RBWords

     The image of "stirring into flame the gift of God" is one that I have found helpful in my ministry of preaching, especially in campus ministry.  One never knows on a given Sunday or even a weekday if a student may have wandered into Mass on a sudden impulse or at a moment of personal crisis with only the "embers of faith."  Will he or she find something that will stir those embers to flame?

     It is a sad thing to contemplate but statistically the largest religious group in the U.S.A. is Catholics who have given up on the church!  Yes, some have left because of the sex abuse scandal or some disagreement with a pastor or even the Pope, but the larger group have left because the church has failed to excite the faith that they have.  One of the major complaints of this kind of person is poor preaching!!!

     For those who have left and those who stay, I think there has been a loss of understanding of the power of baptism that remains in us all our lives but which becomes dormant because baptism is seen as a one time event that produces a certificate of the past rather than testimony to a power of the present.  In preaching parish missions, I have tried to emphasize that God has given us the power to proclaim the words of faith, no matter what institutional form the church takes.  In short, we who have been baptized have ALL  been handed a rake to stir the embers of faith, not just those who have been ordained or commissioned in some official way.  St. Paul was not just reminding Timothy, but IS reminding us!!  AMEN