After the 6:30 Mass this morning, once I had put off
the vestments and things had been put away, the early Mass crew and I settled
in front of the Blessed Sacrament to pray.
It was about ten minutes after seven o’clock in the morning. All the church was silent; but outside, I
could hear a lawn mower. It was Anthony
Dao mowing the acres of our parish lawn.
That may not strike you as unusual at all, and indeed
it is not, since he does so every Thursday for seven or more months of each
year. He does it Thursday so it will
look good on the weekend, and he has a fallback day, Friday, in case of
rain. You have probably noticed how
beautiful and park-like our campus is, but may never have seen it being mowed
to look so good.
This work I appreciate each week. But Dao (what we call him for reasons I am
not entirely sure of) did something this week to catch my attention. It, too, is thoroughly routine but,
nonetheless, I do not want you to overlook it.
He waxed the floors in the church; all of them, under the pews, and in
the choir and sanctuary. For the latter,
he had to move out all the furniture. I
did not ask him to do this because it was looking bad; it is just one of the
things he does periodically.
There are many things like this he does routinely,
like mowing the lawn, or vacuuming the church each Monday (after the weekend)
and Friday (before the weekend). Again,
you may say, of course, but do you know how many of my priest friends are discouraged
to arrive at new assignments and find their churches filthy? It’s not FedEx Field, or one of the Regal
Majestic 20 Theatres, but two thousand people each week leave their mark on a
place even without beer or popcorn – but maybe a few Cheerios. Have you ever appreciated how clean our church
is?
Dao also changes the light bulbs, including the new
floodlight on Our Lady on the façade of our church this week, and in the high
fixtures in the church (you do not want to watch him go up that ladder). He can fix anything, and around a plant that
is mostly more than sixty years old, often does.
He has been here since shortly after he arrived here
from Vietnam, sometime in the 1980’s, and can tell you which Pastor did what
for the place (or to the place) all
the way back to Father Krastel (third Pastor of St. Bernadette, 1983 –
1987). I think he must have been twelve
when he started, since he doesn’t look old enough to have been working that
long ago.
As much time as he spends here during the week, I see
him every weekend. Dao, his wife, and their four children are parishioners here
too. Which is my only clue to why he
works so hard on this old operation: he must love the place.
Thank God for Dao, and for people who love this
parish, and work for this parish, like Jackie Nguyen in our tuition office, also
from Vietnam, and our business manager Delfina Castro, from El Salvador. I am grateful not only for their service
here, but that they can serve here,
working and supporting themselves and their families, laboring for the good of
Christ’s holy Church, their church,
and for all the faithful. I am grateful
that they live in a country where this is possible.
God bless America!
A blessed Independence Day to you all.
Monsignor Smith
