I love it when a plan comes together! That was the tagline for The A-team, a goofy television show
decades ago. But it comes to mind now as
I look back at last weekend. What a
great time! Even the weather cooperated with our every
specification, and made for a glorious Fall Festival for us and many of our
neighbors.
Much
of the day I spent starting conversations with people I had not previously met,
or had only seen in passing. It was a great
opportunity for that, since nobody was in a hurry, and people were moving about
in little groups, usually their families, but often also their friends. This provided great context to help me get to
know them, and remember them next time. If
enough of us from the parish expressed a friendly interest in them, that’s the
best way to make sure there will be a next time.
The
“genius” part was finding something for everybody to do – and finding somebody
for everything that needed doing. I was truly
amazed at the number and variety of people who helped out with everything. To all of you who put your time and energy
into making one of our events happen, know that you were the face of the parish
that day for untold numbers of people.
Now
for the follow up: in coming weeks, make a point of saying hello to someone you saw or helped or met at the Festival, someone
you didn’t know or chat with before this.
As I pointed out a few weeks ago, it is a community builder, not a
fundraiser. But you can’t build a
community in a single afternoon, no matter how gorgeous. This is a great way to meet the people who
are willing to meet us. To bring them
further into the mystery of our life in Christ is the goal of our being here in
the first place; and that is a plan we all want to see come together.
Speaking
of things coming together, let me commend you all on your progress with the music
of the new Mass setting. Since the new translation of the Missal was
introduced at Advent of 2011, we have mastered two English-language settings of
the commons of the Mass, the parts
that recur at each Mass. I have always thought we should have at least three
English settings in our repertoire, and new music director Chris Mueller had
composed this one. September is the perfect time for the change,
since we have been using the same music for months, since Corpus Christi in
early June, and we have more than two months until we change to the music we
use during Advent.
It
takes time for liturgical music to become familiar and integrated into our
worship, but you already are well on your way to learning it. Soon I think you will agree that it is
excellent, every bit up to the standards of the two setting we had been
using. Some parishes are still using
settings written for the old texts, with the new texts jammed in. That is musically bad, and liturgically even
worse. Here at Saint Bernadette, we don’t
settle for less than excellent in our worship of God; that too is all part of
the plan.
Monsignor
Smith
