Category: Church

The day after my spiritual high at Blessed Sacrament/St. Joan of Arc, Dave, Andy and I did some sight-seeing in the French Quarter.  When we visited New Orleans the last time, the weather was dreary and I was fighting the flu so I missed seeing the St. Louis Cathedral (The Cathedral-Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France).  It is a splendid church, towering over Jackson Square in the French Quarter.  Opened in 1794, St. Louis Cathedral boasts itself as the oldest continuing Catholic community in the United States.  (The current structure replaces an earlier one destroyed by fire.)

What I found the most striking about the cathedral wasn’t the beautiful spires or stone, but the way it seemed to be completely ignored by the groups of palm readers, musicians, artists and magicians who set up shop on the sidewalk  just yards from the grand Jubilee Doors.  And that was the stuff that was readily apparent.

Mind you, the music, like all music you hear on the streets of New Orleans, was good…  and loud!  And the bands I saw did not seem organized, rather more like individual musicians who showed up at the same spot at the same time and began to jam.  No matter how big or small the combo, they all had a bucket or hat to collect donations from the passersby.

Closer to the doors of the Cathedral, palm readers with names like “Mother this” or “Sister that,” had small tables set up with bag chairs on either side so their customers could sit comfortably while having their futures told.

Stepping through the doors of the Cathedral, the narthex was a transitional space between the noise and confusion of the world outside and the peace and quiet orderliness of Heaven.  Once inside the sanctuary, it was like stepping into one of the old churches I’d toured in England.  Everything God was done on a large-scale, reflecting the omnipotence of the Almighty.

Everyone inside spoke in hushed whispers.  And, except for the step-ladder I later noticed in what I thought was a quality photo of the altar, it was a very traditional Catholic worship space.

I wondered for a moment if the interior of this immense church could rock the way little Blessed Sacrament/St. Joan of Arc did.  At first I couldn’t picture it, but then I remembered, this cathedral was just a building.  The real church was the people outside the doors who gather for worship.  And, if they are anything like the people directly outside the cathedral doors, the potential was definitely there.

My celebration of Holy Week began this year in a very different way.  Instead of spending Palm Sunday in our home-parish, hustling up and down the sidewalk between the church and the social hall checking to see if all the working parts are in place (it’s not my job, it’s my personality), I spent an amazing two hours with our close friends, Nicole and Ralph Johnson at their parish in New Orleans. Touted as the “Uptown church with the down-home message,”  the parish of Blessed Sacrament/St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church did not disappoint.

Formed by a diocesan reorganization following Hurricane Katrina in 2008, the then separate parish of Blessed Sacrament joined St. Joan of Arc and the two became one.  I tried to find more information on the history of the two parishes, but couldn’t find any online.  I did learn that New Orleans is the home of the largest concentration of Afro-American Catholics in the United States, in large part due to the city’s French roots and the “Code Noir” in 1724 which required all slave-holders to have their slaves baptized Catholic.  Surprisingly, Catholic Churches in New Orleans were not segregated by race until Reconstruction to appease white supremacists.  Whatever its particular history, my history with Blessed Sacrament/St. Joan of Arc, is one of warmth and impassioned embrace of the Spirit.

In keeping with the tradition of Palm Sunday, Mass began with an outdoor procession.  Instead of the perfunctory walk up and down the parking lot as I’ve experienced in the past, the members of Blessed Sacrament/St. Joan of Arc processed around six blocks neighboring their church, onto the city streets, singing and waving to the folks sipping coffee on their front porches as we walked by.  Returning to the church, we entered to the large sound of gospel music.  To say the choir was good would be like saying the Mona Lisa is a nice painting.  Both are masterpieces!

Although Catholic Mass is essentially the same everywhere, all are seasoned with local customs and traditions.  At Blessed Sacrament/St. Joan of Arc the seasoning is Cajun; it is very spicy and leaves a warm feeling inside.  And, while I was aware that Dave and I were among a mere handful of white faces in the congregation, I never felt anything but acceptance and belonging.  After all, we were not different, we were the same – Catholic Christians celebrating Jesus’ entry into our lives.

This past Saturday Dave and I joined a group of our friends at the Montpelier Wine Festival on the grounds of James and Dolley Madison’s beloved home.  Weather-wise, it was one of the warmest, most beautiful days we’ve enjoyed all spring.  Combined with great friends, Virginia wine and snacks, it was the perfect recipe for some much-needed down time.

