What's in an Epiphany?

In these days following the Sunday celebration and before the official calendar celebration of the Epiphany, we remember how marvelous a gift the Incarnation is - that we have a God who came down to earth to live as a human being...and all that means for us that the Light of the World came to dwell in the world as flesh.

However, the word "epiphany" is also often used popularly to indicate what Oprah Winfrey calls an "Aha Moment" - a situation where one has a sudden realization of a truth.  The term was first used in that way by James Joyce,  in Stephen Hero and Ulysses - as Stephen Daedalus (the "young man" from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and a main character in all three works) thinks about collecting his own "epiphanies" - scintillating moments of insight - into a book. You can read a good explanation of this literary use of the term here.

I think I had one this weekend.  At our 11:30 English Mass, during the procession with the gifts, three men (two Hispanic and one Anglo who was "drafted" from the pews) came forward, dressed in colorful home-made satin robes and crowns, carrying gold, frankincense and myrrh.  After Mass, they stood in the back of church and handed out foil-wrapped chocolate coins to everyone. While this has been a long-standing tradition at all the Spanish Masses, this year for the first time they brought it to the entire community. I found myself overwhelmed emotionally as they came up, because I had not expected it.  The Hispanic community was sharing with us their traditional cultural expression of the celebration of Tres reyes.

Also over the weekend my pastor shared with me a document to be discussed tonight which he had me email to our parish council, suggesting that the council become who the parish is now (75-80% Hispanic) - and not remain representative of our past as an inner city white parish (all members save one are from the Anglo community and most of them have been in leadership roles for many years.)  Our representation needs to come from both communities, and our meetings may no longer be all in English.  Of course, this will not happen without some courageous action and some discomfort. It is simply a  long-overdue but necessary change needed for the parish to move into the future and to stop clinging to the past.

In discussing this with a friend and fellow council member, I came to the realization that both "communities" have much to learn from one another. The sharing of the cultural and liturgical celebrations and the living enthusiasm and heart for the faith that the three kings represented this weekend is one gift the Hispanic community brings to enliven the parish.  The gifts of wisdom, of years of experience in lay ministries and an understanding of the American church is what we older Anglos bring to the table. All these are needed for us to become more fully who we are as parish.

To make this possible, we will have to "re-birth" the council - and the parish into its current identity. Those who have desperately clung to memories of a past, when the parish had many ministries, parish retreats, Renew groups, and community activities and was full of life in our familiar Anglo ways need to acknowledge the death of most of that as many former parishioners left and the rest of us aged, became tired and overwhelmed - and the new birth among us of a lively parish that manifests itself in large and joyful celebrations of Tres reyes, Las mananitas, Las posadas, Quincinearas, El dia de los ninos, and El dia de los muertos.

THAT is an epiphany. So, tonight that beast (in the words of Willam Butler Yeats) needs to go "slouching toward Bethlehem" in hopes of a new birth - a new manifestation of what it means to be St. John the Baptist Parish Community. This is the cultural revolution that is happening in Catholic parishes all over America.  Tonight, at our parish, we step up to the plate to see if we are open to the challenge to be reborn - to cooperate with God in re-creating our community's identity.

Catechesis with Hispanics: Plan With the People, Not For the People

OK, my discernment about stepping up to the commitment to volunteer as adult faith formation coordinator in my mostly Hispanic parish is coming to a conclusion... and I have just found affirmation for my gut feelings.  Tonight I read through both the 1987 National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry and the 2002 update Encuentro & Mission: A Renewed Pastoral Framework for Hispanic Ministry. There is much wisdom in these two short documents - but for me they are also a source of some frustration that this vision seems largely unrealized in my own diocese. I suspect this is true in many places, however. Anyhow, I am always an advocate for working to change what I can and moving on from that over which I have little or no influence.

