Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

I was giving a morning of reflection last Saturday morning near Hagerstown to the pastoral council of Saint Augustine’s Church in Washington, D.C. Their pastor, Fr. Pat Smith, asked me to come and give a presentation on Making Intentional Disciples and the fruits we have experienced at Saint Mary from the Called and Gifted Workshop.

By the way, did I mention, we have another Called and Gifted Workshop coming to our parish on October 9 and 10?

Anyway, I returned here that day to a flurry of activity. Volunteers were setting up for what became not only the most beautifully-weathered Parish Life Weekend we have ever had, but also the most successful. There was a spirit of real goodness, enthusiasm, and mission among all the people who spent the weekend at tables telling parishioners about their ministries and inviting them to join in service. More parishioners than ever before came over after Mass and visited with parish leaders and learned about different ministries. We have rarely had such a perfect day with regard to call and response. Maybe we are beginning to really take our thankfulness seriously, reflecting on the gifts we have received and doing something about it.

The proof will be this weekend and in the few weeks to come, to see if people follow through with their Commitment Cards.

Please remember, please fill out a new card, even if you are simply continuing to do what you did last year. Without a new card submitted, you will not be counted. Commitments must be renewed!

The experience at Parish Life Weekend was so amazing. One of the texts from Sherry Weddell’s book kept going through my mind and I thought I’d reprint it here for your reflection. It is about one woman’s experience, Ellen Piper, who changed the lives of many. She is a licensed social worker who leads Boise’s Catholic Worker community. She helped found the first day shelter for the homeless in the state and also started two transitional houses for homeless men and women while getting her M.A. in social work. She began twelve years before as a restless parishioner:

“I had a nagging sense of a call to do something. I was praying and saying, ‘Lord, what do you want me to do?’ I had a dream in which I heard the words, ‘Do the works of mercy.’ I asked a priest what the ‘works of mercy’ were. Then I went on the Evangelization Retreat, and something set me on fire. I decided to go work with our St. Vincent de Paul Society. It seemed safe. The I went to the Called & Gifted workshop. I scored high on mercy on the gifts inventory and thought, ‘This is supposed to be what you are doing. Without the Called & Gifted workshop this wouldn’t have happened. Seeing the gift of mercy on that inventory sheet really empowered me.'”

Sherry continues: “We have seen it happen over and over. The presence of a significant number of disciples changes everything: a parish’s spiritual tone, energy level, attendance, bottom line, and what parishioners ask of their leaders. Disciples pray with passion. Disciples worship. Disciples love the Church and serve her with energy and joy. Disciples give lavishly. Disciples hunger to learn more about their faith. Disciples fill every formation class in a parish or diocese. Disciples manifest gifts and discern vocations. They clamor to discern God’s call because they have really good news to share. Disciples share their faith with their children. Disciples care about the poor and issues of justice. Disciples take risks for the Kingdom of God.

“The Holy Spirit is planting charisms and vocations of amazing diversity in the hearts of all his people. Like the graces of the sacraments, they are real, but they are not magic. Just as the gifts of children must be fostered deliberately by parents to reach their full potential, so vocations must be fostered by the Church.

“In this area, we are not asking for too much; we are settling for too little. God is not asking us to call forth the gifts and vocations of a few people; he is asking us to call forth the gifts and vocations of millions. Our problem is not that there is a shortage of vocations but that we do not have the support systems and leadership in place to foster the vast majority of the vocations that God has given us.”

For us, at this moment in history, on the corner of William and Stafford, it begins with your Commitment Card. God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

It is still early in the process of preparing next weekend’s homily since it is only Monday, but I’m working on my homilies which I will give at all the Masses this weekend for Parish Life Weekend. I am certain that your happiness, your sense of being fulfilled, even your salvation depends upon your and your family’s involvement in the life of the Church. Use Parish Life Weekend as a time of grace to be fulfilled.

I have never known a single person who has gotten involved, really involved, in ministry who hasn’t said that it changed their life.

So I begin my homily preparation for next weekend asking the question, “Why is that? How can there be so many people even just in our small sphere of experience who have left the Church, who have decided they were unfulfilled, who feel empty?”

