Fit for Mission? Church

18th October 2009

Introduction

Parishioners at the Annual General Meeting of our Parish (2nd October 2009) responded to an overview of this document and called for parish-wide discussion of Fit for Mission.

In preparation for a specific course, in the next few months, all parish groups, organisations and individual parishioners, are asked to READ the overview of Fit for Mission? Church below, REFLECT on the points and questions below, and RESPOND before Advent (the end of November).

Consider the following statement by Bishop Parick O'Donaghue, in Fit for Mission? Church:

I am convinced that if we are to wake from the weariness that is taking hold of the Church in this country, we must return to the sources of our Catholic identity and mission, to renew our strength and vitality. In this way we will, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, be in a position to counter the negative and constraining influence of secularism and hedonism that is currently dominating our society.

1. How do you respond to that statement
2. Is it an accurate picture of attitudes in the Church and in the culture today?
3. In what ways might we, individually and collectively, return to the sources of our Catholic identity and mission?

Consider how we can respond tto these questions both individually and as a parish community. In the light of the above, Fit for Mission? Church asks us the following questions:

1. When I think about the Church, what questions are close to my heart?
2. Have I hope enough to face the reality of our Church fairly and squarely?
3. How do I ensure that I do not forget what it is to be Catholic?
   How do I actively live my life so that I am mindful of the joy and responsibility I have to be a Catholic?
4. How do I cultivate a personal relationship with Chrust through personal experience, and the wealth of the Church's knowledge of Him contained in the teachings of God?

The Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) has been considering Fit for Mission? Church for some time (while awaiting resumption and emergence of our own diocese's Vision process) and our responses have so far included thematic homilies on the Mass and the Sacraments, expanded teaching articles in the Sunday Bulletin and on the parish's new website and enabling parishioners, (especially co-ordinators of sacramental programmes), to obtain the Maryvale Certificate in Catechesis.

In response to positive feedback arising from our series of thematic homilies, the parish clergy, together with others involved, will shortly begin a thorough review of all our sacramental programmes and related areas of parish life.

What further initiatives from Fit for Mission? Church do you think the parish could undertake in the months ahead?

Fit for Mission? Church - a brief overview

Fit for Mission? Church has been written by Bishop Patrick O'Donaghue (until recently Bishop of Lancaster) to assist his own diocese as it underwent a period of reflection and renewal - a process many other dioceses, including our own, are also undertaking.

Nevertheless, the document has a relevance well outside its original context. It is subtitled simply: Being a Catholic today, and Bishop O'Donaghue states in his preface: I have also written it for all Catholics who love the Church and care deeply about the future of Catholicism in this country. Moreover, the document has attracted considerable parise from the Vatican. It comes highly commended by the Congregation for the Clergy, which called it an effective, practical instrument for advancing the much heralded New Evangelisation.

The Vatican noted the sources of Bishop O'Donaghue's inspiration as the Traditions of the Church as expressed in the Second Vatican Council and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In this brief overview we look particularly at the four great teaching documents of Vatican II, which the Bishop sees as very relevant to our situation in the Church today. Ordained a priest in the pre-Conciliar period, he remembers vividly the hopes and expectations raised by Vatican II, and he wants us to recover something of that sense of hope today.

This is important to remember. In the course of his document, Bishop O'Donaghue has some strong criticisms to make of contemporary society, and even of certain contemporary trends in the Church. He does not flinch from speaking out about the important issues of our day. At the same time, he always does so in spirit of hope - Fit for Mission? Church is in no way a negative document. On the contrary, it offers a very positive message, firmly rooted in the teaching of Christ and His church.

Let us look now at the four great teaching documents of Vatican II, and at the Bishop's commentary on them (this will necessarily be a very condensed summary of this Bishop's teaching). To understand his vision fully, parishioners are strong recommended to buy a full copy of Fit for Mission? Church, available from the Parish Bookshop for £8.95.

Dei Verbum - The Constitution on Divine Revelation

Bishop O'Donaghue summarises the document thus:

The Word of God, proclaimed in the liturgy, gathers the Church together and calls for our response of love.

One aspect of Vatican II was that it restored Sacred Scripture to the very heart of Catholic life and teaching. Bishop O'Donaghue praises this renewed interest in the Word of God - for instance, in Bible Study Groups and in personal prayer. But he also warns that this interest in Scripture can become exaggerated. As Catholics, we do not believe (as some Protestants do) in sola scriptura (scripture alone), but in Scripture and Tradition, mediated through the teaching office of the Church. To forget this leads some Catholics to set the Bible against the Church, and encourages dissent from Church teaching.

