Unchurched, mon amour!

I live in a heavily secularised society, where Christianity is a tiny underground stream within a lot of people. My friends are lapsed Christians, closeted Christians, once-a-decade Christians, Catholics who don’t go to communion at their friends’ wedding (and who wish they did) and a full array of sincere, idealistic cynics.

And I love them more than I can say. To me it is blindingly obvious that they are the tax collectors of our day. I want to remain “understated” enough so they’d still count me as one of them. I never want them to think that I’ve got something that they haven’t. They are my church.

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' Lk 18.13.