Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Welcome to Lent.

I have to admit, often Lent is a very difficult season for me if I am paying attention. There are a lot of obstacles and challenges that Lent seems to bring that call to question many things. But—you know—so often people come to confession to confess that they don’t have a faith that is strong enough or they have times of doubt and difficulty with many aspects of faith. This is not a sin! It is being human (which, last I checked, was noble and sacred). How easy it is to forget that faith requires a certain level of not knowing certainty. It is honest to have doubts. And it is, like any suffering, the path through them that causes us to grow. You never grow by walking around life’s challenges and problems, by remaining indifferent or intentionally ignorant. You have to go through them to grow. We must be confronted.

For this reason, the Stations of the Cross is so important. Jesus is carrying our cross, after all, not his own. And we can see in his example the way to carry our own. For a long time I thought that it was an unhealthy piety that always focused on how we “carry our cross” in the “vale of tears.” Well, maybe it is unhealthy to always be living out of that perspective but at some point, if you are honest, you realize that this is often the reality. If we weren’t supposed to carry it, why then does Jesus pick it up for us? That cross—the one that brings about the salvation of the world that we could never earn on our own—that cross isn’t the enemy. It is the effect of the enemy that we confront daily: jealousy, hatred, persecution, discrimination, violence, murder, pain and death. It does no good to pretend that these things don’t continue to crucify goodness, beauty and truth everyday. It doesn’t mean that we give in to all that robs us of our beauty, our truthfulness, goodness so that we are no longer good or true. The cross is the conflict that confronts us every day of our lives.

Coming to the Stations of the Cross gives us perspective. We see ourselves in the soldiers, in the women of Jerusalem, in Veronica and Simon the Cyrene, in Joseph of Arimathea. Ultimately, we see ourselves in Jesus, and the realization brings tears. Good tears, tears that we must cry in order to appreciate what Jesus has done for me, and for you, and for all his creation.

Speaking of tears, we saw a lot of tears this past week with the visit of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I hope you could come, I hope she filled our parish family with peace and joy.

Many were touched in ways they can’t really describe. That is okay, because words are really limiting. Others spoke to me after and wondered why they didn’t feel her (or Jesus’) heartbeat, the warmth of her hands, see any miracle. Were they not holy enough or was something wrong? I said of course not, Mary connects with people in the way that they need it at the time, I think. They said that they had such a desire to experience a wonder, a closeness of God through Mary. I asked them what they did find.

I sat back and watched you throughout the visits at different times. I will tell you the greatest wonder of all: hundreds, hundreds of you came with a fervent desire to feel her closeness, her heartbeat. What vivid faith filled the church. Just the desire that we all have that became visible: our hopefulness of a sign of her love, a love we obviously already believe in. It is as prevalent as the glitter that suddenly is seen all over the floor. (Might I add, not just around the image, but all over the church from wall to wall…) Not a person who was seeking came away without a feeling of peace and joy, a calmness or a sense of being loved. It is a testimony to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who historically came not to give some kind of stern warning or vision of hell as she has done in other instances, but to simply remind us that she is our mother, what more do we have need of? I have to tell you, it was the experience of love that caused the people of central America to be baptized at a rate of 3,000 per day in the days after the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She has a lot to tell us about our modern day, about respecting life, about caring for one another. As Patroness of all the Americas, she has a lot of work still to do.

The image will return again, one more time on next Sunday and I expect that there will be quite a crowd. We do what we can, but let us all be glad of the outpouring of love—both ours to her and hers to us—which makes us each day more of a family, brothers and sisters to each other at Saint Mary.

Now let’s get busy with Lent.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

We were finishing up our sixth meeting of our local dialogue with Fredericksburg United Methodist Church—six members of our parish and six of theirs—on Monday morning and someone was talking about how, when we were children, we would get in the car and just go for a ride on Sunday afternoon. If you are old enough you can
remember; if you aren’t, then you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.

We would just get in the car and go for a ride. Nowhere. It was considered relaxing, interesting, to see what was new out there and spend time with family just driving around, instead of playing cards or sitting at the table after dinner on Sunday afternoons. I remember when they finally invented air conditioning in cars (yes, that is right) and it became so much more enjoyable in the summer. I guess gas was really cheap.

For a parish that dreads the many hours they are stuck in traffic every day, this is an odd sort of concept. For people who use their cars to race from one commitment to another, always watching the clock, this will sound like lunacy. We called it leisure.

Leisure is one of those things that a culture must have to advance. It is the downtime when we can think up new ideas. It is the space in which relations can grow with time. It is also the time in which we make spiritual discoveries about God with prayer, and reflection about ourselves. Leisure is the most important thing, and probably the least available thing to all of us.

