. Mark’s many parishioners have already committed to making small groups a regular part of their lives. For those who are still “surviving” without such a group, my encouragement is to make it a goal to find one in the coming year. The parish is committed to cultivating more and more such “cells” in our local community. For your part, don’t wait to take the class; just take the plunge into the Body of Christ!
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