If I were to use a book of the Bible to describe the current state of the Church in the United States, I would use Ezekiel. Ezekiel is the story of a Jewish people that did the opposite of what we see in Maccabees. There they embraced the ways of the world, including practicing idolatry, and Ezekiel was the prophet who sought to lead them back. Today’s first reading is from Ezekiel. Here he has a calling to be the prophet who speaks to the people of Judah and warns them that the Babylonians will overtake and destroy them and God will not protect them for they have turned away from Him. He speaks to the entire Jewish people from the leaders and priests and the laity, he speaks his warning. In 587, everything he warns against happens.

I want you to notice the last line in the first reading. They shall know there is a prophet among them. If you look carefully at the words, you will see that this is the commissioning of the prophet to go out and preach God’s word. His role is to preach in such a way that they will know that there is a prophet among them. Whether they listen or not is another story, but the people will hear the word of God and be in a position, as it is with all prophets, to either hear and do God’s will or reject God and walk away into the cultures of the those around them. In either case, the prophet will speak God’s words and the people will  know that there is a prophet present.

If you want to know your mission as a Catholic parish, it is the last line of the first reading. Collectively we have a calling to be a prophetic parish, a parish that by its existence leads people to know that God is present here. As Catholics, we have lost the sense of mission of what we are all about and indeed, the Church is at fault in some ways because she leads us with words that she does not define well. Let us take the word evangelization. We have a call to lead people to Christ in the Catholic Church. But what does that mean? Does it mean that we teach the faith to them? Well, yes. Does it mean that we show them Christ who leads us to eternal life? Well yes. What does it mean aside from that. Evangelization actually means to live our faith as prophets so that others have the Gospel preached to them. That does not necessarily mean preaching on street corners, but does mean preaching through the way you live your life.

God always called the prophets to live in a way that people were left to question what God was saying through the actions of the prophet, not just the words. Ezekiel is the one who packed his bags and walked out of Jerusalem, leaving the people to question why the prophet left, what does it mean? Many times prophets did not speak, but acted in a way to convey the words of God and that is what you have a calling to do. You have been called to be prophets.

We are in the midst of a capital campaign, we are raising money for our buildings. However, even if someone were to donate to us a thousand gold bars to sell to pay off bills and to begin an endowment, the parish will not survive if we are not being prophetic, for that is God’s call to us. We have a mission to be prophetic, to preach to the world that we are creations of God, saved by His son Jesus Christ and if we choose to live His will, we are  on  the way to eternal life. If we reject His will we are on the way to where we are alienated from God by our own choice.

Do you know why churches are closing? That attendance is dwindling in many Churches? Because we lost the mandate to build prophetic parishes. God will not bless a parish that is not prophetic. Any more than IBM will bless a local office that chooses to make shoes. IBM is not in the shoe business and God is not in the go along to get along business.

There is a fascinating image that comes to us from the final vision at Fatima. You see the sword of God’s judgment. Pope Benedict XVI explains that this sword is not God bringing it down upon us, it is the actually brought down upon ourselves by our rejecting God and following a different path that ultimately leads to war and all the effects of war. St. James in the fourth  chapter of his letter warns of  something similar. If we are left to our own devices without the guidance  of God then our passions and our desires lead us to conflict with others and that is the source of war. The reason why we exist is to lead people back to God and spread the seeds of the Gospel, which is the Gospel of peace. We must live that mission. The current culture in our country that seeks to reject religion and build a secular way of life without God will  not end well, I assure you. It cannot. There is no stable foundation in  a secular culture because by definition there is no unity. Remember the warning of Alexis de Tocqueville that our churches are like the tent poles of our government, without the churches, the tent falls.

One of the things I have tried to teach the Archdiocese is a simple principle: If we do not do something, someone else will. If we do not preach the Gospel, someone else will do it in our place. If we do not preach the Gospel of Christ, someone will preach a different gospel in the vacuum created by our silence. Those who do not attend Church are now listening to another gospel, a worldly, unholy one and they are being converted to it, it is not a gospel that will lead to life. This is especially true of your  children who are the main targets  of those who want to turn people away from the Catholic Church. They are being taught another gospel all the time.

Our mandate for this year is to build this parish to be truly prophetic. That is not a goal I came up with listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire, it is the true goal of every Catholic parish and it can be only done through praying that we are open individually and as a parish to the prophetic call of God upon us.  That means people know that this parish speaks for God is and is where one finds God in our midst. That is also the mission of every Catholic parish.

Our goal must  be that by this time next  year people will say of Holy Trinity Parish. They will know that there is prophetic parish in Quincy.

Make that your goal as a family, individually and together as a parish. That will be the intention of our Novena in August that we pray that the Lord makes us a prophetic parish so that we live our call we received at Baptism to preach the word of God through our existence. We need to grow in our prayer so that we may do God’s will and that they will know that  there is a prophetic parish in their midst.

God Bless You

Fr. Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community (Canção Nova). He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube. He also has a regular radio program on WebRadio Canção Nova. Which he podcasts on Mixcloud and here on Catholicismanew.
You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google Plus as +Fr. Robert Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook