On parish life

Can I add my two cents on the parish life conversation? (link, link, link, link and slightly different link. Can you tell my class is over? I'm reading blogs again.) Good points all. This topic is a conversation starter - good for creating community, evidently. It’s a conversation that my husband and I have had a various points in time when we were in parishes that were successful at involving parishioners and when we were at parishes that weren’t.  I don’t have a formula for what makes a great parish, because I agree with my sister that there is no one size fits all community.  I also think my sister is right that we shouldn’t expect our Church to fulfill all our needs. On the other hand, I think Melanie’s quote of Cardinal Ratzinger is great – our Church must be a source of brotherhood and community.  We meet for communion at Mass not just to receive Christ in the Eucharist, but also Christ in the Word and Christ in the People. In Christ, we're all family, so we should try to act like one.

When we were growing up, my parents did not hang out with friends from church. Since they were converts, they didn’t grow up with the people in our parish, and we had moved out to a rural area where we had to drive 15 or 20 minutes into town to go to church, so we didn't have any neighborhood connections, which create community naturally (as do school connections, but we were public school heathens). Additionally, my grandparents and some cousins lived in town, so my parents hung out with family or friends they had from the neighborhood or from school. 

True friendship can’t be forced, but it can be facilitated, especially in communities where people come and go. Like lots of bloggers, apparently, I am not a great one at small talk.  I tend to either have nothing to say or too much. But I appreciate when other people come up and talk to me. And as we’ve moved around, I’ve gotten better at being the person to start conversations. I don’t know that coffee and donuts after Mass is THE answer to creating fellowship, but it certainly helps.  You can tell after a couple of Sundays which families have kids that would mesh well with your own by the way they are rushing up to grab donuts. 

A couple of our parish experiences stand out. Both had priests who would tell you what to do. At our parish in Mississippi, the pastor told me in during my confession that we were going to start taking communion to the old folks’ home. Brilliant! It was not easy, but so worth it.  He also told people what they were doing for the parish festivals, told people he’d see them at the parish dinner, gave your kid a reading for the stations of the cross, made sure he assigned different people to bring stuff to this meal, that prayer service, the other event… He had a gift. And he said it all with an Irish brogue and a smile, so everyone obeyed.

This parish was large and dynamic (I just read a review of a Matthew Kelly book about what makes a “dynamic Catholic” –as opposed to just “active”, ie. churchgoing – and the short answer is prayer, study, generosity and evangelization.) There was always something going on, and usually someone reached out a personal invitation. (Southern Hospitality?)

In Virginia, our priest wasn’t quite as assigning.  In fact, he was rather shy and bumbling, but good-humored.  The effect was that he made people want to take care of him.  Pasta with the Pastor during Lent was huge, although this was not a large parish.

It’s worth noting that both of these parishes had schools. We were homeschooling in Virginia, but our kids were involved with the parish scout troop and CCD.  They made friends, so we made friends through them.  And our homeschooling friends also got together for spiritual activities like Armata Bianca and saints’ day activities. The Mississippi parish also had a school, plus an active youth group and lots of opportunities for kids to get together for service work. The teens had a yard work group that cleaned elderly parishioners' yards.  There was Friday night PLAY, where parents could drop their kids off for food and games with a catechetical bent (I can’t remember what the acronym stood for) and then go out for a date or stay and visit with each other.

I also have to give credit to Regnum Christi when we were in Illinois and Indiana for providing spiritual connections. The gospel reflection groups were what kept me involved – real, nurturing friendships were formed through them. Although I was uncomfortable with the large group’s “recruitment” mentality, I did benefit from the small group’s spiritual sustenance.  Another friend in Illinois who had a large yard and a basement hosted a rosary group with a few women from different parishes  - people she liked or thought she would like. Kids prayed the first decade with the moms and then they played, while moms finished praying and then talked. The shared prayers created an intimacy that led to real friendships – these were the people who would bring you dinner when your baby was born or take your kids for an afternoon while you napped with a new baby.

In our current situation, we attend chapel on base. It’s a very small community with almost no “ministries” except CCD  - and coffee and donuts.  We know some families outside of church from our neighborhood or the command, so we socialize together without officially organizing anything.  I keep wanting to start a youth group, but my boys don’t want me in charge. Fortunately, some opportunities have come up for the kids to get together – a dinner for foster kids, a parish picnic at the beach, a group getting together to go see a movie on base. Most of the kids go to school together so they have that connection, too. 

