EASTERTIDE 2025. During the 40 days leading up to Easter I had many conversations with Muslims and Catholics about the meaning of fasting and feasting. Giving up something, to gain something.
The Muslims who come to our parish through our refugee programs learnt that Ramadan and Lent coincided this year but that we have very different approaches towards this sacred time.
Whereas the month of fasting means full days of denying drink and food that ends with a festive meal in the evening for our refugee guests, Catholics, on the other hand, tend to observe Lent by doing something extra, rather than by giving up food or drink. For example, working as a volunteer on a project to serve an individual or the community at large becomes more and more of a trend. Giving time and talents is becoming the new way of fasting.
During this Holy Year Lenten season, I chose to dedicate some extra time to addressing the disheartening plan to close 60% of catholic churches in The Netherlands by 2030 so that the remaining 40% can stay open. I felt compelled to act to develop a sustainable plan to keep our churches open.
The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin granted a 75-minute private audience at his office in the apostolic palace to listen to the plan.
The multifunctional use of church buildings in which the sacred and the secular meet in the doing of good creates opportunities. After all, St. Peter’s Basilica functions as a museum during the day. Under its magnificent roof, tourists and pilgrims meet with different motivations but what everybody has in common after leaving the church is a sense of awe. How are human beings capable of creating so much beauty through art and architecture? And what kind of thinking and events have sustained religion for so many centuries?
Whether you come from a secular or spiritual background, sacred spaces have a story by being both the message and the messenger of something larger than life.
In our more divided or polarized world, something that unites us over time and space through its eternal values is an important treasure to keep. Closing churches is the very last option, let’s first do what we can do to keep them open. Nothing more inspiring to motivate this campaign is the Easter story itself. An entire new movement started from an open grave. When people closed the tomb and wanted closure on the story of Christ, somehow it did not end there. The resurrection of the new life of Christ started in a way that nobody expected. Being open to that miracle is a gift of faith.
Eastertide in the Netherlands during this jubilee year may well be a pilgrimage of hope against all odds in seeking ways to keep our churches open and looking for alliances to connect people of good will under its roof to invest in the greatest work of art and sacred creation that is man itself. The social teachings of the church have inspired secular politics and NGOs to develop human rights, millennium goals, sustain our planet, invest in poverty relief, and assist refugees.
Closing church buildings, often also mean shutting a community down. The less community we are, the less we use the values of the Gospel to be a guide for social justice and human welfare. The first Easter was a start of a new plan, my wish for Easter 2025 is also a wish for a new plan, that makes the church visible in a secular world. It is not just about keeping beautiful buildings open, but about re-discovering the purpose of these buildings and the community that built and sustained them. That plan needs to start with resurrecting Christ in our lives.