To overcome this problem, and so appreciate fully the gift of God in Revelation, Bishop O'Donaghue proposes two principles which we should always keep in mind:

1. The Bible is the book of the Church
2. The Bible is entrusted to the Church

In terms of good developments in Catholic understanding of the Church since the Council, Bishop O'Donaghue praises, among other things:

• Ecumenism - properly understood
• The new emphasis on the role of the bishop
• The development of the permanent diaconate
• The emerging lay apostolate
• The establishment of Bishops' Conferences in most countries (although he admits that the Bishops' Conferences of England and Wales have not always acted as effectively as he would like).

He does however see threats, too, in our contemporary understanding of the Church. In particular, some dissenting Catholics treat the Church as a mere human construct, denying its historical foundation by Christ and treating its teaching as only temporary and provisional.

As a response to this threat, Bishop O'Donaghue speaks at length of the duties of bishops, as custodians of their flock, but he also suggests steps parish priests can take. These include:

• Praying regularly for the Pope's intentions, uniting ourselves with the whole Church
• Engaging actively with documents from the Vatican
• Encouraging sound doctrinal programmes (such as Fit for Mission? Schools, now adopted in the schools of this parish).

Gaudium et Spes - Constitution on the Church in the Modern World

The bishop sums up this pastoral constitution in the following words:

The Church carries the light of love received from God out into the world, taking it into all the dark places of injustice and suffering.

At the heart of this process lies the Church's understanding of the human person, based on:

1. The dignity of each person, made in the image and likeness of God
2. The sinfulness of fallen humanity, which needs Christ's saving touch

Holding faithfully to these two key beliefs, the bishop propses two ways in which Catholics are called to engage with the world around them:

1. By constantly focussing on Christ, God incarnate, who 'reveals man to himself'
2. By reading the 'signs of the times' - interpreting the modern world in the light of the Gospel

Among the 'signs of the times' are these:

• Marriage and family life
• Culture
• Social and economic life
• Political life
• War and peace

A contemporary reading of these 'signs' might seem wholly pessimistic

• widespread abortion, family breakdown, creeping euthanasia
• economic recession
• cynicism regarding politicians
• foreign wars and terrorism;

but Fit for Mission? Church, like Gaudium et Spes itself, calls us rather to a fauth-filled hope in God, and an awareness of our important mission today:

The ultimate dignity of humanity lies in our unique vocation specifically revealed in the New Testament to communion with God through self-giving love.

Fit for Mission? Church, p101

Therefore, we always trust the Church to interpret the Bible and hold fast to her teachings, especially as they come to us through the Magisterium (the Pope and bishops in communion with him) - otherwise we risk falling into error.

As simple practical steps, the bishop encourages the clergy to take great trouble over their preaching, and to promote the use of the Catechism and sound catechisis based upon it (such as the Evangelium programme used in this parish).

Sacrosanctum Concilium - Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy

Bishop O'Donaghue quotes Pope Benedict XVI:

In recent times, Vatican Council II expressed a desire that the respectful reverence due to divine worship should be renewed and adapted to the needs of our time.

As above with the use of Scripture, the bishop sees things both to be praised, and to be regretted with the current state of the liturgy in our Church.

He praises the emphasis given to Sundays, as the weekly celebration of the Resurrection - the new emphasis on the Liturgy of the Word - a more communal and les individualistic approach to worship during Mass.

At the same time he regrets a 'false freedom', which leads people to create their own liturgies, in place of the worship offered us by the Church - ignorance, where people fail to understand the mysteries they celebrate, reducing liturgy to a purely human encounter - and 'consumerism', where entertainment replaces the worship of Almighty God.

The biushop again proposes remedies to the problems he identifies. Among other things he commends the study of the Reading in scripture study and prayer groups, the use of the CTS Simple Prayer Book, or similar books, to promote private devotion before and after Mass, and emphasises the duty of the clergy to foster a truly sacred atmosphere in the celebration of the liturgy (in this context he advocates the prudent use of Latin in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, as was explicitly authorised by Sacrosanctum Concilium).

Lumen Gentium - The Constitution on the Church

Bishop O'Donaghue begins by noting far-reaching changes which this document brought in the way we understand the Church. He quotes the spiritual author Romano Guardini:

The Church is not an institution devised and built by men ... but a living reality ... Like all living realities it develops, it changes ... and yet in the very depths of its being it remains the same: its inmost nucleus is Christ.

Before the Council there was perhaps a tendancy to emphasise the institutional aspects of the Church - the Pope and heirarchy - whereas Vatican II calls us back to a deeper, more mystical understanding - the Church as the Body of Christ.