St. Vincent de Paul

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. On this day we are reminded of our baptismal call to be the presence of Christ in the world. One of the ways we at St. Thomas Aquinas do that is through the Ministry of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

The Society is named for the French priest Vincent de Paul who spent his life serving the poor. Members of the ministry are called Vincentians.

Many of us know of St. Vincent de Paul through calls to fill our food pantry or to give to the collection which is held on the first Sunday of every month. Beyond that few of us know what this ministry is all about, so I recently spoke with Mike McLoughlin, a member of the ministry (Vincentian), and the spiritual adviser for our conference.

Tell me about the ministry of St. Vincent de Paul.

Mike: The Society of St. Vincent de Paul was founded in 1833 and operates in 132 countries. We operate on a parish by parish basis, serving those in need around the parish. Persons who are in need get our contact information and we have intake workers who will determine: number one, do they live in our area? And number two, do they qualify for assistance?  Once that person can be considered for assistance, their contact information is given to a caseworker. Ideally that caseworker would visit that person at their home or their apartment. We strive to be a face to face ministry.

What prompted you to get involved in the ministry?

Mike: A lot of folks are surprised to learn that the primary purpose of the ministry and of being a Vincentian is to grow yourself spiritually. A lot of folks say, “It’s to help those in need,” and yes it is, so that certainly appealed to me. I write checks to all different sorts of Catholic agencies. There is someone in Nicaragua that we are helping but I’ve never met any of them. In this ministry I get to see the people that I’m helping. I get to talk to them and they get to talk to me. That was and still is appealing.

What kind of assistance is offered by St. Vincent de Paul?

Mike: We are here to provide temporary assistance to get people over a hump.

Oftentimes, the assistance is financial where someone is looking for rent or help with a utility bill or an unexpected car repair, or perhaps there is a medical bill that they’re dealing with. We have our food pantry and we give out dry goods to folks who need a food supplement. We also offer assistance at Thanksgiving and at Christmastime through “The Giving Tree.”. I’ve even helped people move furniture. We will consider every type of ask that comes our way. Sometimes we don’t have the resources, but we can direct people to others who do.

What surprises you the most about being a Vincentian?

Mike: We live in a pretty affluent area and people don’t realize that we live among poverty. Now it might not be a poverty that you see in other parts of town or other parts of the world, but there are people that are struggling. We have homeless people in Alpharetta and in Roswell, and people just don’t recognize that.

What are the greatest needs?

Mike: We can’t operate without funds and the parish has been very generous. The second biggest need is volunteers. We are desperate for caseworkers. Sometimes people shy away from that because they just don’t know what to expect. You just need to have a desire to grow your faith and to serve those in need. When we talk to people in need, we make it clear to them that it’s not Mike helping them out. It’s our parishioners who are prayerfully considering their donations. It’s the Holy Spirit who has brought this to them. 

More than 2,500 hundred people in North Fulton were assisted last year through the generosity of the parish and the work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The Vincentians will recommit themselves to another year of service during the 10:30 Mass this weekend.

For more information about the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, contact Mike McLoughlin, mmcloug@yahoo.com.

Weddings

By now the pomp and pageantry from the royal wedding have died down and Prince Harry and his bride (the Duke and Duchess of Sussex) are on their way to happily ever after. The media surrounding the monarchs made note of the fact that Meghan Markle’s father would not be present to walk her down the aisle. Instead the bride walked to her beloved accompanied by children and, in the last half of the journey, by her future father-in-law.

A father walking his daughter down the aisle has been a tradition in weddings of all faiths. It may stem from a superstition that claims it is bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the procession, but the tradition actually harkens back to a time when marriages were arranged as business deals. The father would give his daughter away in exchange for money and other goods. Today we trust that the couple comes freely and begins their relationship as equal partners. This is one reason this ritual, and the line, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” is nowhere to be found in the Catholic Rite of Marriage.

The Order for Celebrating Matrimony in the Catholic Church was revised in 1991 by Rome and, after a lengthy translation process, was made available to Catholic churches in the United States in 2016. This most recent edition offers two options for the opening procession. In one form, the guidelines simply state that the priest goes to the place prepared for the couple or to his chair. The couple takes their places, but there are no directives as to how the get there. In this case, many options for the procession are allowed: the father and/or the mother (or anyone else) could walk down the aisle with the bride, she could walk by herself, or she could walk alongside the groom.

In the other option, the priest and the servers go to the door to greet the bride and groom, their parents and the witnesses. The priest expresses the joy and hospitality of the church community and helps the wedding party to transition from the stress of the preparations for the day to focus on the spiritual occasion at hand.

Following the greeting, a single procession moves toward the altar. The procession may include elements seen at a procession at Sunday Mass such as incense, a cross, and the deacon carrying the Book of the Gospels. In the original Latin edition of 1991, this form of the procession includes the parents of the couple. Nowhere does it say that only the father is included in the procession. The priest and ministers lead the procession with the bride and the groom walking together at the end.

Having the bride and groom walk together expresses the Catholic belief that the marriage is about a man and a woman starting a life together. It also communicates the Church’s teaching that the bride and bridegroom are the primary ministers of the sacrament. In fact, it is their mutual consent, their “I do” that is the central part of the marriage rite. Any extras, such as the lighting of the unity candle or a devotional presentation to an icon or statue of the Mother of God, are just that—extras. It’s the mutual promise to be faithful to the end that counts. No other ritual could top that—not even a carriage ride to Windsor Castle!

Sunday

What are your childhood memories of Sunday? Was it a day that began with worship? Was it a time set aside to spend with family and friends? Were there special meals or other family rituals?

