Ivan Illich once
said: "I like the [Catholic] Church. It lets mushrooms grow."
That image makes
me think of a lattice, within which various life forms develop. I think of old
tires dumped into lakes to provide cover for small fish.
A few weeks ago I
attended a funeral at St. Peter's Church here in Quincy. St. Peter's is the
wealthy church in town. The structure was built in 1960, but updated after
Vatican II. Today it has a ramp leading up into the sanctuary for disabled
people, two projectors with screens that can be rolled up and hidden, and a
fine sound system. The funeral choir included a pianist, two guitarists, eight
or so singers, and a professional cantor. The priest, ordained just a couple of
years ago, preached and presided with warmth and devotion. After Communion a
lay member of the family read an emotional remembrance of the deceased,
seasoned with humor.
All this was the
lattice. A mushroom is the meaningful involvement with God of each person in
the building. All the people involved in the service, including the presider,
the musicians, the family, and the rest of the congregation, surely have
different degrees of personal involvement with God.
One of the
parishes where I help out over in Missouri is in a place called Indian Creek.
The church is small and old. It seats maybe 150 to 200 people. It is a pastor's
dream. Every time I have been there, the Mass, at 8:00 on Sunday morning, is
crowded, with many young people, from crying babies through school age
children, teens, and couples. One family acts as greeters for the Mass. Since
there is only one door, everyone has to pass by this family and greet each
member of the family, children included. Two musicians, an organist and a
pianist, accompany the music, and the congregation sings heartily. Everyone
greets a young woman, severely disabled and in a motorized wheelchair, who can
hardly speak and can receive Communion only as a tiny piece of the host.
Everyone seems to know everyone else.
A few months ago,
reflecting on this place, I concluded that the beauty of this place is largely
cultural, not necessarily religious. It depends on rural isolation and strong
kinship ties, grounded in the cemetery next to the church, which goes back to
1833--the oldest parish in the diocese. Once members of the congregation leave
the area, do they continue the same spirit of community?
That parish is a
lattice, within which mushrooms can grow.
We are too focused
on numbers. The Church in the U.S. has about 60 million or so people who claim
membership. Among that number, maybe 40% see the inside of a church once or
twice a year. Another 40% appear one or two times a month, mostly out of
routine. There may be a few percent who have not been to church for years but
still say they are Catholic. Finally there is the small percent who regularly
attend. Among all these groups, from the "never-attends" to the
"daily attends," there are likely people who have developed their own
ways of being involved with God. And, equally likely, there are others who have
no such involvement at all. The church is a matrix within which mushrooms can
grow or not grow.
The path to
salvation is narrow, and few there are who travel it. The road to perdition is
wide. There are a lot of people on that road.
Too often I have
seen evangelization as trying to enroll people in the institutional church. I
thought that the numbers are what is important. I need to relax, and simply be
open to each person I talk to as someone who can be called in some small way
toward deeper involvement with God. That process is more in God's hands than
mine. I shouldn't sweat the small numbers in the institution.
My role in the
Church is to move in and out of the lattice, helping to maintain whatever
structure the community wants, using that structure to cultivate a tiny
mushroom in one of the holes in the lattice.
Today it struck me
that the lattice is physical, incarnate, like the Word incarnate. The Word came
into the world to provide a lattice where the Spirit of God could create life.
The lattice can take many forms--we cannot program the action of the Word. Our
calling is to rejoice in being in the lattice and open our eyes to any chance
to spur the growth in it of the people God sends into our lives. The numbers
are irrelevant.
