Backwards/Forward

After many years of doing retreat ministry, I’ve learned the effectiveness of the process in spiritual life. The retreat process is to take a week or a weekend, and, like crossing a street, you look in two directions before proceeding. Each year at this time, as I begin another year, I like to take a look backward so that I can go forward with renewed energy and purpose. In August of 1988, I arrived at CTR as the parochial vicar and then the following year I began my ministry as Pastor of the community. I almost wrote that I began my “time” at the parish, but didn’t like a possible connection with incarceration.

People, both within and outside the parish, remark about my longevity as Pastor. My response to the inquiry usually points the persons to changes in the Church and priestly personnel. One reason is simply that there are fewer priests to send, both in religious communities and in dioceses. So the long and short of the discussions both for me and the parishioners is that for the moment I’m here to stay. As I often joke, I didn’t especially want to come to Sterling, and there were lots of people who didn’t want me to come. We together can only hope it is the movement of God’s grace that the Pastor and the People find themselves together!

A Look in the Rearview Mirror
Years ago in the seminary, at the risk of dating myself, I learned from a contemporary artist that life “looks better in a rearview mirror.” Of course, the challenge is to look forward or be left behind. A backward look reveals many changes in the parish along with many blessings and challenges to build a future.

In case you haven’t noticed, we have a new Church along with its chapel, pastoral center, office area, and a renovated educational and social space. The parish has wonderfully provided a larger space for the priests to live in. A developed area--like all of Northern Virginia--has sprung up around our facilities. Population and traffic continue to rise at an astounding rate. In my time, two parishes have been carved out in Ashburn and in Potomac Falls.

We have a few “day-one” people with us, who provide continuity to the community, while we have said farewell to many who have moved from the Sterling area. New people with the same face as our area have come to the parish: Latinos,

Afro-Americans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, people from various parts of India as well as from Africa. CTR looks and acts like the broader face of America.

The Church
Each year I have recommitted us to the essentials of being Church. We continue to be Church with a quality worship experience, with the preparation and celebration of the sacraments, with catechesis and the passing of the faith on to our children, and, with a good deal of effort, with mission and outreach. The Church celebrates and expresses itself in hundreds of baptisms, many more weddings, literally hundreds of First Communions and First Reconciliations, an increasing number of funerals, and increased pastoral contact in the parish offices.

Challenges
The late Pope John Paul II wrote often in his later years about a new evangelization. The challenge for the Church in his writings was how to proclaim the gospel and invite People to God’s Kingdom in the new context of our world. Such a challenge was always at the root of what the Church was: how to preach the gospel and engage our world in different languages, cultures, music, art, and value systems. In this way, the faith of the Church comes to bear influence on its world.

Christ the Redeemer Parish has more than 3,400 registered families, which might be estimated at 10,000 people. This challenges our ability to continue to welcome people as they come to worship with us and seek our services. Linguistic and cultural concerns involve a quest for ministers in our increasingly diverse religious education programs. The economy and immigration are the context in our Sterling area. God’s People continue on the way to the Kingdom in a smaller and smaller world through globalization, while at the same time the pace of life advances rapidly. Our population grows at both ends: we have an increasingly older population, while we have more children, teens, young adults, and singles.

Breathe Deeply
Some ask the Pastor if life isn’t boring looking to begin his twentieth year. Hardly. The context and changes in our world and Church invite a deep breath of the Spirit. Stop take a breath, be open to the Spirit, and get ready to follow where God’s Spirit will breathe.

CDH