There is evidence everywhere of things changing rapidly, changes that can be very unsettling. We may feel very helpless in the face of what is going on in politics, and in social life, in the Church and even in sport. There is a massive accent on individualism and fear is being gestated by the unbridled pursuit of one’s own desires. We see it with the problem of recruiting police officers. Public appeals are made to respect the police who are so often under threat of assault. It is hard to keep teachers since discipline is strained to the point of danger. We are now experiencing it in the Church. Most believers in the West bemoan the shortage of priests, and the lack of vocations to the priestly and religious life. Those willing and able to keep going are overburdened often enough, and criticism of the bishops for amalgamations of parishes and the stress it puts on those priests still serving the parishes is serious. Then there is the polarisation that is constant, people dissatisfied with the liturgy they have got, and the desire to return to a type of liturgy once normal but now virtually unknown to people brought up in the faith since the end of Vatican II- after all that council ended in 1965. Those few of us who lived before and during the council have seen our contemporaries disappear because of age or for whatever other reasons. There is much to urge us to take very seriously the prayer at the opening of today’s Mass: make us one in mind and heart.
From the full homily by Father Richard Taylor at: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/ca1501_08dd5626008a4ee0b7e39945f85cf2d7.pdf