Home: In Parish

Last week, I shared my hope that all of us could be open to receiving God's blessing in our lives and to find a home in our Church and in our parish. What would that look like? What makes a parish—or any place, for that matter—a home? Ideally, a parish is where we find community, in a world and culture that constantly works against true community. Our mobile and materialistic society prioritizes things over people, and our attempts to plug the gap with social media ... haven’t worked very well. We need in-person activities, in-person conversations, and in-person care.

A parish is a place where we can find these things, but establishing a home in a local parish isn't as simple as filling out a registration form and receiving church envelopes in the mail. Like all other forms of community, it requires stepping out and making connections. Some of that comes from volunteering, whether through organizations like the Ladies of Charity and Knights of Columbus or for the parish directly at Masses or (*ahem*) CCD. Some of that comes from attending social events like this weekend's Parish Picnic or the upcoming Parish Festival in August. Some of it could come just by being neighborly and helpful to the couple with three loud, squirming children next to you in the pew. That's the trick of finding a home in a parish: The best way to find one is to help make it a home for others.

So, my challenge for all of you reading (and I'll try to have a challenge for you every week) is this: Think about how you can reach out to someone at the parish you don't know yet. If you're going to the Parish Picnic, that's a great place to start.