Sadly, now I feel all the things, and have experienced all the things listed in this article among a host of other things that demotivate me:

Songs that would be more at home at a folk song festival.

People who spend the whole Mass conversing with each other.

People who do what they want rather than what the rubric says they should do because what they do makes them feel whatever.

Most of the people attending Mass enter the church in the thirty seconds immediately before the Mass begins, and empty out of the church so quickly when it’s over, I swear I can hear the *SWOOSH* when they leave.

The inappropriateness of women with bare shoulders, and skirts far above the knee.

The head of parish pastoral council showing up in cut-offs, old sneakers, no socks, and a Star Wars t-shirt… he looks like he just wondered in from doing some gardening.

No charitable works anywhere, and no interest in any no matter how much effort I put in to getting people up and doing something.

A pathological hatred of Latin, or any Catholic tradition.

Revolving door priests. No one priest is permanently assigned to the parish, we have a different one every week. The gardener thinks this is just great.

The resistance that meets me whenever I suggest any change about anything, and being told that I should be more like Mary and less like Martha (Luke 10:38-42).

Do you really think that temperance, prudence, justice, fortitude have no relationship with serving God? Or that prudence in dealing with money is inappropriate to the theme “You cannot serve God and money?” Do you not consider that fortitude is required to resist the temptation of being driven by lust for money and the pursuit of wealth over God? How about justice in concepts such as ‘paying just wages,’ ‘what I want is justice and mercy’ or ‘act justly’ to your fellow man (especially in matters of money and service to God)? If the homilist was boring, are you claiming that the Word of God itself, read from four (4) Bible passages did not contain anything of worth to feed you, in case the homily doesn’t? Do you really want all your readers to believe that it was the homilist’ fault that you left Church unfed instead of admitting it was your lack of preparedness, disposition and openness, surrender of will and your situation to God and willingness to accept whatever God chooses to speak to you? Couldn’t you see, from your reaction, that the very homily was inviting you to cultivate the very virtues that you actually need? But again, you missed the message because you had an already made up mind about what you want to hear. For if you had the virtues the priest mentioned in his homily, you wouldn’t be reacting the way you are, because you would be thinking, “Maybe God wants me to work more on these virtues; maybe there’s someone here that the Holy Spirit is addressing through the priest and even though I have cultivated these virtues, God wants someone else to hear it and do same today, so in justice I shouldn’t place my needs and wants before others and deprive them from being fed; He is God, it is his to speak and mine to listen, no matter how long it takes, how slow, or how inaudible or monotonous.”

How many days did Moses wait on the mountain for God to speak the 10 Commandments? 40 days and nights.
How many days did Elijah journey to the mountain of God to receive his word? 40 days and nights.
Can you imagine how long the prophets had to wait for God to speak, or how hard they had to listen? Can you even begin to phantom the many times the word that came was unfavorable to them, and what they would rather not hear? But they listened.
To all of you Catholics and Christians, know that when God speaks, it is not only going to be for your benefit, because as prophets through baptism, God’s word might come to you but meant for someone else you would meet later in the day or week. Are you all still without perception? Why do you sound so selfish? Is the Word for you alone? Are you not disciples? Quite complaining and begin to answer the call.

Let the words that you speak lift people up and not put them down, storing a revolt in their spirits and causing them to lose their way. For he who does not gather with me, scatters.

I hadn’t time to proof read through this, so pardon whatever mistakes you find.

Meredith, I am sorry that to keep that speaking opportunity you were put through a vetting process that seemed unjust and/or insensitive. I can imagine the feeling “I can’t help having an Episcopal husband” “Couldn’t you have done due diligence *before* deciding to invite me?” etc. It must have been an unpleasant experience for you. By way of encouragement, I’ll offer this: God does not allow us to suffer trials like that for no reason. Perhaps He saw that by you patiently enduring that and offering it up to Him, you would be more united to Jesus’ cross and thus more souls would be reached through your presentations than by just having the presentations go smoothly with no trial or suffering on your part. This is not to say that whoever put you through it necessarily acted rightly, but God sometimes allows others to treat us unjustly. And when He does, it’s not for no purpose, but to give us a chance to unite ourselves to Jesus who patiently endured the worst injustice ever perpetrated on the face of the earth.

Christine,
I sort of made this same point on a radio/TV show that will air tomorrow. I suggested that even if women cannot be ordained, they need to have a voice, that our Church and its members are missing “half the equation” when the only reflections we get are from a male, ordained perspective. I think it’s time for what you are blessed to have in your parish to become a reality for the rest of us!
Peace,
Mary

When my wife & I married in 1983, I told her (she was also a convert) that if she found the church’s sexist language and treatment of women too painful, I’d gladly go with her to another denomination. She chose to stay. When our daughter was old enough to begin to understand what was happening at worship & in the church, we both could no longer stand it. There were no acceptable role models for her. The language (that we’d each accommodated to by muttering under our breath our own version) was horribly offensive as we realized this was all our daughter would know.

I discussed this with our bishop — a kind and loving man who could understand that we did not want our child warped by a warped church.

My wife & I consider ourselves catholic, but feel that the church has left us. We are heartened by Francis’ example and pray for a church that truly welcomes and affirms all.

While our priest is a fine homilist in his own right, his strongest gifts are in pastoral care. Fortunately, my parish has had lay reflectors (can’t call them homilists!) for years. Thank heavens the Archbishops have come to recognise them as part of our tradition (even if they don’t like the idea that anyone other than a priest might have something of spiritual value to offer), and thus aren’t trying to end that practice. Many new members (some of whom had left the church – their return says that they, like Mary, are still hungry for spiritual food) say they join our community because our reflections give them more to think about and to try to live, as followers of JC, than other parishes. Leave aside the issue of women priests (!), strong lay councils (see my note below) and lay homilists are another way to recognise the gifts of the spirit and to empower people to use their strongest gifts for the greatest good…