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 Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I have been thinking a lot lately and praying a lot about
family, and more specifically about being a family. Maybe it’s the
fact that I’m getting older. Maybe it’s the anticipation of my
parent’s 50th
Wedding Anniversary in a few weeks and what a great day that is
going to be for our whole family. Or maybe it is the terrible pain
and the true sorrow that I felt over the now several St. Maria
Goretti families that have divorced or separated in the last few
years. Our marriages have become the “Achilles Heel” of St. Maria
Goretti. Nowhere has Satan found an easier place to attack us.
Family has been on my mind and heart a lot lately.
It’s not easy to be a family. I think that in some ways,
growing up as kids in a good family, we mistakenly believed that it
is easy or that it should be easy. Being a family means getting out
of yourself and loving and caring more for others than what we do
for ourselves. In the middle of a self-centered, narcissistic
culture like the one that we live in, being family is downright
counter-cultural. And yet, being family is the basic building block
of the Church. Indeed, so many of our Church documents describe the
Church AS a family. In fact, if the individual family is the basic
building block of the Church, then the first place that our families
experience being Church is on the Parish level. The Parish is a
very special family. It is a family of families. Our belonging to
St. Maria Goretti is not about an address where we live, or having
our name on a certain roster in the Parish Office. This is our
family. This is our home. This is where each one of us belong. I
pray every day that each one of us feel that belonging. But, I also
know that in families, there are some days that you really do feel
it and there are other days when it is pretty hard to feel it. It’s
not always easy. It’s not always convenient. And sometimes, it’s a
bunch of work and you have to put in more than you get out. But our
Parish is our family every bit as much as your biological family.
No family is perfect. And no Parish is perfect. Hopefully,
we are all working together to be better every day, but there’s no
perfect family. I think that this is hard for many of us who grew
up with Ward and June Cleaver to admit. We want perfection. And
yet, we all want to belong, and we know we’re not perfect. A good
friend of mine is fond of saying that “It’s a good thing we don’t
have a perfect Church because then a lot of us would have to find
another church to belong to.” And we need to belong!
For whatever reason, God has brought each one of us here to
this family at St. Maria Goretti. Maybe you already know why God
has you here. Maybe you haven’t got any idea why you’re here.
Maybe this was simply the Catholic Church closest to where you
live. Maybe you’ve been here since December of 1995 on that snowy
night when we had the first Mass here. Or maybe you registered this
past week. It doesn’t matter. This is our family. This is our
spiritual home.
And being family does come with costs. In a family,
everybody can’t possibly do their “own” thing or have their “own:”
way. We work together for the benefit of everybody and everybody
makes sacrifices for the good of the family. We make sacrifices
with our time. We make sacrifices using our talents and abilities
to make the community, the family, better. And we ALL make
financial sacrifices. Everybody helps. Everybody contributes.
Everybody does what they can to keep the family strong and growing.
We need your help. We need your gifts and talents and ideas. We
need your sacrifices. We need YOU! If you came to St. Maria
Goretti looking for a parish to “blend in” or “show up on Christmas
and Easter”, or to come to for Mass every once in awhile, very
possibly St. Maria Goretti is NOT the parish for you. We’re
expecting more from you and for you. We want to be a family here,
every day, in every way, in every thought, word, and action.
Hopefully, that’s what you’re looking for too. Let’s do our part.
Let’s get involved. Let’s support one another in the Catholic
Christian life. Let’s be Church! Church isn’t some place that you
go. Church is something that you ARE.
Pray for our brothers on the Christ Renews His Parish
weekend this weekend. And pray for our sisters who will be making
their Christ Renews His Parish weekend next weekend. Our prayers
for each other are powerful things.
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
If the meek inherit the earth, how long will they stay meek after
they get it?
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