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 Today
at our 10:00 AM Mass we welcome our brothers and sisters who are
discerning joining the Church this year through the RCIA process, as
we celebrate the Rite of Acceptance into the Catechumenate. This
ancient rite is the first, public recognition of those who over the
last several weeks have began their studies of our Faith. This is a
great day for the entire Church, and in particular for all of us
here at St. Maria Goretti. These are wonderful people! God has
brought each of them here at this time by various means and ways.
But the common denominator that they share is that each of them is
seeking God more fully in their lives, just as we all should. I am
so proud of these individuals and their families. Today, the
community of St. Maria Goretti also makes the commitment to keep
these individuals in our prayers over the next several months as
they head towards the Easter Vigil. This is an important task for
all of us. Our new brothers and sisters will need our prayers and
support. Also beginning today, we dismiss our Catechumens and
Candidates after the homily, to go and reflect on God’s Word. This
is particularly appropriate since they cannot as yet join us for
Holy Communion. Their leaving Mass is not for their own value.
Their leaving Mass is meant to be a stark reminder to all of the
rest of us who get to stay, just what a privilege it is to get to
attend the Liturgy of the Eucharist. All of us, even this priest,
need to take our membership in the Church more seriously and with
greater accountability. Our new Catechumens and Candidates remind
us of this. Let us not miss the message.
Today, at all of our Masses, we also begin the October Pew
Census that is done across the country. In the next four weeks, the
Ministers of Welcome will be counting “souls” at each of our Masses,
at the beginning of the Homily. This is the chosen time because it
gives everybody who comes late a chance to get there, and the
beginning of the Homily is USUALLY before those who are going to
leave early desert us. Once again, wouldn’t it be nice if we could
all get here on time, and actually saw the priest begin Mass? And
wouldn’t it be awesome if we could all just stay that couple of
extra minutes at the end of Mass until the closing hymn was actually
over? I’m telling you, Jesus weeps in Heaven over our lack of
respect. We can do better. The October Pew Census, of course, also
reminds us of how important it is to attend Mass each Sunday. We
need to be here for God and for each other. St. Maria Goretti has
always had an attendance rate of about 60 to 61%, according to our
past October Pew Censuses. Last year, for the first time, we saw an
11% drop in our 2006 attendance rate, so that 49 to 50% of our
Parish was coming to Mass on Sunday. And while even our last year’s
rate was still higher than the national average, we still have a lot
of work to do. Guys, we need to be here! You can’t stay Catholic
very long if you’re not coming to Mass. It just won’t work. The
Eucharistic celebration brings us together and keeps us together as
Church. To exempt yourself from the weekly celebration of the
community, is like committing spiritual suicide for us as Catholic
Christians. You’re killing your soul. For parents, to prevent
their baptized children from getting to Mass and joining the
community for the celebration of the Lord’s Day, is a mortal sin.
We all need to be here! Shouldn’t our goal this month, every
October, and indeed every month of every year, be to get 100% of St.
Maria Goretti Parish here every Sunday? Yeah, we’ve got people
traveling, and we’ve got people who are sick, and we’ve got people
going to Mass at other parishes, but more than half? We can do a
lot better. As I said last week, this is OUR Parish family. This
is our home. This is a problem for all of us.
Speaking of traveling and being gone, I will be leaving this
week to go with a group of adults from the Parish on the St. Philip
Neri Oratorio Pilgrimage to Italy. This is not going to help our
attendance rate and number, I know. October is NOT a good time to
go away when you’re an American Catholic. Because I can’t be here,
YOU really need to be here to get our number up. I will be back on
Oct. 24th.
Please pray for the pilgrimage. Twenty-nine of our brothers and
sisters are going with me. For the next two weeks, we will be using
our “one-priest-daily Mass schedule” which drops the Tues. evening
5:30 PM Mass and the Wed. morning 8:00 AM Mass from the schedule.
Please be aware of this until the 24th.
We pray this weekend for the ladies making the Women’s
Christ Renews His Parish Weekend. Last weekend, the men had several
amazing miracles take place on their weekend. We expect no less
from the ladies this weekend. Prayer works!
Have a great week! Nothing is impossible with God!
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
Remember that the Noah’s Ark was built by an amateur while the
Titanic was built by professionals
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