There is a touch of sadness in the air. Summer is coming to an end. Officially the fall season does not begin until September 23, but in our part of the world, fall comes sooner. In the Midwest summers are usually short and are meant to be appreciated and enjoyed, as opposed to the summers down South which must to be endured.  Our garden has looked great, thanks in part to some new volunteers and it functions as a popular lunch spot for the neighborhood; yet we know that it will begin to fade in the weeks ahead. Stores have been touting “back to school sales,” and I am amazed that this branch of advertising has changed little in the last sixty years. As a child, I remember looking at back-to-school ads in the newspaper that showed cheerful children dancing off to school in their new clothes and thinking, “What’s wrong with these kids?” Do they really want to relinquish their freedom and be confined once more to a stifling hot classroom?

This Labor Day weekend is often billed as the end of the summer season. In union households, of course, Labor Day has an importance all its own. When I was growing up, no one in my extended family had a union job. They either had white collar jobs or government jobs, and unions in those days did not have to organize in these sectors, since there were plenty of factory jobs. Thanks to the unions, people from very humble backgrounds and without a lot of education were able to escape poverty, make good wages, and raise a family in a suburban home. But the bubble was about to burst. I took a college economics course in 1972, and the professor pointed out how the United States was being outperformed in manufacturing by the rest of the world, and soon our whole economy would change. And it did, beginning with the oil crisis of 1973. Cheap gas and American dominance in manufacturing became a thing of the past, and we have been struggling ever since to find an economically viable way for bridging the gap between the haves and the have-nots. All of this is compounded by unjust and inhumane working conditions in factories in some other parts of the world.

If we look back at nature, though, we discover that when certain things die, new things are often born. That is the cycle of life. It is true of all of nature, and, Jesus tells us, it is true of us too. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” The withering of nature this time of year reminds us that we too are dying, but not in a fatalistic way. We should take a clue from the autumn leaves, which go out in a blaze of glory. They save their most vibrant colors until the end of their life. If we can believe that spring and summer follow fall and winter, we can surely believe that new life will follow our death. And, in fact, during our lifetime we may encounter many little deaths. We are challenged to let go of something that no longer serves us well in order to come into something new. Perhaps it was a career plan we had or an expectation we had of someone else that we now see is unrealistic. Perhaps it was a habit of sin or an addiction, that we finally had to admit had taken control of us. Fall is a great season for letting go of those dreams, plans, ambitions, and behaviors that no longer serve us, so that we can receive something new from God, so that we can focus on the future and not be locked in the past. When we do so, we are entering into the paschal mystery, Christ’s own passion, death, and resurrection. As many spiritual writers have said, the tomb became the womb of new life.

Churches also have to face little deaths if they are to find new life. Assumption Church has had to let go of its identity several times in order to find a new purpose and new life. What began as a neighborhood church for Italian Catholics later became a Mass chapel for downtown workers and a refuge for conservative Catholics. Then, over the last twenty-five years, it has become a neighborhood church again. Now, withRenew My Church we are being challenged to change once again, by becoming more outward looking and more concerned about the people who do not worship with us. This also involves a kind of dying. Most of us “cradle Catholics” have thought of our faith as something private. We go to church, say our prayers, and contribute to the collection. Some of us get involved in a church ministry, and some of those ministries have taken us outside the walls of the church building. People used to come to church; now the church must figure out ways to come to them. All of us need to be prepared to talk about our faith and why we still find it relevant. We have to provide what is called “soft entry points” for those who have drifted away or were never here in the first place. In that sense, we are coming full cycle. Assumption Church was once the center of a vibrant immigrant community. Now, in spite of all the tall buildings that dwarf us, we need to find ways to be at the center of the community once again.

                                                         Fr. Joe