LAPSED CATHOLIC

A few day ago, I was at a city meeting and one of the attendees present told me that she had stopped going to Mass. Wow I thought, the Lord knows, there are often good reasons for people to be frustrated with the Church, but, still, the thought of not going to Mass on Sunday is so incomprehensible to me that whenever I hear of someone leaving, I can’t get my mind completely around it and my emotional response comes charging forth. It actually makes me very sad. Then I think, “as a Priest what is it I can do to reach out and help this person along with others like her to come home to the Old Roman Catholic Church?”

The phrase “lapsed Catholic” is certainly unique in its own use. I can’t think of hearing of someone talking about being a “lapsed Presbyterian”, a “lapsed Methodist”, or of all things a lapsed “Baptist.” The word “lapsed” actually means a falling away, but it does not imply a complete and total severance of a connection. There is always a sense, at the very least, that a person can always come back. If you have a Methodist or a Presbyterian who has not belonged to an active congregation for some years, and you ask that person their religious identity, they will just say they have none. But, if you ask a Catholic who has not crossed the threshold of a church in many years what their religious identity is, they will still say that they are Catholic. This holds true with the old saying, “once a Catholic, always a Catholic at heart.”
 
Now what is the reason for the “lapse?” Could it have been a marriage outside of the faith? A sinking feeling that you had simply become of little value in your previous parish; only existing as a number lost in the crowd not a name? The move to a new community and it was all too easy to just forgo Mass on Sunday? Perhaps the new Novus Ordo mass holds little for you in your spiritual life. You miss the beauty and sense of quite spiritual fulfilment found only in the Traditional Mass.  Yes, perhaps one of these reasons or another from the thousands of others available.

Yet, I must tell you that God loves each and every one of his children. Just like the father in the prodigal son parable, he yearns to welcome you home; just like that grieving father who stood every day looking down that dusty road for his son, there will be great rejoicing upon your return. Nothing we have ever said or done is too great for that loving forgiveness. All we have to do is simply come home.

So, you ask, what does that all have to do with the Old Roman Catholic Church? Everything! As devout Old Roman Catholics each of us understand the frustration many may have when the previous Church has not been as understanding in its relationship with others. It’ so easy to say I just don’t need this. But you do! You need the church and the church certainly needs you. Besides the Church is really not a cold, non-caring institution but a loving community of Christian believers who love and support each other.

Think about it and come this Sunday arise a little earlier and we’ll see you at the 10:00 am mass. I’ll be looking for you.