From the Pastor’s Desk
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners:
When it comes to Christmas cards, I suppose I am kind of old school as I still send a Christmas letter. This year, in my Christmas letter, I found myself reflecting on our parish’s experience of the pandemic. As you have heard me say or write before, I am inclined to see what we are going through as an “exilic” experience. While it is not always fruitful to recall the past, perhaps it will help our perspective to review our nomadic meanderings as worshippers over the last ten months. Therefore, you will recall the following:
· March 19, 2020 On this date, public worship in California was suspended indefinitely on account of the pandemic. During the eleven weeks of suspension of public worship, St. Mary’s Church remained open every day for ten hours of Eucharistic Adoration and Fr. Steven and I heard confessions daily. Fr. Steven and I celebrated private Mass every day and offered Mass via livestream on Sundays. You will recall that the Holy Week Triduum liturgies and Easter Sunday Masses were celebrated only via livestream.
· June 8, 2020 On this date, we were allowed to resume the public celebration of Masses and the other sacraments, with restrictions, in our church.
· July 17, 2020 On this date, on account of the rising number of COVID infections, the celebration of Mass and the other sacraments was moved outdoors. We arranged our weekend Mass schedule so that Mass wouldn’t be offered in the hottest part of the day. Meanwhile, I found myself rearranging my vesture (reducing layers) so that I wouldn’t be a completely sweat-soaked mess after an hour of Mass.
· Sep 24, 2020 On this date, we were allowed to hold Masses and the celebration of the sacraments once again in our church.
· Nov 18, 2020 On this date, on account of rising COVID numbers, we again moved the celebration of Masses and the sacraments outside, where we still find ourselves worshipping two months later. This time around, with 36º F temperature at 8a Mass, I find myself adding layers of clothes!
To be sure, we are not the first folks in history to be “exiled” from our “homeland”, which in our case would be the prayerful and rather comfortable confines of St. Mary’s Church. The Israelites experienced much harsher and longer exiles than we certainly have experienced. Moreover, we recall that Jesus, Mary and Joseph experienced exile at the very beginning of the Savior’s life. In order to escape Herod’s murderous intentions, Joseph was warned by the angel of the Lord to take the Child Jesus and Mary to Egypt and to remain there until the danger passed. (Mt 2:13-14)
So, yes, among other experiences we have had over the past ten months, I imagine that many of us have felt distanced, even, exiled, from each other, from our places of work, from our parish and from most everything that we consider normal. Through all this, Fr. Steven and I have been truly edified by your perseverance, flexibility, generosity and resilience. While many of you continue to participate in our Sunday live-stream Masses, a good number of you attend our outdoor daily and Sunday Masses, weddings, baptisms and quinceañera Masses. Thanks be to God and much work on the part of staff, catechists and parents, we managed to complete our celebrations of First Communion and Confirmation that had been suspended in the spring. Too, over the summer, we received fully into the Church all of our RCIA folks who had been prepared to be received at the Easter Vigil. It takes a ton of work to set up for and break down our outdoor Masses. I give thanks to God for the generosity, commitment and reliability of our sacristans Nelly Verba, Sherry Vandergraaf, Linda Molina, Manuel and Elizabeth Belo, Celia Quiquivix, Concepcion Madrid, Jose Pineda, as well as Deacon Phil Verba, and a handful of other volunteers. Also, I think we all agree that the church, our outdoor worship space and our outdoor crèche (now, Marian grotto) have been most beautifully enhanced for the seasons of Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time, Advent and Christmas and now Ordinary Time, again. I express my gratitude to Angie Caserza and Brenda Krch and all their helpers, including members of our Knights of Columbus Council 4901.
All of what we do as a parish is for the greater glory of God, even our feeling of being exiled. “How is that possible?” one might ask. How can what we have experienced as worshippers over the last ten months give glory to God? In two ways at least. First, in our experience of feeling separated or exiled, we are in solidarity with Jesus, who was exiled along with Mary and Joseph as an infant. By experiencing exile, we can be with Our Lord in his exile. Indeed, above all, Our Lord went into exile for our sake by dying on the cross and descending to the dead. Our Lord, literally, went to hell and back, so that we could one day find our way from this earthly exile to our heavenly homeland. (cf. Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, The Infancy Narratives) The second grace of experiencing exile now is that it reminds us that we should never feel too comfortable in this world. Over the summer, rightly so, some of you commented how nice it was to have Mass outside. And, I know some folks have mentioned that they like the convenience and comfort of participating in livestream Mass. Nonetheless, I think we would all agree that we would much rather be celebrating and participating in Mass again, as a parish community, in our church as we did before the pandemic.
If we think about it, we should never feel completely comfortable in this world, because we are not meant for this world. We are meant for heaven. If the pandemic makes us feel uneasy, frustrated, annoyed, fearful, angry or sad, that’s not a bad thing. It reminds us that nothing in this world will be perfectly right until we get to heaven. As we begin this new year of grace, we should pray to God that we do all we can, with the help of His grace to grow in holiness and to help others grow in holiness so that one day we will be delivered from this worldly exile, from this “vale of tears” as we pray in the Rosary, and be carried by our Good Shepherd to our heavenly homeland.
In Christ,
Father Berg
