Early in the nineteenth century, after celebrating morning Mass, a priest went for a walk in a nearby park. Sitting on a bench in the early morning sun, he carefully filled his pipe; he lit it and blew out a cloud of smoke. After some time he was joined by another man and they struck up a conversation when the man commented that the pipe tobacco had a wonderful scent about it. They sat in silence for a while and then the man said to him, “I don’t wish to cause offence Father but I don’t see how religion does any good for anyone. Look at all the trouble and misery in the world today, which still remains after thousands of years of preaching about goodness, truth and peace. If religion is as good as the church makes out, why do all these Masses and prayers not make the slightest difference in people’s lives?” The priest did not reply immediately and they sat in silence for a while, then the priest asked, “What do you do for a living?” The man replied proudly, “I do something that really does help people, I’m a soap maker and my soap helps to keep people clean and free from disease.”

They sat a while longer and then a group of children ran by, they had been playing football and were covered in dirt from head to foot. The priest puffed on his pipe until they had passed by, then he asked the man, “What good is soap? With all the soap in the world today, why are these children still so filthy? I wonder just how effective your soap really is!” The soap maker protested, “That’s not a fair comment, soap cannot do any good unless it applied every day. “Exactly,” said the priest, “So it is with religion, it needs to be applied every day also.”

We all profess our faith every week when we come to Mass, but that is the easy part. The hard part comes when we leave church and try to spend our week living out our faith as Catholic Christians.