It seems to me that people hunger, thirst, and cry out inwardly simply to be heard — by someone, anyone, at some moment, in some way. A lack of opportunity, space, or means to be listened to lies at the heart of many personal and societal wounds. We carry so much within us, and often we do not even know the half of it.
A particular item screened on RTE television caught my attention the other day. It featured three ‘lads’ who, instead of the traditional pub crawl at Christmas, went on a ‘Mass crawl’ beginning in November 2024. They have managed to visit and attend the Holy Mass in over 50 places across counties Wicklow, Kildare, Carlow and further afield. Make you want you wish from the item here. In the telling of the story I thought that were something decisively Emmaus-like (Luke 24:13-35) about this Eucharistic journey. They went as ‘two or three’ (Matthew 18:20) and not three separate individuals. Was it a case of their thinking ‘Were not our hearts burning within us?’.
Sometimes people question why bother with church or prayer
or mass? We search for reasons as to
why, nowadays, so few attend mass on a regular weekly basis. We speculate about
the manifold influences of secularism, popular culture, relevance, the
scandals, the pressures of life and so on. But, perhaps there is a more basic
root cause of a lack of attendance?
What if people really felt wanted and welcomed at their local parish mass and community? What if their experience of joining with other believers (including people with doubts, questions and struggles) was so uplifting and so life-giving that they wanted to come back the next week?
