Keeping On or Keeping Up?

After only a year in a parish many years ago, I was moving on to another parish assignment. I still remember the reaction of one parishioner to my leaving after a short ministry. The woman told me basically that priests come and go, and “we lay people are left to just put one foot in front of the other.” There was obviously a feeling of being left behind. As often happens, the parishioners were left to keep on with their lives and ministry.

That thought comes to mind as I approach yet another anniversary here at Christ the Redeemer. Next month I will have completed sixteen years as a priest in Sterling. Hopefully my friends with which I am blessed will be happy to celebrate those years. But others, don’t be disappointed that I’m not moving on! At this anniversary time, the words of the Afro-American hymn come to mind: you have to “keep on keeping on.” Actually, after so many years and a few more birthdays, I wonder if it’s keeping-on or keeping up.

After a year as an associate pastor, I began my time as pastor at Christ the Redeemer. Each year since that time I’ve written in this column about how I saw parish life, the pastor’s ministry, and offered some suggestions where we could move as a parish. Anniversaries are always good times to look backward and assess things. The bigger challenge is to look forward with reshaping new hopes and expectations. That’s my task this weekend in the bulletin.

Keeping Up

The clearest observation of change at Christ the Redeemer is the growth of the parish in response to our local community around us. There are just more people with more things to celebrate, more needs to be filled, and a much diversified way of living here in Eastern Loudoun County. Like the traffic, the restaurants and the shopping malls all of us seem to move faster everyday. Christ the Redeemer is not the small, intimate community it once was. With nearly three thousand registered families we find not just young families, but seniors, and a community of various economic and social dimensions.

Our English-speaking religious education programs have expanded to four days a week, twice each day for elementary religious formation. We continue to have an increase need for Youth Ministry and Confirmation Preparation. A constant part of our parish life is the welcoming and integration of new members to the Catholic Church. Many parishioners minister in our various catechumenal communities for adults, for children both English and Spanish speaking.

Well-known in our area is the tremendous growth of our Spanish-speaking Community. With actively engaged parishioners in this community, we have a full range of religious education and sacramental preparation. A special need is for older children and teens in need of the Sacraments of Initiation. An active outreach is evangelization or the re-welcoming of adults to active sharing in the Church and the celebrations of the Sacraments.

Reaching Out

CTR continues with a broad-based outreach outside of itself and within the local community of Eastern Loudoun/Western Fairfax. As a whole community, CTR supports LINK. Others are

involved in a more direct participation in the care and feeding of the poor. ESL (English As a Second Language) offers a valuable service to newly arrived immigrants in the area.

An enrichment of our outreach has come over the last two years with the opening of our space to the ministry of Catholic Charities/Hogar Hispano. These services supply support in family counseling, immigration, and other resource networking in the area.

Pastoral Care

At the center of any parish is the pastoral care of parishioners in their faith life and in their everyday needs. The visiting of the sick in the hospital and in their homes is a shared ministry of many people, priests and laity. There are innumerable, but wonderfully rewarding hours, with the pastoral care of the sick and dying. Increasingly, Christ the Redeemer Parish is the place of grieving families for wakes and Masses of Christian Burial.

We continue to marry increasing numbers of young couples as they start their lives together. This reflects the enlarged number of single parishioners in our area. The image that we are a “young family” parish is a changing one. Marriage preparation for both English and Spanish speaking couples precedes their weddings. A unique outreach to Spanish speakers is the blessing of civil marriages outside the Church. Due to cultural differences, these convalidated marriages are almost equal in number to first time "church weddings."

Eucharist

What parishes do most frequently and best is Sunday Eucharist. We have grown to seven Masses on a weekend, five in English and two in Spanish. This is where the parish is most visible. This is where people find encouragement in God’s Word and are fortified by the Presence of the Lord in Holy Communion. This is where the diverse community of the Church comes together. Here we are most deeply rooted as members of the Body of Christ.

Where Are We?

As Catholic Christians at Christ the Redeemer, we have moved to a new Church, new meeting rooms, and with them new possibilities. We can be justly proud of who we are and the ministries which have brought us thus far. Soon our new windows will be symbols of the beauty of God’s actions among us.

With increased needs to be met we continue to be challenged in our life and ministry here at CTR. We have explored various forms of parish life and service structures in our past. We have a professional staff, fewer friar-priests (and a little older too), but we have new challenges to search out the Kingdom of God among us. The challenge is to be grateful for the past, but to leave it for a renewed future. Our times, our situation, and our mission-call invites new possibilities. It’s about keeping-on in the faith, which is more exciting and more intense than just keeping-up.

It was all new sixteen years ago for me and it still is. In the middle of it all is God living and acting in the midst of his People, the Church.

CDH