WHEN GOOD ENOUGH ISN'T

It may be that many Parishes are struggling in the Catholic triangle, the three points roughly being Chicago, Boston, and New York where, at one time, 50% of American Catholics once lived.  As the Catholic population evens out across the map, the triangle looks as if the Catholic Church is failing while in other parts of the nation they cannot build churches and parking lots quickly enough.  Is there anything good to come from this for triangle Catholics?

There is at least this: survival of the fittest.  “If you don’t like it here, go to the next parish over,” is no longer a safe attitude to have because people can and will do just that - and possibly they will not stay within the Catholic family of churches!  It is not enough to open our doors anymore and say, “Okay Catholics, come on in!”  The ethnic fellowship, community pressure, our collective conscience will not get us into a pew.  You better have your Church act together.

That does not mean we should give in to the customer service mentality that plagues the American Church experience and mindset.  But it is similarly unconscionable to do things just adequately or minimally either.  If we want serious Catholics, we need to be a Church serious about being Catholic.

The same goes for our schools.  There is a misconception out there that when we were in the days of the nuns, everything was perfect.  They weren’t.  (Don’t get me wrong, I would jump on the bandwagon in a moment of orders reignited in our diocese and started staffing our schools.)  Ask a priest who had gone through the golden era of packed schools with our valiant nuns making up all or most of the faculty.  There were still terrible teachers and difficult principals.  The difference was that people were much more likely to be desperate to have their kid in a Catholic school.  If you kid didn’t make the cut, there were only so many seats and if you were lucky you MIGHT get in to the next parish over.  The balance of power was much more in the hands of the school.

Not so today.  Our schools now compete against each other for a smaller group of students.  It is interesting the people call our school now and ask, “If I send my kid to your school, what will you give us?”  We get LOTS of those.  (We do not do that type of funding for the general public.)

This means being a typical Catholic school in the Catholic Triangle is not enough.  Being a good Catholic school is not enough.  In some places, being a great Catholic school is not enough.  So in this and in all things that we do (evangelization for example) we must keep waking up and realizing, “Today, we must be better.”

"GET TO" VERSUS "HAVE TO"

“I am so bored.”

The kids are home and want something to do and they are pulling at your pant leg saying, “Can we do something?”  Well, here are some ideas.  I realize that parishes are different (as are kids) so maybe this will or will not work for you.

Determine your child’s temperament and decide how much s/he can handle.  Do you need an excursion that would eat up some time, allow you to spend some quality time with your child, while at the same time doing something constructive?  A well constructed trip to a parish church just might be the ticket.  (Are you laughing out loud yet?)

It might be a mistake to announce, “Get dressed, we are going to daily Mass!”  This could be met with an, “Awwwwww, I don’t WANT to!”  Make it a project and plan an excursion.  Is there somebody that you and your child know that is hitting on hard times?  Is Grandma ill?  Is your child’s best friend moving?  Here is one plan:

Have your child think about who needs prayer.  It may be someone who later you can say, “We went to church to pray for you.”

Plan a trip.  It may be as simple as going to light a candle (what kid does NOT like to light candles?) or attend Mass or visit a really cool church to offer 5 minutes of prayer and look at the beautiful building, or visit the image of a favorite saint (and have a prayer ready.)  Assure your child, “we are going just for 5 minutes - or just for Mass - or just for a visit - or just for benediction) and then after we will go (for ice cream - breakfast - a hike - to the park . . . )

Hopefully your parish has some fun activity for you child so that going to the parish can be seen as something fun to do rather than always being the thing that they have to leave something fun to do.  Just as an example, there are all kinds of summer camps at this parish - everything from Bible Camp to Spanish Emersion Camp.  There are concerts and a playground (where you could bring lunch with your child and have a picnic.)  Used well, all of these things can help you make the parish someplace that the family goes, not someplace where they HAVE to go.

(And if your parish doesn't do anything, be the person who starts something!)

