Thank You For Your Witness

It is a rainy Columbus Day afternoon and I am sitting in my office thinking about the days ahead; days which are really jam-packed. I am also thinking about various images from the previous days that keep returning to my mind. When I drafted this letter the first time, I realized it started to sound like a “to do” list. I hope that the second draft has corrected that. I share these “snapshots” with you because they are on my heart, and I hope that they in some way do for your heart what they do for mine. A woman who is new to our parish introduced herself, her husband and their children to me after Mass. She is preparing to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church this year. As I preached last Sunday on baptism, I saw a young man in the congregation who is preparing to be baptized here at Easter. I saw two young boys from our school come into Mass with their parents. I see them at school drop-off each morning. They are always smiling. I saw a little girl at Mass diligently practicing holding her hands in the “prayer” posture. On Columbus day, I showed up five minutes early for our daily confessions. I heard confessions from 11:15am until 11:55am. I had to end so that I could get ready for our daily Noon Mass. I was really struck as I looked around at the Noon Mass on Columbus Day that so many people who had the day off of work, opted to come to daily Mass. Their presence really moved me. After Mass, I went back and heard another thirty minutes of confessions! I will meet with our Vice-Principal and the parents of two of our older students in our school who–on their own volition–have asked to receive First Holy Communion. (Well, by their own volition and by the Grace of God.) I will meet with a couple of seminarians (I still am an adjunct spiritual director for the seminary) and I will also meet with a man who is preparing to become a permanent deacon. I will hear confessions and have a Holy Hour for our Young Adults and then–if I can muster the energy–will join them for their Happy Hour. (I might bail on the Happy Hour. We’ll see.) I will meet with our new priest for a few hours. I will have dinner with a young couple from our parish. I will join some parishioners who invited me to a dinner for a young woman who is becoming a nun. I will preside at a Wedding Mass and offer a Funeral Mass. I mention these things not so that you think I’m busy. (You’re all a lot busier than I am). I mention them because it fills my heart with so much joy when I think about how blessed we are. Those are just a smattering of things that happen here in the course of a few days. Those are just a few things that I actually noticed. Seeing and participating in all of these things this week really encourages me and fills me with a lot of gratitude. I hope in some small way that sharing these snapshots encourages you also. The Catholic life is so beautiful. Your Brother in Christ, Fr. David Barnes PS: Last week we announced that Archbishop Henning has appointed Fr. Matthew Harrington to serve as parochial vicar here at St. Patrick Parish. Fr. Harrington was ordained a year ago and will begin his ministry here on October 29th. We are very happy to welcome him and look forward to his becoming part of our parish family.

A couple of weeks ago, while on the parish pilgrimage to France, we offered Mass at a church in Toulouse. The church was originally the church of a Carthusian monastery, but is now a parish church located near a university. The pastor–ordained only two years–shared with us that in many places in France there has been a revival in the faith of young people. In his parish they are preparing 300 university students to be baptized at Easter! My brief encounter with him reawakened in me a reminder of what is possible and also awakened in me an awareness of the obstacles that stand in our way. A deadly attitude in parish life is to make it “consumer based.” That is, we look upon parishioners as “customers” and we try to please them. This can lull people into living their faith in a very passive way. It becomes about them being entertained, rather than them becoming active disciples of the Lord who are daily growing in holiness and who are on fire to share the gospel with others. When you look around our church these days and see young adults, young couples, young families, and college students, I can guarantee you that they are here not because they are looking to be entertained, looking for a moral life that conforms to this present age, or for a liturgy that is unserious. They are hungering–starving–for Truth, Beauty, Goodness and friendship in Christ. I think it comes as a surprise to many people, but most young men and women who are drawn to the church are not looking for an easy fix, a feel-good experience, or vague religious sentiment. They want to know what Jesus teaches and they want to know how to follow Him. They want to take up the Cross. They want a form of worship that isn’t about lulling them into a warm and fuzzy feeling, but rather lifts them up into the heavenly realms. There has been a decades-long decline in Catholic life. Today, it is quite possible (likely) that many ten year old children, whose families were once Catholic, are now third generation non-practicing Catholics. Maybe the grandparents still had an idea that they should make sure that their children received the Sacraments and got married in the Church. They perhaps came to Mass on special occasions. Their children almost never came to Mass, but maybe still kept the trappings of Faith. Their children may have been (but often are not) baptized. When they enter a church, they are completely unfamiliar with it and can’t make any sense of why they are there because it has nothing to do with their everyday lives. Many young adults–like those who grew up in a very secularized France–are suddenly reawakening to their Faith. They realize that they were deprived of something invaluable. They are experiencing a revival and are being drawn into a converted way of life. They want to hear the full gospel. They want to know how to live a moral life. They want to encounter Mystery. They want the Tradition and the traditions of which they were deprived in their childhood. They are on fire. I am very grateful that so many of you–young, old, and everything in between–have been so supportive of our efforts to grow the parish and to evangelize. These efforts touch upon all aspects of our life: our School, our Music, our Liturgical Life, our Religious Education etc. They involve everyone; our staff, faculty, priests, deacons, and parishioners. Every aspect of our life is always in constant need of renewal. If we are not renewing, we are dying. I am encouraged by all of the volunteers who have committed themselves to building up a parish that is unafraid to risk everything on the Beautiful, the Good, and the True. I am grateful for those who are responding to the needs of our young people in our small youth groups, confirmation program, and in the building up of community (friendship) among young married couples and young adults. I am grateful also to those leading small group bible studies and other formation events. You are not passive consumers. You are active disciples who are sharing the Gospel with others. You are building up the parish and building up the Church. I am grateful for those assisting our small St. Patrick School Choir who sang beautifully at the last school Mass. I hope they come and sing on a Sunday soon! These small little communities are places to encounter Christ. Lastly, please pray for those in our own parish who are preparing to become Catholic (and/or be confirmed) come Easter. There are four people seeking baptism, four preparing to be received into the Catholic Church who were previously baptized in other denominations, and one who is Catholic but is seeking Confirmation. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to see them among us. Your Brother in Christ, Fr. David Barnes

