2008 State of the Parish

Homily for the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, June 22, 2008
Today, our parish celebrates our patronal feast day, the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Most of our liturgical celebrations throughout the year are about the whole church – but today is different; today, we celebrate our parish, this particular local community of 1180 families who live the gospel, celebrate meaningful worship, and call one another to prayer, Christian service, and fellowship in the area surrounding 1752 Scheller Lane. Since this is our parish celebration, it seems a good time to reflect on the past year of ministry at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish and to look forward with anticipation to the future.

It has been almost a year now since the transition in pastoral leadership at OLPH, as the community bid farewell to Fr. Paul after nine very fruitful years of ministry here. Personally, I was humbled and grateful for the gracious reception that I received upon becoming your Administrator last July. My main personal focus during this past year has been to get to know you, our parishioners, and our various ministries and to learn as much as I could about our parish community. To help me do that, 241 parishioners joined me during a course of 23 Fellowship with Father gatherings, and I have had many other opportunities to meet and come to know the people of this parish. Of course, there will always be more people to know, and I look forward to continuing to share life and ministry with the people of our parish for many years to come.

Sacramentally, this past year has seen the parish celebrate 47 infant baptisms, and 8 adults entered the church through the RCIA. Forty young people celebrated their First Communion; 45 high schoolers received the sacrament of Confirmation. Thirteen couples got married here, and 27 people have been buried from our parish. But our parish is much more than numbers and statistics. This past year we offered the devotion of the Stations of the Cross every Friday during Lent, for the first time in over 30 years. The ENVISION parish planning process has now completed the second of three years of implementation, with many positive outcomes. Our school has continued to thrive, both in our Catholic identity and with academic and extra-curricular success. New band and junior high Spanish programs have been added at the school. We instituted a new weekly youth group as part of our overall Youth Ministry program. In Faith Formation, we held a very successful mission with Fr. Brendan Moss of Saint Meinrad Archabbey, as well as a successful event in our National Speaker Series with Dr. Paul Thigpen. Before mass today, you heard a report on the status of our capital campaign, Legacy for Our Mission, and the great progress that has been made possible through this source of funding. Two parish retreats, the Main Event, Lenten Soup and Soul Food, a Bereavement Prayer Breakfast, a day of reflection for liturgical ministers, a youth mission trip, and countless other events – large and small – demonstrate the vitality of our community. Ministry is certainly alive and well here at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

As we look to the future, two primary areas of focus seem to emerge for the coming year: first, we are entering the final year of the implementation phase of the ENVISION parish planning process. One of our goals as a parish during the coming year will be to bring this process to completion while also preparing for the ENVISION-sponsored ministries to become integrated into the ongoing life of the parish. Second, I am asking our parish staff and Pastoral Council to spend the next year looking at our parish structure and organization to make sure we are best serving the needs of the people in our community, always with the goal of leading one another to the Eucharist. There certainly is much that we do well as a parish, but it is always good to do a self-evaluation every once in a while to make sure that we are the best parish we can be. The conversations from this past year’s Fellowship with Father gatherings will be instrumental in this ongoing reflection.

But the true story of our parish is not found in a calendar of events or in a booklet of organizations. The true story of our parish can only be told through personal stories, stories of new life and life lost, stories of conversions and revelations, stories of joys and struggles. And even with all those different stories, there is one story that unites us all: the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crucified and risen, and living among us who are members of his body. The one story that unites us all is told each week as we gather around this table, as we hear God’s word and share a simple meal. If we did nothing else as a parish but celebrate the Eucharist well, then we would be living as Christ taught us. But if we really do celebrate the Eucharist well, then we as a parish will be compelled to become Christ’s body in our community and to spread the good news that Christ has come to save each of us. And when we do that, then we are truly a vibrant community. For it is this Eucharist that tells the true story of our parish.