When my husband, Richard, and I moved back to Phoenix from Los Angeles 24 years ago, we had a hard time finding a parish community that felt like home. For more than six months we visited at least eight parishes with our 1-year-old son in tow. Nothing felt right and we started to panic as we felt more unsettled and disconnected.
Finally, I made an appointment to meet with Mary Ann, the director of Religious Education at St. Paul’s, the parish closest to our house. I poured out my heart, my fear about our recent experiences and unloaded all the things that had not worked for us. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from her, but she was so kind. I could tell she cared for us and courageously challenged us to take responsibility to be an active part of the solution to our nomadic wandering from parish to parish.
She gently asked how Richard and I fully participated in our previous parish in California. At that point, we did not understand her question. After all, we went to church weekly and celebrated the sacraments. But Mary Ann invited us to take a step further, to “come and see” what it meant to fully tap into parish life, and we did! Through ministry, service and an active small faith community, we developed a faith family that remains to this day despite several of us now attending different parishes.
God is relationship
There are theologians much smarter than I who spend countless hours unpacking the Theology of the Trinity. But for me, it’s simple — God cannot be understood outside of relationship, a community of persons, three in one.
As Bishop John often reminds us, Emmanuel means God with us. God calls us into relationship with one another because we are made in His image and likeness. We are made for relationship, and we have responsibility toward each other. We are called to see through the lens of love, care and compassion even when it is difficult or messy.
This is the beauty of parish community life. This is the journey that Jesus paves.
We see in Scripture that Jesus did not walk alone. He also didn’t choose perfect companions. His community was flawed, often fighting, selfish, greedy and disloyal. Yet upon this very community of disciples, and upon us today, He builds His Church.
Belonging and relationships do not happen over night and it’s not always easy, but it’s what we were created for, it’s where we are called to be.
Welcome to the family
Every Easter Vigil we welcome Catechumens, new members of the family who are choosing to unite their lives to the Church. What a privilege! Richard and I experienced being welcomed to fully participate in the life of the Church 24 years ago, and every year I’m reminded that we have the same opportunity to extend a welcoming embrace both to new Church family members and those who already fill the pews.
Maybe it’s as simple as finding someone you don’t recognize after Sunday Mass and introducing yourself or, like Bishop John recommends in year one of his seven-year pastoral plan on evangelization, you can take the time to write a letter of prayers and blessings for one or more of the Catechumens in your parish. Discern your gifts, reach out to your parish and get plugged into a ministry.
There is a place for you, and I’d like to extend the same invitation to you that Mary Ann offered to Richard and me: take the next step to plug in fully to the beautiful, messy, imperfect and life-changing invitation that is parish life!
As we walk this Lenten journey preparing for Easter, my deepest prayer for us as a faith family is that we each fully participate. As we choose love, grace, light and hope, may our lives attract those who have not yet had the opportunity to know and live the Good News.
And let us never forget that God is with us as we find Him in one another.