As I complete my time with you at St. Patrick’s, I’d like to take this final opportunity to express my gratitude for these past 18 months. While it was an unexpectedly short assignment, it was filled with joys and graces that I will carry with me for years to come. Having arrived here after six years in campus ministry at Harvard, I honestly wasn’t sure what it would be like to return to a more typical parish setting. I was admittedly a bit apprehensive about whether or how God was going to make use of the seemingly specific skills I had acquired; things like campus outreach, forming student leaders, marketing and fundraising, etc… all of these seemed far removed from ordinary parish life. But within a few months, I started to see, once again, that God does not work by human logic, and His plans are far greater than our own. As some of you know, I’m one who values deep, personal relationships. I don’t like conversing in large groups; in fact, I feel quite awkward at public speaking settings that do not involve preaching in church! And so, I quickly recognized and appreciated your sincerity, authenticity, and your hunger for growing in faith alongside each other. My friendship with you has enabled me to see firsthand how some of the most profound movements of the Holy Spirit happen relatively quietly and invisibly. They don’t make news headlines or grab our attention, but they impact us profoundly. Things like cultivating a new habit of prayer, being healed through the sacrament of confession, experiencing Christian fellowship, or a child learning to love God at school and then sharing that at home; all these unfold quietly, and yet they effect nothing less than the transformation of the world around us. Through you, the Lord has shown me how much He works through authentic human relationships, and that all the practical plans we make and human structures we build are always secondary. As I previously wrote, we are called to communion: communion with God and with the “whole Christ”, that is, His entire Mystical Body. And Christ’s Mystical Body – the Church – is manifest most concretely in the parish community: the local family of God assembled by the Holy Spirit to offer itself to the Father. I am reminded of the words of the First Letter of John: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God; yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is brought to perfection in us. Indeed, amid all your daily trials and struggles with faith, God’s love is being brought to perfection in so many of you, and it has been a privilege for me to witness. I’d like to thank Fr. Barnes for his leadership that has been an inspiration and model for me to follow. I’m grateful to him and Fr. Sijo for welcoming me into their home and for the memorable priestly fraternity the three of us have shared together. I also thank all of the staff at St. Patrick’s who are so joy-filled and hard-working; they share a personal love for the St. Patrick’s community that helps us priests to more effectively minister to you. And finally, I thank Mrs. Schmidheiser and the school faculty for their dedication to attending so well to the spiritual formation of the children, and welcoming my presence in the classrooms each week. I will be moving out on Tuesday and beginning at St. André Bessette Parish right away. Please come visit for Mass anytime at either St. Joseph Church in Amesbury or Star of the Sea in Salisbury. I am deeply grateful for St. Patrick Parish and will miss you all! Yours in Christ, Fr. Patrick

