The Parish Mission
I don’t hear of them often anymore but way back before Vatican II (1960’s) parishes frequently scheduled a two week mission to be conducted by visiting priests from one or another religious order – Jesuit, Dominican, Franciscan . . . As I remember they were gender split: one week for the men, one for the women. I also remember attending one of them with my father when I was twelve years old. Now my father was not a churchgoer, so that’s probably one reason why I remember that particular parish mission. He seemed to be too preoccupied with economic survival to attend Sunday Mass. Still he placed me in parochial schools and it was the parochial school and Catholic parish environment that became my real home, not the house I lived in.
The first night of this parish mission was a disorienting experience. The pews were filled with men and boys. Out of the sacristy a stalwart looking Redemptorist priest advanced to the altar rail. Redemptorists wore black cassocks but also a sash into which was thrust a fairly large crucifix – like a weapon. He stood silent for a noticeable while, the audience increasingly expectant. And then he shouted things like: when were we going to wake up; who did we think we were; do we think hell is going to be a holiday; what kind of catholic men are you to take sin so casually . . . and the like. His face was grim, no tolerance of any humor. Finally he pulled his crucifix from his sash, wound up and threw it with a clatter and bang right down the center aisle of the church, causing a defensive reflex among the audience – saying, “That’s what you do to Christ every time you commit a mortal sin.” The rest of his lecture had men eyeing the nearby confessionals for immediate future reference. The lecture ended and this fellow retired to the sacristy leaving fellows wondering what they had gotten into.
After a hymn or two (intermission), a second Redemptorist came forth and approached the communion rail. He was smiling as he invited us to share with him something he would not like his colleague to hear. He asked us, first of all, to show compassion for his companion who had retired to the sacristy. He informed us in hushed tones that the man was known even in the seminary to have a terrible temper, intolerant of the least mistakes, not much fun to be around. “And I apologize that all of you had a taste of that tonight.” This priest then reminded us that the Gospel was good news, something to enlighten our lives, that God was merciful and loved us all. Bad cop, good cop – that was the method used. Slap them, then offer them a cigarette. And it must have worked considering the numbers that turned out and the increase in the parish collections.
Somehow it seems the Church designed Advent along these lines. We get a heavy dose of John the Baptist, dressed in camels hair, looking wild, warning people of a winnowing fan and of chaff and unquenchable fire. We adopt the color purple to tone down our silly self-satisfaction. But we must remember ultimately that something wonderful is about to happen again: the birth of God, of absolute grace among us, of him whose yoke is sweet and whose burden is light, of him who said to John the Baptist’s followers: Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind now see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up; I came to open up lives, open up people’s senses, not bury them. Or may it not be said that Advent is but prelude to joy as in the words of Bob Camp’s and Bob Gibson’s gospel song: Well you can tell the world about this / You can tell the nation about that / Tell’em what the master has done / Tell’em that the gospel has come / Tell’em that the victory’s been won / He brought joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy / Into my heart.