In my reflection about whether I would accept the challenge at my parish of following through in organizing adult faith formation, I came to the conclusion on my own that I could never do this as a "lone wolf" - as an Anglo imposing events and programs on the Spanish-speaking community- but would need the cooperation of a team from the Hispanic community.  A statement in Encuentro & Mission literally jumped off the page tonight:  number 4 under Pastoral Responses and Principles for Hispanic Ministry:  "Plan With the People, Not For the People."  The document urges grassroots consultation, saying "it is an effective tool for responding to the pastoral challenges found in parishes throughout the country." (44)

The biggest part of the pastoral challege in my parish? In the past, when we have offered something planned and sponsored by the parish and invited the community to participate, only a few have responded.  One year, I attempted to deliver a Lenten afternoon of reflection bilingually - but when we started, no Hispanics were in the room.  About 45 minutes a handful of Hispanic young people wandered in and I asked our Spanish-speaking DRE to take the outline in and work with them on the discussion questions. The event was disappointing. But several years down the road, I see in part why.

Similarly, a year and a half ago, during Lent, we offered an English parish mission and a simultaneous Spanish one on a similar topic. While we got participation from probably about a fifth of the English-speaking community, for the first couple of days attendance at the Spanish one was mimimal - the last day, the group was respectable, as word of mouth got out about the quality of the experience.

Our failure to "plan with the people" most likely meant that the offerings in both cases were not seen by them as relevant to their very community-and-family-based faith. Instead, these were something imposed from outside. The fact that the second event grew in participation was due to community members inviting each other personally - which is apparently the way it works best.

Inter-cultural communication, I am learning, is not easy. It takes hard work, commitment, perseverence, and above all, love. I only hope I can be worthy of this service. I am spending time this summer trying to formulate a vision and some strategies - one more document - I want to browse through the 2007 Concluding Document for the V General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Carribean at Aparecida - the sections on catechesis and evangelization could be helpful.

At the last Pastoral Council meeting at my parish, when I indicated I would consider serving as adult faith formation coordinator, one of the Hispanic members of the council came up to me after and offered to find me some people from their community to work with me.   I think, all in all, the Holy Spirit is in charge of this one, not me - since the pieces seem to be trying to fall into place.

Summer Homework - Catching up on the Documents for Hispanic & Multicultural Ministry in the Church

Just got my order of three books from USCCB Publications today - it's time to catch up on some documents and resources for Multicultural ministry - with a view to assisting my own parish and others in the diocese experiencing cultural transition, especially in communities with the rapidly growing influx of Hispanics.  Here is my booklist:

Many Faces in God's House: A Catholic Vision for the Third Millennium  - although this bilingual guide was prepared for the Encuentro 2000 in Los Angeles, this seems like it still is useful - it has a Vision Statement, Theological Reflection, and 6 Parish Sessions... along with references and a set of Communications Guidelines.  I think maybe some of this might be useful in my own parish, as we continue to work to bridge the gap between the Anglo and the Hispanic cultures.

Encuentro & Mission: A Renewed Pastoral Framework for Hispanic Ministry - bilingual edition of a USCCB statement updating the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry. I am thinking I need to see where this went - my understanding is that the Plan was somewhat underfulfilled.

Concluding Document: Aparecida - from the May, 2007, V General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Carribean.  This document is one that was referred to several times at the NCCL annual conference in April as seminal to Hispanic Ministry.
These, along with the 2nd and 3rd PowerPoint presentations on the bottom of this page on the USCCB site for the Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs, are a set of resources over which I will spend much time and thought - and will be sharing with our diocesan Spanish Catechesis Support Cluster and with my parish pastoral council.   I have a strong feeling that the Holy Spirit has been guiding me in this direction for a long time... I have been at the center of a "perfect storm" for the last 8 years, as I have been faced in both my diocesan position and my parish volunteer activities, with the growing sense that I am being called to be leaven for a process of bringing the two cultures together toward greater acceptance and understanding.

As always, ministry happens in whatever corner of the world one finds oneself!