Having just returned from what is traditionally called “the Servite Missions” in Kwa-Zulu, Natal in South Africa, I have been reflecting on certain words and phrases we often use at church. Are these the best words we could use? Do we all know what we are talking about when we use those words?

For example, decades ago I knew exactly what “the missions” were. There were the “home missions” in places like Appalachia, ominously labeled “no priest land,” and the “foreign missions”: Asia, Africa, and South America. Centuries earlier North America has been part of the “foreign missions.” Until recent time a lot of these missionaries from Europe (and later from America) operated with considerable autonomy, financed by their religious congregation or by individual benefactors. Sometimes there was little or no coordination on the local level. At one time there were 4,000 Irish missionaries around the world. But this has not been the landscape of the church for many decades now. Vocations have dried up in the Western World, while in parts of Africa and Asia, they are flourishing. There is no longer any place that the Church is present that there is no central administration. If there are priests serving in a foreign land, they are much more likely to be coming from Asia or Africa than going to Asia or Africa. What we have everywhere is group of churches under the administration of a bishop, an apostolic delegate, or a provincial. Some of these dioceses and provinces are economically dependent on outside funding and some are not. So, maybe the word “missions” should be retired. We help needy dioceses and provinces, not missions.

Another word that gets tossed around a lot in church is “renewal.” In the 1960’s the focus was on liturgical renewal. Having the priest facing the people during Mass, changing the language of the Mass from Latin to the local language, having the congregation sing and make the responses (instead of having singers and servers do everything) was supposed to reinvigorate our worship and our parish communities. Yet here we are three generations later, with vast numbers of Catholics who still regard singing in church as somebody else’s job. While I have no doubt that had we not reformed our liturgy, the exodus from church would be much greater (as our world became more secularized), the continued craving by a significant minority of Catholics for the traditional Latin Mass suggests that something about the old was lost that has not been found in the new.

Now the challenge of renewing our worship has become one element in a larger renewal effort, the  seven year old campaign in Chicago called Renew My Church. Within Catholic circles people have noticed the higher “retention rate” among churchgoers in the Evangelical Churches, attributing it to their focus on a personal connection to Jesus Christ. Singing in church is but one aspect of seeing oneself as personally connected to Christ and the worship community. Of course, there is always the danger that having a personal relationship with Christ will lead me away from the church and its larger mission to the world and not toward it. Certain renewal  programs like Alpha, which seeks to get down to the basics of faith, have had great success in some Chicago parishes; at other churches like Assumption, it has had only modest impact. And we need to keep in mind that programs do not renew the church; it is Christ who renews the Church.

Stewardship is another word that could use some sprucing up. Stewardship is a word rarely used in church except when we are asking for money. In the first half of this year, we were running two financial campaigns for the Archdiocese, The Annual Catholic Appeal and Generation to Generation. Practicing “good stewardship” came up a lot. I am grateful to have an active Finance Council that takes very seriously its responsibility of safeguarding and spending wisely the funds that you entrust to Assumption. But properly managing our finances does not exhaust the meaning of stewardship. Am I being a good steward of my time? Am I using the talents and skills that I have been blessed with to enhance the life of the larger community? It is worth noting that in the story of creation, God did ask Adam and Eve to be good stewards—but God did not ask them for money. God asked them to take care of the rest of creation, to rule over it in God’s name (in the way that God would want it managed). That is certainly a challenge for us today.

                                                                                       Fr. Joe