1. The Catholic Church started small.
Her first members were the poor and uneducated, specifically, unschooled fishermen. When Christ instituted His Church, He started it as a small community, 120. And He concentrated on this nucleus. Christ took pains to confirm their faith. The rank and file can wait. If you will notice the founders of religious orders, also, started as small groups. St. Ignatius of Loyola started with 9 and St. Francis of Assisi about the same. When St. Benedict built monasteries, he divided his communities into deaneries of 10 monks each. St. Teresa of Avila, when she was reforming the Carmelites, prescribed that each monastery was to be made up of 10 nuns only. St. Bernard started with his own family (I wonder how he managed a community made up of his parents, brothers, sisters, and in-laws.)
2. Theological reason for being small?
There must be some practical if not theological reason for this. The only theological reason I can imagine is that Christ always chose the humble, the poor and the small to make His power more evident; and to shame the wise and the great. It is difficult to find these kinds of persons considering men were born with original sin. In the above list we can safely include the “small communities” to shame the big ones. Besides, Christ reminds us that the way is narrow. And few shall enter it. This militates against the Church being large.
3. Probable Practical reason.
A practical reason would be this: when you have a good small community at the start (like Mother Teresa’s congregation when she began) and it becomes popular, the small fervent group is suddenly swamped into non-existence by a large group of lax and cold souls, attracted to religious life more because of its cool uniform rather than its spirituality.
This was probably the reason why St. Francis refused to join forces with St. Dominic. The order would be too large and unmanageable. In fact it happened to Francis’ own order. It grew so big that he, and his small band of originals, lost control of it and could not impose the “poverty” he so envisioned.
4. Will the small grow big?
Yes. Pope Benedict, quoting the motto of St. Benedict’s monastery Monte Cassino, “Succisa Virescit,” says with confidence “Yes,” if it is pruned well.
5.How to prune to make it grow.
Scriptures has the secret. It says: just live the Gospel to the full (this will prune the useless branches) and God, Himself, will add to your number of those who are to be saved . Only God knows who will be saved and ,therefore, would you not rather He adds to your community those who are to be saved rather than have those who are destined to be damned? When we use human means of recruiting we tend to get the cockles.
6. Pope Benedict XVI with small Basilica.
Early in his reign Pope Benedict had been pictured carrying a small –shrunken picture of St. Peter’s Basilica mindful of his continuous reference that the Catholic Church will shrink, become smaller till it is unnoticeable. He knows God’s pattern in doing things. And God loves “small,” the humble, the childlike.
7. Many are called but few are chosen.
Both ways, the Church will be small. First, because it is difficult to follow Christ and secondly, because God will choose only a few. Why insist on many when God warned us He will choose only a few? Of course, our efforts should be in being among the few.
8. The Catholic Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.
That spells FEW. To establish a Catholic Family, or a Catholic community, the group must be One, Catholic, Holy and Apostolic. A Catholic Family is one where the visible signs of the Catholic Church are seen. Let’s take only one visible sign, ONE. Just to make the husband ONE with the wife, i.e. one faith, one hope and one charity between husband and wife, is next to impossible. How much more in a family of five or ten? Next to impossible? Impossible if you don’t know how. But if you know how, it is easy. It is easier to be One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, when the family is big. And it is more difficult but more meritorious when the members are total strangers, like in a convent or monastery. 10 or 100 but divided into 10s. ( Painting above is “Pentecost” by Henri and Antoine Cibille, 17th century)