Much earlier that morning I’d gotten up at “0’dark thirty” to work at a charity ticket sale at a local department store to raise funds for our local Habitat for Humanity organization.  I was there from 5:20 am until 10:00 am.  By the time we arrived at the winefest at one o’clock, I’d already been up for nine hours.  Luckily, I had just enough energy to enjoy the afternoon with our friends.

Sunday morning we were up early again for Mass at 8:30 and afterwards grabbed some breakfast with church friends before returning to the church to pack meals for Stop Hunger Now.

This is the second year our parish has held the event.  Throughout the year, we hold fund-raising events to cover the costs of the meals, culminating in the packing event where  volunteers donned in hairnets, measure ingredients into bags, weigh the bags for consistency, seal the bags and pack them into boxes.  Each time 1,000 meals are packed, a gong is struck to spur us on. Volunteers range in age from elementary age children to senior adults, all working as a team, each doing what they can. Together, we packed almost 14,000 meals in just under two hours.

I couldn’t help but see this event as a living example of Sunday’s Gospel  (John 15:1-8), the story of the vine and the branches.  We were all working as parts of the same vine, the older branches and the new shoots.  As I thought more about it, I realized that my weekend, with its fullness of stuff echoed the same theme where my own branch was pruned a bit; my time was pruned but the result was new life in the seeing of the Gospel coming to life and in the lives of those I’ve helped, although I will probably never seen them.

It also didn’t escape me that my time at the winefest was also vine related.  And, after realizing that, I discovered a title for today’s thought.

If you’d like more information on Stop Hunger Now and how you might like to be involved, here is their web address:  http://www.stophungernow.org.

When I was a little girl the Sisters at Bishop Conroy Memorial School taught us about Catholic missionaries working in remote places of the world spreading God’s word to the pagans.  (To us, a pagan was anyone who wasn’t Christian.) In our classroom we had a competition between the boys and girls to raise money to support the missions.  Two jars sat on Sister’s desk, one for the boys and one for the girls. Every time we raised $5.00, we were issued a beautiful certificate of adoption by the Pontifical Association of the Hold Childhood as a “souvenir of the ransom and baptism of an adopted pagan baby” which also included the name we had chosen for our newly adopted child.  By the end of the school year, certificates proudly circled the walls of our classroom.

Looking back it seems like a silly thing to do, but in those days we sincerely worried about the fate of the poor pagan babies living in darkness without Jesus in their lives.  We were so sheltered in our world we were totally unaware that God was in their lives even if Jesus wasn’t.  It never occurred to me that just maybe these “pagans” had their own faith in God and way to worship, or how the peoples in Africa felt when European missionaries arrived and set their worlds upside down….until now.

Last year our parish was assigned a new administrator.  Our previous pastor had become ill and could no longer fill the needs of two rural parishes in Central Virginia with a mountain between them.  Due to a shortage of priests in our diocese, the bishop  looked to other countries where there is an excess of clergy to fill our empty rectories.  Our new priest, Fr. Michael, came to us from Uganda.

Since his arrival, I have thought of the pagan babies many times.  Not because I think he was a pagan baby, but because in many ways, he appears to be like a missionary to us.

Naturally there are some cultural differences.  Fr. Michael is much more conservative/traditional than most American priests I’ve known in my lifetime.  He wears a cassock when he is in his official capacity as priest and embraces many of the old “smells and bells” of the pre-Vatican church.  Although these things are familiar to me because of my age, I find myself very uncomfortable with the return of the old ways.  In some ways I feel like I am the “pagan baby”.  Our ways are not his ways and the impression is that our ways are incorrect and must be changed.

He is a good and kind man, but I’m not so sure he has spent much of his clerical life working with the laity.  Because our parish has always had a non-resident pastor, the lay folk have pitched in and have done almost everything, with little direction. Leadership in a group like this is not easy.

Somehow we will have to find middle-ground for our parish to thrive.  Our congregation is graying and there are fewer young folks joining to take on the added burdens being set aside by those ready for rest.  It is a sad thing when the “young folk” are in their fifties and nearing sixties.

I don’t know what the answer is.    The good news is that I’ve realized I don’t have to find the solution; which has been a weight lifted from my shoulders.  I’m praying that the answer will eventually be revealed.