By Grahame Stap - Retired Priest
Published: May 2007
Related Topics: Outreach, People, Scripture
Last night my wife and I watched J. Leno, as we very often do. For me it is an opportunity to think about the needs of the next day in between Jay's Jokes. However, last night I did not pay much attention to my own thoughts, as I was quite saddened by the picture presented in a segment called 'jaywalking'. If you have watched The Tonight Show with Jay Leno , you will know 'jaywalking' is when Jay walks in neighbouring streets and at random asks questions on various subjects, of different people as they walk by. The subject last night was the Bible. The questions were at church school level. Who were Cain and Able? When did Jesus live? When was Jesus born? Who was Noah? etc. The closest answer was from a young lady who said Noah built an ark and parted the Red Sea, and Jesus lived two million years ago. The rest had no idea what Jay was talking about.
It just seems so sad that so many people have no idea what the love of God is all about. We can't blame God; he sent his only son to show us the path to the love of God. We can't blame Jesus; he did all he could to help us understand what the love of God is all about even to the extent of dying on the cross for us and rising again to show that life after death is a reality. We can't blame the Holy Spirit, who lives in all our hearts to keep reminding us of how much God loves us. So who can we blame? Maybe it is time to take a long hard look in the mirror and accept that most of us have fallen down on the job we have been called to do.
We shy away from asking others to join us on a Sunday morning in case we are teased, or worse, about our religion. For the most part we sat back and did nothing when those among us who do not believe in God had prayers removed from schools. Now we wonder why some teenagers seem to have no moral foundation and vandalism, bullying, and other problems seem to run riot in our schools.
At this time we can make a stand; in Ontario there is a plan to amalgamate the Catholic and public school boards into one public board. You can find information about this at www.oneschoolsystem.org. Please understand I am not Catholic in my beliefs and many things the Catholic Church advocates I cannot agree with such as: not ordaining women, not allowing birth control, celibate priests, etc. However I believe that parents must have the opportunity to choose how children are educated. I know it is only at high school level that non-catholic students can attend but this does allow choice, and money alone cannot always be the deciding factor.
I have friends, I suspect we all do, that do not take their children to church and say, "When they are old enough they can make their own decisions about going to church." This is a cop out. You cannot make a decision when you do not have all the facts.
In the case of my friends they sent their children to Catholic school so they will be able to make their own decisions, but many will not! If you agree with this please go to the web site and register your opposition to this proposition. Knowing the love of God in our hearts is a wonderful way to live. For children that have no other way of knowing this, a Catholic school is a place where information about our relationship to our creator is encouraged not banned; it is a place other than the church. Let us hope one day they will make the decision to seek God and all the love that God offers in a church of any denomination.