At one point I would have answered that question with the word relevance. The Church in the US is getting smaller because a relationship with God has lost its relevance in our lives. We have replaced the one true God for a multitude of false gods that we give priority to. Ironically, the devil has used free will to lure people away from God by giving them an overabundance of choices. There is not just an overabundance of Christian religions to choose from, but an overabundance of things we can spend our time on. We no longer need to gather at a church to spend time with people. We no longer even need to actually gather with people to fulfill our need for social interaction. We can now do that from the safety of our phones and computer screens without actually meeting someone face to face. This gives us the ability to appear loving, caring, and compassionate when, in reality, we really don’t give a hoot for others. The more I think about this, the more I realize that it is not relevance or choice that has pulled people away from organized religion. The true root of the problem is love.
God is love, agape or sacrificial love. Sacrificial love is the highest form of love. It is a supernatural love that puts the good of the other before the self. We were created in the image and likeness of God. We were created in the image and likeness of sacrificial love. But we are fallen creatures who love imperfectly. Love must be learned. We are given this life to learn to love as God loves. Most have a difficulty getting past love of self.
There are three rules for love that even God with his infinite power and knowledge respects. The first rule of love is that for love to exist there has to be a giver and a receiver. Sacrificial love could not exist if there was nothing to sacrifice for. If God had to depend on his creation to receive his love, he would cease to be God, for there would be something greater than himself. This is one of the reasons we have a Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an infinite, sacrificial, agape love between themselves. God needs nothing from his creation.
The second rule of love is that love has to be freely given. Love cannot be forced. There is a particular term for forced love that it comes with a prison sentence. God cannot force anyone to love him or anyone else. Love is a gift freely offered. It is not always accepted or returned.
The third rule for love is that for love to exist there has to be a choice. If there is no choice but love then love is being forced. This is why the tree of knowledge was put in the Garden of Eden. This is one of the reasons there is suffering in this world. Suffering exists so that love can exist.
I have no memory of my father ever attending a church service other than for a wedding or a funeral. I have no doubt the love my father had for God. I can look back now and clearly see the goodness of God working through my father. He required that his children have a religious upbringing and the family church was Lutheran. My “official” religious training started when I was three years old. I was enrolled in the Sunday school program and never missed a week. I went two weeks a year for vacation bible school and added Wednesday nights when I got to confirmation age.
On confirmation day, we went from being children of God to adult members of the church. Mid-week school and vacation bible school became memories of our youth. We were now expected to actively participate in the adult service and were no longer allowed in the children’s classes. I missed the intimate instruction and really didn’t care for the service. My church life plummeted faster than a rock thrown down a well. Now an adult, church attendance was left up to me and I chose not to darken the doorstep of any church for a good eight years.
I was a fallen-away Christian. Why? I had spent all of my youth to that point in church. I was taught all about God and the bible. Jesus loves me, this I know. Cuz the bible tells me so. Hopefully many of you now have that song stuck in your head. If I was asked back then I think I would have told you that I knew God loves me. I would have probably also said that I loved God too. So why then did I get as far away from Church the second it was my choice?
Growing up, Church was an obligation. I did not have a choice in the matter. I was going and in that there was no debate. Love cannot be forced, so when you are forced to do something, you cannot truly love it. When you cannot love the church, you cannot truly love God either. When you separate the church from God you are left with nothing more than a building. You love the church because she is the bride of God and inseparable from him. You cannot love God and despise his bride.
The Catholic Mass acts as a conduit between space and time. The Catholic Church teaches that the Mass re-presents Jesus’ crucifixion on Calvary. I think a more accurate statement is that the Mass makes the crucifixion present to us in our time and place, although the supernatural reality of that is veiled to our eyes. To see the supernatural reality unveiled to us would remove all doubt and our faith would become knowledge. Another word for faith is trust. Trust in Jesus is what saves us, not our knowledge of who Jesus is. To see the supernatural reality of the crucifixion removes trust and leaves us with knowledge.
The Catholic Church teaches that attending Sunday Mass is an obligation; it is a requirement for being Catholic. Again, love cannot be forced, so when you are forced to do something, you cannot truly love it. Being forced to do something you do not truly love many times has the opposite effect and drives you away from it. Mass was not an obligation for me as I was converting from the Lutheran faith to the Catholic faith. The more I came to understand the faith, the more I came to love it and the more I came to love Christ’s bride, the more I came to love him.
That is the secret to bringing people back to the faith. The early Church was united in a common life. Because of the number of choices we have, we no longer share a common life. We gather together for forty-five minutes each week to worship God and then we go our separate ways. The first step to restoring the Church is restoring the communal life we used to share. We need to gather as a people for more than just worship. Bible studies and faith talks are great but they only bring in those who enjoy Mass and they do nothing to attract the youth who long to be anywhere but church.
Before covid happened, my parish offered coffee and donuts after all Masses. People from all walks of life came to this gathering, most notably were the young families with children. The parents gathered to talk about parent things while the kids played together. When covid hit all of this ceased. When we closed the churches, young families also ceased to come. We have never recovered from this. We have brought back donut Sunday and people are slowly starting to trickle back it. If the Church is going to have a future in the United States, we are going to have to get creative in finding ways to reestablish our community. Jesus is the head of the body but he is also center of our community. As the community grows the opportunity to fall in love with God also grows. When one is in love with God Mass is never just an obligation. Mass is an opportunity to be with God and with a family that we will be spending eternity with.
