When lost souls seeking Christ walk into our parishes, do they feel welcome? This is a question I have been pondering because I predominantly minister to young adults and the lost. I have, on more than one occasion, been told that the answer to this question is “no.” For the lost and broken, or those who dress differently, the answer is a resounding no. In many of our parishes, we forget that it is the lost and afflicted the Lord reaches out to first, not those who seemingly have it together. I say “seemingly” because “having it together” is an illusion of suburban Catholicism and a lie of American individualism.
There was a time during 2021-2022 when a group of young adults who would have been classified as “skaters” by my generation started coming to my parish. They had piercings, colored hair, and dressed differently. It was clear by their frequent presence at both daily and Sunday Masses that they were longing for the Lord. He was calling them to Himself during the confusing days of the pandemic.
At the time, a young women confided to me that she felt like people stared at her. The looks were not welcoming, and it made it difficult for her to attend Mass alone. She was genuinely trying to make her way back to the Lord. So I started attending Mass with her. While it is true that we need to help people come to a deeper understanding of modesty and our human dignity, this cannot be the starting place of relationship with those who stumble into our parishes after having been ravaged by the storms of our culture. Many are seeking healing from abuse and dysfunction.
The path to conversion is not neat and tidy. It is often messy. It starts with an invitation and a willingness to walk with the lost and broken. It is the Lord who transforms hearts, not us, and we are often much too impatient with others, ignoring how the Lord is asking to let Him work through us.
This doesn’t mean a false form of accompaniment. It does not mean condoning mortal sin for the sake of meeting someone where they are. This is not love. It cannot be because it leads souls towards hell rather than heaven. True accompaniment is meeting the lost, broken, suffering, and addicted where they are in order to lead them to Christ and the fullness of truth. True accompaniment is deeply difficult. The false forms of enabling are shallow; they stem from pride and a desire to be liked and appreciated by those we serve. Christlike accompaniment comes with the fierce fires of God’s love and mercy; it requires the Cross.
There is a difference between a person who wants to be confirmed in their mortal sins, whose heart is not open to the Lord, and the person who is struggling to overcome mortal sin but who deeply desires to follow the Lord. We have to prayerfully discern the difference because one is not yet ready to follow Christ while the other is on the path to metanoia. The former often can only be left to prayer because their heart is still hardened by sin, while the other is actively engaging in the spiritual battle. This is why prayer and discernment are essential, and rash judgment reprehensible.
How do we walk with the lost who are truly seeking the Lord? First, we need to remember that genuine desire to follow Christ does not necessarily mean a person has fully conquered mortal sin. The Lord does not only call us to Himself when we have it all together. As I counseled someone recently, He waits for us with each new fall and is calling us back to Himself. The greatest danger is to stop returning to Him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation because that is when despair sets in and the enemy convinces us we are irredeemable. As long as we are repeatedly turning to Him with contrition, we are still in the spiritual fight.
Second, there is a tremendous amount of affliction and suffering occurring in our pews and outside our church walls. In the pristine morning light and cordial greetings before and after Mass, there can be a tendency towards what is safe, comfortable . . . and ultimately shallow, if we are not careful. After years of ministry, I understand there are many people sitting in our pews who were abused, raped, are broken from divorced parents, having affairs, fighting demons, using IVF, addicted to pornography, alcoholics, drug addicts, are suicidal, and are barely hanging on. In some cases, how we welcome those who are afflicted and wounded can be the difference between life and death. The suicide rates among young people continue to skyrocket.
If our response to those who are trapped in cycles of sinful addiction, or to those who look different from us, is repugnance—something I have witnessed in clergy, the lay faithful, and myself—then we have missed the heart of the Gospel message. It is the lost and broken He came to save, not the self-righteous. We are all sinners, but we forget how we need a savior just as much as the person who is facedown at the 9th Station of the Cross, struggling to overcome deep sins that stem from trauma and abuse, deeply desiring to be freed.
I was recently at the first Mass of one of my spiritual sons. A priest-friend of his who was ordained two weeks prior preached the homily. This priest is a part of the Neocatechumenal Way. In his homily, with all the bluntness of a native Philadelphian, he broke open the bleeding Heart of the Gospel in simple terms. It is those who are most lost who need the Good News the most. It is those who look the least like us who need us to reach out to them in order to bring them to healing in Christ.
Holiness is wholeness. This means the Lord heals us through an encounter with His love. He heals us of sin, death, wounds, trauma, addictions, and even physical illnesses. It is this encounter with His life-changing love that gives us the strength and graces necessary to live the moral life. It is His living water, as he tells the woman at the well, that gives us the strength to overcome sin.
When the Lord stops at Jacob’s well to meet the woman trapped in cycles of sin, He does not immediately condemn her for her sexual sins, but He doesn’t enable her sin either. Instead, He invites her into a new way of living by speaking the depths of His love into Her heart. He does not ignore her sins. He lovingly reveals to her how her way of living is leaving her empty and lost. This is true accompaniment. It is the blend of mercy, love, and justice. It is to reach into the broken places in people’s lives in order to draw them to the burning love of Christ.
It is Divine Love that heals us of our cycles of sin over time. Encountering His love leads to conversion. The woman at the well turns from her sins because she has finally experienced the authentic love she desires at the deepest levels of her being. She finally understands that she is loveable, and she no longer needs to seek illicit relationships. Our role is to lead lost souls to the life-giving water of Christ.
When young people who look and act differently from us darken our doors, our response should be to welcome them and then to walk the long road of metanoia with them. The Lord asks us to walk the way of the Cross with one another. The spiritual life is not easy, comfortable, or shallow. It requires a willingness to go into very dark places in order to shed His light and love. It requires tremendous patience, prayer, and discernment.
If you knew how many of these young people have suffered, would you sneer at their dress? If you knew the young woman to whom you are giving sideways glances was grappling with the deep trauma of sexual assault or abuse, would you still look at her that way? I can tell you this is quite common. I know because over the course of the last two decades the Lord has sent my way many women who are dealing with horrible pain.
Remember, we don’t know what sufferings someone is carrying when they stumble into our parishes seeking the Lord who is waiting for them in the Tabernacle. Our role is to love them and walk with them on the way to eternal life. When the lost step foot into our parishes, do they see the Lord waiting for them at the well or do they see our repugnance?
Photo by Diocese of Spokane on Unsplash
