This Sunday June 16 marks the fortieth anniversary of my ordination. A few months ago I completed my seventy-first trip around the sun. Do I feel old? Yes, but not so much on the inside, but because of how much the world has changed around me in 71 years. Spending my early formative years in the Jim Crow South, it is amazing how many things are taken for granted now that were unimaginable seventy years ago. I feel old when I read an article or see a news story about an historical event and know that some of the facts are wrong, because I was around at the time and the reporter was not. I feel old when a movie is remade and I remember seeing the original in the theatre forty years ago. I feel old when I ask an engaged couple what they do for a living and I don’t understand their answer. I feel old when I reflect on my two-year career as a reference librarian before there were computers, or the struggle I had in high school mastering the slide rule, or how I learned to drive in a car that had push button transmission.  I feel old, but mostly I feel blessed—blessed by God for supporting me during times when I was not sure what to do next, by the Servite Friars who have accompanied me these least forty-six years, and by the many wonderful people I have met in ministry over these forty years of priesthood.

Our Catholic Church has its problems; but the more you study church history the more you realize that it has always had its problems, and the more you are convinced that it survives only by the grace of God. I have also seen a lot of change in the Catholic Church in the last seventy-one years, not nearly as much as some people would like and way too much for others. One of the things I am grateful for is that I got to experience Catholic worship before it changed from Latin to English and before the priest started facing the people rather than saying Mass with his back to the people. There are things about “the old days” that I miss, but I would never want to go back. Yes, there was more of an element of mystery when the priest stood remote from the people and prayed or chanted in Latin; but was it more reverent, as many claim? Not necessarily. Remember I was there. Mass in Latin was often rushed and sloppy. Our Associate Pastor gave the altar boys exactly sex seconds to recite the Confiteor (”I confess…”). On All Souls Day, when each priest typically said three Masses, he managed to say all three Masses within thirty minutes! But on a more serious note, I am grateful to all of you who have stuck with the Church during these scandal laden and confusing times. All too frequently we in the church fall victim to the same divisiveness that afflicts our country. Pope Francis is right. We must learn to listen to one another and to the Holy Spirit better.

Another thing that old people do is talk about the past a lot and use phrases like, “In my day.” So, let’s talk about the future. Assumption Parish will be 143 years old in August. The church has survived this long because it has been able to adapt to changing conditions. When it ceased to be a church for Italian immigrants, it became a church for downtown workers, and then a neighborhood church again for the new neighborhood that has grown up around us. Our parish was not closed as part of Renew My Church, partly because of our unique situation and partly because the Servite Friars were here to staff it. As I am sure you know, churches with larger congregations did not survive. The Facilitator from the Archdiocese said to all of us in the Downtown Grouping, “Your churches are not being closed . . . yet.” That was meant to be a warning to take the challenges of evangelization, faith formation, and providing “soft entry points” for the unchurched or the formerly churched seriously. We were not given a vote of confidence; we were given a reprieve.

So, we can never go back to business as usual. We cannot just open our doors and assume people will walk in, or assume that people will keep coming just because they always have, or get their babies baptized or get married in church because that is what Catholics do, or assume that outsiders will find what we say and do relevant just because we think it is. And this is one of the big changes that has happened in my lifetime. “In my day” people came to church like they were supposed to. They paid, prayed, and obeyed; and Father took care of rest. But, like it or not, we live in a different world. We must not only accept but embrace a truth that has been with us since the beginning--that we all have a calling to serve the mission of the church. God has given us all gifts to help build up the Body of Christ. And the mission of the church today is as broad as the climate crisis and as parochial as the First Communion that we celebrate Sunday evening. I cannot imagine what the next forty years or seventy years will bring.

                                                       Fr/ Joe