Balancing Popular Piety and Fellowship at Parishes

[rca8497]

I am often bothered by what I feel is a lack of balance in many parishes between going to church for personal/popular worship, and fellowship opportunities.

Clearly the paramount reason we attend Mass or come to church is to be in the presence of the Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We also seek sacramentals, prayer services such as Vespers, etc. and other traditions. But as Catholics, it seems our parishes either succeed in being reverent places of worship, or vibrant social settings with lots of liturgical issues needing attention. Does this make sense?

Consider a parish that is quite orthodox and follows the Church’s teachings and the Roman Missal closely. There is little organized opportunity for fellowship, and the pastor exhorts those with ideas to form committees or start events. Rarely does one see the pastor committing himself to meeting with individual parishioners, nor trying to get many events going himself. It is up to the lay people and religious brothers/sisters to handle such things.

On the other hand, you have a large, often suburban parish with many families of all ages. There are many ministries available and crowded Masses, but one would see many liturgical aberrations there, but the feeling of community is strong. One also feels the pastor is quite involved directly with ministries, personal outreach, etc.

Is this all just a result of the spirit of each pastor and the mood cast in each parish?

It seems like we cannot on the whole find parishes that balance devotion and liturgy of high quality and great reverence, with the Christian calls to socialize, support one another, and be a parish family.

I will be working to help raise fellowship in my parish, but I feel the institutional Church needsto step up and push for a worldwide cause to encourage us to know and love one another, not just worship side by side and head home. To me, this example starts with pastors, and then through parishioners. Should it really all be up to lay people to get things going?

 

[DOShea]

Well consider an analogous situation.

There are many businesses now that put serious effort into recycling things like paper, soft drink cans, etc. Do you think all of those started by the CEO gathering experts and mandating it, or do you think it was started by people who saw a way that the company or its employees could benefit from recycling materials, gathered a few like-minded folks together, and petitioned the boss for a few containers? Like a Pastor, the CEO has got 1500 other things to worry about, and it may not be that he doesn’t want some of these things, but only that he doesn’t have the time and energy to do all the legwork himself (but might be fine with it if people approached him with a well thought-out plan and a commitment to do the work involved).

One way (not the only way) that works is to find people in other parishes who have a similar program to what you want to see at your parish. Call them, then go talk to them and talk to their Pastor. Find out what he thinks about it, was he happy or reluctant to start it, what benefits does he find in having such a program, and what kind of resources (people, money) does it take to have an ongoing program such as that parish has.

Then when you approach your own Pastor, you have facts in hand. Write it down for him, but don’t just mail it. Make an appointment and go talk to him about it, giving him the highlights and an opportunity to ask questions about it. You might say something like: St. Joe’s has a program like this, I went there and saw it, and their Pastor told me X, Y, and Z about it. Here are the benefits of such a program as he sees it. Here is the cost, and here is our plan to raise the money to cover that cost. It takes X people, minimum, and here is my list of volunteers willing right now to make the commitment for such a program. Our proposal is written out, detailed, for your consideration. Then it will be a matter of hearing his own views and finding ways to meet whatever he sees as obstacles.

You may also be prepared to call the medics, since this kind of pre-thought out approach almost never happens and he may faint from the shock of it.

In short, if you really want it, you have to do the leg work and sell it. You’ll be waiting forever if you sit around hoping someone else will do it, including an already busy Pastor.

 

[421]

You will never ever get your parish to balance this.

However, we have gone outside and created it for an entire area. We have the MCCSG.blogspot.com.

If you are interested in launching in your area - just let me know.

~Susie