Wanting a little more spiritual nourishment this season, I just invited a few women over for a gospel reflection group for Advent.  Only 5 showed up, and I kind of bumbled through, not having any real vision for how to facilitate with a group of peers (didn’t want to be in teacher mode), but my daughter made delicious sour cream coffee cake and cranberry walnut bars, so maybe they’ll come back for the food!

Every time we move, the best new friends we make are those from our parish.  I do tend to show up at our new parishes and check out the faces in the pews looking for potential friends. I scan the bulletins looking for opportunities to meet people. We look for parishes that have kids in the pews about the same age as my kids because my kids often make my friends for me. 

Lately, one of my conundrums has been keeping track of the people who were my good friends at different times and places, especially as I think about writing our Christmas letter. I wonder how many of these friendships can I sustain over time and distance?  

But I don’t want to lose track of these people who really went out of their way to help me when I was struggling with small children. As I’m sitting here trying to remember what we did in different places, what I really remember are the kindnesses of a few individuals, the personal invitations from people who weren’t afraid to invite someone with 6 kids over to their house (or to a beach barbecue, at any rate). These are the people who taught me by example how the faith should be lived: they welcomed the stranger, not with idle chitchat but with real concern.  They went out of their way to offer assistance and kindness.  Thinking of them fills me with love – and sorrow that I haven’t always lived up to their example -- and wistfulness that we can’t all live in some Catholic ghetto somewhere, where we might annoy one another sometimes by too much proximity, but we might also sometimes get a foretaste of the joy of the communion of saints. 

What I learned at Bible study

What do you say when someone you barely knows tells you about her cheating husband? Is “I’m sorry” enough? That's all I could manage when a lady I had just met told me about her husband's affair.  I didn't have any advice to give, a little like Lucas in Go Down, Moses, although lately marriage has been a topic of reading material and conversation, and I don't think she wanted any.

This confession about adultery occurred at an ecumenical Bible study I’ve been attending for the last few weeks. The group is rather large, and the material, a study by Priscilla Shirer, Beth Moore, and Kay Anderson, the three big Lifeway ladies, requires about an hour to get through, so time for personal sharing is limited. But plenty is shared in the few minutes available.

I initially wasn’t sure if this group was right for me. The women all seemed familiar with the authors and were able to quote Scripture verses when they offered responses to the study questions. And they are almost all Southern Belle stylish: jeans, high heels, hi-lights in the hair. (Except the ones over 65, who are graciously stylish in a mature fashion.) But appearances aside, the other ladies are a sincere group, full of a desire to share in each other’s sufferings and provide shoulders to cry on, because it seems everyone has a sob story to tell.

I always leave each week amazed at the number of broken people out there, disguised by smiles, stylish clothes, and a gaggle of friends.

First we pray for the sick, the list of which keeps getting longer each week: an aunt with cancer, a cousin with heart disease, a baby hospitalized with a blood infection, an alcoholic son, a co-worker with leukemia. My own extended family list includes family members with heart disease, ALS, MS, multiple miscarriages, depression, joint problems, and other age related disabilities.

Then there are the infidelities: husbands, children, family members who have turned away. Cases of abuse. Carnal sins of the past. Abortions.

When the lady sitting next to me told me her husband was having an affair, she made an interesting observation, saying, “I used to be one of those people who would blame the wife. But now I know that this is spiritual warfare. I would’ve thought my husband would’ve sooner had relations with a dead deer than another woman, but his heart has turned away from God. It’s not about her or me, but him and God.”

And so she prays for him, and we pray for her and her kids.

All of these stories that are shared remind me again and again how blessed I am. Tomorrow I could lose all of these glories: health, children, husband, life. One of the most memorable bits from this Bible study came from the section by Priscilla Shirer, who quoted Charles Hummel, saying, "Don't let the urgent things crowd out the important things."

