The life of Catholic faith is one lived in community. With the exception of the most ascetic hermits (and even they would counsel one another and local people periodically), we Catholics live out our faith together. And the anchor of this faith life is the parish. Drawing from the lead of the pope in Rome, the bishop of the diocese, and belonging to vicariates, deaneries, and clusters, the parish is the first line, the foothold, for communal Catholic life.
For whatever reasons, belonging to one’s Catholic parish seems a slippery proposition for Catholics today. We are inconsistent when it comes to choosing a parish to attend regularly and registering as a parishioner, and we are infamously stingy with our parish giving, especially compared to other Christian denominations.
Parish life is important to me, but it’s something that has evolved as I’ve grown up. It was an integral part of my upbringing but faded to the background in high school and college. Then, as an adult and professional minister, I had to reengage with becoming a parishioner and personally invest in belonging.
Growing Up at St. James
St. James out in Arlington Heights was (and is) a fine parish. Right in the middle of one of the biggest Chicago suburbs, we had five or more Masses a weekend, split between our decent-sized church, which was too small for our average Sunday Mass crowd, and our parish center, the school gym/auditorium/lunchroom that doubled as a worship space. Our school was strong and stable, churning out strong graduates to the area high schools. And we had the mixed blessing of having three or four priests at a time (unheard of today) but losing them frequently since our longtime pastor, Fr. Bill,1 became a pastor-groomer of sorts; young priests with clear potential to become pastors were stationed with Bill and us to learn the ropes for a little while and eventually be given a parish of their own.
Each Sunday, my family had a steady rhythm of getting out the door by 8:45am (typically with dad sitting in the van, engine running, by 8:40), walking in a few minutes before 9am, communing with the 9am Mass, and waltzing on over to Granny’s, which later became Uptown Cafe, for Sunday brunch; we sometimes even arrived ahead of the rush if mom didn’t run into some conversation before humming the closing hymn on her way out to the car. We would only deviate maybe a handful of times a year from that rhythm, occasionally for travel or a Bears home game.The mainstays of St. James are seared into my memory with warm nostalgia. The same parish dads and granddads stood at the ready by shelf stations full of hymnals and missalettes and bulletins that had surely been repainted the same shade of brown dozens of times, this job by the entrances/exits sandwiched around their ushering duty for communion. The slippery-dusty tile of the parish center hosted the same creaky black plastic chairs with aplomb. The custom built island-risers, no doubt a one-off volunteer job of ingenuity, spare wood, and off-tan carpeting, lifted the ambo and altar to visible eye levels for the congregation. The mobiles of liturgically apt colored banners hung proudly from the vaulted drop ceiling and/or basketball hoops. The greatest hits of GIA’s Gather hymnal sung proudly by an exceptional amateur choir with its own musical flair.
While we weren’t the family that volunteered its brains out at fundraisers and social events, we were around plenty. My mom worked over a dozen years at our parish school. My dad sat on the finance council for many years himself. My brothers both altar served. And all three of us studied there for nine years and graduated from the parish school. While our outstanding Catholic high school, St. Viator supplied us the central formation of our teen years, our parish remained the heartbeat home of our faith, week in and week out. I can’t imagine having grown up in another parish or having pinballed between different churches as we moved or church-shopped. St. James and my family’s commitment there spoiled me with a sturdy faith foundation.
Beginning to Adult
In its own way, four years at the University of Notre Dame certainly hammered home the power of a strong faith community. From the Notre Dame Folk Choir to Notre Dame Vision to basilica liturgy and prayer, Notre Dame allows its students to immerse in their faith life with ease, given its preponderance of chapels, priests, and celebrations. For example, once a week, on Monday or Wednesday night, I would simply walk down a flight of stairs, typically without shoes and wearing whatever comfortable clothes I already had on, and attend Mass in my house’s chapel with the priest who also lived in my house. They don’t call it Catholic Disney World for nothing.
The challenge then, after one graduates, is to seek out a nourishing faith community beyond the comfort of the bubble. Few places can match the convenience and potency of faith life at Notre Dame, so the next step involves a degree of realism when engaging with the outside world as well as with a healthy dose of idealism drawing on the positive experience on Our Lady’s campus.My year of post-grad service went a long way toward teaching me the mechanics of parish life. My volunteer community, the House of Brigid, offered youth ministry, music ministry, and catechesis to the faithful of Ireland, primarily through our host parish, Clonard Parish and its Church of the Annunciation. We supported and led choirs at Mass, made frequent visits to the parish schools to teach kids about the Mass and engage them in its ministries, and spent a lot of time with the priests, staff, and active parishioners supporting the parish’s ministries.
