If anyone asked me, I might deny it, but I do take important things for granted. If something is available all the time and it does a fine job, and I expect to have it there to help us, I tend to take it for granted. I think you might admit to the same. Whether we believe that God is blessing us with this good institution or program or company, or, if we simply say, “Boy, I am lucky,” all of us have to be reminded not to take something for granted.

What am I talking about? I am talking about Heart Beats, this quarterly newspaper you are holding in your hands and reading right now. Our parish newspaper is seventeen years old this year. Nearly, everyone is very happy to get Heart Beats. I just had a letter from a family in Framingham requesting a subscription to Heart Beats. One of my friends, Fr. Gene Sullivan, is always waiting for Heart Beats to arrive. He is forever telling me how great our parish paper is and warning me that I had better not take it for granted! Gene tells me that most parish newspapers are only tooting their own horn. However, Heart Beats covers all of Roslindale with good and interesting stories. He tells me, “You know you really feel good after reading that paper!”

We can look back over the past seventeen years at a host of stories about tailors, principals, police captains, and community leaders. We see that our writers have described our children and adults and elderly in schools and in business and community activities. Many community events of the past seventeen years have been reported in depth by Heart Beats writers. Our mayor, city councilors, representatives, senators, and judges have been interviewed and recorded in Heart Beats. Ministers, rabbis, and priests of every religious stripe in Roslindale have graced our pages with invocations, blessings, interviews, and activities. Every quarter, our paper tells the stories of our library, health center, new businesses, religious institutions, and community programs.

Heart Beats has never taken Roslindale for granted. Many of the civic, educational, social, religious, political, or public events that have happened in the last seventeen years had a Heart Beats volunteer to report on their activities. We need to be reminded not to take for granted this small newspaper of ours. Heart Beats does not happen by chance. Many excellent volunteers have made efforts to make this fine newspaper appear every quarter. These fine volunteers, who love to write and put a newspaper together every quarter, have not taken the people of Roslindale for granted.

Roslindale is undergoing a revival. Many institutions, programs, businesses, and people have made this revival possible. I only want to point out that Heart Beats has been part of this wonderful period in our neighborhood. We are part of the social capital of the Roslindale section of Boston. We help to make our neighborhood and our parish a vital place to live in, to raise a family, to operate a business, to gather to praise God, to provide a public service, and to educate our young people. In order to create a civilized place in which to live and work, to grow and flourish, a neighborhood needs more than financial capital. It needs social capital – people with caring hearts and brains and generous spirits. Do not take what we share today for granted. If we want this to continue for another seventeen years, then we have to encourage one another, work together, and hope together.

Take a look at the staff of Heart Beats. These men and women give of their talents and time to provide Roslindale with our newspaper. We thank Joan Brown, Terry Curran, Maureen Devine, Dan Farnkoff, Pauline and Ed Freeley, Rev. Tim Kearney, Dick Matulis, Marna Persechini, Cathy Slade, Mary E. Sullivan, and last but not least our editor, Carole Anne Scott. Every great undertaking needs a conductor. Carole Anne is such a person. Do not take her for granted.

Many other people have given of their time and talent and treasure over the past seventeen years. We give thanks for all of their efforts too. One person who must be remembered is Betsy Robichaud who died but two years ago. She is still remembered for all her many talents which she gave to Heart Beats and to Roslindale.

So we move into our eighteenth year of publication. Our prayer is for many more editions of Heart Beats. Our prayer too is for many more of us to step up to write articles, to raise monies, to lay out the paper, to organize our topics, to hunt out new stories. Are you someone who would like to do any of these things for us? Perhaps you know a Roslindale story that needs telling? Do you know someone of grace and generosity among us whom the rest of us should hear about?

Do not take for granted that someone else will do this work among us. You can do it. Just give a representative of Heart Beats a call. This just might help us in our continuing mission of providing quality service to our parish and our community.