‘For many reasons, a lot of people tend not to continue the journey of life together with the Christian community that they joined through Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist.’ I finished with that line last week as I wrote down some thoughts about the sacraments. It speaks of a situation that is very visible when you look at it from the point of view of numbers. When we compare the numbers at Sunday Mass now with the numbers fifty years ago, we see a big difference. However, we have to be very careful that we don’t get caught up in the ‘numbers game’ as the measure of how we, as a faith community and as priests, approach things and leave it at that. We need to look to the future with hope and with a will to explore different ways of approaching those who are connected to us through the sacraments but on the peripheries of the church community.
Generally speaking, there are a couple of generations in Ireland who due to various factors and occurrences, are sceptical of the Catholic faith and seem not to understand the basics of the faith. There is a growing number of people who, when it comes to the census in Ireland, do not acknowledge the fact that they are baptised Christians. Some people have changed faiths in practice, having explored other faiths but without ever really getting to know what our faith entails.
My generation of priests spent between 5 and 8 years in formation depending on circumstances. That process of formation included both spiritual and academic development and the opportunities to explore both. We are always called to continue that formation in our priestly lives (ongoing formation). An example of a set time for this is the diocesan conference that takes place in Killarney next week but ongoing formation must also be continued individually to match our own experiences and needs at any particular time of our ministry.