My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Pope Francis has repeated his concern about the prominence of Secularism in today’s world. Secularism is any movement in society directed away from God to an exclusive dependence on life on earth.
In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis explains
“In the prevailing culture, priority is given to the outward, the immediate, the visible, the quick, the superficial and the provisional…The process of secularization tends to reduce the faith and the Church to the sphere of the private and personal. Furthermore, by completely rejecting the transcendent, it has produced a growing deterioration of ethics, a weakening of the sense of personal and collective sin, and a steady increase in relativism. These have led to a general sense of disorientation, especially in the periods of adolescence and young adulthood which are so vulnerable to change…At times our media culture and some intellectual circles convey a marked skepticism with regard to the Church’s message, along with a certain cynicism. As a consequence, many pastoral workers, although they pray, develop a sort of inferiority complex which leads them to relativize or conceal their Christian identity and convictions. This produces a vicious circle
How could the reality of Secularism become so prominent in our world today? I believe we all need to look to ourselves for that answer.
We read in John’s Gospel
(Jesus said “Father) I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
"I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!
"O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them." (John 17: 20 – 26)
Upon reflection of these few lines from St. John, we should ask ourselves “Is Jesus so present in myself that the world will believe that Jesus is sent from God the Father? Is my unity so strong with Jesus that the world will know that he is the Savior sent for all mankind?”
Pope Francis goes on to say ‘The Catholic faith of many peoples is nowadays being challenged by the proliferation of new religious movements, some of which tend to fundamentalism while others seem to propose spirituality without God.”
“These religious movements, not without certain shrewdness, come to fill, within a predominantly individualistic culture, a vacuum left by secularist rationalism. We must recognize that if part of our baptized people lack a sense of belonging to the Church, this is also due to certain structures and the occasionally unwelcoming atmosphere of some of our parishes and communities, or to a bureaucratic way of dealing with problems, be they simple or complex, in the lives of our people. In many places an administrative approach prevails over a pastoral approach, as does a concentration on administering the sacraments apart from other forms of evangelization.”
“Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people’s thirst for God.”
“Unless these people find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing and liberation, and fill them with life and peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion and missionary fruitfulness, they will end up by being taken in by solutions which neither make life truly human nor give glory to God.”
My Brothers and Sisters, as disciples of Jesus Christ must take the blinders off and recognize that even within our own families secularism exists. God, faith and religion has been relegated to the barest minimum part of daily life. The concept of building up one’s spiritual treasure in heaven has been replaced by the building up of the material and gratifying so-called treasures here on earth.
The “vacuum left by secularist rationalism” can only be filled by the example of our own lived example of faith, our own lived experience of discipleship. So how do we do that? Again we must ask ourselves every day: “Is Jesus so present in myself that the world will believe that Jesus is sent from God the Father? Is my unity so strong with Jesus that the world will know that he is the Savior sent for all mankind?” This is where we must start…with ourselves.
May God great us the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
Yours in Christ
Fr. Mick