Father Bateman Issues Lenten Pastoral Letter

Each year, I try to write a pastoral letter for Lent to provide parishioners with a source of reflection and action during Lent. This year's letter has the theme of "welcome."

• Welcoming those new Catholics who are part of the RCIA and will be initiated at the Easter Vigil.
• Welcoming Inactive Catholics to come back to the practice of the Faith.
• The welcome that Christ extends to each of us in the Sacrament of Penance (Confession).
• Being a welcoming community where everyone feels "at home."

Read the entire pastoral letter here.

My dear brothers & sisters in Christ,.

In my years as pastor, I’ve developed a custom that I now bring to our parish of Saint Andrew the Apostle: a Lenten Pastoral Letter. Each year, in prayer, I strive to discern what might be an appropriate source of reflection and action for our parish during the coming season of Lent. Over the years the topics have been varied – from summaries of Papal Encyclicals to an explanation of the Sacrament of Reconciliation – each to address the concerns and needs of each parish at that particular moment in time.

For the past month or so, I’ve been praying about what might be the proper theme for this year’s pastoral letter. Several things have come together in the development of the theme: my being new in the parish and experiencing your wonderful welcome into your community; our Diocesan Marian Year (and one of the intentions – the return to the Church of non-practicing Catholics); working so closely this year with the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults – those who are studying and preparing to become members of our parish and the Catholic Church); and this season of Lent (during which we are all invited to return to the Lord; most especially through the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation). As you can hear in these various experiences, the common theme is one of welcome, and so that seems to be the reflection that God is offering our parish this Lent – Welcome.

Before he was transferred by Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop Rhoades gifted our diocese with a Marian Year; a year in which we have been invited to walk with our Blessed Mother on our Pilgrimage of Faith, Hope and Love (see Bishop Rhoades’ Pastoral Letter for the Marian Year – still available in the church entryway). He also asked that, as a diocese, we remember very specific intentions. One of those intentions is worded like this: “Star of Evangelization, intercede for our brothers and sisters who have drifted away from the practice of the faith. Help them to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and return home to the Catholic Church.” We all know people who were once part of our parish, but who – for various reasons and due to various circumstances – no longer practice their Catholic faith. Sometimes they are even members of our own family (children, siblings, even parents) who have left the Faith that we hold so dear.

Personally, I believe that in the years which followed the Second Vatican Council, we lost much of the clarity, mystery and culture of our Catholic Faith. This led to a time of great confusion in the lives of many Catholics – not because of the Council itself or its teachings, but because of the way in which the Council was interpreted or implemented. The Truths which many generations of American Catholics learned in the Baltimore Catechism were reinterpreted in an attempt to help us become more aware of how much God loves us. [For example, what used to be taught in this way: “Why did God make me? To know Him, love Him, serve Him in this life in order to be with Him in the next” became, much more simply, “God is love and will always love you.”] Both the new and old ways of teaching are True, but perhaps the way in which we sought to bring about a greater awareness of God’s love (which we needed) failed to teach several generations the basic theological Truths of our faith – Truths which have grounded many generations in the Catholic faith. Perhaps the new approach to teaching God’s love failed to instill in those same generations an awareness of the necessity and sacramentality of the Catholic Church, which made their departure from the practice of their faith easy, because there was no theological Truth in which they were grounded, no mystery in the liturgy which we celebrated, and no more Catholic culture which made us “different” from everyone else.

Inviting them to come home to the Church is one of our tasks as Catholics – and I propose it to our parish this Lent – that we do all we can, in prayer and in action, to welcome home those who no longer practice their Catholic faith. Prayer is the first thing we can do: as the intention for the Marian year says, praying to God that the Holy Spirit will speak to their hearts and that they will hear the Spirit’s call to come home. But there is much that we can do to invite them to come home. At Christmas, I sent each family the CD entitled 2 Minute Apologetics. I hope that, by now, you’ve had the chance to listen to it to learn more about our Faith. If you haven’t had the chance yet, maybe this Lent you can “pop it in” to listen and learn. How important it is for each of us to know our faith in order to be able to defend it. This requires our own study and reflection, however. Perhaps this Lent we could each spend some time in study – re-learning our Catholic Faith. Certainly the Catechism of the Catholic Church provides us a great tool for study. During this Lent, I’ll be offering various ways and opportunities for us to study our faith anew, thus learning again how much God loves us as we rediscover the beauty and integrity of the Magisterium of the Church. On Sundays when he is here, Deacon Rolling will be offering a course on the “Necessity of the Catholic Church” in the parish hall during CCD (between the 8am & 10:45am Masses). I’ll be offering a course on Fridays (following the Stations of the Cross) on the Sacraments. Watch the bulletin for announcements about the exact dates for both these opportunities to learn more about our Faith.

The season of Lent offers us other opportunities for welcome. If you’ve been attending the 10:45am Mass, you have seen the members of our RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) called forward during Mass to “go forth and reflect more deeply” on the Scriptures which we heard. This season of Lent is an intense time of preparation for our Catechumens (those preparing for Baptism) and Candidates (those already baptized in other faith traditions, but who now seek to complete their Christian initiation by joining the Catholic Church). Many times over the years, the members of the RCIA have been told that they have been “loved into the Church.” How true that is. These men and women have found a welcome here in our community – they have found Truth in the Church’s teachings – and they have been nourished by joining in our liturgical life. Now, as a parish we prepare to officially welcome them into our community as they receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist at the Easter Vigil on April 3. As a parish family, we reach out to them now to officially welcome them as members of our parish family.

