This "confronts us with something new, but something we do not clearly understand.

"There are hardly any priests or practising Catholics.

"We feel perplexed, even that the Lord has abandoned us. We feel that we have lost our way" Archbishop Dermot Farrell told a group of Catechists.

"These are important parts of our journey."

The "memory of huge numbers, and of a secure, strong Church" can be "a very painful learning for us". He said this during a ceremony where 45 lay people received certificates after completing a year-long course in Catechesis (teaching Christianity).

"Generously, you have given of your time - to engage with your faith" he said.

But the ceremony - and the need for it in the first place - is something new for the Church, he pointed out.

"Even 20 years ago, hardly anyone here could have imagined an evening like this.

We've changed

"Our country has changed, our lives have changed, and the expression of our faith - which is an expression of our lives - has changed" the archbishop said.

The Church "happens in our lives. As we change, our Church changes. We are called to recognise how the Church is changing and discern where the Good Shepherd is leading us" he said.

Farrell compared human life to a journey. Our faith lives are also journeys he commented. And, "the Church is our journey in faith together".

The journey's current stage is in a new environment with a diminishing number of priests available to serve in the Archdiocese's parishes and other ministries.

At the same time, there are fewer and fewer people who celebrate the sacraments regularly, and a need for increased resources required to maintain the existing parish infrastructure, he said.

Parish cooperation

The changes in priestly and congregational numbers, combined with today's infrastructure costs mean "it is no longer possible for me to appoint a resident priest to every parish" the archbishop said.

That means parishes will have to step up their cooperation to provide sacraments and pastoral care, Farrell explained.

Lay Catholics will need to help out.

It will require "a much greater involvement of the lay faithful in the partnerships of parishes to enable them to fulfil their mission and ministry".

It would always be "a little flock that takes the way of Jesus to heart; it will always be a little flock that will have the courage to follow him, and the generosity to give as he gives" he said.

New generations are needed to "lead new generations on the way of Christ, to guide and empower their peers to receive the gift of God".

It was "not about who will say our Masses, or who will teach the faith" he said.

"Let us pray for people - young women and men who would ‘hear his voice,' entrust themselves to it, witness to it and show us all how God is near" he said.

Source

• The Irish Times

My own journey has been like this:

When I was 4 the sky was a roof and on the other side was a place called Heaven.

Jesus lived there with his father God and the angels. Jesus was the children's friend. I prayed to him every night: "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child..."

But I was a bit scared of God. He told my mother I had scribbled on the wallpaper.

When I was 10 I had a Bible and I was supposed to read it right through every year. I could almost do that if I skipped the laws and the begat books. I really liked the Gospel of John. The words seemed to go through me like a great wind. I loved Jesus but didn't much like God. Being God, he would have known that Adam and Eve were

going to disobey him, and then he had his son killed to make up for that.

When I was 20, I was a Sunday School teacher who looked for positive Bible stories to tell children. I didn't want them to be scared of God. I now understood much of the

Bible as the faith history of a nation and not a collection of books dictated by God.

Jesus was still my closest friend, and God was best described by the beauty and grandeur of nature. Silent "listening" prayer had become important.

At 30, I lived on a farm with my husband and four beautiful children. The Christian teaching I'd grown up with was like a coat that was too tight for me. I read about other religions, borrowing books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism. I sensed Jesus in all of them as "the Word made flesh." For a while I dropped the word "God" because it carried too much baggage, and substituted expressions like "First Cause," "Prime Mover", Cosmic Consciousness." Eventually I went back to 'God" because it was simpler.

In my early 40s I'd come through a period of severe loss that had removed a lot of the clutter in my thinking. I still read religious material, including the Bible, but was reading it now as parable. I felt a strong presence in me and everything else that I could only name as Jesus. The writings of the Mystics led me to the Catholic Church where I came home to sacred mystery.

From 50 - 80? The journey in the church continues with the path getting wider. Tensions still arise on the surface but beneath them there is peace and a sense of a love too big for words.

I suggest you reflect on your own faith history. However you've judged the past, you will see the hand of God in all of it. Your life journey has been a personal form of "sacred text."

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Or a faithful guide and friendly reminder to practice virtue, do good works and read Scripture?

Whatever you're searching for to help you draw closer to Jesus Christ these 40 days of Lent, there's an app to help you.

"It's a beautiful thing to have access to, and it expands our growth and understanding of the faith or an aspect of our spirituality that we need to develop," said Daughter of St Paul Sister Anne Flanagan, a social-media authority who is known as the "Nunblogger."

"An advantage of these technological tools that we have is that it reminds us that we're not [going through Lent] on our own as individuals," she added. Continue reading.

Source: National Catholic Register

Image: mashable.com