Faith Feeds Guide: Parish Life

PARISH LIFE

Introduction to FAITH FEEDS 3

Frequently Asked Questions 4

Ready to Get Started 5

Conversation Starters 6

• The Power of a Parish Priest by Hector Heredia 7

Conversation Starters 8

• The Joy of Having Loud and Messy Kids at Mass by Brian Doyle 9

Conversation Starters 11

• Leaving the Church Doors Open by Terence Sweeney 12

Conversation Starters 14

• Gathering Prayer 15

The FAITH FEEDS program is designed for individuals who are hungry for opportunities to talk about their faith with others who share it. Participants gather over coffee or a potluck lunch or dinner, and a host facilitates conversation using the C21 Center’s biannual magazine, C21 Resources.

The FAITH FEEDS GUIDE offers easy, step-by-step instructions for planning, as well as materials to guide the conversation. It’s as simple as deciding to host the gathering wherever your community is found and spreading the word.

All selected articles have been taken from material produced by the C21 Center.

The C21 Center Presents

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who should host a FAITH FEEDS?

Anyone who has a heart for facilitating conversations about faith is perfect to host a FAITH FEEDS.

Where do I host a FAITH FEEDS?

You can host a FAITH FEEDS in-person or virtually through video conference software. FAITH FEEDS conversations are meant for small groups of 10-12 people.

What is the host’s commitment?

The host is responsible for coordinating meeting times, sending out materials and video conference links, and facilitating conversation during the FAITH FEEDS.

What is the guest’s commitment?

Guests are asked to read the articles that will be discussed and be open to faith-flled conversation.

Still have more questions?

No problem! Email karen.kiefer@bc.edu and we’ll help you get set up.

READY TO GET STARTED?

STEP ONE

Decide to host a FAITH FEEDS. Coordinate a date, time, location, and guest list. An hour is enough time to allocate for the virtual or in-person gathering.

STEP TWO

Interested participants are asked to RSVP directly to you, the host. Once you have your list of attendees, confrm with everyone via email. That would be the appropriate time to ask in-person guests to commit to bringing a potluck dish or drink to the gathering. For virtual FAITH FEEDS, send out your video conference link.

STEP THREE

Review the selected articles from your FAITH FEEDS Guide and the questions that will serve as a starter for your FAITH FEEDS discussion. Hosts should send their guests a link to the guide, which can be found on bc.edu/FAITHFEEDS.

STEP FOUR

Send out a confrmation email a week before the FAITH FEEDS gathering. Hosts should arrive early for in-person or virtual set up. Begin with the Gathering Prayer found on the last page of this guide. Hosts can open the disussion by using the suggested questions. The conversation should grow organically from there. Enjoy this gathering of new friends, knowing the Lord is with YOU!

STEP FIVE

Make plans for another FAITH FEEDS. We would love to hear about your FAITH FEEDS experience. You can fnd contact information on the last page of this guide.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

Here are three articles to guide your FAITH FEEDS conversation. We suggest that you select two that will work best for your group, and if time permits, add in a third. In addition to the original article, you will fnd a relevant quotation, summary, and suggested questions for discussion. We offer these as tools for your use, but feel free to go where the Holy Spirit leads. Conversations should respect and ensure confdentiality between participants.

This guide’s theme is: Parishes Life

THE POWER OF A PARISH PRIEST

By Hector Heredia

From C21 Resources Spring/Summer 2020

Two-time inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame Magic Johnson always said, “I grew up poor, but I didn’t have poor dreams.” As a young person, playing basketball in a league at my local church was key to achieving my own dream—a dream I would never have attained without the help and support of a Boston priest, Father Paul O’Brien.

Growing up, my grandmother used to take care of me, and I used to bother her a lot. I was always looking for something to do. She used to tell me to go outside and play basketball to work my energy out. Playing basketball helped me to get things off my mind. It was a big relief. Later, as a teenager, I learned about a basketball program that Father O’Brien ran at St. Patrick in Lawrence. At that time, things weren’t going very well for me. My family wasn’t there for me, I didn’t have a steady home, I had two jobs, and I was struggling to fnd food to eat. I went all the time to play basketball and, to be honest, to enjoy the food that was there.

I spent a great deal of time on the court and at those games. One day, I had an altercation there. Father Paul pulled me aside, knowing this was not how I usually acted with others, and said, “You really need to tell me what’s going on.” I was ashamed to tell him that by that point, I was homeless and living in my car. I was afraid to tell people about it; even my closest friends and family members did not know.

