DO IT BETTER
Pope Leo XIV spoke more sense at the Diocesan Assembly in Rome:
‘The art of pastoral evaluation,’ he said, ‘does not ask us to do more.’ ‘Rather, it gives the Church permission to do less and do it better.’
All the research indicates that if we want renewal in our parishes and communities then we must relentlessly pursue not many things, but three things:
Good community. Good teaching and preaching. Good music.
In other words, this relentless pursuit involves helping people to have an experience of love, an experience of truth, an experience of beauty.
Such an experience, of course, is an experience and encounter with Jesus Christ.
To repeat the pope’s words, because they are so full of common sense:
This paradigm of pastoral action does not involve doing more things but doing less and doing it better.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that if a parish celebrates its daily Mass at a time that allows everyone to come then numbers begin to climb.
Why not have Mass earlier in the morning or later in the evening?
Why not plan parish activities in and around this miraculous event?
Do less. Do it better.
AMEN.
