You What Attracts People To Church?

You know what attracts people to church? Church.

Think about all the thousands out there like Jimmy Fallon, fallen away Catholics who life brings back to the door of the Church. All those thousands who turn away again because church isn’t Church anymore. And if the Church can’t stay the same, remain separate, and remain special, what is the point of it all.

In an interview with NPR, (ht New Advent), Fallon said this…

GROSS: Do you still go to church?

Mr. FALLON: I don’t go to – I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was kind of struggling for a bit. I went to church for a while, but it’s kind of, it’s gotten gigantic now for me. It’s like too… There’s a band. There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that. You know, I mean, it used to be the shaking hands piece was the only time you touched each other.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FALLON: Now, I’m holding hand – now I’m lifting people. Like Simba.

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: I’m holding them (Singing) ha nah hey nah ho.

(Speaking) I’m doing too much. I don’t want – there’s Frisbees being thrown, there’s beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go, ‘This is too much for me.’ I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of Mass, and the grotto, and just like straight up, just Mass Mass.

We had smells and bells for over a thousand years for good reason. How many people ever darkened the door of a church, heard a guitar or tambourine, and said to themselves “I need to find out what this is all about?” Not many I would suspect. There is nothing otherworldly about guitars and tambourines during quasi self-help seminars.

How many do we lose the opportunity to reach by our desperate attempts to be so much in this world, that we fail to resemble or remind of the greater spiritual realities?

I think we should invite Mr. Fallon to mass somewhere where we are not the main attraction.

A lot more thees and thous will reach a lot more these and those.