IF YOU'VE GOT LEMONS MAKE LEMONADE. IF YOU DON'T HAVE LEMONS, PLANT A TREE

The other day I received a letter in the mail from a company that said it has helped other Catholic Parishes in my diocese to sell their empty buildings.  Those in my office had a hardy laugh at that as we are in desperate need of more space.  My office is supposed to be our living room and our new headmaster of the Academy has his office in an old storage room (another thing we are desperately short on.)  We are beyond being imaginative for space.  We are out.

In Florida and in other parts of the country they have to have a shoehorn ministry.  Even with large buildings and large schools there isn’t enough room for everybody to fit.  The Catholic population is growing too quickly.  In the magic triangle (Chicago, Washington D. C., Boston) we have the opposite problem.  As our parishioners are moving out, we are left with too many large, empty buildings.

Traditionally, in our diocese (Cleveland,) the emphasis has been sacraments and education.  So generally there is a church and attached to it a rectory, convent, and school.  With a downturn in the student demographic many of the schools (public, parochial, and private) are finding themselves with too few students to stay viable.  Hence the number of empty buildings.

OPPORTUNITY

Many people wring their hands and think that there is nothing here but gloom and doom.  If all you want is a traditional Cleveland parish with a church and school; it is.  They will still exist into the future but will become rarer.  

TWO POSSIBILITIES

There are two directions in which one might go.  The first is the viable position that as Catholic parishes we are trying to do too much.  In some cases we are running small city states providing often redundant programs already made available by the state.  In many people’s opinion, we should scale back to what a parish is supposed to be doing: sacraments, education, evangelization, social action.  Shedding the burden of buildings and their maintenance would free us to focus on being disciples for the world.  So let the school go down, sell (or rent) the building, ramp up your CCD program.

OR

Prepare for a different future.  While your school and parish is still strong, start imagining new programs that could take up space if and when the school starts to shrink is size.  This cries for extreme imagination, risk taking, and the idea that it is Okay to fail.  

When imagining such things, take stock of what is going on in your neighborhood and city.  What is needed?  What institutions can you partner up with?  What would bring life and notoriety (helpful when evangelizing) to the parish?  What can bring some income?  What is your demographic?  What skills do your parishioners have?

Once a building is empty, it deadly difficult to start up anything like a school again.  You may have been grandfathered on a whole bunch of new regulations that may kick in for you if you try to open back up.  It is vital to keep a smooth transition from one type of ministry to another.

At St. Sebastian we have three programs simmering that could easily take up much of our space if it ever came to that.  (Fortunately, it does not seem to!)  For the foreseeable future, we should never have a dark room (and, in fact, if I could, I would build.)  It can be as scary as missionary work - going into unknown territory and not knowing what exactly to expect.  But where would we be today if we didn’t have missionaries willing to fail in our past?

TEN THINGS YOUR PARISH CAN DO TO BE ART FRIENDLY

Artists form our perceptions of ourselves.  For example, much of what we believe about the Old West is entirely from artists: writers, painters, movie producers, sculptures, musicians, and the like.  Within this example, take a moment to think over what you perceive as the role of guns in the Old West.  Do you picture cowboys strolling down the boardwalk of an old town, when, all of a sudden, bandits come riding in shooting wildly in the air while women and children clear out of the street.  Suddenly, everybody has their guns out a la the O K corral.  

Nope.  That aint the way it was.

People did not carry their guns around like that.  They were heavy, expensive, and dangerous.  But thanks to the arts this is many people’s perception.

As you have read here before ad naseum, the Church had largely given up her role as Patroness of the Arts, which means we have also given up a lot of influence of how we perceive ourselves.  “He who pays the fiddler calls the tune.”  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hires artists to do all kinds of stuff while the local parish is ordering its “art” out of a catalogue so that it can have a print of painting just like Saint Alsobland down the street.

What can your parish do to start changing the tide?  Here are some ideas:

 1. What do already to that participates in the art scene?  Most likely you have music!  Make your music program the best that you can.  It doesn’t have to be The Best, just the best that you can muster.  Invest in music.  If you can, hire qualified and trained musicians.  Encourage quality.  

