Today’s Feast of the Epiphany recalls the epic journey of the Magi, who not only travelled a long distance to meet the child Jesus, but were also taking a journey of faith. They were Gentiles, seekers of wisdom and truth, and their journey led them first to Jerusalem, the center of Judaism, and then on to Bethlehem to offer gifts to the Christ Child. All of us who are part of the Assumption community today have been part of a faith journey, perhaps not as exotic as the Magi’s, but a journey nonetheless. And this journey was launched and certainly   influenced by the faith and beliefs of our ancestors.

Fr. Louis Cameli, an Archdiocesan priest and a resident at Holy Name Cathedral, wrote a book about ten years ago called The Archeology of Faith. Using historical records, he was able to piece together the various religious and secular movements that would have influenced the faith of his ancestors. He then described the major stops on his own faith journey. Since both his mother’s and his father’s ancestors came from the same region of Catholic Italy, his ancestral journey was not too difficult to trace. Our Leadership Group at Assumption decided to try this exercise ourselves. According to the precepts of Renew My Church, this Group is not just tasked with advancing the course of renewal; we are also encouraged to be a community of faith ourselves. So, we are devoting a portion of our meetings to this archaeological project.

For example, my own direct ancestors were a very diverse group. They have all been in the United States since at least 1850. My mother was part German and part Italian. Her German ancestors were living in St. Louis in the 1840’s; but the family moved to Southern Illinois to escape the cholera epidemic. Her great-grandfather was Catholic but stopped practicing at some point in early adulthood and did not raise his children Catholic. Her father was received into the Catholic Church when he married my grandmother, but according to my mother, church was never a big deal in his life. My grandmother’s father came from northern Italy and arrived in Memphis in the 1850’s, where he had learned he had cousins. After the Civil War, he married into another Italian family and had seven children, my grandmother being the youngest. My grandmother and her siblings had an off-and-on relationship with the Church; but I remember that my grandparents did go to Mass when I was a small child. My mother, however, was solidly Catholic and very prayerful.

My father’s ancestors were Scots-Irish (from Northern Ireland) and were living in the rural South as far back as the 1830’s. They were from quintessential country towns. His father’s family was from Black Rock, Arkansas, and his mother’s from Bells Buckle, Tennessee. His grandparents eventually settled in Memphis after the Civil War. Since they were Scots-Irish, they would have been nominally Presbyterian; but if they were churchgoers at all, they would probably have gone to whatever church was in town. My father’s parents were not churchgoers, but his best friend growing up was Catholic and had to attend Mass. As we know, misery loves company; so he talked my father into coming along. My dad’s home life was unstable, and he found in the Catholic Church something that gave life direction and meaning. In his late teens he was baptized. Being Catholic meant a great deal to him, since he had chosen it as an adult. My parents were probably the most committed Catholics in their families going back many generations. It was into that religious environment that I was born.

What was my first religious experience? I think I was about four and my mother took me to the Franciscan Church downtown. In those days you could get what was called “a partial indulgence” from your sins if you visited a religious order church on a particular feast day and said certain prayers. Each time you visited the church, you could get another indulgence. Well, my mother and I simply sat in church for a while; but as we were sitting, a bunch of other people came into the church, walked down the aisle, knelt at the communion rail for a few moments, walked out of the church, and then a minute later came back in, did the exact same thing, and they did this over and over again. Of course, this made no sense to me at age four (and maybe not much more sense at seventy), but I was fascinated by what was transpiring. People were relating to something or someone beyond what I could see. I wanted to know what it was.

You might try this exercise yourself. What beliefs, what religious tradition were passed on to you by your family? Are your beliefs and values very much like theirs, or have other people and life events influenced you more? How is the way you live your faith today the product of many twists and turns and discoveries along the way?

                                                             Fr. Joe