Sometimes words flow easily and other times, not so much. For whatever reason, writing this Grand Annual Appeal letter has been tortuous for me this year! I keep looking for the “right words” to inspire you to be generous and supportive. Then, happily, it occurred to me that you do not need to be convinced to be generous. You are generous. You are a people who respond generously to the graces that God gives to you. There are a lot of “nuts and bolts” things to be addressed in our parish facilities. The chiller for the AC system is at the end of its 20-year life span and needs replacing. The estimated cost is approximately $200,000. If you look at the front stairs, the steeple, the trim on the church, and the carpet on our interior stairs, you know that there is some serious work to be done. Almost all of the exterior trim work for the stained-glass windows needs to be replaced. These necessary projects are all costly. In addition, the parish house where the priests live needs a lot of attention. When I was pastor of another parish, I did not put any money into the parish house because I feared it might appear like I was doing it for me personally. In retrospect, all I was doing was leaving it for someone else. In the St. Patrick Parish House where the priests live, the bathrooms were last updated between thirty and sixty years ago. Much of the electrical wiring in the house is the original knob and tube that was installed in 1903, and there are wires that run outside of the walls and ceilings throughout the house. The foundation is not sealed so we have uninvited “guests” who visit us regularly. The windows, last replaced forty years ago, no longer properly close and the frames are all warped or broken. Slowly and over time, I would like to make the parish house a place that is a true home for the priests who will live there. Not fancy, but a home. Those nuts and bolts are a necessary part of parish life and they, of course, need our attention. At the heart of who we are, however, is Jesus Christ. I hope it is evident to you that we are working hard to provide abundant opportunities for faith formation, spiritual growth, service to the poor, and increased provision for reception of the Sacrament of Confession. I am deeply impressed by the spirit of discipleship that is present among the people of this parish. Something is happening in our midst. Christ is doing something beautiful here, and you are responding to what Christ is doing. You desire to follow Him with greater intensity, and you desire to bring others to Christ. I see it in a thousand ways. Blessed be God! I ask you to join me in generously supporting the Grand Annual Appeal this year. We ask everyone to consider a sacrificial gift of $350, but if you can give more, please do! And if you cannot afford to give $350, please just do what you can. Mostly, I ask us all simply to be as generous as we can be. There are a lot of repairs, overhead and bills to be paid. All of this supports our mission as a parish and allows us to have a beautiful space that truly feels like our spiritual home. Lastly, I wish to thank all of you. As your pastor, it is a source of profound joy to see you following Christ and every day becoming more and more His disciples. I feel very blessed by your witness. Here’s to a good Grand Annual! Your Brother in Christ, Fr. David Barnes

Hopefully you’ve all heard my news by now, but in case not, I’ll be concluding my ministry at St. Patrick’s on October 5. Archbishop Henning has appointed me pastor of St. André Bassette Parish, which encompasses the two churches of Amesbury and Salisbury. While I knew that my time at St. Patrick’s would not be long, I was neither expecting nor seeking a transfer at this specific time. Therefore, I am naturally sad to be leaving this community which I grew to love so quickly. At the same time, I am excited for this new opportunity, as St. André Parish seems like just the right place for me to be a first-time pastor. I’ll be present following all the Masses on October 4-5 to give my final goodbyes. If you’re able to join me, I will celebrate the noon Mass on October 5 and there will be a gathering in the hall afterward. I will offer further reflections on my time here in my bulletin letter that weekend. Over the past few weeks, we’ve found ourselves mourning the loss of innocent life amid several acts of violence, and trying to grapple with the meaning of it all. I wouldn’t dare try to offer a complete diagnosis of the problem or presume to have a simple solution. Plenty could be debated about mental health issues, social media, the glorification of violence, the accessibility of weapons, and the role of ideology in capturing young minds. But as a priest, my role is not to propose specific policies or tell you how to vote. Rather, it is to identify the invisible, spiritual wounds that lie beneath the surface – both within the perpetrators of violence and in the wider culture – to propose a path of healing and redemption found only in Christ, and to discern what Christ is asking of us as members of His Body. One theme that sticks out to me is the isolation experienced in the perpetrators. Isolation is one of the great obstacles of healing and is the antithesis of communion. Isolation exacerbates the shame we all experience from sin, elicits feelings of discouragement and despair, kindles resentment and anger, and leads to further sin. And we live in a culture that tends toward isolation. One could argue that this began with suburbanization in the 1950s; many of us are no longer forced to interact with our neighbors on a daily basis, let alone rely on them for our safety and well-being. But that’s a far cry from the isolation many young people today experience through the world of social media, through a secular culture that tells them they need to construct our own personal identity without reference to past traditions and institutions, and a culture that sees ideological opponents as personal enemies. But as the late Pope Benedict XVI continually reminded us in his writings, we as Christians and as human persons are called to communion. Communion is the sharing of our very selves – our personal and spiritual goods – with one another and with God. It is the fruit of divine charity. Heaven, according to Benedict, “is a stranger to isolation.” And so, if heaven is our destiny, and if heaven is foreshadowed in our participation in the Mass and reception of the sacraments, then communion must be something we strive to cultivate in our daily human experiences. And so, I see these recent tragedies as an urgent reminder of our call to communion. It begins and ends in Christ, and in-between lies all our daily, often complicated, human interactions. I challenge everyone to reflect on these questions. Am I a source of communion to others? What do I hide from God and others that is in need of healing? Do I seek authentic human connection and friendship with all those around me? Do I present the Good News of salvation and redemption to my neighbors? Do I contribute toward making St. Patrick Parish a place of communion, a true home where anyone can discover his/her deepest identity in Christ? As I wrap up my time at St. Patrick’s, this call to communion has been a guiding light for my ministry. Fr. Barnes has said this before, and I will reiterate, that one of our great joys as parish priests is bringing people together and fostering new friendships. Because the full “joy of the Gospel” (as Pope Francis wrote) is only experienced alongside others. Sin and shame isolate us and distort our identities; grace and holy friendship draw us out of ourselves and toward becoming the saints God is calling us to be. Yours in Christ, Fr. Patrick