This past weekend my parish, Our Lady of Lourdes, celebrated its 80th anniversary. And this occasion reminded me of the importance of a faith community and participating within it. Each month this year we have been provided an opportunity to partly prepare for and partly to celebrate this magnificent achievement.  

The parish has sponsored monthly spiritual and social outreach options. Whether it was supporting the food pantry by bringing the ingredients for a spaghetti dinner for those less fortunate or consecrating ourselves to Eucharistic Adoration, each one focused our attention on the role the parish plays in the lives of both the parishioners as well as the surrounding community. 

Even though Adoration is usually offered weekly, by taking the time to study it and make a commitment to participating, it elevated it from just another item on the calendar to a joy-filled need. Adoration is a time of peace in a chaotic world. It’s a time when we can turn our troubles over to Jesus and be filled with His presence. It’s a time when the only thing required of me is just me — not what I can do for another, not my intellect, not my compassion — just the person God created me to be at that moment. It was weekly adoration that drew me to this parish, and one that continues to keep my faith grounded in the roller coaster of challenges that life tosses my way.

While the heart of any parish is the spiritual nurturing it provides, the soul of the parish is its ability to bring the light of Christ to all members of the community. Supporting others through the various organizations of the parish allows us to mirror the generosity of God’s blessings upon us. Blood drives, the food pantry, and the clothing closet are just a few ways that we help individuals with the basic necessities for life. From the beginning with the Apostles and throughout the two millennium the Church has been in existence, each family in each parish, in each diocese, contributes to the neighbors that surround them. The parable of the Good Samaritan is illustrated daily in many different ways in locations all over the world.

During the main celebration, this combination of spiritual and social was also key. A solemn Mass was not only the spiritual ingredient, but the reminder of why the parish started in the first place: to meet the needs of the then rural community that had sprung up in the outskirts of Richmond. After the Mass, the social reception included opportunities to walk down memory lane of various historic documents, and to reach out to the homebound parishioners by writing notecards to extend them into the celebration. Being relatively new to the parish, it reminded me of the various parishes that I participated in and how, in another 50 years, my picture in a parish directory may be viewed as the typical style of that decade. I didn’t know most of the people in the photos that I saw, but there was still a sense of family when I viewed them. Their participation in the parish at that moment allowed it to live and flourish so that I can be a member now. And my participation in both the spiritual and social events continues the parish’s, and the Church’s, mission to spread the Gospel, both in Word and worship.

If we love God and want a relationship with Him, then we must also love our neighbor and share the blessings God has given us to them. Each parish provides unique opportunities to work both within, as well as, outside of our comfort zone to strengthen our relationship with God and lend our hand to others in friendship and service. If we want to be a part of a strong and vibrant parish, it is up to us to participate and to seek God’s guidance in how we can best contribute to our spiritual family and the surrounding neighborhood family.