Church Growth

I have been seeing steady growth at St. George for years now. Not explosive, but steady. In fact, I do "RCIA" year round (I do not just begin in August and end at Easter) so I usually get a couple classes in per year, and I am now on my seventh class in a row without a break (and I have some people right now waiting for the next class to start). This is not an instance of self-praise, but merely a fact. In addition, I am reading in various articles that the Catholic Church throughout the world is beginning to see large numbers of converts. I have mentioned before that this is to be expected.

Some are pointing out the fact that the numbers of converts do not outnumber the numbers of those who leave the Church. Although this may be true (though not for St. George for the last nine years), it obscures an important point. In the first century, when the Jews rejected Jesus, St. Paul went to the Gentiles and brought numerous converts into the Church and the Church truly did explode with numbers. The same holds true for the Church in every generation.

Today we are finding many people falling away from the Church, and thus rejecting Jesus for one reason or another. So then, what is God doing? He is "bringing in the Gentiles"; in other words, He is going out into the "foreign lands" and calling to His Kingdom other people who will replace those who fall away. Woe to those who drove away any of God's faithful, or led them into apostacy, but God always takes care of His Church. Whenever we see people leaving, we can expect to see God replacing them. It does not make it ok for them to go, or allow us to ignore them, but it does say that they cannot stop God's work for His Church. different

At St. George I have done virtually nothing to advertise, and yet people keep coming. Some of them even say, "I don't know what makes me want to be Catholic, but I do want to do so." This is a sign of the Spirit of God working to preserve His Church. If it were up to us, it would fail. Thank God it is not up to us, and that He continues the work that He began in His Church 2000 years ago. Yes, some fall away, and others break off into schism, but the Catholic Church continues to move forward because it is God's Church.