According to the Westminster Year Book for 1983, the figure for the Sunday congregation in this church was 69. The latest available figure (for 1996) was 220. That makes Bunhill Row the only parish in the diocese which has increased its Mass attendance significantly over those years. For those who like to look on the bright side and regard a half-empty glass as half-full, an almost four-fold advance on previous numbers might be regarded as a hopeful and positive sign. However, it is still true that the number 220 represents less than one tenth of the estimated number of Catholics who live within the boundaries of the parish. We still have a long way to go. The truth is that the Catholic Church here as elsewhere in the country has been steadily losing ground over the past 25 years. Despite the much-trumpeted conversion of several thousand Anglican laity and some 300 clergy, little impact has been made on the steady drift away from the Church. Even the figure for practising Catholics includes those who go only once or twice a year which means that the real total is even less than the official one. Why am I speaking to you about this? Has my recent illness made me prone to look more on the gloomy side of life and to become pessimistic about our present situation?

The answer to the first question relates to the fact that today is designated 'Home Mission Sunday.' It is a day on which to consider and reflect on the vitality - or lack of it - of the Church in this country. What can we discover about present difficulties and how to overcome them? Are there lessons to be learnt from past failures? Illness can make one gloomy, for a time. It can also provide space for serious and sober reflection and courage to speak up more clearly. There is also a need to be realistic about the true state of things that means being neither too confident in the face of the signs of decline that we see, or being unduly pessimistic about any hope of improvement.

Since the 1960s, the Church in this country has been obsessed with creating new structures of discussion, catechesis, bureaucracy. This has all gone hand-in-hand with the alteration of the liturgy. These changes were supposed to bring about untold benefits to us all. An impartial observer would be persuaded to ask the question whether in fact they had. Fewer Catholics and fewer vocations, declining religious order and increased marital breakdown among us would suggest that something has gone wrong somewhere. These are not the signs of renewal, they are the symptoms of serious malaise. Similar problems exist in other countries where the Church was once strong. Here and there, they have begun to be understood and addressed but not yet in Britain. The official view here is that this is not a crisis of confidence but one of understanding. But the Catholic Church in Britain has now been identified as the denomination that is losing ground more than any other, a situation unthinkable decades ago.

One of the causes of our present crisis may be a lack of sufficient emphasis on prayer and holiness of life as the real resources of renewal and growth. No number of committees or discussion groups or pastoral meetings can compare in effectiveness with a single holy Mass, devoutly offered and assisted at prayerfully. The liturgy is the means whereby the People of Christ are sanctified and given their special mission. If that liturgy in our parish churches does not remind worshipers that they depend on God and His Church for grace and salvation, and that it is the Son of God who comes down upon our altars at every Mass, then something vital and essential is lacking in our Catholicism. We will never get it right unless the Mass is once again regarded in the way that it used to be, a sacred, solemn, awesome sacrifice, in which we become present at and participate in, the offering of Himself by Jesus on Calvary as though we were there in person, 2,000 years ago.

I emphasis the Mass as the most important element of the mission of Catholics to evangelise the world around us. That is the central action of our faith without which nothing else can be right, or true to what Christ commanded us. It is what empowers us to be witnesses and disciples of Christ. Could it be that one of the reasons why our numbers are declining and the Church losing ground is because the Mass - in many places - is no longer celebrated with reverence so that it raises the mind and heart above this world, but is presented as a show, a gathering of people, an event to produce a buzz of superficial excitement, rather than an act of worship offered to God which is due to Him alone. The Mass is not just an occasion to be at, it is the necessary offering to God of the very oblation by which He has both identified with and ransomed us as both God and man in the Eucharist. This, in turn, leads to adoration and Eucharistic devotion which is sadly most absent from the lives of so many Catholics.

We shall not, simply by paying proper attention to the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament, instantly bring back the lapsed millions or resolve every problem within our Church, but we shall be travelling in the only direction that will lead us in the end towards those desirable aims. It is the one indispensable element without which we cannot hope to succeed. Mission, today, is not about more nuns in unsuitable garb, or priests declining ever to be seen in clerical clothes, or watered-down versions of Catholics teaching to suit the mood of the times, or abandoning the resources we successfully drew upon in the past. Mission is about first setting our own house in order again, according to the mind of Christ so that we may thereby understand that we possess something worthwhile to offer to others who may be crying out for the treasures which we so often take for granted.