Last Sunday, on February 21rst, at the 9h30 mass, a bunch of around 30 kids came to church with their parents. The Wednesday before, at the monthly catechesis meeting, they had been studying the well-known gospel episode of Zacchaeus’ encounter with the Lord. On that occasion, they were invited to come to church the following Sunday to pin on a board their own commitment to change, like Zacchaeus did.
Usually, for that kind of invitation, we expect 5 or 6 kids to come for on weekends, today’s kids have thousands of important things to do. Last Sunday, the main impediment to their attendance for many of them was their boy scouts commitment. Of course, it was possible to do both, but that would have been very demanding – two commitments in the same morning!
And yet they came: thirty of them. From all grades. Tall and small. Boys and girls. All prepared with their catechesis sheet in their hands which they pinned on the board to publicly show their commitment to live closer to Jesus and his message. This done, they sat on the steps of the sanctuary and sang a song whose rhythm would have been considered “sacrilegious” in former times.
The funny thing is, it is not the parents who brought them to church on that Sunday, but the opposite. It is the kids who brought their parents to church. For it is well-known that on Sunday mornings, most parents are too busy to go to church. But the kids liked the catechesis and wanted to come.
One could ask why they would not come every Sunday. In the same way, one could ask: “Why did the Pentecost only happen once? Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if it had happened every Sunday to all Christians for 2,000 years? And wouldn’t it have been wonderful if every Christian had been thrown down from their horse, like Paul was?” But this is not how the Spirit works. Once in a while, he does something spectacular, but most of the time, he works quietly, like he did for Elijah where he came not in the earthquake, nor in the great wind, nor in the fire, but in “sheer silence” (1 King 19, 12).
Last Sunday, the Spirit came in a remote, small parish of one of the smallest dioceses of Canada. That morning, the Spirit, whose existence we are always tempted to put into question, made himself visible. “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!” (Mk. 4, 9).
Gabriel Clément