In the course of our conversations, Father Paul asked me what I dreamed of doing with my life. I told him I had always wanted to go to college but did not have the means to get there. Father Paul said he would help me, and he encouraged me to work hard and chase my dream. This was a big moment for me because no one had ever suggested something like that to me. Not my family or friends, not my teachers—no one.

Father Paul eventually made some calls and got me an interview at a local college. This was incredible to me, and my life-long dream of a college education

started to become real for me. I always had the dream of going to college, but I never thought I would actually be able to do it.

With the help and guidance of Father Paul, I was able to attend Regis College, where I also became a member of the basketball team. Through my years at Regis, Father Paul was always there for me, checking in about my class assignments, even arguing with me about fnishing my homework. I’ll never forget the day I graduated from college. I was speechless. And Father Paul, my mentor and my friend, was there, yet again, to support me.

Father Paul has been a role model for me at every step of my journey, helping me to navigate several diffcult life challenges. He has taught me that treating others with kindness and respect can go a long way, even if I have to keep a distance from them because they have wronged me.

Simply put, Father Paul changed my life. I now work as a school guidance counselor and try to give back to other young people the kind of hope and inspiration that Father Paul gave to me.

Hector Heredia played in the basketball league at St. Patrick Parish in Lawrence, MA, where Father Paul O’Brien is the pastor.

THE POWER OF A PARISH PRIEST

“Father Paul wasalways there for me, checking in about my class assignments, even arguing with me about fnishing my homework.”

—Hector Heredia

Summary

In this piece, a young man refects on the life-changing support and steadfast dedication he received from his local parish priest.

Questions for Conversation

1. Who have been some of the mentors in your life? How have they helped guide your path? What are some of the ways they have helped you to build upon your faith?

2. What are some of the roles you played in helping others in thier life journey?

3. What are some of the ways God speaks to us through people who are engaged in helping us become the best version of ourselves?

THE JOY OF HAVING LOUD AND MESSY KIDS AT MASS

By Brian Doyle

From C21 Resources Spring/Summer 2020

Usually the daily noon Mass on campus is attended by the familiar dozen or so faculty and staff and students and neighbors; but today, to my amazement, there are 4-year-old twin boys in front of me, complete with parents, the father immensely tall and the mother adamantly not.

The noon Mass is legendary for starting on the button and never going more than 25 minutes because afternoon classes start at 12:30 p.m., and you want to give students a chance to make their fip-fopped sprint across campus. For the frst fve minutes the twins sit quietly and respectfully and perhaps even reverently, each in his seat between mom and dad. This does not last. At 12:07 p.m. I see the frst furry of fsts and elbows as they jockey and joust. At 12:11 p.m. one of them, incredibly,

pulls a bunch of grapes from his pocket and begins to eat some and to lose the rest on the foor. At 12:13 p.m. there are easily a dozen grapes and both boys are under the chairs. At 12:15 p.m. the mom, clearly a veteran of these sorts of things, pulls two cookies from her pockets for the boys. At 12:20 p.m. the dad fnally bends down from his great height and tersely reads his sons the riot act, a moment

I have been waiting for with high fraternal glee, for I have been in his shoes. I have been at Mass in this very chapel with my small twin sons, who have dropped Cheerios from the balcony onto the bald spots of congregants below and stuck their arms into the baptistry just to see what it would feel like (it’s cold and wet, one son said, indignantly) and made barnyard noises at exactly the wrong moments and run all around the chapel shaking sticky hands with startled, bemused congregants at the Sign of Peace.

After Mass I say to the celebrant with a smile that it is not every day we are graced by rambunctious ruffans who scatter grapes and crumbs on the foor and giggle and yawn and shimmy and snicker and lose their shoes and drop hymnals on the foor with a terrifc bang and pay no attention whatsoever to the Gospel readings and the homily and the miracle of the Eucharist but rather gaze raptly at the life-size cedar crucifx and try to blow out a candle on the altar as their parents carry them up for a blessing and say Hi! to the grinning priest as he lays his hand upon their innocent brows and spend the last fve minutes of Mass sitting in the same single seat trying to shove the other guy off but only using your butt and not your hands; and the priest, unforgettably, says this to me:

I love having little kids at Mass. I love it when they are bored and pay no attention and squirm. I love it when they get distracted by a moth and spend fve minutes following the moth’s precarious voyage among the lights.

It’s all good. They are being soaked in the Mass. They hear the words and feel the reverence and maybe they even sense the food of the experience, you know? Sometimes people complain and make veiled remarks about behavior and discipline and decorum and the rapid dissolution of morals today and stuff like that but I have no patience for it. For one thing they were little kids at Mass once, and for another if there are no little kids at Mass, pretty soon there won’t be any Masses. You have to let kids be kids.

