Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

We Arlington priests were at our annual convocation last week, half of the priests of the diocese for the first half of the week, the second half for the second. We go to a place near Emmitsburg MD, a ski resort that apparently has good prices in the summer for such meetings. We usually listen to a speaker give presentations on a certain topic. This year, a Dominican priest spoke to all the priests in the diocese on giving better homilies.

I found what he had to say rang true, it was a talk that we needed to hear as a diocesan presbyterate. I came away with a lot of good reflections, one in particular that I wanted to share with you today that I found particularly compelling.

He said that each homily must actualize Sacred Scripture as a gift that is meant especially for us, an inspired text that is able to speak to each of us in the way in which each of us needs to be answered. Each of us brings something to Mass that is real, that needs to be respected, that seeks an answer. He said—and this is the point—that the act of preaching has to be the act of giving people back their heart.

It spoke to me in a way that seemed so familiar, in a way that I believe the Gospel empowers us as adults to make sense of our lives and find God at the center. That we become thrown off center by the world, that we have our hearts stolen in so many ways by our own sin, and by the confusion and cruelty and inhumanity of the world—not to begin speaking of the absence of grace—that we encounter every day, nearly everywhere we go. Sometimes people begin to feel that God is far away, when it is really our own hearts to which we have become estranged. We are meant for better!

To get back our hearts by the unfolding of the Word of God, and then to have his body and blood literally become the life that flows in our veins. Only then can we have the courage, the confidence, to go and be true disciples. The Word of God is spoken from a loving Father: all that the Son has, the Father has given. It makes for a powerful reflection on Mothers’ Day. Isn’t this the love that gives you back your hearts, the place you can always go when all else in the passing world leaves us unsatisfied and broken? There is a love that endures.

We first come to know this love from our parents, if we are lucky. But even our parents may not have come to learn this from their parents, the brokenness of our humanity is something that can be handed for many years, unless the love of Christ enters and transforms.

Jesus speaks of his relationship in the Trinity as the relationship of himself to a parent, his Father. Of course, his Father isn’t a man (or a woman), but he reveals the relationship as one of a son to a father, the image of God and his sons and daughters. This parenthood is one of perfect love, absolute gift, constant and eternal giving of life and receiving of life, perfect joy. We can see clearly in Jesus how to be a good son, but it is not so clear how to be a good parent. So here, a perfect mother is included in God’s plan so that the relationship of parent to child is perfectly given, to give us hope as well as the reassurance of possibility. Mary is given to Jesus, and Jesus gives Mary to us in just the same way he hands over to us everything else that the Father is and has given to him. On the cross, Jesus’ heart is pierced in order to be raised. Mary is given the beautiful role of the one to whom we can always go whenever we need to get back our heart, her perfect love and welcome home is offered to each of us. It is the heart of Jesus himself, to which she gave birth, formed in youth, cared for in his greatest suffering, to whom she brings us back in her role as our Mother.

Mothers of Saint Mary, consider this incomparable role that teaches us to know Mary and approach the love of Jesus: you have always been the place we can go to get back our hearts. May mothers today learn this most exalted role as the one they best can fulfill, and bring all us children back to the love of Jesus by first revealing this love to us in our hearts. May God bless our families, especially you moms, all of you, whether you are still with us or have gone on to know the perfect love of heaven. Happy Mothers’ Day.

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,