Sometimes the oddest things stand out. As I start working in Canada, one thing that has stood out is what’s just outside my bedroom window. Our house in Oakville backs towards a major intersection so I can hear the hum of engines and times 24/7. The house in Calgary that we sleep in is only a block off a major party street.
People keep going by outside both windows. I wonder where they’re going, what they’re doing, what’s on their mind, and what’s their motivation? So many of them keep on going for a long time but I wonder why.
How many of them know Christ?
It is so easy to stay inside, to just look out the window and look down on people but is that our mission? Christ could have sat in heaven and looked down on us. He didn’t. He decided to come down to tell us about the good news of salvation, to be merciful to us and sacrifice himself to save us. We say we follow his example but then we just look out the window and judge rather than going out and preaching. Look around at the Catholic presence on the internet: how much is dedicated to proclaiming the joy of Christ? And how much is dedicated to moral and political discussions?
I think this is what Francis meant when he said in his big interview: “The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus.”
