Happy New Year! Yes, this is the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new church year. Think of it as January 1 without the drinking and the party favors. Just as at the beginning of a calendar year, we make new year’s resolution, so in relation to church, we can make resolutions. I have a few suggestions, but feel free to supply your own.

Be More Hospitable. A hundred years ago, Catholic churches in a strongly Catholic city like Chicago did not have to worry about being hospitable. You were expected to attend Mass in whatever parish you resided. When you arrived, you went to your pew and you kept your mouth shut. Very few churches invited the people to sing or to participate in the Latin responses. Talking in church was a sin. It was disrespectful to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Protestant churches had to worry about being friendly. They were congregations, not parishes. You were free to join the closest church or one across town or the one your grandparents attended. They had to worry about attracting people. I remember when I did a year of graduate study at the U of I in the mid 1970’s, several people in my dinner group remarked about what the Baptist Church and the Presbyterian Church did to welcome students the first Sunday of the semester. When I went to Mass for the first time, one of the priests said, “Hey, would you mind helping with the collection?” While we all know that there is nothing more important than the collection, it could have been preceded by a welcoming gesture.

We have thousands of visitors in Chicago every weekend. Some of them end up at Assumption. People move in and out of our neighborhood all the time. Many young people who have grown up without any religious formation, start to explore faith as young adults. Studies show that on a typical Sunday, many of these visitors are not Catholic. Just resolve to notice the people that you have never seen before. You don’t have to start up a conversation in church (Most of the yackity-yak is still better outside), but smile, shake hands warmly at the sign of peace. See if the person next to you is struggling to figure out the worship book, A first time visitor may not understand the Mass, but will remember if someone offered to help them.

Be On Time for Mass. In my sixteen years as pastor here, I have never fussed at people for being late for Mass. Stuff happens. We oversleep; there is traffic; a last minute phone call we have to attend to, etc. When I started a library job in St. Louis prior to entering the seminary, the first Sunday I was there, it snowed. Being from the South, I had never driven on snow before, but decided to make the effort to get to Mass. I pulled in the church driveway and found a space beside cars parked by the side of church. At the beginning of Mass, the pastor announced that some people were parking in spaces next to the church, “which everyone knows is for the handicapped.” No, not everyone knew. Whatever markings there were for handicapped parking were covered by the snow. So, I don’t presume to know what struggle you went through to get to Mass or why you were fifteen minutes late, or why you had to leave early. But, as a rule of thumb, the same crisis should not occur every weekend. We begin Mass by acknowledging our need for God’s mercy and strength. That sets the tone for the rest of the liturgy. At the end, we are sent forth to feed the physical and spiritual hungers of the world. How about resolving to make worship time more of a priority?

Follow Through On Something You Said You Were Going to Do. One of my dad’s favorite phrases was, “As soon as I get around to it, I want to . . .” It became a family joke, because he rarely got around to it. How many times have we thought about responding to the call to serve in a ministry or organization or give our time for a project, but never got around to taking the first step? St. Paul, who knew a thing or two about building churches, insisted that every member of the church has a God-given gift to share with the community. Like the human body. he said, we cannot always compensate for a missing body part. The whole body suffers. If some interior voice has been nagging you, it is probably the Holy Spirit pushing you to get involved. And if you have not been very regular at church this past year, let that be the first thing you decide to “get around to” in this new year. Have a wonderful Advent and a blessed new year.

                     Fr. Joe