you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
Twenty years later I look around at the Church, and I would be a fool not to be concerned. Entire generations have abandoned the faith. In many of our parishes in the U.S., if it weren’t for the Hispanic immigrants, there would be no children at all.
Some have gone to other churches. Many have simply abandoned church all together. To call them atheists it to presume too much. An atheist has thought about the question and decided there is no God. Many today don’t even give religion that much thought.
In side the Church, we are seeing the same tribalism that has infected the political sphere. The right and the left declare incessantly that the other isn’t really Catholic.
As for leaders, many of our bishops are so focused on the abuse scandal and money concerns, they have forgotten that their primary role it to teach, to evangelize. Instead of leading, they are proud of the fact that they are following the “best practices” of the business world. They have become, not shepherds, but CEO’s.
On the local level, what pastor doesn’t feel over-stretched...And then there’s COVID.
Where is the hope? Where is the light?
It is found in a single word in today’s Gospel — my.
...Upon this rock I will build MY church...
The Church is not ours; It is His. The Church is His possession, totally. The Church is His body. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot pass away. It is eternal. So, it cannot be destroyed. As St. Paul tells us in vs. 36, Jesus is the origin the path, and the goal of it all.
It can however become practically invisible. We, each of us, much choose to make it visible. We make it visible when we show Christ to the world. We make it visible when we show our unity. We make the Church visible when we demonstrate our ability to be different from the world around us, when we build up rather than tear down, when we discuss rather than argue, when we love rather than label.
All one has to do is look at the plethora of websites, movies and programs dedicated to the subject and realize there is a hunger for the spiritual. Every human in the depths of their being knows there is something more than the physical world. We must feed to real human hunger, and then we will be the shining city on the hill, His Church.