My year at Clonard showed me how much it takes just to sustain the rudimentary basics of parish life. The best laid plans made of the most creative ideas and the most diligent logistical preparations went for nothing if they didn’t speak to the people they targeted. Even that which is “required” -- for example, Sacramental prep events -- doesn’t become well-attended and vibrant unless its participants are responding to strong relationships among themselves in the community and with the parish and its leadership. I learned how connecting personally with parents, young people, and elderly parishioners dramatically boosts the attendance and enthusiasm of a parish’s events by building them off relationships.
Following my volunteer year, I returned to the US and set up shop in Palm Desert, CA, for my first full-time job in campus ministry and the theology department at a Catholic high school. I made it a priority to choose a parish quickly, to register, to get my envelopes and make a financial commitment, and to find a way to be involved. I was fairly quiet during my first few months at Sacred Heart Palm Desert, getting my sea legs under me in my first job as I learned to juggle teaching,2 coaching, and campus-ministering. I found my own Sunday routine as I gravitated to the 8am Mass -- wake up and get ready, go to 8am Mass, hit up the grocery store around the corner, unpack and change, go for a run before the sun and heat of the afternoon hit, and sit down for some football3 and a halftime frozen pizza for lunch.
After a few months, I knew that my work would all but tap me out, so I decided to just become a Eucharistic Minister for the 8am Mass. I got to know some of the parishioners by chatting before Mass in the sacristy, but it was definitely a struggle. The group was a bit separated and felt elite-ish. I was fine with processing in with the priest, a welcome way to emphasize the Mass’ ministers. But additionally, they insisted all EMs wear the white robe (like altar servers), sit in the front pews beside the altar (even apart from family), and carry the cross in the procession (which sometimes fell to me, but seemed like a role better match to an empowered teenager). Furthermore, the pastor would periodically say our weekly Mass at the high school but did not recognize, remember, or get to know me at all, showing up for Mass only at the last minute and disappearing quickly after Mass while making thorough use of the homily.
After about six months, I decided to step away from the ministry and return to my anonymity in the pews. I still would occasionally see friends and co-workers at Mass, and I appreciated having some familiar faces around; I felt that the parish was still my faith home, and faithfully continued my Sunday tradition. Soon after, I decided to accept a scholarship offer and a new job back in Chicago, so my time there would be ending soon anyway. Nonetheless, stepping behind the scenes there showed me the diversity of opinion and preference possible (even probable) among a parish’s clergy and its most active parishioners, and this prepared me to be patient and open as I would surely see something like that wherever I went. I would return a year later as a Confirmation sponsor, and though the prep program left something to be desired among our students, it felt good to be there with that community again for the Sacrament.
One great moment at Sacred Heart affirmed my adult faith to me in a most nostalgic way. Growing up, I’d always see different parents and adults shaking hands with the same ushers who always coordinated communion traffic, and I thought it was so neat and stately. One week, as I raised my kneeler and stood to go forward for communion at Sacred Heart, I recognized the man ushering our section -- he was from a prominent family at our school, and I worked with his sons and coached them. As I reached the end of the pew, we caught eyes, smiled, and shook hands. Call me a clown, but this little moment warmed my Catholic soul immensely.
Coming Home
Moving home was great for being closer to family and finally being in the same place as my formerly long-distance girlfriend (and now wife), but it was also largely driven by a grad school scholarship and the chance to be the campus minister at a Catholic high school. Between grad night classes and the extra odd hours involved in retreats and service stuff, I didn’t get a lot of down time to myself.
So while we had found a great new parish, St. Clement, I had resolved just to be a fairly anonymous Mass-going parishioner. We would go to a theology on tap talk or a Lenten service here and there, but I wasn’t in a position to commit to much more. The only time it almost was a problem was when a interviewer for a prospective job wanted a reference from my pastor; I went to him directly and explained my situation, and he completely understood and said he’d put in “the God word” for me. Four years at St. Clement have a lot of happy memories and homey feelings -- it is the church where I stood up for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding and where my daughter, Lucy, was baptized.After Lucy was born, we moved to Oak Park, a near suburb of Chicago, and gradually sunk our teeth into the six parishes in our new hometown and its neighbor. Taking one Sunday at each place, we narrowed it down to two parishes that felt best to us -- strong, participational music ministry, ubiquitous family/children presence, and welcoming, hospitable priests. We spent a month’s worth of Sundays at each of the two, and eventually, we registered at Ascension Parish in Oak Park.
