THE MISSION CONTINUES RICH BUDD
O
n March 1st of this year, we celebrated the First Sunday of Lent. For our parish, and for Catholics world-wide, this was the beginning of a particularly long Lent. For those of our parish preparing to become Catholic through The Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (R.C.I.A.), that day also marked the Rite of Election, the end of their formal catechesis and the beginning of a final stage of prayer and purification in anticipation of the Easter Sacraments. The Rite of Election takes place every year at the beginning of Lent and is an opportunity for Bishop Boyea to meet with the Catechumens and Candidates, to offer them his blessing, and share words of encouragement as they begin the final stages of their initiation. COVID-19 came so swiftly that very few that day considered what the future would bring, or how it would affect the final leg of their journey. Our class included men and women, college students and people well into their careers, single people and married folks with kids. Each had a wide array of experiences, knowledge, and hopes for what their future life in the Church would look like. We became a close-knit community, sharing struggles, insights, and laughing together. Then, almost without warning, we were separated. For those in RCIA, Lent is a time of increased
prayer, reflection, and synthesis of everything they’ve learned and gone through to get to that point. Preparing for the Easter sacraments among friends is very important to the process and yet, we were left praying, sharing, and reflecting on scripture through our computer screens. A world-wide pandemic might have thrown a bump in the road or rerouted their journey to the Church, but even it could not stop the work of the Church, the work of our very own Church of the Resurrection, from bringing new souls to Christ.
Ultimately, even Easter was taken from us and we had to watch the Vigil from home, not knowing when the day of grace would finally come. And so we waited. We kept meeting, kept sharing, kept praying together. We asked God to bring to completion our long journey. Finally, the group got word that we’d be receiving “Easter” sacraments on Pentecost. What an amazing gift! The day on which the Holy Spirit was first poured out upon the earth and the Church was commissioned to go out to all nations was the day our “Long Lent” would finally come to an end. The Pentecost Vigil Mass was a reminder that the Church has been through a lot in her 2000-year history. We’ve seen wars, famine,
