We are entering a special time of grace in the course of the
Lectionary. For six weeks we depart from the customary Gospel of Mark
for Year B of the cycle and hear an extended discourse on the
Eucharist found in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John.
There are many ways to understand the Eucharist: The body and blood,
soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Our participation in the great
sacrifice of redemption in the Paschal mystery. The Church’s joining
Christ’s prayer of eternal thanksgiving to the Father. Communion with
Our Lord and with the whole Church.
For Catholics, the Sunday Eucharist is the necessary worship of God
enjoined on us by the Church to fulfill our obligation to keep each
and every Sabbath Day holy. While this precept seems on the surface
about individual responsibility, it is, nevertheless, an ecclesial
reality. The Eucharist is the source and summit—or font and apex as
Lumen Gentium 11 can be translated—of the Church. The Eucharist is the
spring from which the life of the Church rises, and it is the
culmination toward which all our activity tends. Christ makes his will
abundantly clear in John 6:53 “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have
life within you.
With my appointment as the pastor of Mary Immaculate, St. Rose, and
the Newman Center, I have been asked to expand my circle of concern
beyond its customary range. For seven years, I was pastor of a parish
with only one Church. While Our Lady of the Lake comprised several
small towns such as Lake Ozark, Rocky Mount, Kaiser, Osage Beach, and
even across the Lake to Sunrise Beach, the liturgical center remained
the church on Bagnell Dam Boulevard. Adjusting to celebrating the
Eucharist in several places isn’t too difficult. I had four churches
for nine years as the pastor of parishes in Maries County and southern
Osage County. Adjustments to customs and environments of different
churches is just an opportunity to experience the rich unity in
diversity that is the Body of Christ.
However, and this is a big “however,” shortly after my arrival I
discovered that Father Pat Dolan, who is the sacramental minister at
Milan and Unionville, would be going on vacation in Ireland for two
months. He had missed his vacation time last year with the pandemic,
and as a semi-retired priest in active ministry, enjoys a little bit
more flexibility in his pastoral care. I also found out that Father
Simeon, pastor in Edina, Memphis, and Baring, and chaplain to the
Newman Center, is also going on vacation and will be gone for five
weekends in August and September. Like Father Pat, Father Simeon has
family in another country and the pandemic and his study for a canon
law degree precluded his going home to see his family the last two
years.
The result: the people of Milan and Unionville have no one to offer
the Mass in their churches for the two months Father Pat is away.
While the Diocese has been trying to find a priest to assist, that is
very difficult at this time as the number of priests available for
substitute is small and their ability to travel up this far north from
where they are is also somewhat limited. Fr. Patrick Adejoh, chaplain
at the VA in Columbia, will be able to have one Mass each weekend at
Edina while Father Simeon is away, but he has to return to Columbia
directly after Mass since he is on call for emergencies at the
hospital.
To summarize, Milan and Unionville will have no Masses for 8 weeks
while the people of Novinger and Kirksville have four Masses each
weekend that are very accessible. When the Newman Center resumes its
custom of Sunday Mass for the 300-400 students who typically attend,
there is no one available to take Father Simeon’s place.
If we do some pastoral mathematics and attend to the values of justice
and charity, it is evident to me that I and the folks of Mary
Immaculate and St. Rose are invited to sacrifice a little so that
others may have an opportunity to attend Mass in their churches. In
consultation with the deacons, parish staff, and the parish council, I
propose that Mary Immaculate suspend its customary 11:00 AM Sunday
Mass from August 1 through September 5. Given the numbers that attend
the four Masses on the weekend at Kirksville and Novinger, I am sure
we can accommodate all who are able to attend in the three remaining
Masses.
I would then be free to celebrate Mass once a Sunday at Milan until
Father Pat returns. Those days would be August 1, 8, 15, and the 22nd.
Then on August 22 when the university students return, I would have
the opening of the school year Mass at the Newman Center at 5:30 PM,
Sunday afternoon. On August 29, Father Stephen Jones would have Mass
at the Newman Center at 11:00 AM. On September 5, I would not go to
Milan but instead have an 11:00 AM Mass at the Newman Center. The
Newman Center would not have a second Mass in the evening.
The customary 11:00 AM Mass at Mary Immaculate could then resume on
September 12, provided that upon consultation with Father Simeon and
Father Pat when he returns that I would not be needed for a third Mass
on Sunday in another location.
I understand that this can be seen as a major disruption to people’s
expectations and habits, especially since the past year kept moving
the goal posts in regard to so much of our life. I ask that everyone
reframe these changes to the schedule not as an elimination of a Mass
but a true offering of faith in a charitable gesture of good will to
our brothers and sisters who too are dedicated to the source and
summit of our faith which is the Holy Eucharist.