2. Commission artists for your desired works of art.  Let is say that you want a picture of St. Pope John Paul II.  You could go on line and order a print of a painting and hang it on your wall.  People in the parish will be glad to see it but nobody is going to come from anywhere to be inspired by it.  They more likely will say, “Oh yeah, we’ve got one of those in our parish.”  Make no mistake:  commissioning art can be dangerous!  But better that some people take a risk of finding themselves with the next version of Michael Angelo’s David than have twenty five plastic Davids scattered throughout the diocese.

3. Have parish bus trips to see quality concerts, plays, and museum displays.

4. Sponsor a play to come to your parish.  There are many semi-affordable one man plays about saints and such.

5. Make it a general policy to hire musicians for parish events rather than DJs.

6. Consider having a concert or even a concert series sponsored by the parish.

7. If you have a room that often goes unused, consider allowing a community choir or orchestra to be in residence.

8. Start a gardening club that grows a cutting garden to make arrangements for the sanctuary during the summer months.

9. Start programs that offer classes in the arts.  This way you employ artists, train artists, and expose artists to their craft in a Christian atmosphere.  Make sure your school art program is more than an arts and crafts project recreation time.

10. Commission a song for the parish.

Don’t be tempted to think, “Oh, we are such a small parish with limited resources.  What impact could we really make?”  Rubbish.  When I think of the hundreds of parishes in my own diocese I wonder what would happen if all of them did just one thing from the list above!  What an incredible difference it would make to the fabric of northeast Ohio.

Make no mistake!  It is dangerous and expensive!  It requires risk, careful planning, and prayer.  But the same things could be said about evangelization (of which this is a part.)  Only those who dare magnificently can expect magnificent rewards. 

Or we can just be safe.

FAITH R US

Does your parish remind you more of a gym or a hardware store?

 

I’m not talking about the architecture.  That’s another post.

 

How do you see the way your parish functions in your life?  Is it more like a gym, a place where you go to accomplish something and then leave and return to other activities?  Or is it more like a hardware store where you go to be equipped to do those activities that one who visits such a store might do?

 

If it is the first, then your parish is a service to you.  Like the drycleaners or the mechanic’s, you go to have a service performed.  If it is like the second, it is more like the travel agency or the recruiting office, where you go to be sent on to do something. 

 

If it is the first, you understand the relationship that is required of us as Christians with each other.  We are community.  God draws us into unity.  And so we come together to pray.

 

If it is the second, you also understand that there is involved here a relationship with God; a very intimate and involved one.  It is not like showing up at Grandma’s house in time for Sunday dinner and then leaving after dessert not to think of the lady again until your stomach growls the following Sunday.  Hopefully you think of her during the week, call, stop by, send a text.  You might perform some task for her such as mow her lawn or help figure out her taxes.  And as family there are many intangibles of hers that you carry on without even realizing it: you carry the family name, you have certain turns of phrases and bit of advice that you give from being steeped in the family, you may be inspired to do things that others don’t simply because grandma always said a good person did such things, and you prayed for her good at night.

 

Because that is what a (functional) family does.  And there (as Fr. K pointed out) is where the first question because a false one.  Your parish should remind you of neither business institution.  At its best it should remind you of family.  (How do you get a couple of thousand people to be family – center on Christ because people [I] can’t do it.)  And family is not something you do at a particular time, it is who you are and how you live.

IMAGINE

How can we imagine the Catholic parish of tomorrow?

 

There is little doubt that many of the Catholic institutions of today will not be around for the next generation.  But that is to be expected.  We are not the same people we were 5 generations ago.  Can you keep offering what was vital to Catholics 5 generations ago to people in the next generation?  The Church has always adapted to its times.

 

Some things just will not change.  The Eucharist will be the source and center of our lives.  That won’t change.  Sacraments – Scriptures – worship - education – and all of the usual suspects.  But how do you present it?  How is it lived?  What will touch people’s hearts?  What is attractive while not sacrificing truth?

 

More recently I have been engaging people in a conversation on how to reimagine Catholic Akron.  What can we do now to prepare for the city as it will be in the near future?  It would be a mistake, I think, to wait until we have empty buildings and then say, “Okay, now we have an empty (school building – convent – what have you) what can we do with it?”  At that point you are already losing your audience (pardon the term.)  The risk that is being run is that you are dropping out of the greater public consciousness. 

