Tuesday Tech Talk:Catholics Come Home

Today's Gospel recounts Christ's parable of the lost sheep. In the reading taken from Matt 18:12-14, Christ says:

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills
and go in search of the stray?
And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it
than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.
In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father
that one of these little ones be lost."

I am reminded of a sermon in which the priest explained that all of Heaven rejoices at the return of one soul to the bossom of our Lord. This time of year, many people (for whatever reason) who normally stay away from church, return for Christmas. We may refer to them pejoratively, as chreasters or C & E Catholics, but we should be careful of looking down on them, for something still stirs within their hearts that they come to worship on these holy days.

Michael Hoffman, who emceed our first men's conference, recently gave a presentation explaining the New Evagelization. One key point he expressed in re-evangelizing those who have left the Church is that we have to make sure that what they are coming back to is a welcoming home. One organization that has done a remarkable job of getting the word out that the Church has her arms open to receiving back her children is the Catholic Comes Home network.

Chreasters: They're Not Too Far Off the Mark

"Chreaster" Cactus

As we were leaving Mass, Stacey made an observation about how full the Church was. This led to a discussion about Chreasters, CEO's or whatever other name you want to call people who seem to only show up for Mass on Christmas and Easter.

The point of this post is not to judge these folks. Instead I want to reflect on the point that something stirs in their hearts, drawing them to Mass on these very holy days of our liturgical calendar. I believe they come, because despite whatever reason they stay away the rest of the year, they know those days are holy and they must stop whatever is going on in their lives and acknowledge our Lord. They aren't that far from coming back. St. Augustine said "Lord, our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Indeed they are. I think it is very fitting that one of last night's psalms was Psalm 42:1, which reads, "as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God."

Instead of judging these children of the LORD, we need to embrace them. We need to go out of our way to be cheerful and helpful. For example, we can share our New Missal worship aid to help them with the recent changes. We can leave our comfort zones and actually greet them, introduce ourselves. We can let them know they are welcome, even if they are sitting in "our seats."

As parishes we need to do a better job making resources like Catholics Come Home readily available so they will have an easier time figuring out what to do to "come back" to the Church. It's amazing to me that most parishes don't use Christmas and Easter as opportunities to draw these folks in. We are missing out on a great chance for real evangelization.

Finally, we all need to pray for them and for ourselves. We should pray that God ignites that little spark in their hearts and we need to pray that we are prepared to be used as instruments of God.