Shortly after he was installed as Archbishop of Chicago ten years ago, Cardinal Cupich set in motion the process we now know as Renew My Church. A 30% decline in Mass attendance over the previous twenty years and the growing disaffiliation of Americans from organized religion had led to an increasing number of parishes in the Archdiocese struggling to pay their bills, weighed down by deferred maintenance, and unable to undertake any significant outreach to the community or to the unchurched. In the fall of 2018, some 2000 pastors and parish leaders attended an Archdiocesan Summit in Rosemont, led by Fr. James Mallon who had started Divine Renovations, an international Catholic renewal ministry from his home parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia. From this we got Renew My Church. Most of the news surrounding Renew My Church has focused on closing churches and consolidating parishes; but the goal was always spiritual renewal of the parishioners and a deeper sense of mission to the world. Although Assumption was not absorbed into another Catholic community in the realignment phase, we were still expected  to take the Renew My Church process seriously if we hoped to survive into the future.

Last Sunday afternoon, our Parish Pastoral Council met to begin our year of service and leadership. We shared a light meal together, did some planning for the coming year, and, as a way of orienting new members and setting a goal for the future, watched one of the many videos that Divine Renovations has posted on YouTube and elsewhere. The topic was “How to Unleash the Power of Radical Hospitality.” The term “radical hospitality” has always sounded a bit dangerous to me; but it was anything but that as presented in the video. The presentation was led by Angie Glendini, Divine Renovations coordinator for the United States and featured interviews with leaders in two parishes (one in Johnstown, PA and the other in Concord, NH) that had gone into hospitality big time.

Although both parishes had a Hospitality Ministry and greeters at the door, the consistent message on the video was that a parish will not be perceived as hospitable unless hospitality becomes part of the culture of the parish. In the past it was safe to assume that a stranger walking into a Catholic Church on Sunday morning was Catholic, either a visitor to the city or someone new to the neighborhood. In that case, a friendly greeting at the door might be sufficient to make a visitor feel welcome. What I have learned from experience at Assumption and what the speakers on the video told us is that a significant number of visitors to Catholic churches are not Catholic and may never have been inside a Catholic Church.  With so many unchurched people and so many others with a very loose affiliation with the religion of their ancestors, visitors and new neighbors may be just looking for “a” church, without regard to the label it puts on itself.. Angie Glendini points out that non-Catholic visitors are usually easy to identify. They do not know when to sit or stand or kneel; they do not know how to use the worship book; and they do not know what to do when people start moving forward for communion. This is where the attitude and outreach from all of us is so important. Our Mass and all the gestures associated with it are not very user-friendly to the outsider. Our indifference can make them feel more like an outsider. Do we find it irritating that the person in front of us is sitting down when we kneel and we have no place to put our hands and, so, we nudge them in the back and hope they get with the program? Or, do we lean over and show them how to use the worship book and where they can find the hymn numbers and invite them to come forward with their arms crossed instead of their hand out for communion.  All of our efforts to help people feel welcome can open up the possibility of a deeper encounter over time with Jesus and the teachings of the church.

It is ironic that in a world that is so electronically interconnected, we human beings often feel very disconnected. There is a real longing for a sense of welcome, inclusion, and belonging. Belonging can be the gateway to believing. It is worth noting how Jesus treated people, even those who had been living a sinful life. He acknowledged their presence; he welcomed them; he showed he cared about them; and then he called them to change. As followers of Christ, that should be our attitude. A number of participants in the video remarked how becoming less reserved around strangers in church had been a positive development in their life. They felt more a part of the faith community themselves and experienced a deeper connection with Christ. As Angie Glendini said, “We are all somewhere on the journey of sanctification. Who better to accompany someone early on the journey than a disciple of Christ?”

                                                            Fr Joe