The Church Universal

A feeling of "I've seen it all before" is one of the hazards of acquiring over a decade's worth of experience in church fund raising. This sense is not one of boredom, or apathy or cynicism; far from it! I still love this mission of ours to help parishes secure the financial resources to grasp the future with confidence. If anything, I'm even more enthusiastic about my job - I just love it even more when we fly in the face of economic headwinds and popular convention and succeed!

No, I'm talking about feeling that you've seen virtually every surprise there is to see and that you cannot be shocked by anything people say to you. Well, as the well-worn adage informs us, "you learn something new every day!"

Recently I attended my first Vietnamese language Mass in inner city Cleveland. This was a venerable parish of German roots that had withstood the disruptions of urban decay and suburban flight and had endured the crushing loss of thousands of industrial jobs to stand proudly ready to secure for itself a bright future. The parish was roughly evenly split between the Vietnamese Apostolate of Cleveland, which took this parish for its home and the folks who had long-term roots in the neighborhood and stayed either in the city neighborhood or commuted in from the suburbs to maintain their membership in their historic parish.

There was a visiting priest presiding at this Mass and he focused much of his homily on the PSR (CCD for those of you unfamiliar with this term) children. (Since I understand not one word of Vietnamese, I base this observation on watching him look at the kids assembled in the first few pews.) He spoke animatedly for about ten minutes, whereupon he wheeled around, took a few steps toward me and said in English, "perhaps our visiting friend can enlighten us - can you please tell us what is the last sentence in the Gospel of Matthew?"

Now, as someone who prides himself on his poise, I didn't immediately scream and jump out of the pew. I did however, swallow hard, try to smile and think, and then after a few very dramatic seconds of silence, finally blurt out a line ("That the Father and I are one.") that he happily told me was part of the Gospel of John, not the last line of Matthew! He then turned back to the congregation and told them in Vietnamese and in English what the last line was. (just in case my loyal readers are in a forgetful moment, the last line in Matthew is, "Teach them to observe all the things I have commanded you; and behold, know that I am with you, even to the end of time." )

After the Mass, my public humiliation complete, I spoke with the priest, joking about how I enjoyed his sermon! He was pleased that I was not really angry but in our discussion he revealed to me why he, as a young priest, had virtually memorized the New Testament.

He mentioned his grandfather, who was a Catholic during the worst years of the Vietnam War; he mentioned how they were persecuted -first in the South by fellow countrymen, and then later truly oppressed by the Communists once the North took over the country. Often the people in his family were not able to worship in public and they were usually without printed materials which were both scarce and dangerous to possess. His family, like all those families in the pews with me that day, came to America to escape the Communists. This young priest told me that he spent much of the homily reminding the young people that their faith would always need to be guarded and passed on, just as their parents had passed it on to them. Further,he implored them to treasure the chance to not only learn the faith, but to study it, share it and preserve it. There will be challenges to their faith in this country also - not like the governmental oppression like Vietnam, but from the secular culture. In many ways this challenge can be even more deadly, because it is subtle. I told him that while my linguistic skills did not include Vietnamese, I could tell by watching the faces of the young people that his energetic homily has captured their attention.

We had a very successful campaign meeting that day, so I felt that sense of accomplishment, but I was also touched by how eagerly folks from a culture so different from my own had embraced the faith and the challenge of the future. As I gazed around the church I was struck by the images - a beautiful pipe organ and several finely-crafted statues -all from Germany. There was a lovely image, too, of Our Lady of Guadeloupe along with an icon of the Blessed Mother and Child (Theotokos) and of course a plethora of bulletin board notices/announcements, evenly split between English and Vietnamese. In short, a visual image of a Church universal, Eastern and Western Europe, North and South America and Asia.

As I drove home I marveled at the these physical gifts in this church representing a hundred years of faith and every corner of the world. I also noted with awe the emotional and spiritual gifts of faith so strongly present among those worshiping alongside me - and how I had absorbed my own lesson from the priest right along with the grade schoolers who were there to watch it all unfold before them.