It is because most people today live life on the  level of emotion only. They have never actually, really, done anything about it. They have never looked real poverty (and I don’t mean lack of money) right in the eyes of another human being and realized that God was asking them to unleash the power of grace that is within them to do something to alleviate that suffering, or to make injustice right, or to empower another to hope. Our world is a place where, too often, self absorption has shut out the possibility of change, transformation, grace, conversion.

Today I want to tell you that our faith is not a  feeling. Faith is a gift you received in Baptism, a supernatural virtue that God gave you so that you could look at the world with the eyes of Christ, as a member of that Mystical Body. “I’ve lost my faith” is such a common statement today… but that is, actually, impossible. It is a gift that God gave you. But as long as you let it remain on the shallow level of feelings it will never grow roots. You will wake up one morning and feel that it is gone, a feeling that has no more value than feeling good about having it. To activate faith in your life you must do something about it. You must act. You must be involved in God’s work of grace and renewal in his creation, an ambassador of his Word, a true disciple. Faith is trust that God is here, and sends us out to do something about the rest of the world that is waiting to know that trust in God for themselves.

Today I want to tell you that hope is not a feeling, either. Hope is another theological virtue, a supernatural virtue (these are things that we would never come up with on our own) like faith that you received in Baptism, so that you can confront the apparent despair of the world with the eyes of Christ, as a member of that Mystical Body. “I have lost hope” is another common misunderstanding. You can’t lose hope, it is in your heart sacramentally by God’s design. It is a gift that God gave you. Hope is a little different, it seems to me that you learn to know hope by the example of others who teach us to shine like stars in the sometimes nighttime of everyday life. Saints who endured great suffering or people who held onto God in the most difficult times of persecution, turmoil, impossible odds, make us strong, and help us to see a way forward in hope when our nature tells us to despair. You can’t lose hope because it is a gift God gave you. But you can make it real through serving others. When we give hope to others, we know it is real in ourselves.

Finally, love, the third gift you can’t lose, is the most obvious. The reason that so many marriages have failed in our world is because love is still mistaken for a feeling. Love is a commitment. The theological virtue of love (charity) might feel good (one would hope so, certainly in marriage) or it might be terribly difficult and painful. Consider how parents might suffer for their children, or a friend might give up his life to save his friend. This virtue received in Baptism as we are incorporated into that Mystical Body of Christ is totally above our nature, to love as Jesus loves, from the Cross. Love is sacrifice, and though it might not make us happy in the moment, its realization will be the deepest joy you will ever know. But again, it will never be realized in your life unless you act.

Confirmation is the time Jesus Christ asks all of us who received these gifts to put them into action with the power of his Holy Spirit. We have time to make it happen.

Our Parish Life Weekend is your opportunity. Find what you are looking for in loving service to God and others. Allow your prize to be outside yourself, giving as Christ gives. Time in prayer, talents in service, supporting the work of God through his Church. Offer God your love.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

At the welcome and introduction of each Mass, you may have heard the Lector say “We are not complete without you.” These are words of true longing, but also theological words: we  miss people who were once with us; we recognize our lack of diversity when we know that our baptized brothers and sisters are divided up all over Sunday according to bad decisions in the past, both personal and churchwide; we also know that Jesus’ prayer on the night before he died was clearly that we get it together and realize that we are not here for ourselves, but for something much bigger, which we call the Body of Christ.

It is time to go to work, once again this year.

It is the responsibility of each member of the Body of Christ, which has literally taken place in God’s plan at Saint Mary in Fredericksburg, to “come to Christ’s full stature,” to recognize  God’s call and be thankful, then to do something about it. Parish Life Weekend is the time for each and every person in this Body to take their place, to learn and to teach, to feed and to be fed, to reach out in healing and to be healed, to comfort and to find peace in the work that God, in his Mercy, has given us to do. There is no doubt in my heart that at this moment, God has no other plan for us than that we grow together in prayer and loving service and know God’s plan in each of our lives and the life of Saint Mary. To be reconciled, to be holy and wholly his. The knowledge of God is the science of the saints, and we are all called to be saints.

