Like a mustard seed

 

[Jesus] said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

Mark 4:30 - 32

One of the most enduring memories of my childhood was the freedom we had as kids. My older brothers would disappear early on school holiday mornings to go fishing in the local creek and I would dutifully follow. Like the veritable Vegemite flyer, we jumped off the shed roof, played cowboys and Indians, used slingshots, occasionally waged wars against the kids in the next street. We had our ears clipped, our hair cut with the pudding bowl, rode our bikes for miles, camped in the backyard all summer and lived a carefree life.

My brothers and I had our catalogues of injuries – broken arms, legs, stitches. Discipline was swift, but just. We dressed in our Sunday best for Mass, went to confession on Fridays, wore our scapulars, Miraculous Medals, prayed the Rosary in May and October. St Patrick's Day was a half holiday. We were taught by sisters and brothers, had our fingernails and hair inspected once a week, said grace before and after meals, and when TV arrived in our household in 1961, it was only black and white. We all cried when JFK was assassinated and jumped with excitement when man reached the moon. Our phone number was four numbers long (2122) and we shared a party line. There was no STD, and toll calls went through an operator. People travelled by ship and the Jumbo and DC10 were far away into the future.

They seemed like simple days. Our religious and daily lives melded into one. The future was full of optimism. Sure, we had some crabby neighbours and teachers, but we trusted the adults in our lives, and things clicked along with some reliability and regularity. When we ask ourselves what kind of world, what kind of childhood we are offering our children, can it be the kind of childhood that you I had? Can you promise them hope?

My childhood (and yours) is long past and indeed the world has changed unrecognisably in the last 60 years. But, there have been constants: my family and my faith. Like my understanding of the world, my faith has continued to grow and mature. Faith, like all other aspects of our lives, must be nurtured and developed. It needs be an adult faith. Like the mustard seed which begins so small, when it is cared for, fed, watered and nourished, it grows into a great tree. The chances we give our children to grow in faith are absolutely necessary if they too are to grow into adults of faith.

  

Peter Douglas

ALMOST IRRELEVANT BUT NOT QUITE!

by Kevin Bates SM

 

The relationship between the Church and wider society is one that is always worth exploring. For many good people as far as they are concerned, the Church is something of a curiosity, an irrelevance.

Sure, there is the contribution that the Church makes through its services of healthcare, education, welfare and so on. People are the perhaps unwitting recipients of the Church’s pastoral care in these forums which may not translate into active involvement in the life of the Church.

We have the large body of people who name themselves as Catholic, and whose lives seem to have little time for active faith practice and who will say that for them the Church has little to offer. Fine people, often living good and sometimes heroic lives, shaped perhaps in some way by Catholic education and church teachings, live out these teachings with varying levels of awareness of the gospel that underpins them.

From time to time they reach out for connection. Perhaps there is a child they would like to baptise, a wedding they wish to celebrate in the church or a funeral for a loved one whose life had some fondness for the life they remember as being somehow Catholic.

These precious encounters come and go, stirring a memory or a certain sentiment at least for a little while. They may express surprise at how relaxed and welcoming the ceremony felt to them. There may be comments such as: “I wish church could be like this all the time, I might come more often.”

Then necessarily, they move on with their lives, possibly with a new memory that may nourish them when they call it to mind. The connection with Church has been fleeting enough but not without worth.

For four weekends during May, the Archdiocese asked us to keep a count of people attending Mass. Such figures, while they can be useful for strategic planning do not tell the whole story of the life and mission of a community.

It is a joy of course when people come along and want to join us when we worship together. It’s natural that we feel concern for those who have taken other paths.

It is important however that these joys and concerns be matched with a deeper understanding of the nature of our mission. Jesus makes it clear that people will know that we are his disciples by our love for each other, not by how numerous we are.

Love as we know, does not count the cost, does not define itself by numbers or the language of success or failure. Love is a gift given and received and then left to find its own course.

If then, love is what marks us as a community among ourselves, and if love is the gift that passing visitors receive and take with them when they leave, then chances are we are true to the mission God entrusts to us.

This does not prevent us from seeking to reach out at every turn, seeking to share our faith with anyone who cares to hear. We do so however, aware that it is God’s work we are about. We sow the seeds, water them and allow God’s Spirit to go to work in God’s good time and theirs.

There’s an African tribe who assign a song to each new-born child. Later on if the growing child breaks the taboos and fails to honour the ways of the community, rather than being expelled, she or he is invited back into the community when the time is right. The community simply sings for him or her, the song given at their birth to remind them of who they are.

No matter how irrelevant we appear to be or for how long, we too have a unique song of love to sing that belongs to any soul who comes our way.

Kevin is parish priest of Holy Name of Mary, Hunters Hill, NSW