When I was at school the Catholic faith of many of the teachers at my school, St Mary's, Menston, made a big impression on me. There was a vital connection between their friendship with Christ and their kindness to me. In what other working environment, when you think about it, do you get so many committed, practising Catholic professionals seeking to make the world a better place? As a kid in a Catholic school you just have to turn up and the way the staff treat you reflects whether they are authentic human beings, true to the values they profess. I didn't realise how lucky I was. The gratuity of the respect accorded to us all was a reflection of God's uncomplicated delight in each one of us. This was clear even in the midst of the dysfunctionality that is common to any human community.
I was struck by a question raised by the Bishop of Lancaster recently: he asked whether we should continue to fund Catholic schools given the small numbers of both teachers and students who now go to Mass. I visit every high school in our diocese at least once a year giving vocations assemblies and celebrating Masses. I love the interaction with the children. I must confess I feel like I am talking about a faraway exotic country sometimes when I speak about the faith: the children are interested but many of them do not have a lived frame of reference into which they can insert my words and understand them. What do they do with the stirrings in their souls if their parents won't take them to Mass?
I had another good experience this morning. I celebrated a Mass for a class of 12-year-olds at one of our best schools, Mount St Mary's, in innercity Leeds. The liturgy had been prepared by the recently appointed Lay Chaplain, Rachel Webster (pictured). The children all knew what they were doing: some were readers of scripture; some bidding prayer readers; one brought up the gifts. Rachel had prepared an attractive slide display showing all the responses and the children joined in confidently. There was no distracting liturgical dance or drama such as many of us have mistakenly introduced into Masses for young people in the past. Chatting to her afterwards over a cup of tea, she told me how was planning to extend the retreat programme in the school. Driving home, I remembered that when I was first ordained, we did not have any lay chaplains in our high schools; now all of our schools have them. They are a sign of new growth in the Church, an expression of the irrepressible power of the Spirit, a challenge to clericalism, an encouragement to all Catholic adults to embrace their identity more completely.
I think the more lay chaplains are a sign of fewer priests!
ReplyDeleteAnd I read somewhere recently, I think in connection with the story about Maynooth seminary deciding to restore a little more distinction between itself and the NUI part of the campus, about the 'clericalism' that soon appeared among lay people when some became "certified' ministers, and others weren't! (This was certainly something I found in Scotland - most frustrating to have someone trying to pull rank on you on the grounds of having some certificate or other, regardless of that someone's cluelessness! Or the Neocats - some chap giving a presentation, spouting stuff you could tell he had just been taught, probably out of a trendy seventies book)
It would be better if schools had priest chaplains.(Technically, isn't there something that says only clerics can be called chaplains anyway?) But having lay people teach the faith is sensible for all sorts of reasons. One is that we then have two kinds of "weight" of witness - one by the difference of a priest or religious, one by the "sameness" of other lay people. The churchy world and the non-churchy world connect.
I know exaclty what you mean when you write I feel like I am talking about a faraway exotic country sometimes when I speak about the faith: the children are interested but many of them do not have a lived frame of reference into which they can insert my words and understand them. What do they do with the stirrings in their souls if their parents won't take them to Mass?".