Reflection: A smaller, purer Church?

'Today I would like to preach to the converted. To those of you who are well committed to the faith, who are here every weekend, who are part of the furniture. Because today's Gospel is for you - and obviously also for me.

One of the things that priests and those in leadership in the Church and maybe you too have difficulty with is the fact that we baptise loads of babies, we give First Communion to loads of kids, we Confirm loads of teenagers, we do loads of weddings, loads of funerals and sign loads of school application, but it never seems to translate into loads more people coming to Church. Yes, lots of people do come, but a lot of people come, get what they want, and then disappear again, returning when their child is in, say Year 6 or when they want to get married. This can, at times, be a little bit discouraging, a little bit frustrating - after all, all of those activities involve an awful lot of work.

But what can we do? Well there's basically two solutions - the first is that we largely continue doing what we're doing, but work harder to attract and retain those who cross our threshold - through being welcoming, and through being such a diverse and inclusive community that everyone can feel that they belong. But it's messy and it's hard work.

The other approach is that we begin to be a little bit more careful, a little bit more discerning, a little bit more fussy about what babies we baptise and what kind of families those babies we come from. That we become a little bit stricter about signing school forms. A little bit more demanding of our engaged couples. A little bit more rigorous when it comes to First Holy Communion preparation. In fact, I know a few parishes where teenagers are expected to have an interview before they're even allowed to join the Confirmation programme. The aim is to build a smaller, purer, more faithful Church. One where everyone's engaged, everyone's committed, everyone's on-message. Doesn't it sound great?

Yet, before you start nodding your heads, and before those of you who are perhaps occasional visitors break into a cold sweat, I'll honest with you. I'm not sure that's the kind of Church that Christ intends us to be. In the Gospel today, Jesus tells us the famous parable of the sower, whose seeds falls onto rich soil, and onto weeds and rocky ground. But the sower, knowing the importance of his task, keeps on going - knowing also that what seeds do grow will make the whole exercise worthwhile. It's not that he's wasting those seeds, it's not that he's deliberately putting them where they won't grow - but he knows there's enough to go round, and that ultimately what happens next is out of his control.

I think that we, who sometimes find ourselves looking sideways at those who don't go to church very often, or who love to comment about people who seem to us to be coming just to get their school forms signed or their kids baptised need to take into our hearts a little bit of that wisdom. The seed is the Word of God - and there's plenty of it for everyone. The harvest is also God's work, and God works in situations you and I cannot see, in people you and I don't expect - and in ways you and I cannot easily judge. The sowing however, is our job, our responsibility - and a generosity of attitude and spirit to all who enter our doors, a willingness to take risks to welcome and accept people, and a refusal to pre-judge the what we think the results may or may not be is more than likely to yield a very rich harvest indeed.'

Homily for 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, given by Fr Philip Dyer-Perry, Parish Priest at Our Lady of the Rosary church in Staines, west London.

LINK

Our Lady of the Rosary parish, Staines: https://parish.rcdow.org.uk/staines/