The Sacred Heart of Jesus was gone! I walked into church this morning and the
statue had been removed from its place on the small temporary altar just
outside the sanctuary. It had been there
throughout June, considered the month of the Sacred Heart since the moveable
Feast Day is invariably in June. So the
little altar sat there empty, waiting to be removed.
I thought about when we had put it up, on the last
day of April, so our statue of the Blessed Mother could be there for her month,
May. She stood there for the First Holy
Communion Mass the next Saturday, and the next day to be crowned by our newest
Communicants at the culmination of our May Procession.
As I settled into the church to pray, it was
especially beautiful. The morning light
was streaming through the colorful windows, the air was cool (despite having
only one working A/C compressor) and all was still. All was as it should be.
The seasons of faith worked out in the liturgy move
through the church with their characteristic array. The violet vesture and increasing candles of
the Advent wreath give way to the poinsettias, bright evergreens, and stable
scene of the Nativity of Our Lord. Shortly
after the Christ Child is stored away, the austerity of Lent marches toward the
grieving veils of Passiontide, and the stripping of the altar on Good Friday. The Resurrection brings a riot of flowers and
banners, and the majestic Paschal Candle bearing the Light of the Risen
Christ. Culminating on Pentecost, the
Easter Season yields to the great feasts of the Trinity, the Body and Blood of
the Lord, and the Sacred Heart, and finally the measured progress of Ordinary
Time. These weeks are ordered to bring us to Christ the King, who bows to
welcome the new Advent. Beneath the furniture
moving and the colors changing, the church does not change.
Babies are baptized in ones and twos, ranks of teens
confirmed, radiant brides and grooms become one before God, bright joyous
children in veils and ties become one with
God in their First Holy Communion, and mothers, fathers, and friends are grieved
and buried. Our neighbors enter the life
we share in the sacraments of initiation.
Young men follow Christ’s call to seminary, and return to offer their
first Mass. Babies outgrow their carried
seats, and families are made whole again by returning collegians. Exuberant young priests arrive and hone their
craft; grateful young priests move on, shaped by every moment. People change because of what they receive in
this church.
Occasionally, I will find people wandering the
property, pointing and looking, and find that they are former parishioners,
often alumni of our school, who long ago moved away. When visiting the area, they bring back
friends or family to show them this important place in their lives. They ask about the nuns, comment about the
additional building on the school, and often remark how the church has not
changed. She stays the same, not just
the stage, but also the foundation upon which all these events, all our lives
unfold.
Finally this morning I saw her, our majestic refuge,
in her “normal” state, beautifully dressed, but not decorated. I missed the statue, and marveled that its
time had ended so soon. I thought about
how much the church had seen in that brief but eventful season while the
temporary altar stood. I thought about
how much I have seen as I have served at the great canopied altar, the center
and source of life for this parish. And
I gave thanks.
For though the statue is removed, the Sacred Heart of
Jesus steadily beats at the center of this church, and from it we all draw
life.
Monsignor Smith
