Often, I ask my kids the questions “do you want to go to church?†98% of the time they respond “noâ€. As a father I want them to desire with their heart a willingness to go to church. Not because they have to or not because they are forced too. Sometimes I feel quite lost in this situation. I often go to church alone. In the Catholic church, going to church can be like going to Macdonald’s. We go in quickly. We go out quickly. We don’t talk to many people. There is a man dressed up in suite red and yellow who smiles and waves. In the Catholic church the colours are a little bit different, maybe, white, green, red. He smiles. Are we meant to smile back? In the time in MacDonald’s, conversations do not have time to go very deep. This is a culture of consumerism. What do I want? What would you like from the MacDonald’s menu? Clearly the old Catholic church seems not to cut it. At least not like French fries.
Yet. I have a desire to teach my children about the Christian faith. As they get older there will be times where the faith will support them and when they go through tough times. In order to sail through, we must begin to learn to sail early. Maybe we need to take the MacDonald’s out of our religion. Fast food is not going to teach us how to sail. We might know how to float on water, but a storm may be coming. We need to learn how to sail properly. Consequently, we cannot presume to hand our faith over to a man in a coloured suite. We need to learn to take responsibility.
We need to imagine and try some new ways of being fed. Jesus says “I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full†(John 10:10). Not just for one hour being fed will not last a whole week. Take away food once a week is not working. The factory model of evangelisation with parish, schools and dioceses seems to be not working. At least not in Western countries. In Australia, what seems to be propping up this model is large amounts of immigration. In the next year Australia will receive 400,000 new people. These immigrants bring a strong sense of religion of participation. Giving priests and clergy a false sense of how things really are. But by the 2nd or 3rd generation since immigration, however, their children and grand children often begin to slip away. The fast-paced world with demands on consumerism and an individualist way of life, we forget and more likely start eating take away and takeout food like MacDonald’s.
We need to learn again how to cook. Often men can be reluctant to begin to start to cook food in their house when they have never cooked before. Traditionally. Or some might use words like “because of a patriarchal male dominated culture†women’s role is to cook. We can prop up clericalism and hand responsibility over with this sort of thinking. You see if men do not learn how to cook, they are going to rely on fast food, things don’t go very deep, and they will not learn how to sail. Especially, when the storms come.
So, what does it mean to cook? Maybe start with the basics. Maybe the important question is not, “why don’t my kids go to church?†But rather, “what are the basics of about being a Christian?†We need to reframe the question “How do we learn to cook together?â€
Years ago, when I first lived in a Marist Brothers and Young Adult community in Mittagong each morning the community of brothers and young people, men and women, would gather together at 8 am for community prayer. Young adults and Marist Brothers would take it in turns to construct and lead a prayer for the community. This was a creative prayer. Often with music, sometimes with the day’s Gospel, maybe a moment of stillness, common shared prayers, discussion, poetry, but always with a theme to pray with.
So ,the answer is not, “can I cookâ€, but maybe the answer is “can we cook together?†Can each member of the family learn how to put together a prayer which they will lead?
Maybe when my kids leave home, they will know how to cook. Or maybe when the storm comes, they will know a bit about sailing. How to navigate the storm with God. This is not just saying a prayer. But actually, leading others in prayer. Leading others through the storm with God in prayer. So that when they have children, they will want to teach their children how to cook.
In Matthews Gospel Chapter 22 it says “‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king (or today maybe a queen) who gave a wedding banquet for his son (or daughter)â€.
We need to start to think and imagine when use the word “churchâ€, not to think of the building which we might go to. Rather church, is first, what we do in our families.
How we cook and how we eat this meal, we call prayer, can really shape our relationships within our family, and how we see God. Are we eating at MacDonald’s or are we eating an eternal banquet that is overflowing, that can help us navigate a storm with God playing an active part, the bread which has come down from Heaven?â€
Happy cooking, else, would you like fries with that?
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