The welcome that is owed to these new members of our family of faith has been enshrined even in the Church’s liturgy. Washing the feet, as the first service to be rendered to a guest, was adopted into the Liturgy of Holy Thursday; and in the ancient rites of Baptism all the ceremonies that followed the administration of the Sacrament seem to constitute a pattern of hospitality – the feet of the new Christians were washed; their heads were anointed with oil; and milk and honey were set before them. The liturgy made use of these simple actions to signify the supreme hospitality of the divine host receiving a stranger into His Church. This welcome continues to be seen in the liturgy of the Easter Vigil as the presider, standing in the person of Christ, officially welcomes the new Catholics into the family of faith, often with an embrace.

There is a welcome that each of us can experience during this Lenten season – the welcome that Christ offers us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Unfortunately, for some people, Confession is not an experience of welcome, but of fear. Confession is nothing to fear, but is a moment when, through the ministry of the priest, we are able to experience the love of God as He welcomes us back into His grace. The image of the Prodigal Son, which Jesus gives us in the Gospel, is truly apropos (see Luke 15:11-32). My favorite line of that Gospel passage is the one in which the son “comes to his senses” and realizes that he has offended his father. When the son does finally return home, his father is not angry with him, but has been looking for him, awaiting his return home. When the son confesses his guilt, the father simply embraces him and loves him. There’s no “you did what?” there’s no guilt – just a loving embrace and a “welcome home.” This is what each of us can experience in the Sacrament of Penance. During this Lent, I invite you to discover once again the Lord’s welcome to you – as He awaits you in the Sacrament of Penance. In addition to our regular confession hours (Saturday from 2:30-3:30pm; 1^st Sunday of the month from 7-7:45am), there are penance services scheduled at various parishes in the area. We’ll be sure to let you know where and when.

One more welcome is important for our parish: the welcome we offer to one another each and every Sunday. I recently asked our Parish Pastoral Council to identify several areas that are of concern. One of those areas was “a sense of welcome for everyone who comes to our parish.” Many noted that the introduction to Mass which we began in September offers an initial welcome – but, as individuals, we need to extend that welcome to others. We all know that we have our “assigned seats” in church. We often get to know the people who are seated around us. But sometimes there’s someone we don’t know. Welcome them! Learn their names. Ask where they are from. Find out if there is some way that you can help them to feel “welcome” and at home.

Hospitality, offering welcome, has long been a hallmark of true Christianity, rooted in, among other things, the experience of Abraham in the plains of Mamre. “[Abraham] had a vision of the Lord, too, in the valley of Mamre, as he sat by his tent door at noon. He looked up, and saw three men standing near him; and, at the sight, he ran from his tent door to meet them, bowing down to the earth. Lord, he said, as thou lovest me, do not pass thy servant by; let me fetch a drop of water, so that you can wash your feet and rest in the shade. I will bring a mouthful of food, too, so that you can refresh yourselves before you go on further” (Genesis 18:1-5). Then, we see Abraham hastening to Sarah in the tent for three measure of meal; running to the byre, to fetch a calf, and giving it to his servant, “who made haste to cook it.” When all was prepared, “he stood there beside them in the shade of the trees” while they ate. These actions of Abraham, bowing before his unexpected guests, washing their feet, giving them bread to eat and milk to drink, embody the immemorial outward expression of hospitality.

In the earliest ages of the Church, great importance was attached to hospitality as one of the essential Christian virtues. Among those early Christians, hospitality was not merely a private virtue, but a feature of the public life of the organized hierarchical community. Any Christian stranger would find hospitality awaiting them in every parish.

Perhaps this is why our Pastoral Council has identified “hospitality” and “welcome” as a priority. There are always opportunities for us, as a parish family, to be more welcoming and hospitable, most especially to strangers and newcomers. It is a sad reality of our western culture that we have become very inhospitable. There’s a story of a Chinese pilgrim who was on his way from Peking to Rome on foot. The nearer he came, unfortunately, the less hospitality he found. In Central Asia there was no trouble at all; his journey through the Slavonic territories was fair enough; but once he got into the Latin countries he had, as they say, “had it.” It is a painful reminder that our Western culture, (and unfortunately even our Western, Latin Church) is rather deficient in this particular virtue today. If contemporary Christians are inhospitable, our Christianity can hardly be more than just skin-deep. If we are inhospitable, even here in our own parish, how well are we putting our faith into action?

Maybe this Lent, we can reflect on the ways in which we could go outside of ourselves to welcome the stranger and the newcomer. We all know when there is someone new at Mass (because we’re all in our “normal” seats). How can we reach out? How can we be welcoming? How can we make them feel a part of our parish family? After all, isn’t this sense of welcome and belonging and hospitality what Jesus came to bring? St. John put it this way, “Jesus was to die…not only for that nations’ sake, but so as to bring together into one all God’s children, scattered far and wide” (John 11:51-52).

This Lent, may we focus our lives on how to live hospitality – remembering that it is not only one-way: hospitality involves a receiving as well as a giving. God first called us into His life, into His Mystical Body, and into this parish family. It is in this exchange that we also experience an aspect of the communion of saints in heaven. It means opening and broadening the narrow circles in which we live and move, establishing channels of human communication, through which the life-giving Spirit of Christ may freely flow. We cannot fulfill our obligations merely by taking in strangers who come our way: we must sometimes be strangers ourselves in the way of others. This is, in fact, the link between hospitality and mission.

May our mission, our reaching out, be an expression of genuine, Christian hospitality and welcome. May we allow ourselves BE welcomed by Christ as we come to Him in the Sacraments – most especially in the Sacrament of Penance. This Lent, in word and song and action, may we learn more about our Faith and become the welcoming (and welcomed) family of faith that Christ came to establish here on earth.

God bless you all during this Holy Season of Lent.