 

Here is an example of what I am thinking:  There is a new paper about town called “The Devil Strip.”  (Akronites and Barbertonians will understand that term.)  There is an extremely interesting section where they ask a cradle Akronite and a new Akronite what they love about the city.  The arts always rate extremely high.  Now, there is a local neighborhood that is known for being “artsy.”  The Catholic Church has no presence there whatsoever.  As a matter of fact, in my collar when I am there one gets the distinct impression that there is an element of anti-Catholicism.  Of course there is.  When we don’t mix and mingle it is the rotten story that has a chance to germinate. 

 

Why aren’t we there?

 

So at St. Sebastian we are trying to be involved in the art scene.  Hopefully we are developing an arts friendly place that is attractive to those who shape our culture.  The Academy of Culture and Arts opened with the intent of being open to greater community at all age levels.  We are fortunate that we have a healthy school.  What if we didn’t?  We will already have an institution that could make use of the building and continue to be relevant to West Akron Catholic and non-Catholic residents alike.  (The champagne problem at the moment is that both institutions are healthy – I could actually use another building.)

 

That is one example.  There are a few other ideas in the pipeline that will slowly be rolled out as they seem feasible.  BUT what ideas do YOU have for the Catholic parish – the Catholic presence in the future?  Things that we can do that are within our control?  Not something like, “Start ordaining married men.”  That is quite out of our control as Pope Francis has reiterated.

 

If you have any ideas, I would be excited to hear them.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: 6TH PRECEPT

In my grandparents day, when many Slovenian immigrants were coming to my hometown, they wanted to start a Slovenian parish.  So they went about knocking on doors trying to raise funds.  The fundraisers were looked upon with suspicion however.  In the “old country” it was the government who built the churches through taxes.  People said, “You start building and then we will give.”  Of course, it doesn’t work that way.

 

That is one danger of government funding projects to too far of an extent.  We get the idea that things will always be there and I need not worry about it.  SOMEBODY official will make sure that things are taken care of.

 

Not so with a parish.  A parish does not have to exist.  It exists because some people are willing to show up, do ministry and projects, and donate resources.  As we have seen in our diocese, when people stop doing that (mostly due to flight to the suburbs,) parishes cease to exist. 

 

So we come across the 6^th precept of the Church.  It is to support your parish, provide for your priest, and also to look out for the good of the greater Church around the world and the work of the Holy Father.  Yep, some of that means hard, cold cash.  There is no getting around that.  If you want to feed the poor, you need a kitchen, and a kitchen costs money.  MORE IMPORTANT is prayer.  Then there is showing up.  There is engaging in ministry and cleaning pews.  There are mission trips, supporting the teachings of the Church, helping struggling parishes, and reaching out to the greater community, social justice, and evangelization.  When a parish does all of these things, it is healthy.  And for a parish to do all these things, it needs you to do them or it doesn’t get done.

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN

WILL THERE BE ANYTHING ELSE FOR YOU?

There are two ways in which a person can own a horse.  The first (the model imagined by seven year olds everywhere) is where you pay to have your horse boarded.  You come by, when you have the time, to ride, give a carrot, and pat it on the nose.  The other way to own a horse is to 1) own a farm and 2) you go out twice a day to feed the horse, give a bale of hay (which you loaded into the barn last fall) and muck the stall, give it its daily exercise, groom, clean its hoofs, give it its shot and pills, find caretakers when you want to be a way, call the vet, etc. etc. etc. . .

 

This is also a model for two types of churches.  The first, you pay your money like you would at a gym, things are taken care of for you (babysitting, youth group, senior club, Bible studies, and so forth) and you can make certain demands (I pay good money to come here and I expect . . .) with the threat of going next door next Sunday.  The other is to belong to a church where you are part of the mission.  If there isn’t a Bible Study, you go talk to the pastor and if he can’t do it, you start one yourself.  If there are no greeters at the door, ask if you can start greeting people.  Outreach is not the pastor’s and staff’s responsibility, but everyone’s. 