I love having little kids at Mass. If you are distracted by a little kid being a little kid you are not focused on what’s holy. Little kids are holy. Let it be. My only rule is no extended fstfghts. Other than that I don’t care about grapes and yawning. I think the cadence and the rhythm and the custom and the peace of the Mass soak into kids without them knowing it. That’s why a lot of the students here come back to Mass, I think—it sparks some emotional memory in them, and once they are back at Mass then they pay attention in new ways and fnd new food in it. It’s all good. The more the merrier.

I say I do know very well what he means and we shake hands and he heads to the sacristy to disrobe and I head back to work. But about halfway back to my offce I feel awfully sad that I do not have grapes

and cookies in my jacket pockets. I don’t even have remains of ancient Cheerios anymore, and there were years there when my pockets were so flled with brittle crumbs that birds followed me in rotation, sparrows in the morning and crows in the afternoon.

For a minute I want to shuffe back to the chapel and catch that tiny mom and ask her for a cookie, just because, but then I realize that she will think I am a nut and I remember that I had my run as the dad of little kids squirming at Mass. It was a sweet, glorious, unforgettable run, too, and now it’s someone else’s turn, and how good and holy that is, that there are still little kids under the seats, paying no attention whatsoever.

But they will.

Brian Doyle was a writer and poet and the editor of Portland Magazine. He passed away in May 2017.

THE JOY OF HAVING LOUD AND MESSY KIDS AT MASS

“I love having little kids at Mass. If you are distracted by a little kid being a little kid you are not focused on what’s holy. Little kids are holy.”

—Brian Doyle

Summary

A common complaint among some Mass-goers is that children can be distracting and disruptive, and a common fear among parents is that their children will be noisy or disobedient. It’s why cry rooms were created. In this piece, Brian Doyle argues that if children can’t be themselves in front of God and the community of believers, then we might need to re-examine how we understand the Mass.

Questions for Conversation

1. Do you believe parishes should tolerate having loud and messy kids at mass? How do you defne the joy that is rendered by having kids at mass?

2. Do you have memories of going to Mass as a child? How did attending Mass as a child infuence your faith life as an adult?

3. Jesus said: “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” What do you think Jesus meant by this?

LEAVING THE CHURCH DOORS OPEN

By Terence Sweeney

From C21 Resources Spring/Summer 2020

Most churches lock up after Mass or other services, leaving big cavernous halls empty of people and all they bring with them. Several years ago, however, my parish started keeping its doors open after the sisters had walked over to the school to teach, the daily Mass attendees drifted off to their jobs, and the priests retreated to their rectory. I turn off most of the lights, snuff out the candles, lock the sacristy, and leave our half-crumbling, half-sublime church wide open. In the winter, we hang out a sign to say that the doors are unlocked. I come back midday from my writing, reading, or teaching and ring the noon Angelus and then I am back at 6 p.m. to ring the evening Angelus. Only then do the big old doors get closed and locked. I leave and wish Jesus a good night.

All kinds pass through the building; most of them I never see. They leave clues that they were there, often in the form of the three-hour candles lit before various shrines. We have the normal ones: Mary, Joseph, and our patron St. Francis de Sales.

The most popular candle station surrounds a pillar, which is strange. I call it the shrine of the unknown God. I wonder what people think when they light those candles and say their prayers.

Other people leave candy wrappers, coins at statues, umbrellas, or novena cards. I once found notes stuffed into nooks in our statue of St. Anne and Mary as a child: a grandmother’s prayers for the safety of her grandchildren in a broken home.

I do get to see some people, particularly when I lock up. Some hesitantly walk through the doors, unsure why they are open. Maybe they don’t know that the open doors are always a welcome. Come inside, the doors tell them. Inside the church, I always know the frst-timers. Their necks crane up and they take in a deep breath. It is something about the combination of enclosure and vastness. Sure, the sky is bigger, but our grand dome with its ring of windows feels like it creates space. I am humbled when I see them look up; I so rarely do anymore. Some people seem nervous to walk too far past the threshold. Maybe they are closer to God in their reverence. One shouldn’t just waltz into the building

like I do, rushing across it because it is quicker than walking around.

Other people are more at home. They know where to kneel and get right to it. There are some regulars who pray for long hours. I like them. I feel more stable in the world knowing that my erratic prayer life may be balanced by their consistency. I once watched an old nun praying. She had her Stations of the Cross book, and she muttered the prayers at each station. Our church can be dark some days and she must have had diffculty reading Alphonsus Liguori’s sentimental prayers: “I love you, Jesus, my love.” I chuckled at the old devotion. I suddenly realized she wasn’t looking at her book. The dark corners of the church didn’t bother her; the prayers had long since been written in her heart. I am not sure what has been written in my heart.