Sunday for my family meant going to Mass first thing in the morning. Since my hometown was largely populated by Italians, Sunday was the day we ate pasta. I can still smell the aroma of homemade tomato sauce which filled our house on Sundays. In the afternoon, we would sit out on the front porch or we would “go for a ride” to visit relatives or visit the graves of our loved ones at the cemetery. Then we would stop at McDonalds or go for an ice cream. It was a special day, sacred in fact, because we did things on Sunday we didn’t normally do during the rest of the week.

Whatever your childhood memories of Sunday, chances are that your current experience is different. Times have changed. These days, most people use Sundays to catch up on all the work that didn’t get done the rest of the week. Sundays have become filled with scheduled school and sports activities, leaving little time to observe the special nature of Sunday, as directed in the book of Deuteronomy:

“Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you may labor and do all your work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God. No work may be done then, whether by you, or your son or daughter.” (Deuteronomy 5:12-13)

The word for Sabbath in Hebrew is Shabbat, which is a name for God. The Sabbath is a day to praise God for God’s goodness and to make the day holy as God did in creating the Sabbath.

“When God created the seventh day, he blessed it, and he rested from all the work he had done.” (Genesis 2:3)

Scholars of the Talmud say the reason the Sabbath was created was not because God needed rest but in order to make rest holy, to demand rest of us so that by regularly resting in God, we could ourselves become new people. We are encouraged to keep the day by setting aside weekly routines, and giving ourselves permission to relax, be still, and partake in only those things which refresh our spirits. Our work, after all, will never be complete. But Sunday is not meant to serve merely our own renewal. Sunday frees us to fulfill the Lord’s command to “love one another” in ways we normally pass up during a busy week. Our very celebration of the Sunday Eucharist calls us to this service. As Pope Saint John Paul II exhorts:

“The Sunday eucharist commits the faithful even more to all the works of charity, of mercy, of apostolic outreach.” Dies Domini 69 

The Joy of the Gospel

The Church “exists to evangelize” is perhaps the most quoted statement from Pope Paul VI’s 1975 Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi. The document was written a decade after the Second Vatican Council and a year after a synod of Bishops that convened to answer the question, “What do we mean by the word evangelization?” This question has only spurred others such as, “How do we evangelize?” and “To whom do we evangelize?” More than forty years later, we are still asking these questions.

The world has changed in the past four decades and so have our means and methods of evangelization. Not long ago, I woke up one morning, looked at my iphone and saw this message from Facebook: "Pope Francis has accepted your friend request." That would have been inconceivable in the 1970s.

Pontiffs and publishers alike have attempted to offer us guidance for evangelization in a contemporary world, from Rebuilt to Divine Renovation, from the Amazing Parish Conferences to Alpha. Many of these programs and strategies are designed to help the Church reignite itself. They affirm another statement in Evangelii Nuntiandi, “The church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself.” Still others are aimed at moving parishes from maintenance to mission.

Pope Francis envisions a church whose evangelization is directed outward. In his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), he says,

“I dream of a missionary option, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation. #27

The Pope often speaks of a “culture of encounter” to encourage the baptized to move beyond our usual circles in order to bring the mercy of Jesus to the world, especially to the poor and to those often neglected by society.

 “In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples.” Evangelii Gaudium #120

Whenever we celebrate the liturgy, we are reminded of the call to be missionary disciples because each liturgy is an encounter with Jesus. We encounter Jesus in the hospitality, the sorrows and the joys of the People of God. We encounter Jesus in the Word proclaimed and in the prayers. We encounter Jesus in the sacred meal, the bread broken and the wine poured out. We encounter Jesus in ritual and symbol and gesture. These encounters are meant to season us to be the “salt of the earth,” to tenderize us to be the mercy of God. The liturgy strengthens us to build up the kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” So that when we are sent forth to our workplaces, our homes, our schools, our communities we might encounter people in a different way, whether we are on social media or in a social gathering.

After Easter

On this Mother’s Day I am grateful for my mother, my grandmothers, and all of my maternal ancestors, whose origins I will soon discover. I recently received the gift of a DNA testing kit. These kits, produced by 23andMe, Ancestry.com, and others are designed to help people trace their roots, connect with unknown relatives, and even indicate genetic medical trends from the swab of a person’s saliva. These products, along with the popularity of programs such as the PBS Television series, Tracing Your Roots, tell us that we are eager to determine our family tree.

The Easter season calls us to remember our spiritual ancestry. Whenever we are sprinkled with holy water, a sign of our baptism, we are reminded that we are all the beloved children of God, and that the community that surrounds us is a part of our spiritual family tree.

Those who were initiated at the Easter Vigil have spent these weeks of Easter reflecting on what it means to be a child of God and on how the rituals, symbols, and the entire experience of Holy Week transformed them. Here are some of their comments:

What were the peak moments for you?

The lighting of the fire helped usher in a new beginning for me

Taking communion …  I felt whole with the family and with Christ.

The “I do’s” felt like I was getting married!

[One candidate to another after he was confirmed] “Christ looks good on you!”

How did God speak to you? What did God say?

“You’re home, this is your family.”

[Through the Litany of the Saints] “The saints are always there to pray for you.” 

[Through the cello at the 7 Last Words] “I am here.”

Who was the God you experienced the night of the Easter Vigil? What did God say to you?

It felt like a homecoming.

God was smiling from ear to ear, wrapping his arms around us.

It felt as if a hand was being extended, as if to say, “Follow me, I’ll walk with you through this.”

What does baptism mean to you now?

Baptism washed away everything from before, which allowed the oil to seal the good of my new life within.

This is one night [The Easter Vigil] when water and oil do mix!

 How would you sum up your journey of conversion?

From confusion to clarity.

From darkness to light.

From being angry to forgiving everybody.

From feeling empty to feeling whole. 

From being disconnected to being connected, being part of the community.

From being lost to being found.