Fr. Lemieux is challenged by the dismissal of the faith and challenges the faithful to do something about it:
The wide-scale rejection of Christianity in the modern world is a deep mystery to me, I must say. I
have never quite understood why so many people have turned away from the Christian faith, its practice, its beliefs. I suppose my own experience of Christianity, at least ever since I came to have a true apprehension of it around age 17 or so, has been so thoroughly positive, my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ and to really plunge into the demands and promises of the Gospel is so radiant and joyful even as it is far from easy and my fidelity to it far from perfect, that I find it difficult to connect with the popular image of the Church and Christianity that so many reject.
It seems to me that what so many people reject—harsh, censorious, hypocritical, joyless, boring, lifeless religion—is simply not the Gospel. Much of the apostasy of our day is not actually (I believe) an apostasy from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the salvation it offers, but an apostasy from a bizarre caricature of that gospel, a parody Gospel which in fact is an anti-gospel, bad news all around for humanity.
Now I really don’t know where people get this anti-gospel from – that is the mystery to me. The parish life I grew up in was, perhaps, a little boring, the preaching not exactly stirring, the music rather tedious, and the parish life in general not exactly bursting with enthusiasm. But there was certainly no hellfire and brimstone or obsessing over sexual sin or any of the (frankly) ridiculous pictures of Catholicism the popular media like to project. Maybe some of that was true in an earlier era, but I am 46 years old, and I simply do not believe that very many people my age and younger were exposed to that kind of Catholicism.
...
It seems to me that those of us who do believe and who do see the beauty and joy of Christianity need to reflect deeply on how to communicate this joy and beauty to the world. Social media, yes, but personal encounter more so. Reasoned explanations and elegant formulations, yes, but works of mercy and compassion more so.
Christianity and the Gospel are all about love—God’s passionate personal love for you and me and each human being, our entry into that mystery of love. We need to make love our focus, our priority, the main work to which we give our lives. Otherwise, people will simply never know who God is, and never know the fullness of life He is offering.
We have to do it. It is our job, and no one else can do it for us.
have never quite understood why so many people have turned away from the Christian faith, its practice, its beliefs. I suppose my own experience of Christianity, at least ever since I came to have a true apprehension of it around age 17 or so, has been so thoroughly positive, my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ and to really plunge into the demands and promises of the Gospel is so radiant and joyful even as it is far from easy and my fidelity to it far from perfect, that I find it difficult to connect with the popular image of the Church and Christianity that so many reject.There's work to do.
The world is crying out for that which only God can provide. We need to figure out to effectively carry that message forward.
Light must pierce the darkness.