 

Catholic parishes are closer to the second model in both, but often we try to be the first model and that frequently fails.  That is not to say that a pastor cannot use great ideas from the first model, but they are employed closer to the second model.  It is the difference in mentality of running a service in the hospitality industry and running a good family home.  The first has many perks and a few responsibilities, the second has many responsibilities and a few privileges and perks.

 

“I came to serve, not be served,” is the call we follow.  It is funny how easy it is to fall into the wrong mindset (from both sides!) 

A TEST EVEN THOUGH SCHOOL IS OUT

Is your vision of who you are the same vision your friends have of you?

 

Are you as happy as you can be?

 

What kind of cabbage are you most like?

 

So, I fall for those tests that used to be in magazines that are now mostly on-line in which you answer a few questions and they tell you what character you are most like from the movie “Princess Bride” or what career choice would be best for you.

 

I fell into taking one from the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management which is a tool to help determine how healthy your parish is.  The answers were not quick and easy however and I think this may be a project I give to Parish Pastoral Council to tackle.

 

There was a presentation by the service director of the Roundtable, Mr. Jim Lundholm-Eades at the last First Friday Club of Akron.  They have past talks on line on their website HERE and this is one I would recommend though I don't think it has made it to the site yet.  Part of the talk was discerning how healthy a parish is.  A healthy parish is like a healthy marriage; when the couple’s relationship is healthy, their love then spills out to others.  When a parish is healthy, instead of being insular its ministry begins to spill out to the community.  It is like the love of God.  One of the explanations of creation is that it is an overflow of the love within the Trinity.

 

There are smart parishes.  These parishes have a vision and a plan for the future.  They understand that they can no longer just simply open their doors and people will walk in.  There must be a presence in the community (which in business they call marketing.)  They are financially solvent and/or have a realistic plan to sustain themselves.  And they are technologically savvy. 

 

There are healthy parishes.  In a healthy parish there are minimal politics (there are always politics, it is a matter of degree), minimum confusion, high moral, high productivity, and low turnover. 

 

How out going, how smart, and how healthy is your parish?  If you are in the mood, maybe take a look at the questionnaires that the Roundtable provides that begins the conversation HERE.

 

WORK SMARTER

It’s easy for a parish to accidently compete against itself by scheduling two events on the same day.  It is even easier for this to happen between numerous parishes.  All of a sudden you realize that two or more parishes have scheduled a concert or a dance or a fundraiser or some event on the exact same day.  Throw in Catholic high schools, diocesan events, and churches, synagogues, and temples all doing things and the situation gets worse.  Next add city events, major league sports events, and holiday weekends, and the possibility to schedule something on a day that nobody else is doing something inches toward nil. 

 

Truth be told, however, most of this is manageable.  But one thing that drives pastors (across this diocese anyway) absolutely nuts, is when our parish sports teams practices and games start competing with the faith life of the parish.  For many years, there was a raging battle to get CYO to stop having games before noon or one o’clock on Sundays.  Too many kids were skipping Mass because they had to be at the game or risk getting kicked off of the team.  Oddly, that threat is perfectly acceptable to some while cautions about not living the faith life of a Catholic is seen as harsh.

 

The center of the life of a Catholic parish is the Mass and the Eucharist.  Everything stems from that.  If this parish did not have at its heart the Eucharist, then there would be no point to staying open.  Send the kids to public school, let city leagues take over the sports, go to dance at the local social hall, have the art museums take over the art, go hear live music at the bar, and buy tickets to motivational speakers of we are not going to make Mass our source and summit.  For us, all these things draw meaning and importance because they are centered in the Mass and flow from it; grace being the only thing that you will actually take with you at the end of this life and these other activities being tools to help us live that grace more fully.

 

So when these other activities start competing with the Mass rather than flow from it, it is rather the tail wagging the dog.  And pastors become a bit hot under their starched collars.  But that doesn’t mean that Mass and those things most closely united to it should be made as inconvenient as possible and everything else suffer.  They should, rather, complement and build up each other, which I find most involved are more than willing to do, for it is then that we are truly parish and I thank them deeply for that.

