Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

A big part of living faith is standing up and being a witness to how that faith is lived faithfully in our modern world. In the next two weeks we will have real time opportunities to make that faith visible, to walk and talk the Gospel in how it guides us in our daily lives.

Of course, the first obvious example is the March for Life this Thursday, February 22. There is probably still room on a bus; we always order two just in case and end up using only one. Sign up quickly. If you have never gone, you must try it even if only once. The powerful message of the Gospel lived by so many present, who silently witness to the gift of life and how it is so disregarded in our world today is a remarkable event. No doubt once again this year it will be underreported, the estimated size of the crowd will be reported again and again as much smaller than reality, and the message will be distorted according to various editorial agendas.
Every other protest this year will be reported, and re-reported; this one will largely be ignored again. Our legislators will take the day off. But the message is still clear, that we must value and reverence the life that is given to us by God and the administration of death must stop. Unfortunately, God has been left out of the deliberation process, as if he were some sort of intellectual fashion. Well, that is the pride of man that has gotten us into a mess ever since Adam and Eve. If you go to the March, just be present, be humble and sincere, and pray for conversion, beginning with ourselves. Take heart,the tide is turning, I believe, through the generous and prophetic work of so many people, our own people like Kathleen Wilson at Mary’s Shelter and the Bereit family and their gift of 40 Days for Life. They have made their voices clear and strong, and we are blessed that they are right here as brothers and sisters of our own at Saint Mary. I have learned so much from them.

One of the most unnoticed events, it seems, is Catholic Advocacy Day in Richmond a week from Thursday, January 29. At such an opportunity when we gather with our bishops and discuss the issues of law and society, and then have the opportunity to take the message of our faith and conscience in person to our lawmakers — I’m always amazed how only a few of us go year after year.

Yet, a good showing of Catholics can make a difference in how our state legislators consider bills and act to defend life, care for the poor and immigrants, defend marriage and build strong families, promote parental choice in education and uphold religious freedom, among other issues for the common good.

These are critical issues to our culture and the Catholic voice is needed so badly to provide balance in the deliberations of our leaders as they consider issues and votes. This is how nobody can say they didn’t know what we Catholics believe, and how
many of us there are in constituencies in Virginia!

You can find a complete list of the Virginia Catholic Conference agenda in this week’s Arlington Herald, and register at their website, www.vacatholic.org  Catholic Advocacy Day is always held on the last Thursday in January after the General Session has begun. Last year about 275 people attended from the dioceses of Richmond and Arlington, much fewer from Arlington. The day begins with breakfast and welcoming remarks from Bishops DiLorenzo and Loverde, followed by prayer and briefings on proposed state policies in the areas of concern. After the briefings, participants from Catholic churches and schools throughout Virginia meet in groups to discuss the issues, then head to the General Assembly building for constituent visits at legislators’ offices. Afterwards, Mass, lunch, and a debriefing are held at nearby St. Peter Church.

If we don’t speak about what we believe, nobody will. Nobody will know any better.

Finally, the other, next opportunity to live the Gospel is personal. You may be wondering why I keep mentioning it, it is because I believe that the Called and Gifted Workshop February 6 and 7 is going to make a real difference in how you live your life as a baptized Christian seeking your path in the world today, serving God and others. How can you know your focus if you don’t know the concrete ways God is calling you to act through the gifts he has already given you, perhaps some you aren’t even aware of, or have taken for granted? So far about 100 parishioners at Saint Mary have begun the process. To date, only about 75 people have registered, though many are telling me that they are coming and haven’t done it yet. The Diocese has asked if they can invite leaders from all the parishes to attend, so it is important to register soon if you plan to come. The deadline is Wednesday, January 28 so we will know how many chairs we can give away to others who may be interested. Please come.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

It used to be after Christmas you could heave a sigh of relief that everything went so well and then slow down for a few weeks before Lent began. Not so, anymore! As I write this article on Monday, 1/5, we are exactly three months until Easter, a month and a half from Ash Wednesday and there is much to tell you about.

I want to tell you about the dialogue that began  today between six members each of Fredericksburg  United Methodist Church and Saint Mary —that will need to wait until another week. This weekend we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, the end of the quick Christmas Season and a day that we all consider the impact of this baptism event in our own lives. It means, among so many other things, that just as all this would be meaningless without Jesus’ Presence to us—in liturgy, in life, in ministry—especially and in a particularly remarkable way in the Eucharist—that it also requires that we also be present to him.

We have to be here, in his Presence, because to be present to the Love of God is to be transformed. This Presence must happen both ways.

