ragon
THE
P RTAL
November 2012
Page 8
Being faithful
in the Year of Faith
We’ve had
almost two years of setting up the structures of the Ordinariate now,
and necessarily so, and that work will have to continue (Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they
say), but the newly-begun Year of Faith is a timely reminder to the Ordinariate that the
Ordinariate must have a commitment to, and passion for, outreach and evangelisation.
take us backwards
We have all seen (and perhaps even
been part of) parishes with an all too
settled mind-set, which have failed to
engage with those beyond the present
congregation. And we know the fate that is likely to
await them. From such examples we need to draw the
lesson that simply treading water will not only not
maintain our present position, fragile and uncertain
as it still is, but will actually
take us backwards.
influence on society, as well as a greater influence on
the wider Church.
to be faithful to him
and to the Gospel
But of course success and growth are something very
different in the Church than in the eyes of the world.
The church at Laodicea was by worldly standards a
huge success – it was probably well-attended and very
expect that the
Church will decline
Now it is quite obvious that
we can’t use maintenance of
church buildings as an excuse
for evangelistic inactivity!
But we can be sure that the
devil will find other means
of keeping us from spreading
the faith.
It seems to me that one of
his most successful tactics of late has been to condition
us to believe and expect that the Church will decline;
that to attempt to grow is futile and a whistling in the
wind. Like all his lies, this one is not unconvincing.
wealthy. But by Christ’s standards it was wretched,
poor and pitiful. What Christ asks of us is not to
seek success at all (and for a small Ordinariate that
is likely to be measured in terms of numbers), but
to be faithful to him and to the Gospel that he has
entrusted to us.
It is hard to grow; we have all experienced
disappointment and setbacks in our evangelistic
efforts; it sometimes seems that the odds are very God will give the growth
If we are faithful, then God will give the growth in
much stacked against us. And afraid of the prospect of
his way and in his time. It may very well be that our
failure, we have become afraid to evangelise.
efforts now, particularly in this Year of Faith, bear fruit
a convincing lie is still a lie
in the next generation of Ordinariate members. That
But a convincing lie is still a lie. We desperately need is not an easy thing for those of us who want to see
to recover a belief that the Church can grow in our part the Ordinariate flourish to accept, but the prospect of
of the world. Members of the fledgling Ordinariate a slow harvest must not stop us getting on with the
need to have the belief that the Ordinariate can grow. necessary work of sowing.
Whether it will or not, of course, remains to be seen,
Whenever, however and wherever the growth
but that it can’t is not an article of faith. With the wider occurs, it will be according to the Lord’s plan for his
Church, we need to find the nerve to be a greater Church, not ours.