Australian Catholic Messiness

It’s great fun to be part of a network that includes so many churches of so many traditions. Have a read through Frances Miley’s honest, moving and hilarious emails to us from her Catholic church in Canberra. We’re all on tenterhooks to see what happens next.
Hi Lucy
I read about Frances Ripley and Catholic Messy Church a couple of weeks ago and started an email to you to ask more – then discarded it because I assumed that the whole idea of Messy Church would not be supported in my parish, sounded all too hard, was too far removed from the centrality of mass in Catholic worship… I had a huge list of reasons that all sounded very convincing to me. But the idea niggled and niggled away in my brain. It is such an exciting idea and there seem to be so many parishes making it happen. I tried really hard to dismiss it and just when I thought I might be winning, the homily at today’s mid-week mass was all about the Great Commission. God has a very wry sense of humour.
So after mass I told my parish priest about Messy Church… and that I would really appreciate it if God could aim forthcoming homilies at someone else in the congregation for a change. So now I am writing an email I actually need to send to you because in one week’s time, I am presenting a case for Messy Church, with the support of our parish priest. To say I am terrified would be a gross understatement.
What I am going to present next week is an idea to reach out to community from a parish that has a huge debt from having just built a church and no spare resources at all, always seems to have the same people volunteer to do everything, has an overworked priest and is already managing enough things to make your head spin… In other words, a fairly standard developing church in a developing community, which seems the ideal place for Messy Church.
For so long I have been asking God how a church becomes central to a community, what makes those who would not normally come to church see that Jesus offers them something wonderful and special and yes, how we show all those lapsed Catholics that church is not all the negatives they have rejected. My parish church is Holy Spirit Catholic Church, Gungahlin in Canberra, Australia. Gungahlin is an area of new suburbs, lots of single parents, lots of elderly people who have downsized and a mix of socioeconomic groups and ethnicities. We have lots of children at the three parish schools in Gungahlin and our Catholic high school opens next year but I don’t see that translating into a church that is packed to the rafters.
So I don’t have another example of a Catholic Messy Church to tell you about… yet… But I would certainly appreciate any guidance at all on step one, which is demonstrating that Messy Church and Catholic Church might just work together. This, by the way, is the ultimate example of stepping out in faith because I do not think I can do justice in an email to my level of unmitigated panic about all this but somewhere mingled with the panic is a lot of excitement about what might be possible.
Frances Miley
Dear Lucy Thank you for the response and encouragement – especially the encouragement. I really appreciate the PowerPoint (read ‘really’ as if written in flashing neon lights) and I would be happy for you to pass on my email.
It seems there are Messy Uniting and Anglican churches already in Canberra – who knew? It looks like I might need to get out and about and find out what is already going on and do a bit of meeting and greeting… I have decided to go to the meeting armed with sheep – not real ones. I am going to knit a couple as per that great idea about the named sheep being with different shopkeepers and also take along a copy of the details on how the idea works. Our priest was a shearer before he was called to ministry, so this is a blatant marketing ploy on my part. However, I know that I won’t be ‘selling’ Messy Church – this is all about whether it is part of God’s game plan for our parish and community and if that is the case, the idea will just embed itself in the hearts of others in the parish too and happen.
By the way, the website information is far too good – if it had been lousy, I could have talked myself out of the whole idea.
I will let you know how next week goes. I suspect the outcome might be God 1 Me 0. I might make a hash of the presentation but at least I know God has it under control (thank goodness).
All prayers gratefully received for this one. Regards Frances

