My Dear Friends:
The heart of a pastor is always restless. While I rejoice over the wonderful things we have accomplished as a parish over the last year, my heart is still restless over the parishioners who didn’t take part in any of the activities marking our 100th year or any of the many activities that we offer as a parish.
Truth be told, while we have excellent attendance at Mass every weekend compared to other parishes, Father Andrew and I are often left wondering where many of those Mass participants go between Sundays. Why aren’t our parishioners engaging in one of our many ministries or attending special events or even Holy Day of Obligations? (Lucky for you that All Saints fell on a Sunday this year.) Last week, I preached the following in my Sunday homily:
As we conclude this year of jubilee as a parish, I am often asked, “what comes next?” To borrow from the metaphor [of the new pipe organ], we must endeavor as a parish to pull out all the stops when it comes to loving God and loving our neighbor. The next chapter in the life of this parish must be marked by a renewed commitment to the Eucharist and Adoration, our ministries, and helping the less fortunate. It’s what I am calling: “Project 101”. The 101 with the double meaning that we’re entering the 101st year of the parish and 101 to borrow from the world of academia of getting back to the basics of ministerial life as a community. Too many Mass goers wander in and out of our church every Sunday and never truly engage in the beauty of this community. We must change that. Embracing the simplicity, as our patroness teaches us, of loving God and neighbor must be central to everything we do as a parish. St. Thérèse wrote that her sole ambition was love. It must be ours as well.
So, I ask the question, if you’re only attending Mass, why is it that you’re not engaged in the ministerial life of the parish? As Christians, we cannot settle for the bare minimum.We live in a society where we fulfill the minimum requirements to meet a deadline or complete a project, but we cannot apply that same mentality to our spiritual life. Our hearts long for more. That changes right now. As I mentioned last weekend, we must dedicate ourselves to prayer particularly Eucharistic Adoration. Our chapel is open 24/7, and the church is finally open all day. I am calling on our ministries to rethink the way they do things to be able to engage more parishioners. “This is the way we’ve always done it” is not a phrase that will fly anymore. What worked in 2006 is not going to work in 2026. Father Andrew and I are committed to formation nights to better catechize our flock. But there again is the problem: in the past, when we’ve offered formation nights, the same 50-100 people show up. God bless them, but we want more attendees who we see on Mass on Sundays. That’s the key. If you’re reading this: we love you, we’re glad you’re here, but we want to see more of you beyond Sunday Mass.
As we kick off year 101, we’re going back to basics. We celebrate All Saints Day today which serves as a reminder that we are all called to be saints, and the saints didn’t gain heaven by just doing the bare minimum. We need to go a little deeper particularly in our prayer life. Use the Hallow App that so many of our parishioners are using to pray every single day. Spend more time in adoration. Get more involved in the parish. We will be offering more formations nights, more opportunities to serve the less fortunate, and more ways of growing in our faith. The call to holiness is difficult, and we need to walk this road together. We cannot be mere bystanders in this journey that we are undertaking as a parish. Project 101 starts today, what can I do to get you out of the pew and more involved in the life of the Church of the Little Flower?
God Bless you All,
