Our lives of faith can go through stages of dying and rising.  It can go through stages of being laid to rest and of being raised up in renewal.  This happens at the individual level and the institutional level, and the Scriptures attest to it.

On the institutional level, we see today the attempts at the renewal of the Roman Curia by Pope Francis.  He has been reforming the departments of the Roman Curia, to move to standardised financial accountability frameworks, to eradicate clericalism, ambition and the seeking of privileges among priests, bishops and cardinals.  It reminds us that the Church is a very human institution and that it can fall victim to all the same temptations that exist in any human organisation where power structures exist.  The Book of Chronicles, the first reading for this fourth Sunday of Lent,  puts it starkly – “all the heads of the priesthood and the people too, added infidelity to infidelity, copying all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the Temple that the Lord had consecrated for himself in Jerusalem.”  The Book of Chronicles describes the destruction of Jerusalem – “their enemies burned down the Temple of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, set fire to all its palaces, and destroyed everything of value in it.  The survivors were deported by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon; they were to serve him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.”  

This time of exile was a time of soul searching and renewal for Israel.  It was a time, when Israel had to discover once more, what was at the heart of the covenant that God had made with them. It’s interesting that it is often in times of trial or desolation, in the desert times, that we rediscover our identity and purpose in life.  This can happen to us when we are recovering from an illness or when we are between jobs or when we are just tired from the daily grind of life.  These are times when we stop and refocus or re-consider what is important and where our lives are going. These can be moments when God speaks to us too.  They can be moments when we come to a renewed outlook in relation to our faith and faith-life.

The period of Lent can do the same for us.  It can be the opportunity to think a little more and pray a little more in order to renew and revitalise our faith, both as individuals and a community.  Pope Francis is not only asking the Roman Curia to think about renewal.  He is also asking all within the church to do so.  In his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, he tells us that the renewal of the church cannot be deferred, and he goes on to tells us:

“I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelisation of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.  The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with himself.  As John Paul II once said to the Bishops of Oceania: “All renewal in the Church must have mission as its goal if it is not to fall prey to a kind of ecclesial introversion”

Let’s pray this week that we can experience a renewal of our own faith which can in turn lead us to being a more missionary and outward looking people.

By Fr Brendan Reed

Published: 8 March 2024