Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

I would like to comment a bit on how beautiful our First Communions have been this year. I realize that we have heard from a few people who are very upset that we have changed the practice from previous years, but the overwhelming response has been one of great happiness, and thanks, for an opportunity to receive Communion in a liturgy that is reverent, connected intimately with the family, and in the context of the community. It is interesting—I also have heard from a great number of parishioners about how this First Communion year is so meaningful to them, it was almost as if it has happened for the first time this year for the parish. To see the
children at Mass is a source of great hope for us.

Well, there is a lot written about how the celebration of the Sacrament should happen on Sunday,and in the context of the community, and I can only say that massive Saturday First Communion liturgies developed out of convenience for the clergy and staff and somehow became “tradition.” It was getting it done. In most parishes where groups were smaller, this was observed always during a Sunday Mass, much in the same way as we are doing it this Easter Season, maybe as many as 16 or 20 children and their families would make the Mass a little more crowded, but the parish survived it. My older brother, Fr. John, has a small parish, average to his diocese,and as is the custom, he will celebrate First Communion with five children this year at a Sunday Mass. You might say that is a perfect world.

I would propose to you that we also know a perfect world here, it just looks different. We have 240 +/- children and seek expressions that are meaningful and still consistent with the solemnity and integrity of communion. In past years we have scheduled three (four last year) Masses with 60 children each. Our church will never be big enough; the fact is, people were pretty mean about it. The Masses were so loud—even as the children came forward to receive First Communion—the level of conversation was so loud that it eclipsed the singing. Each year grew worse. And most everyone counted it as their Sunday obligation, as few children were brought back the next day to be recognized and congratulated by the parish. Everyone knows this is the case, and it couldn’t continue, even if only in the conscience of your pastor. Change was necessary, and as it
was, it was changing for the worse by the year.

When I was first ordained and assigned to All Saints, the largest parish in the diocese 21 years ago, we celebrated First Communions at Sunday Masses. Even then, it was already the norm in most dioceses and I recall them to be days of graciousness and prayerfulness.

But I guess the issue that we don’t like to address is the issue of change. It is natural to hold onto what we have if we find it comfortable. We project our own memories on our children, assuming that they will somehow miss out if it isn’t exactly the same. Sometimes we even keep an old coat in the closet that we really like or spent a lot of money on though we’ve gained weight and can’t wear it anymore without looking ridiculous (I have a few of these coats, actually). “We will lose the weight someday,” we say. But in the meantime we buy a new coat we can wear, so we don’t freeze to death on the really cold days.

I was talking to a priest who is responsible for closing / consolidating some parish churches in Manhattan. Beautiful places far too expensive to maintain; they are crumbling. One church is twice the size of our cathedral in Arlington, and has 80 members who are fighting and fighting to keep it open. Sure, I wish we could move it brick by brick, statute by statue right here—we don’t have anything like it in our diocese. But at
what cost can we afford to do it? At the end of the day, my friend said, it isn’t the change that is the problem. It’s the stained glass window that my grandparents donated (“See—there is their name”) or the baptismal font that our family was baptized in. It isn’t the change at all, it is the loss.There has to be, he said, something that we can see, touch, occupy that is a better solution, but we also must be open to see it when it comes. When we lose someone that we love, if we only see our loss we grieve until we ourselves can’t grieve anymore. But there is a better life to come, one we haven’t known yet.

Ultimately, it’s a good thing that we know what is important, not a what but a Who that we believe in, and that he continues to call, and to lead, if we will follow his call. Jesus went to a lot of trouble knowing that growth, the process of perfecting, requires change. Let us listen to his voice together.

God bless you,

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

I hope you got a chance to read the article we reprinted last week on the glorified body and the resurrection of the dead. I think I first read about the qualities of the glorified body when I was a kid and it seemed too good to be true. It seems to be the stuff of superheroes. Which of course is exactly true if you consider our saints to be superheroes.

The three properties I found the most fascinating were agility (the ability to suddenly go somewhere at the speed of thought), subtlety (as when Jesus, after the resurrection, appeared to the Apostles able to pass through doors, not limited by space) and clarity, or brilliance (like Jesus at the transfiguration, bright as the sun).

Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but since the Easter Vigil Mass this year, all the paintings of the saints in the sanctuary of the church are finished. Finally. At times I have made cracks about the unreliable artist who never seemed to get them finished. People would scowl when I would say these things, thinking I was badmouthing somebody, not knowing that the artist was me.

So here’s a quick review. First of all, they are oil on wood panel, and the background, in the tradition of iconography is 24k gold leaf, depicting heaven. The halos of the saints (or their nimbuses), symbols of holiness in art history, are white gold leaf.

We wanted people from the Old Testament, New Testament, family of Jesus and our parish family to be represented. Since the generous donations of the 12 panels ($60K) were a
significant source of funding for the pipe organ and the rededication of our church 22 November 2010, we also wanted also to have saints who have music as a part of their story.

Starting from the top left, you see Miriam, sister of Moses. She sang and played her tambourine when the Israelites came miraculously through the Red Sea, which is for us a sign of our Baptism. Next to the right is King David, of the family line of Jesus, who also played his lyre and danced at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. The third panel is the prophet Isaiah, holding the scroll that Jesus proclaimed at the beginning of his public ministry, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me…today this passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

As Isaiah is pointing to Jesus on the crucifix from the left, from the Old Testament side,so on the opposite side (top row) we see John the Baptist, the prophet from the New Testament who is pointing back to him. Next is the mother of Mary, Saint Anne, Jesus’ grandmother. We thought it would be great to represent the elderly in our family in this way. Finally, another musical saint, Saint Cecelia (holding a little pipe organ) is the upper right panel. She is the patron saint of musicians, and we dedicated the church on her feastday, Nov. 22.

Bottom far left is Saint Joseph, to whom we entrusted all our parish renovations these past years, and to whom we entrust our families. On the lower far right is Saint Leonie Aviat, the founder of our Oblate Sisters of Saint Francis DeSales. At the dedication of the church, we installed her relic in the base of the altar stone.

The remaining middle four panels were chosen because they are the patrons of the four parishes which have been born from Saint Mary: Saints Jude, Patrick, William of York, and Matthew the Evangelist.

Finally you may notice that they are much more colorful, almost richly dressed despite the reality that most were not wealthy. They are dressed in their Sunday best, wearing their wedding garments to come to the wedding feast of the Lamb in our later days. It is the Mass! We gather as the bride of Christ, the Church, and celebrate with them already having a taste of the beauty of heaven that we hope to share with them one day.

You may notice I worked back into their garments a lot of the gold of the background. In a small way I wanted to indicate their brilliance, the ordered way of beautiful patterns, how the glory of God literally shines through them for us to see. Their garments almost dissolve in the light of heaven as they become witnesses of the beauty of Jesus, in heaven just as they were on earth. So may we also be!

God bless you.