“Consequently, an evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!” Evangelii Gaudium #10
That has to be one of my favorite quotes from The Joy of the Gospel, the 2013 Apostolic Exhortation penned by Pope Francis. And it reminds me of Marlin, a radiology tech I’ve come to know over the last 20 years.
I’m not making this up.
The Christmas lights have barely been packed away but the countdown to Lent has begun (Ash Wednesday is an unusually early Feb. 14 this year.) Which can only mean one thing: You’ll need to come up with your Lenten plan stat AND March Madness is right around the corner.
Now, why would The Soulful Catholic give a lick about the National Collegiate Athletic Association annual basketball tournament? And what, pray tell, does this have to do with Lent anyway?
You might not be surprised to learn that church attendance is down here and around the U.S.
Outside of Christmas and Easter, it’s not very often that you have a standing-room only crowd at church on Sunday. There’s a startling graph published by Pew Research that shows a steep decline in church attendance starting in 2007 when 54 percent of Americans said they attended religious services monthly or more.
By 2019, that number dropped to 45 percent. Pew also reported that during most of the Covid 19 pandemic, about 6 in 10 Americans did not take part in religious services in any way, including roughly 7 in 10 adults under age 30. Seventy percent of our young people are not going to church!
As they wheeled me into the ICU, I noticed the crucifix on the wall among all the other life-saving equipment. I was in a Catholic hospital, after all, and its catholicity was something that struck me again and again during my four-night stay.
What can only be described as one of the most terrible and yet somehow wonderful experiences of my life unfolded just a few weeks ago when I was sitting in the chapel at the Diocesan Pastoral Center in downtown Phoenix. Staff at the DPC are blessed to be able to attend Mass in the chapel most workdays.
Shortly after the Gospel was proclaimed and we settled into our pews, I felt as though someone punched me in the forehead.
For every parent of an adult child who has rejected the faith, the story of a local man named Bill ought to infuse hope and a renewed determination to pray and fast for their children.
“I was away from the Church for 32 years,” Bill told The Soulful Catholic one hot afternoon during a discussion about faith and the Bible. Bill had signed up to participate in Christ in Our Neighborhood, a small-group program focused on the Sunday Mass readings.
While away from the Catholic Church, Bill belonged to a denomination that proclaimed Catholics are not actually Christians and will not be saved.
There was a long and rocky road back to the Church established by Christ, but eventually, Bill was home.