OREMUS

About this time of year pastors are making their financial reports available to the parish and giving some sort of “End of Fiscal Year Report.”  Hopefully yours is positive.  St. Sebastian’s report said that we were in the black and starting to do catch up with maintenance repairs that nobody is excited about: fixing boilers, tuck pointing, roofs . . . all the fun stuff most people are not interested in but which is none-the-less absolutely necessary.  There’s a lot more to go but at least we are on our way!

 

Whether you were sitting in the pew as your pastor exclaimed that your finances were as red as the dawn and your particular part of the bark of Peter was taking on water quickly, or if you were blessed to have a coal black financial standing and a pastor pleading with you to give your money elsewhere because they have run out of space to store the stuff, don’t forget to pray for your parish.  It does not exist out of thin air.  It doesn’t have to be.  It could just as easily not exist.  A parish is a delicate thing.  It might not take more than a factory closing, poor leadership, crime, a natural disaster, a dying city, a bad roof, and an institution that took 100 years to build up could be gone or start a long slow decline.

 

It is very important to support your parish financially but even more so with your prayers.  Pray first of all that she remain true to her mission and center herself on the Eucharist.  May she be a beacon of light for your part of the world.  May her leadership be skilled and in keeping with the call of Christ and with worldly requirements.  May she energize her people with apostolic zeal.  May she remain strong and relevant.  May she keep doing what she was meant to do.

BUT HOW MUCH WILL IT COST THIS TIME NEXT YEAR?

It’s budget time – one of the less glorious parts of being a pastor.  There was a time – actually most of the history of the Catholic Church I would think – that the entire budget consisted largely of a bank account out of which the pastor paid the bills.

 

Things are quite a bit more complicated these days with government regulations and legitimate input from other people besides the pastor.  I for one am glad there are business managers, bookkeepers, and parish finance councils.  Frankly, I have no idea how much we might spend on toilet paper and light bulbs next year, or how the latest health care regulations will hurt the parish finances, or where it might be better to buy our gas. 

 

As I sit at my desk and write this I can see a truck parked on our front lawn and some gentlemen on the roof of our school.  The chimney is in sore need of tuck pointing (I’m not even sure if that is the way you say it) and of course, as with all things, it’s going to cost quite a bit.  I remember the class we had in the seminary about tuck pointing chimneys.  It was fascinating.  It came right before how to make a rabbit appear out of hat and right after how to do your own laundry.

 

The business people, lawyers, bankers, accountants, and other savvy people that donate their time to the parish to help sort through these things so that at the end of the year we aren’t looking under couch cushions for enough money to pay our assessments are a God send.  In the end, however, the pastor is the one on the hook if something should go wrong.  It would be his head on the chopping block.  So he “gets” to make the final decision.  But he needs you – the parish needs you.  If you have some expertise and are asked by your pastor to consider being on parish finance council, please give it prayerful consideration.  You can do a world of good.

SO WE KNOW THAT THEY GO TOGETHER - BUT HOW DO THEY GO TOGETHER?

Pope Benedict has gone a long way in making the extraordinary form of the Mass not only permissible, but as available as possible for those who wish to pray in that manner. Elbow room in the Catholic Church just got bigger. So now we know we can do it, but it is not entirely clear how we do it. It is another great experiment within the Church.

My parish is on the cutting edge of this movement. It is a strong, typical parish and did not need to begin celebrating the extraordinary form Mass in order to lure more people in the doors so that we could keep the lights on as is the case in many places. The Mass was begun as a service to the community in response to a real need in the area owing to a number of circumstances in play.

The pope has made it clear that there are not to be “extraordinary form” parishes but that both forms must coexist. This may sound easy enough but it requires much more than simply adding another Mass to the schedule. There are all kinds of “I never thought of that”s that come into play as we discover how one parish can provide both legitimate forms of the Mass.

To begin, the calendars do not necessarily coincide. For example there may be a feast in the ordinary form that is on a different day in the extraordinary form. At one Mass the altar may be decked out in green and the next one would need purple. This may seem minor and in many ways it is, but it something that one needs to be mindful about when doing anything in the church.

