by Msgr. Frank Kelley

We have had to learn a new word in the past year, "reconfiguration." Whatever it once meant, these days the word leaves a bad taste in our mouths. St. Joseph's in Hyde Park closed on the 8th of August. Blessed Sacrament in Jamaica Plain closed the last Sunday in August. Throughout the fall, we will be hearing more of this talk.

We have been touched by the pain directly as Saint Andrew the Apostle has had to face joining us at Sacred Heart. No matter how well we work to make a smooth transition, closing one's parish is a death.

I find myself torn. I quickly came to love the people of Saint Andrew the Apostle and the beauty of the parish's church. At the same time, we saw the declining number of people coming to worship at Saint Andrew each Sunday. The loss and pain of what is happening is real and close to all of us.

We are not at peace with the "administrative" decisions Archbishop Sean O'Malley is forced to make. Still, we do have enormous financial burdens. For example, as of June 2003, the short- and long-term repairs to the property at Saint Andrew totaled $2,141,200 while Sacred Heart's short- and long-term repairs totaled $2,288,500. We have watched the decrease in the number of clergy for the last twenty years. This continues.

We know that only about two out of every ten Catholics attend Mass weekly. Another three will come to Church on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, and Palm Sunday. We know the scandal of sexual abuse has made it impossible for the Archdiocese to provide any subsidies to parochial schools or parishes.

A number of people have confronted me about the closings. We are angry about these closings in the ways that we were angry about the sexual abuse scandal and the whitewashing of the scandal. Our anger is a way of grief. Our innocence and our hopefulness have been torn away from us.

If we do not discover what we are mourning, then our anger is dangerous. Anger leads to violence when we do not understand what is lost. Some people are angry who have not gone to church for years. Others who are sad have worshiped every week. Still others are just drifting away. WeCatholics — active or passive, charismatic or lapsed, conservative or fallen away — we believe deeply, but I fear we do not understand these emotions of faith. We need to ponder what we are angry about; what are we losing; what has been lost. As well, we are challenged to attend to the signs of renewal among us.

In facing the sexual abuse scandal, I realize how sinful our Catholic Church is. We are stupid and arrogant, fearful and jealous, lustful, lazy, and proud. Yet each of us is offered a seat at the table of the-Lord. Bishops and priests and sisters and laity all are sinful. One of our shortest prayers is "Jesus have mercy on me, a sinner." I find this prayer "covers a multitude of sins," as the saying goes.

What I still do not understand is why Jesus and the Wise One have chosen to dwell among such a collection of sinners and saints. Like Mary, I am "pondering these things" deep within myself, Whatever does this God want with us?

I end with a phrase I came across the other day. It is old wisdom and it says: "Renewal is normal." I thought of it as I watched the hint of life emerging in a young woman. Her husband had suddenly died. Now a few years later she was attracted to a man. The new green shoot of life was coming about. So I remind myself that such reconfiguration and scandal and whitewashing do not describe God's life among us. Stick around because there is more to come. This Church is not dead yet. You may even want to come back again.