Trust

At the end of June, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales will be leaving St. Paul's and leaving the staffing of the parish with priests to the Diocese of Charlotte. It is an emotional time of transition, and one of fear and anxiety for some, as we have not faced a change like this in a long time. The parish has been staffed by order priests for its first 35 years, first the Paulists, then the Oblates. This is a step into the unknown.

Last night we had a meeting of the Parish Pastoral Council to discuss the transition. We honestly shared our thoughts and feelings, fears and doubts, and tried our best to discern what our role as a Council should be in this transition. Two people who said they had a conflict changed their plans and came anyway. The mood was thoughtful, loving, trusting, brutally honest, forgiving. There was and is such a love among us for this community and what it means to each of us, for the essence of St. Paul's parish that transcends priestly and lay leadership, and for the faith that binds us all together.

The Holy Spirit was with us, and through the Spirit it was our finest hour, not because of anything we did or said, but because in the end we decided to take the Lord by the hand and let Him lead us through this. That is what God is calling us to do through the prophet Jeremiah in today's readings:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
It fears not the heat when it comes,
its leaves stay green;
In the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.
More tortuous than all else is the human heart,
beyond remedy; who can understand it?
I, the LORD, alone probe the mind
and test the heart,
To reward everyone according to his ways,
according to the merit of his deeds.

Our parish has been through a lot over the past ten years, including the removal of a beloved pastor due to accusations of sexual abuse and a severe financial crisis. I don't need to recount all the particulars, as they are all part of a past we can't change. Over that time we watched our numbers wither by a quarter or even a third.

But we have also watched a miracle take hold. Our finances bounced back, and in spite of the strains of the recession are still better than they were. Our numbers have bounced back. There is a renewed sense of who we are as a community, and the role we play in the larger community of Greensboro.

As so often happens when we trust the Lord, our trials have become a beautiful gift. Because I believe we now see that our faith community at St. Paul's is much more than our priestly leadership, more than the homily on Sunday or even the Mass itself. We are here for each other, and we are here for others we don't even know -- the homeless who stay in our church as part of the Greensboro Interfaith Hospitality Network, the Muslim family whose house we helped build through Habitat for Humanity and the people whose houses we'll work on in Honduras, the people of our sister parish in Ecuador, and the people who come through our doors every day to find help to get through these hard times.

God knows I am not saying this to thump my chest with pride, because we still have a lot of work to do and potentially tough times ahead. But adversity has forged us into a stronger community, and for that I am grateful to God.