Current Sacramental Preparation is Failing Lost Souls
Earlier this week, my spiritual daughter texted to tell me that the course she and her husband took in preparation for their baby girl’s Baptism was a 20-minute YouTube video. That was the entire preparation. I was disappointed, but not surprised. In the post-COVID era this has become common. If we are honest, it was common before COVID. My husband and I were handed a poorly written book and told we needed to read through it. That was our Baptism preparation course 13 years ago.
We are failing in our mission to minister to and evangelize those coming for the sacraments. People do not need a video that accomplishes very little. They need our time and our witness. Until we completely revamp the way we do sacramental preparation, we will continue to confer sacraments on those who are not disposed, perjure themselves, commit sacrilege, have no idea what they are doing, or who are checking them off of a list before they go back to their secular lives.
Arguably, the majority of Catholics coming to the Church for the Sacraments of Initiation for their children are no longer actively practicing the Faith. They send their children to religious education classes, but they seldom or never attend Mass. They do not pray as a family. They are not living the life of discipleship. In reality, they are lost. I asked my middle schoolers questions about all of the above, and none of them—except my own daughter—were being raised in homes where the Faith was being practiced. Most DREs have never seen the families coming for sacraments until they show up wanting Baptism, First Holy Communion, or Confirmation.
Strangely, a lot of parishes are okay with this and even foster this system and mentality. Rather than truly accompanying them and leading them to the life of joy as a disciple of the Lord, we check them off our lists and pretend that our parishes are flourishing. We quite literally ignore the massive problem we know is there because nobody wants to suffer. Nobody wants to be the “bad guy” that is honest with people about what they are called to as disciples of the Lord.
Our parishes aren’t flourishing. All of those sacraments given to people who never will come back are a lie we continue to perpetuate so we don’t have to look hard into the reality that the Church in the West is in terrible shape. Many parishes are limping along—there are exceptions–and will be in for a rude awakening when the Baby Boomer generation dies out, and we find increasingly empty church pews.
The numbers we cling to on statistical charts are deceiving. If it was true that all of the baptized families are regular practitioners of the Faith, as well as those prepping for First Holy Communion and Confirmation, then our parishes would be overflowing, but they aren’t. If your parish has not seen a decrease in Mass attendance in the wake of COVID-19, then thank God for it.
One of the most tragic dimensions in all of this—besides the reality that the Church is probably committing mass sacrilege—is that these families are hurting and lost. They need us to evangelize them and invite them to fully live out their own baptismal calling. I have served in active ministry for over a decade and known the situation is grim, but I truly saw the reality on the ground during my time as a Director of Faith Formation.
In my short time serving in that role, I encountered invalid marriages, widespread use of contraception, adultery, IVF, divorce, trauma, PTSD, intense grief and loss, occult practices, indifference, rare Mass attendance, and ignorance. I had parents tell me the devil is not real and justify gravely immoral sins. These are baptized Catholics. We have abandoned their suffering in favor of a business model and expediency. We do not see the people coming to us as anything more than someone to check off our list and run down the conveyor system of sacramental preparation. We tell them to watch a video and that’s enough to be a disciple of the Lord. To do so is to abandon them in their hour of need, even if they aren’t aware of it, yet. We are placing souls in serious jeopardy, including our own.
