Reasons St. Patrick's is our Parish Community
As I think of the faith journey my husband and I have made in the past 17 years since our move to Seattle to help care for our grandkids, and the part St. Patrick’s has played in it, I can only feel gratitude to the Holy Spirit. We enjoyed most of our first 4 years in our neighborhood parish, where much of our spiritual nourishment came from my women’s bible study. We did become aware of a conservative group within the parish which tended to be a threat to our Vatican II principles however. This came to a head at a liturgy committee meeting I was a part of, when a conservative member of the committee raved about a Latin mass he’d attended in Seattle, inferring his support for masses said in Latin. When I asked if anyone had read the history of the reasons and difficulties the participants at Vatican II had with the change to “mass in the vernacular?” I’d hoped to have a discussion about the issue, instead, the committee member told me I should be excluded from the committee’s general meetings, and be informed of the general principles of the Catholic church. To make it worse, the young priest in attendance had not been instructed in treating all people with respect, or honoring what each had to say, so he said nothing. (I wonder if anything has changed on this issue, in that parish as Pope Francis tries to push for mass in the vernacular 15 or more years later?) Within a short time, similar incidents occurred and we were invited by another parish member to attend mass at St. Patrick’s.
We were heartily accepted and respected by laity and clergy alike at St. Patrick’s, as were all we met. Classes and discussions that invoked differing opinions were welcomed and helped us grow. We became involved with choir, and my husband became a member of the Saturday morning “Maintenance Committee” where he made new friends easily, and was grateful for being able to help in a concrete way. When I brought up a suggestion to parish member, John Hale, about bringing soup to donate for those in need on “Super Sunday”, he helped me get it started, and let me handle the project myself. We soon felt ourselves a part of a vibrant community.
We found it worthwhile to travel extra miles to the parish of St. Patrick’s, although the extra miles have not been easy, as we both have several serious health issues. Although we’ve been able to get to mass when the Pandemic risk has allowed it, the Pandemic has added problems, and we have been so grateful to have Mass on-line, and have appreciated the times we’ve been brought Eucharist to our home, as well as having the life-giving connections on Zoom with Choir practice and videos we’ve been part of, Women’s encountering God, Paul Sampson’s enlightening Wednesday night movies, and discussions, and my Encountering God sessions on Thursday morning, and our “Grief Group” sessions once a month when we lift up others, as well as ourselves, who lost significant others. We know that our community of St. Patrick’s “has our backs”!
The announcement that the Archdiocese plans to close our parish is of deep concern to us. We understand the shortage of priests, and trying to make the archdiocese more efficient, as we’ve worked with these issues for over 60 years, but when I think of church history and how the small community started in Jerusalem, to grow in their appreciation of a God who cared for them and walked with them, amid the larger structures of their day, I wonder if our church hierarchy understands how precious true community is, how rare it is, and how sinful it is to destroy community, for then the Spirit has no place to dwell and to bring about Divine Change?