Not long after I came here as pastor, Deacon Steve shared a parable of sorts with me that has impacted several changes we’ve seen in the last four years. Approaching Easter, there was a mother who set out to teach her oldest daughter how to make the traditional family roast that the family always has on special occasions. After laying out all the ingredients, she tells her daughter that the roast has to be cut in two and placed in separate pans. When the girl asks why, the mom thinks for a moment, and realizes that she has no idea why exactly. It’s just the way it’s always been done. So she calls her own mother and asks why, to which the grandmother replies “Because I never had a pan big enough for that roast.” In modern, better equipped kitchens, the solution had outlived the problem. Our own version of this was the older system used during the Communion Rite at OLR, where the people processed up from the back, because there was a time when every Mass was standing room only, and all the people had to be cleared out from the back so that people could process out of their pews, then to the front, and then back to their seats. This was no longer necessary, but old habits die hard, and people maintain such traditions.
Similarly, Mass schedules around the Archdiocese are built for a different time, when there were more practicing Catholics and more priests, and the changes that were made were almost always done because the old schedule wasn’t possible anymore, not because the number of Masses was truly necessary. The Archdiocese has had a policy for a very long time dictating that Masses that are not routinely at fifty percent capacity, at a minimum, should be consolidated. Doing so is easier said than done, as people are attached to their Mass times, and cutting a Mass will always lead to people leaving and going somewhere else that has a more convenient Mass time. Unless every pastor in a given area was willing to do this at the same time, there would be a disproportionate exodus from the parish (or parishes) that implemented this policy. Parishes found themselves in a standoff, trying to wait out other parishes to possibly pick up their departing parishioners to bolster their numbers.
Beacons of Light presents us with what one hopes is a once in a lifetime opportunity: to rework the Mass schedule for the future while everyone else is doing the same thing. This may not lessen the pain of possibly losing a favored Mass time, but at least we can do so while our brothers and sisters throughout the Archdiocese are doing the same thing. At each Church in our Family of Parishes today (and in the coming weeks) you will find charts to fill out with a suggested Mass schedule. The parameters and suggestions are on these charts, and we will talk about it during the Masses, but I’m taking the time to introduce it in this column not so much for logistical reasons, but so that you can enter into this exercise in the right frame of mind spiritually. It’s easy to look at times like these as times of loss. To be sure, sacrifices have to be made, as we simply won’t have the priest staffing that we’ve had in the past. But even with that in mind, we have a chance to pray about this, and in a spirit of discernment, submit our thoughts and hopes about what our parishes can look like when we worship together. I ask that each family or individual take the time to pray about what is best for our entire Family of Parishes and how we can best use the resources that God has given us. Take time to acknowledge the pain and do some grieving, if necessary. But do not let the sacrifices outweigh the reality that God is still working in the midst of His people, and together we can come through this process stronger than we were before.