This weekend we have surrounding us on the walls of the church photos of the children of the parish—at Holy Cross Academy and in our Religious Education Program—after we celebrated Family Week. We invited parents to attend RE classes with the children and prepare a photo, adding what gifts they have received from God that might actually be part of God’s calling them to the Consecrated Life as a Sister, a Nun, a Priest or a Monk. So many kids, so many gifts.

They are with us in the church to remind us of who we are, how we are called, how we need to be present to God night and day, how we must nurture and support these gifts which God has given us not for ourselves, but to build up his Church. They are a reminder of how we must pray for each other, and place ourselves in the presence of God every moment of our lives to learn the depths and beauty of this relationship to which God has called us, to live in his love.

Today, we are called by our baptism into his Loving Presence, he who is Love, to be transformed. And every moment is a new beginning.

So, as we seek to live into our baptism, here is a program of spiritual exercises I invite you to take advantage of this year. I challenge you to use any or all of these opportunities to their fullest, because they are a coming together of several programs just at the right time in the life and spiritual development of our parish, and we will grow together. It won’t happen again for a long time. Some of it you already know about. Begin with the Called and Gifted Workshop, use the season of Lent to build your small group skills while we catch up on all the one-on-one Gift Consultations, and then begin the Small Groups for Called and Gifted in learning and living  your gifts in everyday life.

February 6-7
Called and Gifted Workshop
Investigate the gifts that God has given you that make you uniquely suited to love and serve one another and participate in the life and ministry of the Church at Holy Cross Academy. 7—9:30pm Friday, 9—3:30pm Saturday; $20 for parishioners / $30 for others covers materials and lunch on Saturday.
Register by January 28.

Season of Lent
BETRANSFORMED Small Group Bible StudyConsider gathering a group of six or seven friends,  colleagues, associates or neighbors (“affinity” groups)  to study and share the Mass Readings each week before the six Sundays of Lent. Volunteer to host a group,  or sign up for groups that will be forming. DVD and book help lead discussion. You can get a glimpse now at www.lentenfriends.org $10 for materials. Watch for details and announcements and sign up soon. First week of  study is February 15 through Palm Sunday.

March 1-3
Forty Hours’ Mission:
“The Kingdom of God is Among You” Deacon Mark Cesnik, OP, of the Catherine of Siena Institute will lead the parish in a reflection on the spirituality of gifts. Weekend homilies April 30 and March 1, and at  7:30pm (following Mass) on Monday, March 2 and Tuesday, March 3.

This year let’s make the most of Lent together.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Merry Christmas! What an amazing cycle of celebrations we had this year at Saint Mary! Every Mass was year-full or very full, everyone seemed at peace. The music was truly beautiful and led all of us more deeply into the beauty that lies at the center of the fact of the Incarnation: the love of God. Love was the spirit  everywhere, Masses both here at church and at Holy Cross Academy, everywhere, wishes of happiness and blessings.

It is the usual follow-up to be so very thankful to all who have contributed to making these liturgies happen—especially this year, it seemed like we all worked together so well, we were ready. To all our decorators and ministers of liturgy—to all our choirs, musicians, cantors—to everyone who helped decorate and put it all together here in the office, thanks. It really is the best work in the world to do. Thank you.

Something happens to you after you have been a priest for a while about these privileged seasons, something that I’ve only become aware of recently. This thanksgiving I feel has gradually extended in the form of sincere welcome to all who join us for Christmas. I think this needs to
be said. Too long we have stood in judgment of those who might attend at Christmas and Easter. And I want to be clear that what I’m about to say is not that it doesn’t matter if you miss Mass on Sunday and Holy Days—I am just so glad that so many attend Mass to celebrate the moments of Jesus’ Birth, his Passion, his Death and Resurrection.They are personal moments whose meaning we may not be able to express, exactly, but they move us at the center of our being. They are  sources of contentment in lives that otherwise lack something. They bring peace in the middle of any level of battle that you may be waging in your hearts or families. They remind us of God’s love which we cannot deny, no matter how hard the world may try to convince us otherwise. God’s love becomes visible. You can hold it.

Anyway, I’m just glad that people come. And filled with gratitude, where I used to think it was more of a bother to accommodate so many… I’m sorry for these attitudes in the past, I truly believe that they are in the past now.

The Church has always taught that to be minimally Catholic you must attend Mass and receive Holy Communion (if you can) at least once a year between Ash Wednesday and Pentecost Sunday. Of course, if this is the only time you might attend  Mass, then it also must necessarily involve sacramental confession. This is what has been  called (sadly) the “Easter Duty.”

