Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

It has been a while since I’ve written about housekeeping items in church, but since we are coming into the summer season and it seems that the complaints are coming in more numerously, now is as good a time as any to cover some of these things. So I have a few invitations for you, as you come to Mass.

Invitation 1
Please reflect on what you are about to wear to Mass. Fashion, like language, says so much about you, and I suspect there are many people who are saying a lot of things that they do not intend (at least I hope so). Some forms of clothing are never appropriate, and definitely not at Mass. I understand that people just don’t spend money on dress clothes anymore, and maybe can’t, but when you buy attire please consider items that include sufficient fabric to actually clothe. I think this is important. Sometimes when people come to confession and ask if cussing is a sin, I say to them that, for some words, the verdict may still be out. But, I ask, is that how you want people to remember you? We as a society have bought wholesale the cheap look of disrespect for self and others: it isn’t appropriate anywhere.

Invitation 2
If you are parents with young children, you are invited to check out the cry room. I spoke with one family with young children last weekend, new to the parish, who were not aware that we have one. We welcome children, we love them,too—but you have no idea how hard it is to focus on giving a homily when there is so much going on in the church. I am also aware, from what I have heard from many, how hard it is also to pray. Phone conversations in the pews, reading children’s books to your family, conversations, noisy toys—all these things need to be kept outside the doors of the church. Church is for one purpose,for us to pray as Jesus to the Father. And when we get in the way of people who are seeking that goal, we are the problem. And we are not teaching our kids to be reverent and attentive.
Here are a few rules for the cry room.

1. It is for crying. If your children are crying this is your place for the moment. If your children are good, don’t go in there until you need to.
2. It is not for playing. Parents have told me that they don’t go in there because there are children playing and they don’t want this to be what their children learn about church.
3. If you do not have crying children, you may not use the room. A number of people seem to like going in there; those seats are for parents who are trying to hold it together with their kids.

Invitation 3
To be helpful, if you don’t have young children, try to sit on the choir side of the church; then parents with crying children don’t have so far to go. Don’t fill up the seats in front of the cry  room windows if you don’t have young children. Likewise, if you have potentially upset children, please sit near the cry room or vestibule so you can gain rapid escape. When I was a kid the  Monsignor of the parish frequently put in the bulletin: “Good intentions, like crying babies, should be carried out immediately.”

Invitation 4
I invite you to consider the need for silence in the church before and after Mass. It is the general and honorable practice of the Church (and a good  one) to pray silently in preparation for Mass: “Lord, open my heart to hear your Word; Lord open my heart to receive your Life.” People might be trying to pray the rosary, meditate on the readings  of Sacred Scripture for today’s Mass in the missalette, even praying Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. But imagine how hard this can be when there is so much going on around you. For this reason I ask that everyone observe this respectful silence before Mass. Actually, we are one of the best parishes for this that I have seen, but we get a little off our form in the summer.  Also, after Mass is a good time to make a special silent prayer of thanksgiving to God for his goodness today.

Invitation 5
This is the one people tell me to write about the most, many want announcements before Mass begins… Beware the diabolical devices of mobile communications! Really. We all have to have one, but there is a silent mode that we should all take advantage of. I’m guilty, too, but it only took one time for my phone to ring during consecration for me to remember to switch it off before entering the church. Please, I invite you to shut off anything that is going to speak with any kind of tone other than human praise and thanks.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

This season we are in the middle of one of the most spiritually powerful times that a parish can experience. How many sacraments have we received this year! I consider the shower of grace and blessings we have experienced as God has given us so many gifts. Nearly 200 children with Confirmation—that is a lot of Holy Spirit! About 60 adults and children who were fully initiated in the Church at the Easter Vigil. We watched  throughout the season of Easter as over 200 children in our midst received Holy Communion for the first time, week after week we were reminded how the parish grows in grace.

We are constantly reminded that God doesn’t give sacraments for the sake of individuals alone (in fact, individualism is what is eroding the fabric of religious practice in the world today), but he gives the gifts of the sacraments that the whole Body of Christ is built up “to full stature,” as Saint Paul says, to fulfill the plan of God for his people. Each one of those sacraments was a gift to all of us, we are all touched by hundreds of gifts in these past weeks.

Often we see that the reception of a sacrament in a family touches all the members in a spiritual,  beautiful way. Hearts are turned back to God, old differences are reconciled, a knowledge of the love of God comes under our roof and we are more deeply aware of his presence with us.

This year, one of our own parishioners is being ordained to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. By the time you are reading this, Fr. Joe Farrell will be a priest of our diocese of Arlington. But not only him: others we have gotten to know in their summer assignments will also be ordained. We will have the privilege of celebrating and thanking God for the gift of priesthood also for Fr. Rich Miserendino and Fr. Kevin Dansereau, who spent summers with us.

We look to welcome back our parishioner Joseph Townsend who currently attends the Josephinum this summer, and will welcome another seminarian to our parish for this summer, Joseph Rampino, who has one more year at the North American College in Rome. Like many priests who have spent their last seminarian assignment with us, Joseph Rampino will be ordained a deacon in Rome this October.

I have a reason behind listing all of these priests and seminarians who have been with us over the years (let’s not forget also Fr. Jeb Donelan, Fr. David Dufresne, Fr. Steven Walker and Fr. Tony Killian): God has blessed us. And we grow in Christ, specifically in our common priesthood of the faithful, these sacraments are showered not only on the priests themselves, but their families and their communities. We don’t pray intentionally often enough that God will multiply these vocations in our midst: this weekend, this is our task. To ask God to allow the grace of this sacrament to touch every person in this parish.

Five years before I was ordained I was driving from Dallas to Lincoln, Nebraska for my brother’s ordination. I was angry that he might be throwing his life away, he had a very promising career as a physicist and I wasn’t so sure that he was making the right decision. I wasn’t a big fan of the Church, there had been too many confusing messages in the first two decades of my life. To whose Catholic Church were we supposed to belong, anyway?

But I arrived at the ordination, the liturgy began. We got to the point where my brother and his classmates prostrated (lay face-down on the floor), a sign of them giving their life to God, dying to themselves. We sang the litany of saints.They rose from the floor, new creations. I saw it all so clearly, tears came. He hadn’t given himself to the Church, he had finally given himself to God and the people who God placed in his life. To make a complicated story short, I returned to Dallas, did what was necessary to close my advertising design firm, had a big yard sale and reported to seminary by September of that same summer.

To all you young men and women who might still have persevered in reading this far: I challenge you to respond to the call you hear. I have not looked back. Sure, there have been times when I wondered if I did the right thing, or I have known great frustration and even difficulty. But I don’t know a married person who wouldn’t say the same thing. That is life. But this life is so great. I have a family of 15,000+ people and more  opportunity than I ever might have imagined in the summer of 1989. And God is truly good.

Pray that even the tiniest piece of all this ordination goodness might touch your heart this week.Let God’s grace do its work, and open to him.

God bless you.