Lent is here… it is time, it is opportunity to carve out a little leisure for your life. Don’t confuse leisure with doing nothing. There are no “days off” in the
spiritual life. But it is an active “making room” in life for the kind of reflection we must have in order to grow.

Giving is another spiritual discipline that we often overlook. We, generally speaking, do not give as easily as we receive. And yet, if we are not giving people, we won’t appreciate what we have. I’m not necessarily talking about the annual Bishop’s Lenten Appeal, or our several collections for local charities—these are good things and we should be generous, if we are authentic. But the integrity of a Christian includes a spirit of giving. Gifts we receive are intended for others, but we have to make the time and place available in order to be givers, or we won’t give. Once again, it’s about leisure.

Look at this amazing picture below. 300+ people made a commitment to providing the leisure necessary to attend our Called and Gifted Workshop. Response has been amazing—thanks to you all. Out of it will come what, I believe, might constitute a new spirit and a new life for Saint Mary, rooted in the gifts we have receive, and the gifts we can give.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

What an amazing parish you are! Looking back over January, thinking about all the activities we packed into the month, what with Family Week in Religious Education, Catholic Schools Week, all the preparation for two Called and Gifted Workshops and the great response you have had so far for the Lenten Friends small group Bible study program — well, it is amazing.

As I write this, the big Called and Gifted Workshop still hasn’t happened, but attendance looks like it will be well over 300 people. It will be one of the largest efforts in gifts discernment that any parish has ever attempted. Add to that about 180 parish leaders, faculty and staff from three other Workshops and you have quite a significant number who have begun the work of inviting the Holy Spirit into their lives of service in an intentional way.

Do you know what might be the result of all this? Already we are a parish that is far above the national (far, far above the international average) of Mass attendance, just under half, I figure. (Most places count a good attendance as 20-22%.) Based on the figure that we see about half, or 8,000 parishioners on a regular basis every Sunday, that means that one of every 16 active parishioners will have been blessed with the opportunity to stop for a day and consider a deeper calling from God, and more actively seek to understand the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives. That is a pretty high percentage. It will raise the sensitivity that we have of one another in seeking to help each other grow in ways that we are being called to live and serve, and our culture might slowly begin to change. If only we as a Church could do this on a massive scale! The Holy Spirit can only work among those who have an awareness of him, and a welcome.

Then, add to that so many who have signed up for the new Bible study small group program BETRANSFORMED this Lent. Already over 100 people have planned to participate — probably several times that by the time you are reading this article. Not only do we Catholics have a lot of work to do to get acquainted with texts of the Bible, but the principal value of this program is getting comfortable with sharing the faith that we have. We tend not to be “wired” for small groups, to speak freely about our feelings or about our faith. Catholics tend to be introverts in this area. But in the context of friends, we can practice that sharing skill and become more effective evangelizers, and therefore more likely to speak when needed in uncomfortable situations as well. In the process, our friendships grow, and we may even make new friends.

Last week I also had the opportunity to participate in Catholic Advocacy Day at the Virginia General Assembly. We gathered with Bishops Loverde and DiLorenzo in the morning and heard an overview of the Catholic viewpoint on major areas of legislation that are proposed for this session, then caucused according to districts to plan our conversations with our elected officials and practice what we planned to say when our appointments took place later in the morning.

Our group — Sister Susan Louise, Rick Caporali, Jim Carlson, Gregg Carneal, Tess Thome, Maureen Guilfoyle, and Dr. Trish Barber (principal of Saint Francis in Triangle) made our way to meetings with Senators Reeves and Stuart and Delegate Cole to speak on the topics of life protection and taxpayer subsidy, immigration, education, the death penalty, guns after hours in private schools, TANF reform and rapid rehousing initiatives for the homeless, among others. Our conversations were well-received, and we left with a sense that we had spent the day well.

I always wonder, afterward, how this day comes and goes with so little notice. If we truly have the opportunity to speak out and help shape the laws of our society according to our  beliefs, then it is a wonder to me that we all don’t take the day off and flood the capitol with information and voters. Over the past ten years, we have made a significant difference in the deliberations of our state legislature.

We especially thank Jeff Caruso, our parishioner and Executive Director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, for his constant attention to these matters, and to his staff who do such a nice job making all of us feel organized and valued in the work of advocacy.

Now Lent is less than two weeks away. Don’t forget to get in as much chocolate and TV as you can while there is still time. 🙂

God bless you.