5th Sunday of Lent

5th Sunday of Lent

Fr. Ben Riley

This past week I was in Little Rock with Deacon Mark. We were participating in the Clergy Continuing Education that takes place twice a year. The classes are held at the diocese headquarters, Saint John’s Center, and our speaker for the week is chosen by Father Jason Tyler. He is the Director of Continuing Education. Since being ordained, I have only had the opportunity to attend three of these sessions, and although I am new to the process, I already can see that finding a “good” speaker for the week is really a hit or miss kind of thing. For instance, without naming any names, the first continuing-ed I attended was not very good. It was informative, but not really applicable to parish ministry. And this is something that is very important to priests. We want continuing-ed to be practical. Thankfully, the second continuing-ed I participated in, was wonderful, very practical information that directly related to parish ministry.

So, now that I’ve given a bit of background information. I’ll tell you who gave our continuing education this past week. You may have heard of him. Father Leo is a member of a community of consecrated life called Voulenas Dei which means the “Will of God”, and he is pretty well known. He is a chef and is the star of a cooking show on EWTN called Savoring our Faith. He has also been on many radio shows and podcasts, and has written a few books. I met him a few years ago, when he came to the House of Formation to shoot an episode of his show. To put it simply, Father Leo is a big personality, very charismatic. But when I heard he was going to be the speaker for continuing education, I was a bit skeptical. I thought it was going be like one of his shows. Very theatrical, with not much substance. This past week, Father Leo served me a big piece of humble pie, because his talks were some of the best and most inspirational I have heard in a long time. Today, I would simply like to share with you some of the things we discussed.

Let me set the scene. There are about 138 priests in Arkansas. I didn’t count, but there were probably about 60 or so priests at continuing education. Not all the priests go to continuing-ed. Many are retired, some are the pastors of big parishes, and they can’t get away, and many are religious priests at Subiaco, and they do their own conferences. But of the 60 or so that do go, they are not there because they have to be. I hope I can express this to you and have you believe it. The priests of Arkansas love you, they love their parishes, they love the people of God. And the reason why all these priests and deacons get together twice a year at Continuing Education, is because we want to learn how to better serve you, to learn how we can work together to journey toward heaven. We talk about all kinds of things.

We talk about the challenges, we talk about our preaching, we talk about our ministries, and youth groups, and Sunday Schools, all of it. And something that I found so inspiring this week, was that, I didn’t hear guys complaining, no, they were concerned.

I am sure you have heard some of these statistics before, but Father Leo reminded us again, and I have to admit, they are very concerning. Several Pew Research studies find that of Catholics in the United States, only one-third believe that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. A Child who has both parents practicing the faith has a 60% percent chance of practicing the faith as an adult. If only the mother practices the faith, that number drops to 30%, and if only the father practices his faith, guess what, it goes back up to 60%. Dads, your children seeing you in church means a lot. Churches are not seeing a rise in attendance, even though Covid restrictions have been removed for over a year. And maybe most concerning, only about half of Catholics believe that abortion should be illegal.

Clearly something is off. And as priests, we realize that a lot of the blame is on us. Particularly, a lot can be chalked up to poor preaching and catechesis, an unwelcoming attitude in some parishes, and a lack of communion among parishioners.

This week at continuing education Father Leo asked us a bunch of questions that helped me put some of these issues in perspective. And because he is a chef, a lot of them had to do with food. He asked things like, “How are you feeding your people?” “With what are you feeding them?” “With whom do you eat?” And then on a more personal level he asked us to “describe our spirituality”. I had never thought of priestly ministry in these terms. But now this is my take- away, it’s kind of corny, so bear with me.

We are all of us so hungry, we are hungry for acceptance, and identity, for purpose and a sense of belonging. And as a priest, I so desperately desire to help you discover these things, which I think we all know can only be found in Christ, and through His Church. To keep this food analogy going, we know what the meal should look like, but all we have right now are ingredients.
And so I need to ask you for a favor, three favors actually. First, please tell me what you are hungry for, and second, don’t only tell me, but help me put the ingredients together. Getting volunteers in a church is often like pulling teeth, and I know that everyone is busy, but a kitchen doesn’t just have one chef, it’s a group of chefs, and a kitchen doesn’t just serve food one day a week. If your involvement in the parish is coming to Mass on Sunday and that’s it, then let me challenge you to come to weekday Mass once a week, or to come for an hour of Eucharistic Adoration once a week.

I’m not asking you to do this to try and make you feel guilty for not doing more, but because the more you give to Christ, the more you will receive. Remember He said that he came into this world not to be served, but to serve. If we are called to imitate Christ, we should have the same attitude.

And the third favor I want to ask for is this. Please, come to church hungry. It seems like the word “fasting,” for some, is a bad word. But the mystery that is the Eucharistic Sacrifice cannot fill us with God’s grace if we are already full. And there are two things that fill us up: too much media, like the news, and our sins. 24-hour news stations are not designed to inform; they are designed to inflame. Turn that crap off. It is impossible to fill ourselves with the Bread of Life when we are so full of that stuff. And let me ask, when was the last time you went to the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Being full of sin ruins our appetite for spiritual foods. Again, I don’t want you to feel ashamed, I want you to experience the mercy of God. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is such a gift, and it’s sad how many people choose not to receive it. The line for communion is very long, but the line for confession is pretty short.

And finally, because I want to connect this to the Gospel. It’s interesting that Jesus says to his disciples that Lazarus is asleep and not dead. When looking at someone who is sleeping, it might be hard to tell the difference. But the truth is, we are not dead. Like Lazarus, through the mercy of Christ, we will rise from sleep. And so, it’s time, to wake up.