Once when Mother Teresa was asked by a reporter if she felt frustrated and discouraged t that her ministry of caring for the sick and dying on the streets was not more successful.  Day after day after day, there were more people to be cared for, more people sick and dying on the streets of Calcutta.  Her often quoted answer was, “God has not called me to be successful. God has called me to be faithful.” While there is a profound truth here, in other ways Mother Teresa was enormously successful. Michael White and Tom Corcoran in their book about church renewal called Rebuilt, suggest that Mother Teresa’s statement should not be used to justify dull efforts and dismal failure. “Saint Mother Teresa stands among the most successful and innovative church leaders of the twentieth century, having led one of the largest, fastest growing religious movements in the world.”

Jesus did not ask his followers to be successful, but he did demand that his followers be fruitful, that good things needed to be happening because of our presence in the world. And in a sense, Jesus himself is the greatest example of that. In the eyes of the world, he was a tremendous failure. He ended up as a convicted criminal, nailed to a cross, with precious few followers left. Yet his life has been incredibly fruitful. Through the centuries,  millions and millions have become his followers.

So, with that in mind, how successful was our Ministry Fair on February 14-15.?  In one sense, it was successful before it began. When we last held a Ministry Fair a dozen years ago, each ministry was assigned a table and a legal pad. Those interested in that ministry were asked to sign the list and would be contacted later about actually becoming involved. Some of the ministries put a lot of effort into creating a display or doing something else to attract attention. Garden Club, for example, gave out small plantings; Finance Committee had several scrapbooks of maintenance and repair projects completed. The downside of that format was that most tables were not staffed for all six Masses. Some were not staffed for any of the Masses. This is perfectly understandable since one of the main reasons for having a Ministry Fair is that groups and organizations need more members.

Since our last Ministry Fair, Renew My Church has happened. Parishes that survived the structural reorganization in the Archdiocese were asked to become more mission oriented., which is to say, to be fruitful as Jesus asked us to do. This means that each of our ministries needs to be directly involved in the mission of the parish. Ministers of the Eucharist, for example, are not just “helping with communion.” Ministering the Body of Christ in church needs to be a microcosm of how I am bringing Christ to others in my daily life.  How am I feeding the physical and spiritual needs of the world? How are we as ministers connected to Assumption’s mission of Welcoming, Accompanying, and Sending?

            When our Pastoral Council began discussing the ministry fair, we decided not to have individual tables representing each ministry, but to form teams from across the ministries for each Mass. Those who volunteered were asked to become sufficiently familiar with the other ministries to answer basic questions. Although there were information sheets available for individual ministries, the Council worked to offer this information according to a common format. Ministry booklets were also prepared, and in a bow to modern technology, a QR code was offered to grant access to the booklet online. While the number of people visiting the Fair after Mass was not great (anywhere from 6 to 15 people), team members indicated that the people who did attend were quite engaged. Hopefully the Fair enabled some of these seekers to discover their calling, and all the effort that went into this will bear fruit.

In summary, I believe we took a big step forward in moving from a group of individual ministries doing there own thing, to a group of ministries working to support one another. As we look to the future, I hope that each of our ministries will find ways to develop a sense of community, so that participants will not only feel more engaged with the group, but more engaged with the goal of Renew My Church: to be more attentive to the people who are not in church and  the people who are in church but do not feel welcomed or valued.

                                                                Fr. Joe