Last Sunday’s gospel from Matthew has been relevant this week, at this Bible study, while subbing at the elementary for a teacher whose father is dying, while answering phone calls at St. Vincent de Paul. Who doesn't need to be told, "Do not worry about your life,what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  . . . Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.  Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

This wronged woman, who is able to get herself up, dressed, and out about town, seems to be taking these words to heart and coping with her husband's infidelity pretty well without additional advice from me or the Bible study leaders.  What could measure up to the gospel?


So I haven't memorized any new scripture verses while attending this Bible study, but these stories of woe confirm the gospel reminder not to fret about what is lacking, but rather rejoice in what is present.

Lenten reading

Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit how much I am enjoying Peter Kreeft’s Prayer for Beginners, which is very short and elementary, but I’ve been reading it slowly, chewing on one chapter at a time. Is my prayer life so rusty that this little book grabbed my attention? This line got me: “Reading a book about doing something can be an obstacle to doing it because it gives the impression of doing what you are only thinking about doing.” Guilty. In my head I know this, and most of what Kreeft writes is familiar, but my prayer life is easily derailed by telling myself things like “I’m doing lectio divina…”


So I’ve tried to read this little book slowly as a refresher course and practice what it says, although it is not really a “how to” manual, but an gentle prod to action: “…as Brother Lawrence would say, ‘practice his presence.’ . . .To pray is to know God by practicing his presence; and this is to live in reality, instead of in fantasy worlds we construct in our own minds, in which God is absent. One moment of prayer of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world.” This little book had laid around our house in its shrink wrap for years until a couple weeks ago. In fact it almost went in the give away pile before we moved, but I thought it might be helpful to the boys in a couple years. But it was me who needed the reminders. Maybe it is a little working of the Holy Spirit that I am only open to it right now.



Perhaps I am more open to its message because I have been going to an ecumenical Bible study at the Air Force base chapel that a friend invited me to attend. We are the only two Catholics, but there haven’t been any issues of denomination, other than the fact that we have a differently vocabulary, a different theological sense to words like “church” and “anointed.”


The first day I was confident, happy to be there, ready to share what I know. But after a couple of meetings, I no longer open my mouth so eagerly. I quickly learned that these women are powerhouses of prayer. You can tell they speak directly to God, and not to impress the other women at the study. Maybe it is because they have had to beg God for their lives that their prayer is so unselfconscious. For instance, I have gradually pieced together from what has been shared that our study facilitator, a happy, peaceful blond lady in the AF Reserves, was abused by her stepfather as an adolescent, had to go through the pain of accusing him in court, left home at a young age, and lived the high life for awhile before she finally gave her life to God. Her brother is still living life day to day, in and out of jail and the hospital, in need of prayer. Another lady, who is just as cheerful as a sunny day and who has the lilting accents of a proper Southern belle, has a husband who is a manic depressive substance abuser who drinks vanilla extract when he can’t find anything else. He has taken to sleeping with a gun and has ordered night vision goggles, but diagnoses other people’s illnesses for his day job. A third, instead of the drawl of the Southern belle, uses the two syllable vowels of someone from the backwoods to talk about her mama a lot. But she also has an advanced degree and has lived all over the US and in Europe with her husband who is an AF bigwig, while nursing her sickly children.



So behind the smiles and the genuine courtesy and kindness are some scars. And although I’m not sure any of them would articulate a “theology of suffering,” they seem clearly to have offered these pains to the Lord.



The topic of the study is hearing the voice of God, based on a study by Priscilla Shirer, who is the daughter of evangelical paster Tony Evans. To me, hearing the voice of God is the gift of saints and visionaries like Mother Teresa, people given a direct call. If I were asked a month ago if I hear the voice of God, I would’ve replied negatively. Of course, I don’t hear God’s voice: that’s the province of saints, and I’m no saint. But if nothing else, this study and this little book have been the highlights of my Lent, marked otherwise by glaring failures. (loved this quote from Anne: from her pastor, Fr. Dave Cooper in Milwaukee...“Flunking Lent is still a gift from God. When you do well following your Lenten observances, that isn’t goodness on your part. It is God who gave you the strength to do it. So, when you fail to have the strength to follow through on your Lenten observances, that too, is a gift from God.” ) If nothing else, they have me trying to quiet the distractions, silencing inner critics, preparing a space for God to work.

A prayer from St. Patrick, the extended version of his breastplate prayer, which begins:  "I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.. . ." 

Time to make Irish soda bread.