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| Some nights it's hard to find people to hang out with. |
There I went, reading the paper again. Will I never learn? I do my best to avoid the worst of the pot-stirring and muck-raking, and what is presented as “human interest” stories these days is usually neither. But from old habit, I like to know what is happening; and if I poke around sharply enough, I can often discern what I need to know. So as I prowled gingerly midst the produce of the infotainment mongers, I saw the story.
The crux of the matter was how important it is for couples to have friends that are couples; and subsequently how difficult it has become to form such friendships in our fractured and frenzied society. I confess to having skimmed it, but details of one couple’s efforts were presented, including using an app (of course) and offering free concert tickets (no takers). They’ve “struck up conversations with other couples at sports bars, street fairs, and farmers markets.” I my mind I could see their futile efforts, and wanted to weep.
What I really wanted to do was reach through the pages and shake them by the shoulders, and tell them, Go to church! It sounds self-serving, but quite the contrary: the people with whom you share an openness and attentiveness to God are already more open and attentive to you. So, presume generosity and proffer generosity, and amazing things will happen.
It is possible, even easy, to go to church and meet and know nobody there. However, there is no easier or better place to break out of the isolation. Compatibility builds on commonality, and if you do something with somebody with whom you already share the Faith, you will find the path opening before you. If you simply pay attention, over a few weeks it is not hard to pick out somebody who interests you or attracts you, somebody whom you admire. And while striking up a conversation after Mass is not a zero-risk situation, it is unlikely to go too very badly.
If you listen closely, people are always asking for someone to join them, to show up for things, to help with projects. Sign up to help, join a reading group, come out when there’s a call. You might not meet your new best friends there, but you might meet someone who knows who your newest friends will be.
We do have a lot of young adults and families, new parishioners who arrive with no connections in the community and no reason to be here save their academic or professional pursuits. From what I see as I meet them at the doors, they are delightful and fascinating; YOU are delightful and fascinating. You should get together!
The is no restriction according to age, either; young people aren’t the only ones who are open to new and life-giving relationships. Church is one of the few places left in our society where all ages meet and mingle, almost as if they all had something to offer one another! Catholic Mass (at least here) is one of the least stratified and least segmented gatherings that happens; people here differ in every possible way from one another, yet share the one thing that matters most: the way, and the truth, and the life.
So, please, I beg you, do not let yourself be another statistic or demographic event, much less one of the sad wanderers on the planet trying every electronic aid to meet people. Show up, sign up, and pipe up; take delight in one another, and you will find how much others delight in you. It’s not called communion for nothing.
You won’t find that in the paper.
Monsignor Smith
