Letters: Prayer, not gimmicks bring people back to faith

Sydney
2 June 2002

Kids join archbishop in cathedral Mass

Respect for life under threat Bishops warn PM on embryo research

Call for prayer for Toronto pilgrims

Catholics, Jews find common ground

More ‘to unite than divide’

Where will schools find cash for paid maternity leave?

Mass, homilies draw record hits to site

Bishop praises ‘vibrant faith’ of grandparents

Check behind label to see if clothes are ‘ethically fit’

Sr Betty’s dream - filling the faith gap

Caritas lecture series

Editorial: Embryos - Nazi reminder

Letters: Prayer, not gimmicks bring people back to faith

Christ’s life at heart of Virginia’s decisions - Virginia Judge, mayor and champion of the oppressed

Reflections: ecumenical leader steps down

Opinion: Who did celebrate the first Mass in Australia?

Healing group sees ‘a lot of miracles’

Salesians are on hand to help

Pope can step down if he wants to - and he wouldn’t be the first

‘Irish’ phobia became luck of the Irish

Inspirations: Sweet music in a Saturday desert

Letters: Prayer, not gimmicks bring people back to faith

I was touched by your article on Fr Perini (How a priest revived a dying parish, CW 19/5) and how he revived his parish through cell groups and prayer. I was pleased to hear that this is also happening in France.

It is genuine prayer which brings people back to the faith, not some of the silly gimmicks you see from time to time.

Recently I read where a parish in the US which had regular exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, did not lose one soldier in battle during World War II. The parish next to it lost seven soldiers by 1943.

Taking a leaf out of its neighbour’s book, the second parish introduced exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, during two full days a week. It did not lose one serviceman or woman for the remainder of the war.

Frank Bellet
Petrie, Qld

HARRY POTTER? JUST A BOOK

My mother taught me that if you look for evil you will find it and if you look for good you will find it also.

Harry Potter is merely a fictitious story which should remain a story and people can choose whether they look for the evil or good in it.

Maybe when I take the log out of my own eye I might be able to see clearly and take the speck out of Harry’s.

But until then I will see it for what it is, just a book.

Andrew Black
Prestons, NSW

IN A CLASS OF HIS OWN

Thank you for the homily section in The Catholic Weekly. I am a 47-year-old (young) bloke in my second year of SRE (Scripture teacher) in a State school Years 5 and 6.

I sometimes take the homily reading straight into the class.

The preaching by Fr Greg Ferguson is fantastic. It really speaks deeply to me.

I also look in the Scribbly Gum page for material I can photocopy and make worksheets out of.

Please keep this in mind as you prepare this great paper for us.

I went to Our Lady Queen of Peace, Greystanes, on Pentecost Sunday (advertised in The Catholic Weekly).

It was a great celebration of God’s love and Tina Martinelli was great.

So was Fr Greg Ferguson’s homily.

Chris Keatinge
Colo Heights, NSW

DANCE PARTY OR MASS?

Your front page story (Message is loud and clear - parishes must do more to attract young people, CW 19/5) points to a matter of great concern.

However, the various options cited on what to do about it seem very superficial.

If we are to learn anything from Baptists or other Protestant churches, it is not that they have entertaining services, but that the young people who attend them actually know what their churches teach.

How many young Catholics have the vaguest idea of Catholic teaching?

Do they know about the Fall and Redemption? Have they ever heard of the Four Last Things?

Have they any understanding of the Mass or the sacraments? Do they know anything of Catholic moral teaching?

As for the suggestion of modernising Church music, does anyone really believe that if teenagers go into a church and can’t tell whether they are at Mass or a dance party, they will be tempted to stay?

The congregation at the Chapel of the Maternal Heart of Mary at Lewisham, which must conduct the most conservative liturgies in Sydney, is full of young people, because these are young people who really know and love their faith.

Dr Lance Eccles
Haberfield, NSW

HITTING THE RIGHT NOTE

What I found most depressing in the discussion about young people no longer attending Catholic churches (Is your parish in tune? CW 19/5) was the suggested answer: Modernise the music!

Years ago the majority of Catholic churches scrapped the traditional hymns and Mass settings and replaced them with tuneless, banal, theologically bereft folk songs and ‘new age’ mantras.

Come to St Mary’s Cathedral on any Sunday to hear the sort of music that truly gives glory to God and uplifts the faith of the worshippers - intelligent, ageless, theologically rich music that draws on the Church’s 2000-year history and the talents of the world’s greatest composers, music that, unfortunately, many young Catholics are never given a chance to hear or have explained to them.

Modernising the music does not solve the problem of the young people leaving the Church.

Ask what it is that growing denominations, such as the Pentecostalists, have, that many Catholic churches have lost.

The answer is: Belief!

They believe in God. They believe in the Trinity. They believe in miracles. They believe in Scripture.

They believe in Heaven and they believe there is a Hell. They believe in sin. They believe in judgment. They believe in salvation.

They believe Jesus is their Saviour. They believe in loving and adoring God. They believe God loves them.

And, most important, they have

not been brought up in a Catholic school system that teaches that the Bible is a collection of ancient, culturally conditioned fairy stories and that God is some sort of cosmic, ‘new age’ guru who doesn’t demand anything of us except that we think happy thoughts and love the environment.

We will attract the young people back when our churches become filled with a living and loving faith in God, shown by respect for his commandments as revealed in his Scriptures and through his Church, a reverence for his Sacraments and a love for each other that comes from God’s Spirit in our hearts.

Richard Stevens
Greenwich, NSW