33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

It has been a remarkable year for Holy Redeemer Parish. In June, we completed our renovation project, giving the church a full-scale elevator, new lighting, expanded restrooms, and much more. Bishop Da Cunha came in July to consecrate the new altar and bless the church. Reaction from parishioners and visitors has been overwhelmingly positive. I don’t remember hearing one negative comment. I’m very proud of our new church and believe you are also.

As 2024 draws to a close, I’ve been reflecting and formulating some plans for 2025. Now that we have completed our work to make Holy Redeemer physically welcoming, we must continue to make it spiritually inviting. When we kicked off the Capital Campaign to fund the renovations, you will remember I spoke about how our efforts to make the church more physically attractive and accessible would be futile unless we make it a spiritually inviting place of worship.

Over the last few decades, the face of religion in America has changed. Many of the structures that promoted church attendance are gone. Church attendance was a foregone expectation a few decades ago, but that isn’t the case today. Only a little more than half of Americans claim a close affiliation with a place of worship. While in the 1960s, almost 70% of Catholics claimed to attend Mass every Sunday, today, less than a quarter pass through the doors of a church each weekend. Church membership is becoming a middle-class value. Many people from a lower economic status no longer feel they have a place in church.

We must be open to experimentation and change as a parish and a wider Church. The old understanding that if you build it, they will come doesn’t work now. We need to return to our call to be a missionary church. We need to transform into a community sharing our excitement about the good news of Jesus Christ and God’s love for everyone.

Over the years, you have heard me say the church can’t be a clubhouse for Catholics. Our focus can’t be only on parishioners, the people in the pews. Our concentration and purpose for being have to be on reaching out and encouraging the lost and alienated to develop a relationship with God so they can enjoy the fullness of life.

We have developed a parish mission statement: Living in Faith, Growing in Faith, Sharing in Faith. You’ll see it printed on every bulletin, our stationery, and every parish communication. We have expanded our understanding of that mission in our Vision Statement, which is:

Through a culture of excellence in worship, we are a Christ-centered welcoming parish dedicated to life-long faith formation, evangelization, social works of justice, and community outreach that strengthens the Catholic Church on the Lower Cape. Through gifts of time, talent, and treasure, we embrace all people as brothers and sisters.

We must make that more than a vision. It must become our reality. We want to be a model parish. We might be here on the elbow of Cape Cod, a somewhat out-of-the-way place, but we have the potential for influence on a significant scale. We can punch above our weight because many visitors come every summer and throughout the year. That gives us the potential to be very influential. Visitors and summer residents come, are impressed with our activity, and take it home to help change their parishes.

As a parish, we must be open to experimentation. Since the old ways no longer work, we must be inclined to try new ways. Change can be scary, but historically, we have witnessed how it brings new life. We hear that in Mark’s gospel today. Jesus warned his disciples he had come to shake things up and start a revolution. He told them:

In those days after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

As Jesus nears the end of his public ministry, he warns the disciples new ways are about to begin. While speaking more metaphorically than literally, Jesus reveals that big events will occur. He will suffer his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, God’s Kingdom will be established, and the Temple and its system of worship will pass away.

The concept of the Temple’s destruction was inconceivable to the Jews. They recognized the Temple as the meeting point of Heaven and Earth. It was a microcosm of the Universe. They felt assured God would prevent its obliteration. Sadly, the Romans destroyed the Temple in 72 A.D. during the Jewish Revolt, and everything changed for the Jews.

Jesus tells his disciples that a new order is about to be established. It is an era when Jesus will be the new Temple. He will be where we meet God. Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist, not the Temple, will be the fountain of God’s grace.

Jesus’ words speak of the truth that God can use new systems, structures, and strategies to help us grow in our love for God. Things fall apart. They need renovation and renewal for a new age. Just as our physical church has undergone a makeover, our spiritual life must be open to conversion and renewal. What encouraged and supported faith years ago no longer works today. We need to foster revitalization and updating to communicate with a new generation.

