Where Do We Go From Here?
Milestones have been on my radar recently for a variety of reasons.
Because of temporary staff shortages here at The Message, I have been coordinating the incoming requests for “Special Jubilarian” coverage in the paper, which honors those couples in our Catholic community who are celebrating milestone wedding anniversaries this year (e.g., 50 years, 60 years, etc.).
The Message also annually recognizes priests, deacons and religious who are celebrating milestone anniversaries, and we will recognize them at the Ford Center on May 14 during the diocese’s first Catholic community celebration, Rejoice!
All of this focus on milestone anniversaries has left me thinking about where we go from here. What do we do as we move forward to answer Pope Francis’ call to evangelize … to meet people where they are … to be the face of God’s endless Mercy to everyone we meet?
When I think about that, I also think back to a Catholic News Service story from just a few months after I moved to Evansville. In it, CNS reported on research from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Writer Carol Zimmerman’s lead sentence has stuck with me:
“Most U.S. Catholics are not looking for spirituality online; in fact, half of them are unaware the Church even has an online presence….”
“How can that be?!” you might ask incredulously. “Pope Francis recently got to 1 million Instagram followers faster than anyone … ever. Surely that can’t be right.”
Surely, it is right; and we ought to embrace that reality. I just looked; the Holy Father’s Instagram feed now has 2.3 million followers – just since his March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph and the date his account went live. That’s a lot of followers, right?
Yes and no. In social media terms, it’s big. In terms of Catholicism … not so much. It represents two-tenths of one percent of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics. That’s fascinating perspective – to me, at least.
It suggests to me that our Holy Father is right. We need to get out and “get dirty” – and not depend on social-media posts or blogs or any other form of digital communication to replace the one true form of evangelization, the personal encounter.
At a Mass I wrote about last week in The Message, Vincentian Father Stephen Gallegos basically said the same thing in a different way. “It is a big temptation today in our world to overlook simplicity because our lives are very complicated,” he said. “We have to be everything to everybody.”
Well … we think we do. From here, it seems that God’s call remains the same as always; and Pope Francis crystalized it in his working title for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy: “Merciful like the Father.”
I dare say that most Catholics – here and elsewhere – aren’t looking for spirituality online or anywhere else. Some might not even realize it, but they … we … actually seek the Father’s Mercy. A great way to find it in a hurry, I believe, is by showing the mercy we desire.
