Time to Pray

God is the author of  life,  the  creator  of all things, and came into this world that  he had created, sharing fully our human nature, living and working among us, and in dying and rising from the dead, he fully explained to us the purpose of it all. We have a message to proclaim that should soar above the noise and offer hope and spiritual sustenance in this and every age.

But it has not been easy to proclaim the message over the past months. The Church in her public sense in Britain was effectively silenced.

No public Masses, no family weddings or baptisms, minimal funerals. No normal parish life with no Rosary groups or confirMation classes or choir practices or baptism preparation. No open events at Walsingham in the summer with large crowds making their way, singing and praying, down the Holy Mile. No great gatherings of families and young people at “Celebrate” and “New Dawn” and the annual Youth 2000 pilgrimage. No summer retreats and conferences, from Bosco youth camps to the Faith Summer Session. No parish First Communions with children in traditional attire, no processions with the Blessed Sacrament through the streets, no open-air Masses. Even the mundane things – the parish fetes, and picnics, and the end-of-term Masses, were missing.

In the strange and lonely lockdown days, when churches and schools and univer-sities and more were all closed, and the internet dominated our lives, conspiracy theories flourished. Some have, Deo gratias, slithered away, others have not.

But it has not been easy to proclaim the message over the past months. The Church in her public sense in Britain was effectively silenced.

No public Masses, no family weddings or baptisms, minimal funerals. No normal parish life with no Rosary groups or confir-mation classes or choir practices or baptism preparation. No open events at Walsin-gham in the summer with large crowds making their way, singing and praying, down the Holy Mile. No great gatherings of families and young people at “Celebrate” and “New Dawn” and the annual Youth 2000 pilgrimage. No summer retreats and conferences, from Bosco youth camps to the Faith Summer Session. No parish First Communions with children in traditional attire, no processions with the Blessed Sacrament through the streets, no open-air Masses. Even the mundane things – the parish fetes, and picnics, and the end-of-term Masses, were missing.

In the strange and lonely lockdown days, when churches and schools and univer-sities and more were all closed, and the internet dominated our lives, conspiracy theories flourished. Some have, Deo gratias, slithered away, others have not.

So, as 2021 opens, let’s pray for a breath of fresh air. Coronavirus doesn’t mean that these are the End Times: that time is known to God alone. Nor does it mean that there are any easy solutions to the problems raised by the spread of a virus.

And the fresh air can also mean, literally, making use in the next spring and summer months, of the outdoors. This is not a silly point: if we are told that we must close our churches again, let us use the public spaces, where we have a right to be, and where over recent months we have learned about “social spacing”, and about the human need for community and neighbourliness. Let us – because in the future we may need it again, and because it means public and missionary witness – be seen in our prayers and in our Catholic life.

In facing the realities of 2021, some pointers might be:

• Our Bishops should fight to keep churches open and do all they can to restore the normality of Sunday worship and regular reception of the Sacraments, including confession.

• We should also make use of open spaces – streets, parks, our own church grounds and carparks. While obeying sensible health regulations, we can have processions, open-air Masses, and other events that proclaim Christ to the neighbourhood and the nation.

• We need new prayer initiatives: again, these might usefully focus on outdoor activity. These need not involve large groups – in fact smaller gatherings could be more effective. Weekly morning prayer at an outdoor statue of Our Lady. Rosary-walks around local neighbourhoods. Evening candle-lit prayer at a shrine led, perhaps, by young people.

• Catholic groups and organisations should be mobilised for all of this. People enjoy and need activity. And involvement in something relatively small that is part of something larger is an immense boost to morale. Groups that have their own status and identity find it satisfying to have this recognised as part of a wider campaign: think of banners held aloft at Papal events, youth groups wearing t-shirts at WYD and elsewhere…

• Our Bishops should – with quiet, courteous firmness and urgency – affirm the Church’s right to freedom of action in her sacramental life – including the seal of confession - and the right to preach and teach the Chris- tian message in its fullness. Teaching, for example, that Christians understand marriage as the union of one man and one woman is not “hate speech” and should not be defined as such.

• And people need to see clergy, and members of religious orders in clerical dress and in their habits, out and about, showing an active presence in the community.

• Without healthy Catholic activity, things fill the void. There is a desire in all of us for order and a sense of common purpose. That is a good thing, and is one of God’s great gifts to us.

• It does not follow that we should follow a particular political agenda, still less that the Church in her  public voice should announce that agenda in  detail  for each nation at set times. So calls for this sort of thing should be avoided.

• What our poor bleak society needs now is prayer, and God’s healing mercy.