As we say while blessing the Pascal Candle at the Easter Vigil, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow; but how we bring Jesus into our world needs continuous updating and renewal. The church must implement new ways to call people back to experience God’s love.

This year, we have made great strides in doing this, and I want to share plans for doing that even more in 2025. While our church is full and overflowing during the summer, we have plenty of room at other times of the year. Even when it isn’t the tourist season, our community has the number of at least cultural Catholics to fill our pews.

Small group formation was one of the big initiatives we took this year to help parishioners grow in their faith and have the confidence to want to share it. We have formed seven small groups with over seventy members. We want to become not only a parish with small groups but a parish of small groups. Increasing membership in small groups will be a focus in 2025.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated a trend of increased isolation in our country. Not only are houses of worship seeing smaller membership, but civic engagement of all kinds has been suffering in recent years. That isolation from people with different views and backgrounds is a cause of the partisanship and division we suffer today. Small groups fight that trend and help us learn to love others.

While we have a devoted number of parish volunteers and had a great response at our Parish Ministry Fair a few weeks ago, the day is approaching when I will need more help administrating and growing our efforts. Present part-time staff will need to become full-time, and new projects will need skilled personnel committed to helping them succeed.  

Social media and the Internet aren’t a fad. They are here to stay. They offer valuable tools to help spread our message. This year, I’d like to make developing our presence on social media a focus of effort. We are redesigning our parish website: www.holyredeemerchatham.org. We intend it to become active in a few weeks.

Just in time for Christmas, we hope to have our LiveStream of parish Masses up and running again. Our LiveSteam is an excellent opportunity to keep the homebound feeling attached to the parish, but not a substitute for attending Mass in person. It can be an evangelizing tool. When people first consider attending church, they can feel uncertain because they don’t know what to expect. Watching a livestream of Mass helps them observe us and see they are welcome.

Flock Note, our parish emails we circulate weekly are another beneficial tool for growing our faith. Metrics tell us that about 60% of recipients open our messages. That is an extraordinary response. This year, we plan to use them to even better advantage. Our Children’s Liturgy of the Word is slowly growing at the 10 am Mass. We face an older demographic here in Chatham, but we still should have more families and young people in Mass. Evangelizing families needs to be a focus this coming year.

I’m excited about our plans for the new year. Here in church, we begin it early. It starts in only two weeks on the First Sunday of Advent. I hope you are excited, too. I hope you want our parish to grow and flourish. To bring our plans to fruition, we need resources. We need people to share their time, talent, and treasure. I ask you to make giving to your parish a priority. Don’t make your donation the smallest bill in your wallet or the change in your pocket. Begin to make a sacrificial gift.

The best way to contribute is electronically. Even the most consistent Massgoers are absent from their home parish about a third of the year. You are away on vacation, attending family members’ events, or maybe not feeling well. Electronic giving allows you to set it and forget it. It is the way I contribute to our parish. If you are a seasonal resident, you can choose to make gifts only during the weeks you are here or apportion them between your various churches.

You can establish electronic giving by visiting our parish website, www.holyredeemercatham.org. Look for the Donate tab on the Home Page, click on it, and follow the prompts. If you have a problem, call the Parish Office, and we will gladly walk you through the process.

When was the last time you reflected on your gift to the church? I’d like you to consider donating a percentage of your income. The Biblical tithe of 10% percent might be too challenging for a start, but it is the percent and not the ten that is important. What about even 1 or 2%? Committing to progressing in our level of giving is a sign of our deepening love of God and a commitment to helping our parish grow. The only limit to our ability to flourish as a parish is the limits you put on your willingness to contribute to it.

In today’s first reading, we heard of the prophet Daniel’s vision of the enormous changes God would bring about in the world. In his vision, he saw all of creation getting involved. The stars, wind, water, and every other element took part to help bring about God’s plans for renewal and a deeper commitment to God. I pray you will join me and your fellow parishioners in being part of the plan to grow Holy Redeemer parish here in our corner of the Kingdom of God.