As a part-time stay-at-home dad with a daughter who’s starting to walk and interact with other little ones, the family feel and parent-focused community opportunities at Ascension sealed the deal. It took my introverted, bashful self a little while to get started, but we’ve begun tapping into that aspect of parish life. I joined a Lent faith-sharing group, and the mostly middle-aged and elderly group members are all too happy to have Lucy around during our meetings. I volunteered to help at a games day fundraiser in the parish school and showed up with Lucy, stroller, and baby-carrier; the other adults were wonderfully supportive and helpful and loved that Lucy “helped” me run my game.
One of the coordinators at that fundraiser turned us on to First Fridays, where the parish coordinates a post-daily-Mass event for toddlers and pre-schoolers and holds it in the school with coffee and donuts for parents. Lucy and I headed over for the March event, a music class led by a local group, but we didn’t see many parents in the church for Mass. I was a little worried but figured I could ask our priest or a couple of the adults there from my faith-sharing group for directions on where to go. Before I could even pack Lucy’s bag and get her going, a mom and toddler approached us and asked if we were heading to the play group. She introduced the two of them and explained that a lot of the moms and caretakers don’t necessarily make it to Mass but will show up to the playgroup (and sure enough there were easily two dozen there when we started). I was so grateful to have that outreach before my confusion or bashfulness could intervene.
Additionally, our pastor -- who’s on his own save for weekend Mass help -- is wonderfully transparent. He offered a great annual report reflection at Sunday Masses one week in the fall, and he sent an unusually honest, authentic letter with the year-end numbers and tax letter after New Year’s, discussing especially decreasing year-on-year attendance numbers during the October Mass counts and a desire to recharge engagement. He invited parishioners to dialogue with him; I emailed in some thoughts and a further introduction of myself, and he replied and also followed up with a conversation during his usual post-Mass socializing. He may assemble a consultative group of parishioners to work on some of these issues, and I’m glad to have engaged with him for it.
So what?
Parishes are the classic “you get out of it what you put into it.” For some, it may just be a place they go to Mass once in a while. For others, it’s the place they’ve registered, perhaps for school benefits or to check an obligatory box. For a smaller group, it’s a faith home, the place where the domestic church of the family goes beyond itself in communion with others on the same pilgrim path.
I think, at minimum, we’re all called to belong somewhere. We need to avoid tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios and offer some of our skin into the game -- parishes can’t keep the lights on, the doors open, and the priests fed and sustained without steady funds from the collection baskets and fundraisers, and the Church cannot be such a profound force for social good in the local, national, and international community without the backbone of parish life. Catholics all need to choose a home parish, put their name on its roll, and drop some coin in the basket.4
From there, it’s up to a person to discern what they can handle and to what they feel called. Different points in my life have warranted differing levels of engagement, which is likely the case for most of us. Moreover, different people have different gifts. The challenge to each individual, and to the leaders and active parishioners at each parish, is to identify the gifts of parishioners by building relationships and making genuine, personal invitations to people that realistically match their talents to needs in the parish community. And then it’s up to each of us to respond and to get involved.
1 Fr. Bill was a jack of all trades. He steered a successful capital campaign and renovation while juggling this mentorship duty. Among his charming traits, he loved to sing and act and ham it up, and made annual cameos in the parish play/musical. He also had the tact and pose to follow upon a brutal scandal, in which our previous pastor (for whom the parish center was formerly named) was embroiled in abuse allegations and ultimately removed from ministry while another associate pastor was also found to have a secret romantic life.↩
2 Teaching = planning, grading, writing homework and assessments, and, you know, also teaching.↩
3 Pacific time is stupid and annoying for a lot of reasons, especially keeping in touch with people on the other side of the country. The one thing for which it is great is sports. Whereas 7-7:30pm was the go-to start time in Chicago, evening games were often at 5ish, and Sunday football slid earlier to a nifty 10am-1:15pm-5:30pm format. Very good for gratuitous watching and reasonable bedtime.↩
4 I gotta say, during my first two years as an adult parishioners, I clung to those envelopes man. As a kid, my parents would always let us drop the envelope in the basket for our family. There’s a potent nostalgia to that ritual that I struggled to let go of until finally relenting to the auto-pay online system, which frankly helps parishes a ton by saving paper/shipping costs and giving them reliable commitments off which to project budgets.↩
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