Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Today I’m writing from Dublin, it is Tuesday afternoon and we are on our parish trip to Ireland. We went this morning to the Neolithic archeological site of Newgrange / Knowth, where people lived 6,000 years ago and built massive burial mounds according to the path of the sun. The photo below shows our group assembled on the top of the largest mound in the Boyne valley north of Dublin, in the distance behind us is the hill of Slane, where Saint Patrick lit the Paschal Fire and shortly after converted and baptized the high king and people of Leinster. So far we have only spent time around Dublin, but  tomorrow we will head for the center and south of the Republic of Ireland. More next week!

I do have to say one thing, though. There is something about this country that really affects me. I’ve mentioned the idea of so-called “thin places” before, those places where the spiritual, unseen reality of God and his presence is almost tangible, you just know something powerful is present to you. I always forget, until I’m back, that Ireland is this to me. Especially certain places. It has always been my experience, for example, when we visit Clonmacnoise, the 7th century monastery ruins of St. Cieran (where we go tomorrow and we will be able to celebrate Mass in the ruins of one of the chapels), and the ocean coast of Kerry. It has only been recently that I discovered in my genealogy work that my ancestors are from these places. I have the same kind of unexplainable emotional reaction when I hear Uilleann pipes—not the sound of bagpipes, that is too loud and brash in comparison to the haunting, beautiful subtlety of Irish pipes.

I always say this, but I truly mean it. I wish we could take everyone on these trips. There is a beauty to traveling with the spirit of pilgrims, a deep reverence and appreciation of how we come to grow and know people, and learn.

On the parish front, it is time to begin seriously making plans for the fall and I want to insist on the duty of all our parents to follow through with the good practice of ensuring the religious formation for your children. It is something to which parents and godparents make a solemn commitment at baptism, and I firmly believe that children have no strong chance today in following through with their faith if they don’t have a good foundation in religion. It is difficult enough to think that most adults are living lives and trying to make sense of God and faith with an education that ended with Confirmation in eighth grade. How can adults survive life with an eighth grader’s understanding of God? No wonder the spark goes out so quickly in high school and college.

Please renew your commitment and register your children with us. We put a lot of energy and time into always making our program better, as good as it can be, and we take our parish responsibility to support our parents in this primary duty seriously. To the 2,700+ children and youth in our parish who aren’t receiving formation: Please join us.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

First, a great thank you to all of you who  responded to the Unbound Ministry priests who  visited two weekends ago while I was away. I’ve  heard from several people who had comments  about the homilies and presiders; never the  less it seems that they did their work and you did yours, too. I had mentioned at the few  Masses I had this past weekend that our parish responded with a record 100+ adoptions for any parish they had ever visited. Later I learned that  the real number was 205! I am very glad you  were so generous. Unbound is one of the few  (apparently) charitable “adoption” agencies with  an A++ rating, which means that nearly all of the  money they receive goes to the charity for which  they serve. So, again, thank you!

I hope you got a chance to see the photos which were printed in the bulletin last week of our visits to the Oblate Sisters’ missions in South Africa and Namibia. If not, you can always go to our website—and see the photos as they really are!— in the bulletin archives. At the Masses for which I presided here last weekend I spoke a bit more about how our parish is going to make sure every child has a pillow and a pillowcase as a starter for our relationship with the Mission of Saint Joseph School in Gabis (Karasburg), Namibia. Many of you have already responded hoping to participate in this project, as well as another project I hope to start, that of constructing bathrooms for the children. The boys’ bathroom (for 85 boys) has two commodes and they are not functioning well. I hope to investigate the possibility of building sustainable, waterless (as much as possible, as water is precious in the desert) bathrooms which will accommodate more children, larger bathrooms for both the girls and the boys. We will be sensitive to make sure that local people are employed and local businesses get the contracts as much as possible, and that we don’t upset the balance of these girls and boys in staying true to the simplicity of their lives, introducing a dissatisfaction for what they have. They have so little, and are so joyful because they don’t have the complications of our lives, and we don’t intend to introduce anything unnecessary for their well-being.

Already it is August, and we leave on our annual parish trip to Ireland tonight (Sunday). It seems like there has been too much travel this summer. We originally were going to have our Buddhist – Catholic Dialogue here in the States, but the Holy Father asked that we have our first meeting in Rome, so that was unexpected. Then the dedication in Pella was originally thought to be the week following Easter Sunday when the Sisters could be away without missing too much school, but it moved to this summer in getting the convent finished. So the one trip to Ireland, which has been planned for a year, is starting this week. We will pray for (and toast) all of you while we are visiting the other Holy Land.

As we have nearly completed all the materials for our Stewardship / Discipleship plan for the coming year, I thought I would include some excerpts from Pope Francis’ Misericordiae Vultus, the Bull of Indiction announcing the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, in this week’s bulletin.

Our theme for the coming year is “People of Thankfulness Sowing Seeds of Mercy,” and we have chosen this theme because it is for God’s mercy that we are most thankful. The life of faith can only grow in the soil of gratitude, when we realize what we have received from God and are filled with gratitude for his goodness. Then, and only then, are we able to be merciful to others as God is merciful to us, to be forgiven as we forgive, to love with the love that is familiar to us because God has loved us first.

I hope you enjoy this text. We will be studying  and praying about growing in gratitude throughout the coming year as our parish fine tunes our ability to respond to Jesus’ call as good disciples. Some major dates to keep in mind are:

• 13 September—Parish Ice Cream Social, cakewalk and Dance;
• 19-20 September—Parish Life Weekend with tents and ministry reps available after all Masses;
• 26-27 September—Commitment Sunday;
• 9-10 October—Called and Gifted Workshop: Join the 500+ parishioners who have dug deeper in the spiritual life discovering gifts received in Baptism and how to unlock them serving God. I ask all who have completed the Workshop to encourage several people to consider taking it and reserving the time in their calendars;

Before we know it, it will be Christmas!

God bless you.