Parish Party

This afternoon we closed out our parish’s 75th anniversary with a Mass celebrated by a bishop and then a dinner dance at a church hall a few blocks away. The Mass was fun, though the bishop wasn’t using the microphone very effectively. You could hardly hear him.

I came home and quickly changed into my tux and drove over there. People were quite impressed with my formal wear, if I do say myself. The bartender, woman in her early thirties maybe, was talking to a couple of us about getting dressed up, and told us that she had worn some things she didn’t want to wear—like a couple of wedding dresses!

My neighbor had done a lot of work to plan the event, and then she couldn’t even attend her own party because she works at another church that was celebrating their 50th anniversary and so she had to be there instead of with us. She just called to see how everything had gone.

The food was kind of industrial roast beef, mass produced chicken marsala—that sort of thing. What counted was seeing all the people there. We sold 344 tickets, so the place was packed. I didn’t know everyone there, but I had brought my camera so I wandered around and took pictures of my friends as I found them in the room. I’ve known some of them for thirty years, others for only a few months. Some I met during renewal weekends back in the 70’s, others I know from working on various projects and with different groups.

The funny thing is that more people know me just because I do the readings at church. They’ll call me by name and I won’t know who they are at all. There are people I’ve seen for years and years but whose names I’ve never learned. We have a photo album of parish members coming out in a few months and perhaps I’ll finally figure out who all these people are.

Ironically, a group of us who are leaders in the parish and very active in several groups were gathered around one table in the corner talking about our feelings about our parish’s direction or lack thereof. Every one of us confessed that we are close to leaving this parish and looking for another. The pastor doesn’t support us from the pulpit, and we have the feeling that he would just as soon see the parish close as not. Many parishes will be combined with others because of declining attendance and membership. We could be one of those. We wonder if he knows something we don’t. As we got ready to head home, we said let’s all go to the same place, so at least we’ll know someone in the new parish.