The homeless and the broken come in too. They give me the creeps sometimes. One man always has me touch the scar on his scalp. Another asked me about the celebrant’s chair: “Do you know why the black angels sit on the chair?” I said I didn’t know as I sidled away from him. “To watch over us black folks and keep Satan away.” I thought him addled, but maybe I am. Why don’t I see the angels? He asked me for money; I told him I have none. He held my hand—“blessings, then”—and walked away. He has moved on now. I hope his angel is watching out for him; I hope my angel keeps an eye on him, too.

One time a photographer and a classical guitarist came in for a photo shoot. He played his guitar during the photos. The camera fashed and the songs he played reached up to the cupola. They liked the light and the long lines of the pews. I sat and read. I thought the church was just right for a classical guitarist. It was pouring out and a woman came in from the rain. A good reason to walk into a church with its doors open. To stay dry and hear a little music.

I like talking to people when they come in. I tell them a little history: “We are called the cathedral of West Philadelphia,” or “We have had three albums recorded in this church,” or “Yes, the organ still works, it is a French-style organ … although I don’t know what that means.” When people come in and ask me about the place, I look up at the dome with them. I bring them up to ring our bells. People love to ring the bells. Their eyes go wide with their frst ding; they

stay wide for the second dong. I am always banging away at those bells. It probably bothers people in the neighborhood, but I love to ring. When I talk to people, they tell me how lovely it is that the church is open. The church is here for you, I tell them. These days, it is hard to believe that this statement could possibly be true, and yet I still believe it.

Sometimes, I don’t want to talk to people. Mostly based on their looks. The attractive, the young, the hip-looking walk in and fve minutes later they are ringing the bells. A frumpy fellow comes in and suddenly I am busy putting out bulletins. But love is not meant only for the easily loved. Jesus spent time with lepers because it is hard to be with the sick. I should be able to spend time with the frumpy.

Recently, a woman came in wearing her pajamas. I had seen her earlier hugging a statue of Mary in the garden (we keep that open, too). I quietly thought to myself, “What a nut!” and went to fold some vestments. I was just about ready to lock up when she came in. I wanted to get home, have dinner, drink beer, not talk to her. The lights were mostly out; I was so close to getting out of there. She asked me if she could come in. She gasped when she saw the windows in the dome. She muttered something about the sixteen chapels and the angel of David. I was thinking about Miller High Life. She looked at me and asked earnestly, “Is he here?” Jesus, I presumed. I said yes. I walked next to her up the center aisle, the lingering light shining off the golden tiles on the high altar.

She started to cry. “I just want a hug,” she said. This made me nervous. But she went on, starting to cry, “I want a hug from Jesus.” It was so corny, so hokey; I felt some tears swimming in my own eyes. She looked at me expectantly. I surprised myself and pointing at the crucifx replied, “He is hugging us all, he is hugging you.” Looking at the cross with none of my tired irony, she said: “He is right now.” I believed her words more than mine. We walked slowly out of the church. She looked back at his open arms, and walked out through the open doors.

Terence Sweeney is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Villanova University. He has written for America Magazine, First Things, Church Life Journal, and Dappled Things, and is a contributor to the Genealogies of Modernity Project. He is a sacristan at his parish, St Francis de Sales in West Philadelphia.

LEAVING THE CHURCH DOORS OPEN

“When I talk to people, they tell me how lovely it is that the church is open. The church is here for you, I tell them.”

—Terence Sweeney

Summary

The website of St. Francis de Sales parish in Philadelphia boasts, “Our doors are open every day to all.” In this essay, the parish sacristan chronicles the humorous and touching encounters he has with the many people who take advantage of the open-door policy. Though the risks of such a practice are obvious, the experiences of God’s grace and mercy that he witnesses make the case that the benefts far outweigh them.

Questions for Conversation

1. Does your church keep its doors open for adoration, programing etc.? How is a parish community strengthened by leaving its church doors opened?

2. What are some of the ways you fnd God within the walls of your church?

3. How have you experienced God’s grace and mercy through encounters with people at your church?

GATHERING PRAYER

Be With Us Today

St. Thomas More (1478-1535)

Father in heaven, you have given us a mind to know you, a will to serve you, and a heart to love you.

Be with us today in all that we do, so that your light may shine out in our lives. Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.