Feeding a common Faith

In a time of crisis, we need to recover a rich devotional life, says Joseph Shaw

Readers of this edition of Mass of Ages don’t need me to remind them that we are living in strange times. The ‘freedom of the Church’ sought by the Leonine Prayers we recite after Low Masses has been seriously limited, not by persecution, but by an epidemic.

As with any crisis, as Catholics we must consider what to do for our and others’ spiritual, as well as bodily, welfare. We all have sufferings to offer up for our own sins and the conversion of sinners: some of these sufferings may be severe. Those with extra free time and limited options can address themselves to prayers, devotions, and projects in the service of the Church, they may have intended to undertake at busier times but never got around to.

This is especially needful since this period of ‘lockdown’, even if it turns out to be relatively brief, will do great damage to the Church. The Latin Mass Society is not going to be especially hard hit, but parishes and dioceses are going to lose out financially, from lost Sunday collections, and Catholics impoverished from the almost complete cessation of commercial activity will not be well placed to help them. Of far greater significance, however, will be the lapsation of those who have been going to Mass out of habit, or for whom Mass-going has been largely motivated by the thought of seeing friends.

As history has shown, each wave of Catholics teetering on the edge of lapsation who finally stop going to church are replaced in that position by another set of Catholics whose zeal is cooling, thanks to the temptations of the world and the limitations of the Church. The current trend is not towards the ‘smaller, purer Church’ imagined by Fr Josef Ratzinger during his liberal phase in 1968. The Church gets smaller, but remains impure. Possibly a disaster such as a noticeable number of Catholics lapsing and a financial crunch will wake more people up to the roots of the problem.

My optimism is limited, however, by the fact that this is the second time in a few years that a major crisis has intervened to accelerate our longterm trend of decline. I am referring to the clerical sex abuse crisis, which accelerated in 2018. This crisis demanded a penitential spiritual response, but received, in general, only a managerial response, and not always a competent one at that.

We don’t need a liturgy focused on a social connection with the dwindling congregation around us, but one which feeds in Catholics a common Faith, such as can form the basis of genuine fellow feeling and unity of purpose. We need to recover a devotional life which maintains our life of Faith throughout the week. We need distinctive, common, markers of the Faith to give witness to this Faith to the unconverted world. And when events throw a crisis at us, we need to respond as a spiritual community, in a spiritual way.

In 2011 our bishops restored the obligation (with the usual exceptions) of abstaining from meat on Fridays. In 2017 they restored the obligation to attend Mass on the proper liturgical dates of Epiphany and the Ascension. On 29 March this year the Bishops renewed England’s dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary. These are hopeful signs, and we need more of them. Most Holy Days are still moved to Sunday when they fall on Saturdays and Mondays, for fear of asking too much of the Faithful: as if occasionally going to Mass on consecutive days is a terrible burden. In reality, it is the churches and religions which do make real demands on their followers which give them a sense of purpose and gain adherents.

"Your attention please...the world has come to an end."

Again, our bishops have never set dates for the Ember Days in the Ordinary Form, as special days of prayer and penance. Few of them heeded the advice of Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue on bolstering the Catholic ethos of our schools. Our seminaries remain no-go zones for the public celebration of the Traditional Mass. Too many bishops seem to prefer the advice of spin doctors when things go wrong, rather than to seek God’s help in public liturgies of penance and petition.

There is little we can do to influence the Bishops and senior clergy directly, but we can model for the wider Church what it means to be united in the Faith, to make public witness of this Faith, to be rooted in a rich devotional life, and to seek in the Church’s liturgy the means, most pleasing to God, of marking days of penance and of joy, of petition and of thanksgiving. It is in this way we can play our part in the rebuilding of the Church. Our help is going to be sorely needed.