The cycle of readings is also most often different. A priest may have to prepare one homily for the ordinary form and another for the extraordinary.

Is it possible to simply redo the calendar for the extraordinary form? Perhaps. It would be wonderful to add some Masses such as for Saints that are more recently canonized. But I can only imagine the work involved in this process. If it took English speaking countries so long to come with our current English Missal, what might it be like to try to get the whole world to produce a new common Latin extraordinary form Missal?

Another area to look at is rubrical changes that affect the extraordinary form. Some laws do not change – especially those governing the Mass itself. Others do change. One is the Eucharistic fast. One need not fast from midnight until one receives Communion at the extraordinary form because the universal law has been changed. Nowhere however, as far as I am aware, are all of these things systematically written out and much advice must be sought.

Perhaps most importantly of all is the uniting of the entire community. We work hard to not have those who attend those who attend the extraordinary form of the Mass appear to be “the Latin Mass community at Saint Soandso.” Some of this is being very careful about the language that is used. One must guard against terms such as “their Mass” and “our Mass.” They are all just the Mass and we are one community. (As a side note, the extraordinary form of the Mass in not the “Latin Mass.” Any Mass may be prayed in Latin. The proper term is the extraordinary form.)

It also takes awhile to be vigilant on making sure that all parishioners are treated equally – such as in remembering to invite all to everything. This may seem obvious and easy enough, but it can be trickier than you think. Here are two examples. One is Donut Sunday. We have parish groups that volunteer to do this. That used to mean that a parish group might have to be going about the business of set up and serving donuts from about 8AM until 1PM. All of sudden beginning one weekend it meant 8AM until about 3PM. That is a long Sunday for volunteers. So how do you handle that? (Only wet babies like change.)

Even when you are sensitive to these issues things fall through the cracks. An usher’s meeting was held just before Christmas and during the opening prayer I realized to my horror that nobody had thought of inviting the new ushers from the extraordinary form of the Mass! Needless to say that became the first topic on the agenda and I had to apologize profusely to the 1:00 ushers (who were pretty good chaps about it.)

The idea of equal treatment extends to other things as well. Not wanting to treat any group of people within the parish as a separate community, we as priests at our parish often have the discussion about if we do something at one Mass, are we willing to do them at all Masses. And what of special requests – what does the parish offer the community at large and when can exceptions be made and where is the line that drawn so that exceptions don’t start dividing the community?

So far it has been a wonderful experiment. We’ve had some bumps but fortunately most people are understanding. There has also been promising developments of persons on both sides of the ordinary/extraordinary preferences visiting back and forth between forms. (That is a sign of health in my view.) The extraordinary form is also attracting additional converts to the parish we might not have had before; a couple to be welcomed into the Catholic Church within the next month and hopefully a few others on their way.

This is a unique period within the life of the Church.  Those in such parishes are pioneers.  We could certainly do things better and we most likely will as we cautiously figure our way, doing our best to navigate a parish community that likes everything from the ordinary form and folk music to the extraordinary form and Gregorian chant. It is a microcosm of a much larger Church that is incredibly diverse yet holds together at its center: the Eucharist.

NEW PARISH - NOW WHAT?

Every parish should have a welcoming committee that knows when a new family has moved into the neighborhood and they should send a delegation out to greet them with information about the parish and invite them to come to Mass with them. Every parish should also have alert greeters and ushers that recognize new faces and help them get situated at the Mass. People at every parish should be welcoming, friendly, and ready to give up the pew that they sat in for the last 25 years to someone who does not know better. Every priest should be able to tell when someone is new and welcome them heartily to the parish.

All this should be true.

But most likely it is not at your parish.

Sometimes for good reason.

One reason might be that at larger parishes where there is the possibility of a couple thousand people passing through the doors on any given weekend at any given Mass, just because you don’t recognize someone doesn’t mean that they are not a lifelong parishioner. “Welcome to Saint Weallgetalong.” “I’ve been a member here for 50 years sonny! I helped build this place! I just usually come to the 4:30.”