By now you surely have received your Parish Renewal Handbook and Annual Report  which contains a catalog of ministries and contact information, as well as a spiritual development of our parish theme, “People of Thankfulness, Sowing Seeds of Mercy.” If you haven’t  already, I ask you to read it and prepare your hearts to make a commitment to God and the life of this parish in the year to come with a plan: how are you going to express your thanks  to God in the coming year? How much time do you plan to pray? In which ministry do you plan to serve, using your special talents to build up God’s kingdom in the way that is unique to your gifts? And how much are you willing to give to support financially the mission of this parish and her many works? Ultimately, it is a question of how much you are willing to give your own heart to God, because where your heart is, there is your treasure.

Hearts only grow through thankfulness. Gratitude is the secret to just about every aspect of the spiritual life and the growth of community. Without it we are drawn into ourselves, trapped in self-centeredness and isolation. The kind of individualism that we see so common today is exactly what could ultimately destroy culture, families, and churches. It is already happening.

One who is forgiven much loves much. And this person is one who realizes the secret of self is that we give ourself away in love and service. How important are your things in life? For what are you most thankful? We realize that the best things in life aren’t things. They aren’t things we have earned, or bought, or found. They are gifts—grace, relationships, love, faith and hope— that are given to us by God, gifts that won’t wear out or decay. We want to return them to him a hundred-fold. Honestly, it isn’t possible to be truly a Christian and not be a person who gives. We are made in the image and likeness of God, who pours himself out for us.

Every family, please, return a card and get involved. We will place our commitment cards in the offertory baskets at next week’s Masses.

God will certainly bless you.

 Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

As you know, school is started now at Holy Cross Academy and final preparations are underway by our parish staff to begin the year for Religious Education—on Monday, September 14, one week away.

Today I must remind all parents of your moral and sacramental obligation to provide formation for your children in the faith. As your pastor I must remind you of this commitment.

Registrations this year are only 74% of where we were at this time last year. So far, only 711 children are registered in the program beginning next week, down from 965 last year.

What has happened? I haven’t heard of your dissatisfaction, in fact, only that our program has gotten better every year. Our dedicated catechists are always seeking more formation and certification, our facilities newly renovated. What has happened?

Karen Sturtevant, our Assistant Director of Religious Education, provided me with some figures for this year:

I include all of these here because they are startling. 40% of the children/youth in our parish are involved in a form of faith formation. 60% are not involved. At all.

I am hoping that the main reason for this is simply that school begins a week later this year and people are slow to get in and register, though registration has been underway since June.

National averages, however, seem to be trending  in this direction. From 1965 to 2014, estimate Catholic population in this country has increased by 30 million, to about 80 million total. There are half as many Catholic elementary schools today as in 1966, and only a relatively small number fewer Catholic high schools and universities.

The number of primary school-age children in parish religious education programs has dropped from 3.4 million in 1965 to 2.7 million today (79%), though the number of Catholics today is 160% compared to 1965. Likewise, 43% of teens are registered in secondary school-age religious education today, .6 million compared to 1.4 million in 1965.

These effects are seen in sacraments received, too. The number of baptisms in 1965, 1.3 million, has dropped to .7 million today; marriages in the Catholic Church have dropped by 57%. Mass attendance in 1965, 55%, dropped to a low of 22% in the year 2000, and has returned to 24% today.

I believe that the most serious obligation we have as a parish community is to provide Catholic education and formation. I wish we could develop a culture where Catholic education could be provided to all who seek it through the support of the whole parish, but that is a dream that will require a lot of prayer and generosity that simply doesn’t exist today. We provide financial assistance where possible, but Catholic schools remains a wish that most people cannot afford. Thanks to those of you who make the sacrifice.

Religious Education, then, is our next best hope. Why is it not demanded by parents of their children? Still, I hear from people every day who, now in their later years, wish they had done something different with their children that might have helped them hold on to their faith, stay in the Church, live by a better set of values, get into heaven. It requires a perspective of the future looking back, to see that these are not choices that children can make for themselves. If you have registered, thank you. If not, please, please, consider registering your children.

God bless you.