It is a great temptation for those who attend every week to be judgmental of those who do not. Yet, who knows what somebody might be going through in their life? Some people really are busy (though some really aren’t) and have to put food on the table for their families, which  means that work schedules and family obligations keep them from joining us many Sundays. For many, especially those who are sick, or have  been abused (20% of people alive today?) or  abandoned, disillusioned about family, community, feel deep pain that is so hard to reconcile, are uncertain of their worthiness to be a part: it takes all they have inside of them to show up and be seen in the context of the family of God.

Are we not all sinners?

Imagine what damage we might do at that moment if we were to choose to judge them rather than be here to welcome them home. It might be a long, long time before they get the strength together to do it again.

Schedules are busy. That is why we have Masses at every waking hour during the weekend. If your weekend is so busy that you can’t make it to any of our Masses, then maybe your weekend is too busy. I ask you to do what you can to work that out.

This weekend we reflect on God’s epiphany:  how he is made manifest in the Christ child to the wise men from the East—to all those at the time who were not of the house of Israel, the chosen people—to us. God wanted to tell us that he is here for all people—even the fortune tellers and pagans. He calls everyone. So then, why shouldn’t we?

We are now in the process of bringing one another to the manger. The angels who bring the shepherds, the star that brings the wise men. We, who bring each other to come and see the Mystery that is before us today.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

As Pope Francis said in his general audience last week, Jesus chose to come to the world as part of a family. The mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, which opens a new chapter in the universal history of man and woman, “occurs within a family, in Nazareth. He could have come spectacularly, or as a warrior, an emperor… No, he came as the son of a family, in a family,”  he emphasized.

God can do anything he wants, and he doesn’t do anything by accident.

Today we are challenged to look at the family in its most basic form. Joseph was a man of integrity, righteous and true and loving. We imagine him providing a humble and safe home for his  wife, Mary, and her child, Jesus. It is clear that he was not affluent or proud. The silence of Scripture accounts shows him quietly protecting,  doing what is necessary to preserve this family, sometimes courageously. In the Bible he pays attention to God’s voice, but never speaks himself.

Mary, likewise, only points to her Son: “Do whatever he tells you.” So receptive, devout, reflective, yet so unmovable that she will not miss even a  moment by his side on the way to Calvary, at the cross, or at the tomb and beyond. In her lowliness lies the real power of God: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” What we see in the God-made-man, Jesus, in his humanity we must also see in her: hers was the only human DNA that gave birth to the Son of God.

They lived in relative obscurity. We don’t really know what he was up to for most of his life. Sometimes I think this is the most fascinating  and mysterious fact of the whole thing, that the most interesting Being ever to live on this earth, this God-man, stayed mostly invisible for most of his life, unknown. Nearly all of it, unless you all the time up to his presentation in the temple “public.” His work of three short years in the public eye, certainly his most productive years in terms of teaching and example, doesn’t mean that he wasted the rest of his years; the Son of God wouldn’t waste anything. He spent it in Nazareth,
where the family settled after they fled for their lives as refugees in Egypt, until the time he left Nazareth and came to the desert, afterward to be baptized by John.

The large part of Jesus’ life on this earth was spent in the context of this family life in Nazareth. I can’t imagine their family would have been any different than yours or mine, except that it would have been the simple life of the day. There would have been no electricity. Nothing that works by electricity. No running water. When I was in the Dominican Republic a great part of our day was spent just getting water from the river. In those days all a family could be was a family, together, always present to each other, eating and laughing, talking and praying, learning and teaching, growing together, working and hoping for tomorrow.

Somehow we need to get back to Nazareth. We are far from there.

The Pope continues: “Every Christian family – as  Mary and Joseph did – must first welcome Jesus, listen to Him, speak with Him, shelter Him, protect Him, grow with Him; and in this way, make the world better. Let us make space in our heart and in our days for the Lord. This is what Mary and Joseph did, and it was not easy: how many difficulties they had to overcome! It was not a false or unreal family. The family of Nazareth calls to us to rediscover the vocation and the mission of the family, of every family. And so what happened in those thirty years in Nazareth can also happen to us: making love, not hate, normal; mutual help common, instead of indifference and hostility. It is not by chance that Nazareth means ‘she who preserves,’ like Mary who, as the Gospel tells us, ‘treasured all these things in her heart.’ From then on, whenever there is a family that preserves this mystery, even if it should be at the outer reaches of the world, the mystery of the Son of God is at work. And he comes to save the world.”

They set a high bar to meet, right? I don’t think any of us can say that we came from a perfect family. Often, the ones who want to appear most  perfect are the ones that most need our love and support. On this feast of the Holy Family, let’s make a commitment. To defend the love between members of our family. To strengthen our marriages so parents can love their children from their own store of love. To look again at each other— to stop using the word “sibling” but consider truly what the word “brother” or “sister” means in the plan of God. Such an exalted and beautiful and blessed place to be, our families.

God bless you.