Also, people are basically shy. As afraid as you might be of saying hi, they are nervous about approaching a new person and saying hi. It is a gamble both ways.

It would be nice, say for example, when you switch parishes because of a job move or some such thing that the Catholic community into which you move would be there to greet you with open arms. But remember often we are talking about the population of a small city. It gets complicated. If you want a good experience, bite the bullet and don’t wait for your new parish to take the initiative.

Here are some various ideas to try:

If there are ushers, come up with a question that perhaps you don’t even need an answer to. “Hi! I’m new. Could you tell me where the restrooms are?” That might start a conversation.

Don’t sit behind the pillar in the back of the church, in the dark, with your arms crossed and your head down. You are telling everyone “I JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE TO PRAY!”

After Mass as you are crunched together to get out turn to someone and say, “Hi. My name is Sue. I’m new here. You have a beautiful church.” (You might find out that they are new too and are looking for someone to talk to!)

REGISTER! Become part of the parish. Ask the person who registers you to tell you more about the parish and how you might become involved.

Join something – or better yet VOLUNTEER! How do you get to know 6,000 people? Start by getting to know 10 well. Everyone wants to be asked to do something – few just volunteer. “Do you need volunteers to clean up after the dance?” You will instantly become gold if they have been looking for someone.

Go on a men’s or women’s retreat – a smaller group of people than say a parish mission.

Don’t go to donut Sunday – volunteer for donut Sunday.

Do you have a unique talent that you might offer the parish? Let the pastor know.

Participate in commitment weekend.

If after giving a decent amount of time and all that effort you do not feel welcome at a particular parish – it is just that – an unfortunate experience at a particular parish – not the Catholic Church. You then have basically two choices: Decide that you are staying to try to make this parish a more welcoming place for others being that welcoming presence for others that was not there for you (the Adam’s Ale recommendation) – or – seek out another parish that will appreciate you better.

BEHIND THE SCENES

By no stretch of the imagination did my mother have a temper so when she was upset you knew that it was for a pretty serious reason. One time my sisters and I were going to throw a party at our house for a large number of our extended family. We told our mother not to worry about a thing. We would take care of it all. And then we left for a day trip.

Now, college students (as I was at the time) have a very different idea of what it means to throw a party than an adult. Even an informal party can require much more behind the scenes than meets the eye. A college student can throw a couple of bags of fun-time snacks on the table and cool some beverages in the refrigerator that they picked up on the way home and call it a party. That was our plan. So we came home to an upset mother who took it upon herself to get out bowls a glasses and service, make coffee for those who would want it, make sure that house is cleaned a necessities were stocked, extra chairs brought out, the bedroom were cleaned lest anybody accidently stray to those parts of the house, and, as I found out in detail, “etc., etc., etc. . .” A lot of effort goes into a party looking effortless.

We never did that to her again.

Church affairs are much the same. It is more than someone standing up in the sanctuary for an hour on Sunday. Hours go into a well celebrated Mass, a lot of effort going into it so that it looks effortless. It also takes a lot of people. The same is for something like Eucharistic devotions.

This past week we had our annual 40 hours at St. Sebastian. This year I tried (as well as I am able) to stay completely out of it and let our young parochial vicar take control of the whole thing from soup to nuts. The actual event lasted 40 hours but it took months of planning and work. Hundreds of people were involved. Consider if you will just the effort to have people in church for 40 hours. We tried to have at least 3 people at any given hour. 40 x 3 is a minimum of 120 people. Then there are the people who coordinate the people. The “out time” when you have to start advertising the event for calendars and so that people can plan what hours they wish to dedicate. Music ministries, servers, speakers, lectors must be sought and scheduled, programming planned, worship aids produced, décor to be decided and etc., etc., etc. . .

The kid did pretty well. My role was very slight. “Did you plan a dinner for the closing night speaker? Did you write a check?” But really it was his deal and it went well with a few hundred hours made I would say.

So, whenever you go to a well celebrated Mass or other service at your parish, bear in mind that it required many people and many hours to accomplish what you enjoy for that one hour. It is the tip of an iceberg of a great community effort.