First of all, I felt absolutely BATHED in prayer when I went to see Father Mark – our parish priest. The meeting was a tad delayed and the wait to talk with him made me even more nervous until I realised that maybe this could be turned into a blessing if I only just stopped thinking of myself and my fears. So God and I (no presumption intended – but it was after such a lengthy session of prayer that I really have to acknowledge that my part was incredibly minuscule) hatched up a plan.
Our priest used to be a shearer – shearing sheep in country Australia. I sent him a message saying I would be bringing round sheep (with no further elaboration, hoping he would be intrigued and imagine me doing some sort of latter-day version of ‘Mary had a little lamb’) and went to see him with some Messy Church Advent Trail sheep that I had knitted. I also printed some webpages about other Messy Churches – including everything I could find about Catholic Messy Church. He loved the sheep but, more importantly, he loved Messy Church so much … as a wonderful mission activity that fits with other initiatives in our parish that are already underway or happening over the next few months. So now I just need to do more detailed arrangements about how Messy Church will operate, find some more supporters in the parish and jump in. Part of me is wishing like crazy that I had never heard of Messy Church and the other part of me is incredibly excited. Our parish is a cluster of new suburbs and there are so many people who are without family or know few people in the area, plus lots of struggling single parents, elderly widows and widowers. Our parish St Vincent de Paul group takes weekly food hampers to so many families and the number of families they are being called on to help is increasing rapidly. Maybe some of those families would really love an outing to Messy Church, especially since it comes with a free meal.
We are starting with the Advent Trail this Christmas in our local Gungahlin shopping centre. Most people leave Canberra over the Christmas period because December and January are our long summer school holidays – so next February is when things get back to normal – but we thought the Advent Trail was a great way to launch Messy Church. We were planning also to have the Nativity going from house to house and I thought that for the first go at this, maybe we could start that one in the three parish primary schools, because although a lot of children go to a Catholic school, most of them never go to mass or have anything to do with a church through their home environment.
In February, we have a visit for a week from someone who is known as The Catholic Guy. He has a daily program on Foxtel TV and has a large following among teenagers and those in their 20s and 30s – not necessarily all Catholics. The idea is that we are using his visit to attract people to come and discuss God, faith, contemporary church, etc. – and for his visit we are targeting people who would not normally come to a Catholic Church. He will be giving talks – some of which will be televised – and I am not quite sure what else is planned for his visit but I do know it is going to be a very full week. My parish priest thought that The Catholic Guy’s visit provided a good opportunity to lead into Messy Church in a regular way – and by then our lovely big new meeting room will be built so we will have a place to hold Messy Church. At present we have a shell of a building with builders beavering away on the roof.
Meanwhile I continue knitting sheep. The Advent sheep are SO cute, plus there will be three more special ones – one for our parish priest as a Christmas surprise (to remind him of his shearing days) and two for a couple of Indian priests who have come to our Archdiocese. They help out with some of our masses so we are getting to know them and I thought a couple of sheep might be just the thing they need to feel welcome and sheep are SO appropriate as welcoming gifts from this region because a lot of fine micron wool comes from the surrounding area and representatives from Italian fashion houses come to Canberra to talk directly with the farmers who produce it.
So over the next couple of months, I am going to be exploring all the resources on Messy Church, talking with others in the parish about it, visiting other Messy Churches in Canberra and doing a lot of planning. I am also going to be doing a lot of praying. If it is God’s will for our parish, it will work out.
It is actually incredibly humbling to think that God might have a special task in mind for me that involved championing Messy Church in our parish. I do have times when I think he has made a huge error and mistaken me for someone else because I can think of so many people who would be ever so much better at organising this than me… But then I remember that God does not exactly have a track record of failure and the Bible is jam-packed with whiny people who tried to get out of doing God’s work – then amazing results ensued when they stopped complaining long enough to listen to God. I guess if we were not so aware of our own failings, we might not be able to see that the successes are God’s doing not ours.
This is such a huge step for our parish and for me. I am the person who does not ‘do’ evangelism… But maybe there is something in the idea of Australia still being a mission field and part of that mission field is right in our parish. We do have a rapidly changing social demographic and a lot of the closeness of communities has disintegrated. My mother grew up in a village in the south of Wales and she used to say that whether you were church or chapel, all the social life of the village was connected in some way to the churches and they coordinated events so everyone went to all of them. My father said the same – social life in Ireland was always centred around the church. While it would be wonderful to bring people back into the church through Messy Church, building community in some small way and then maybe taking church in some form to that community would be amazing. I was talking with a friend yesterday and said I had to leave because I had to get to a meeting at the church – and her daughter asked me what a church was. I think Messy Church is a fabulous initiative but it was that comment which made me really stop and think about how great the need for it is.
It is wonderful to know our steps towards Messy Church are in your prayers. I am praying for the other Messy Churches too.
Frances

I love that our church was named Holy Spirit because everything we do as a parish is a step in faith. Our church has taken the basin and towel as its symbols so we have a constant reminder to serve. I just hadn’t bargained on serving in this way… There have been so many things that have felt like very un-subtle promptings from God. I have tried to ignore all of them actually. The Mass readings and homily on the lost sheep were the final straw. They felt like God’s version of a front page ad in The Sydney Morning Herald. We are supposed to serve joyfully but I could not in all honesty say I felt joyful about the niggling feeling that I had to follow up on Messy Church. Yet I have started talking to people in the parish about it and everyone has been incredibly positive so far – and they have also been polite enough not to look sceptical about my involvement. We now have people praying for us – and some who have offered to help.
I still have times where I think there will be an email from God saying, ‘Sorry – picked the wrong person for this.’ After all, Frances and its male equivalent, Francis, are not exactly uncommon names in the Catholic Church so there is a chance that… No… Based on the track record of God never having messed up before, my guess is that he knows exactly what he is doing and since this has already been a huge lesson in humility, I have a feeling there will be quite a few lessons for me along the way.
Knowing there are people praying for our Messy Church as it takes shape (and for whatever my role in it is meant to be) has really given me a lot of strength and encouragement. I will keep you posted as things develop.
Frances