Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of St. Mary,

I was on the phone the other day with a dear friend of mine who is an evangelical minister in the Chicago area, we were trying to put together details for some upcoming meetings. It was a Saturday afternoon and I told him I would email him the information shortly, as soon as I could get to it after confessions were over. He said, “That’s fine. But just know that I won’t respond to you until Monday morning. I shut my phone off for the Sabbath.” My reaction was, “You’re kidding, right?” I mean, I didn’t say it out loud to him, but I was thinking it.

As accustomed as we have tried to become to constant emailing and texting, I wonder the damage caused by the sheer volume of communication as a constant activity. But if we don’t check in very regularly, the emails and messages pile up so quickly that we don’t have time to catch up.
My friend isn’t actively serving a congregation as a pastor at the present time, he attends a church, so he doesn’t have the weekend demand. But still — I don’t think I could go off the grid for the Lord’s Day. I think of myself as one who has tried to keep limits on these things, to manage several hundred communications a day. I tried Facebook for about three months, only to learn that it filled my inbox with information that either wasn’t necessary or simply not any of my business.

I learned things about people and how they dealt with each other that I realized I’d just rather not know. As for all the “friends” and “friending” that was taking place, I found it a very cheap substitute for real relationship and, if we were honest, was more of an addiction for information, scanning, searching, consuming knowledge about other people and what is going on. It is a modern-day, infinite version of the one-column by five-inch article in the newspaper (old school) that we used to call the weekly “gossip column.” Back to my friend. The more I thought about it, I realized that we have allowed these hundreds-a-day invasions of time. We all know people who do little else all day long. One young adult I know counts among his very best friends those with whom he chats on line, people that he actually has never met in person. “Doesn’t that trouble you?” I asked him. “Not at all,” he replied. “Should it?” Have you found yourself resenting the many demands which too easily can be made by anyone who types a sentence and hits “send”? Your response is expected. This “remote control” allows us to hold expectations for others with very little personal accountability for ourselves. It also allows us to act inhumanly, even cruelly, without any responsibility, patricularly when we communicate anonymously. We learned a long time ago to never look at a public blog, some seem basically a license for hatred.

One social media site popular with teens advertises itself as the place where you can “be anyone you want to be.” It makes you wonder if the person on the other end of the ether is who they say they are, at all. Some people have begun to refuse to use email or social media at all. “If you want to speak to me, or ask me something, you just need to call.” There is a growing awareness that community cannot be established and nurtured through an unnatural, impersonal message (which is so often misunderstood, anyway). Since community is built on relationships, these relationships need to be real, face-to-face, and multi-leveled. Our community is based on the quality of its communication. How are we doing? Are we losing the ability to communicate we once had? Will a new generation develop with a completely different, detached understanding of relationship? There will never be a substitute for real-time encounter and sharing. Give somebody a call.

May God bless you,

Dear Good People of St. Mary,

In the next few weeks we will be very busy putting together the Catalog of Parish Ministries for the upcoming annual Parish Life Weekend, September 20/21. For those of you who are new, each September St. Mary has several major events which, in a way, mark the “beginning of the ministry year”: once everyone is back from vacations and summer activities, we start school at Holy Cross Academy, we open Religious Education for the year, and we have a big celebration Ice Cream Social, Cakewalk and Dance out at Holy Cross (September 14, this year it actually falls on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross).

The following weekend, September 20/21,every ministry in the parish (nearly 100) presents their work under tents outside the church before and after all Masses, to let people get to know what the possibilities might be for their own participation in ministry, and know they are welcome to get involved. Ministries include all the major areas of work represented in committee by the Parish Advisory Board: education, outreach, liturgy, operations, and parish life (the social committee). We call this “Parish Life Weekend.”

Included in the catalog packet that all 5,200+ households receive after Labor Day is a Commitment Card. Between Parish Life Weekend and the following weekend, “Commitment Sunday,” all parishioners are asked to enter into a period of discernment, to ask the question: “How is God calling me to serve this year?” Sometimes, I think, this period of discernment is not taken so seriously, and people don’t realize how seriously we need to take this matter of active participation/involvement in the life of the parish. Every parishioner should be involved in the work of the Church in some way, to give back in love what we have received in love. Everyone is asked to return the card as an outward sign of their internal disposition to pray, serve, support. Even those who are already serving in a ministry or ministries are asked to renew their commitment by completing a commitment card.

Anyway, on the weekend of September 27/28, Commitment Sunday, we offer these Commitment Cards as the second offering, an offering of how we commit to pray in the coming year, how we commit to serve, and how we commit to support the active mission of the parish which is the salvation of souls and service of others to the glory of God. In a recent interview with a marketing firm who is seeking ways to best promote the services of Catholic Charities, I was asked what I thought was the role of the Pastor in getting people involved. I knew the answer they were looking for: the Pastor’s job is to be the cheerleader, to encourage, to plead, to offer bribes where necessary and guilt as a last resort to those who will eventually wear down and give in to the request to take on a particular ministry as their extracurricular activity. How many times have people taken on a “job” in the Church because “Father asked.” And how many times have people, after a long period of time (or even a short one) begun to resent the time and energy that it takes? Ultimately, “I’m doing it for Father” doesn’t cut it anymore. We see this so often. People burn out, and when their term is up they feel bad about the resentment they feel and drift away. Sometimes they disappear. It’s like we use up and call it mission.

This year our period of discernment will have a different approach. I am going to ask all of you to look into your hearts. In what way has God prepared this place for you so that your gifts—the gift that is you—might be realized? Not just used; realized. Because, you see, it isn’t “Father” who calls the Church into being, it is God. Jesus isn’t the sign of God’s love, he is God’s love. And he started the Church—us—to be the living signs of his presence in the world.

It’s a big job, but somebody has to do it. And we can only accomplish it in communion with him, together. For this reason, our theme this year is “Given in love, Called in love.”