Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

We would like to think of our liturgical life of the Church as one which travels through the year according to the unfolding saving Mysteries of Christ.  We begin with that time of anticipation, waiting for the birth and manifestation of the Incarnation of Jesus which began in secret with the Annunciation March 25.  The Messiah is born, and is made known to the nations at Epiphany.  His public life begins:  his baptism, his transfiguration, his passion, death and resurrection.  He ascends into heaven and the year ends on the last Sunday with Christ the King in glory.

Too often, however, it seems like there is a different cycle of seasons.  This past year it was the quiet phase of the capital campaign, then the Bishop's Lenten Appeal.  Then the public phase of the capital campaign, now again the Bishop's Lenten Appeal.  A different seasonal second collection or three, the monthly facilities/maintenance and school tuition assistance fund.  Somewhere in all that we were supposed to do another pledge campaign to improve our weekly offertory collection this past year.

I hope you realize that we like always asking for money as much as you enjoy always being asked.  It seems we ask all the time.  Part of me wants to apologize for this and end the madness.

Except that I believe in the potential of this parish.  Community needs a home to happen in, but that home must ultimately be the commitment of a community who wants to be.  Likewise, I believe in the good works we are capable of—both as a parish and a diocese—and these, too, must be made possible by a community who is self-aware of their potential, and their responsibility to care for one another.

Self-awareness today largely takes place on the level of the individual.  I understand this, we live in a very unpredictable and often hostile world.  Nobody is going to stick up for me unless I stick up for myself.  I get it.  I have to feed my family, provide for their education, be prepared for the unexpected illness or tragedy.  A meal out each month might be nice (when I was a kid going out to dinner—even for a cheeseburger—was really an event!)  

But here is where we must begin to broaden the horizon to realize that there are many, many more people who do not have, at all, the ability or resources to care for themselves like we can.  This is why the middle class is disappearing and the ravine in world societies is becoming more and more unbridgeable between the wealthy and the devastatingly poor.  People have lost their awareness as a people, and are only persons fighting for their own, little space.

When I was ordained there was no Bishop's Lenten Appeal, until the diocese realized that doing business as usual was going to put the Church out of business.  The demands of everyday operation, paying ever-increasing living wages and benefits to an ever-growing number of employees who are necessary for the organization of parishes and services is beyond possibility.  We see this in our own school—but you can't just decide to cut one of the fourth grade teachers, right?  Twenty years ago the retirement fund for priests and diocesan employees had been spent for other things.  It was a wake up call that, thank God, Bishop Loverde and his staff saw coming in time.  If you remember, we launched the first-ever diocesan capital campaign in 2001, and bishops all over the world began an annual appeal to end their annual losses.  This does not even begin to mention the hardships experienced by some churches because of abuse.

I wish we lived in a world where we didn't have to ask.  The reality is, the vast majority of people don't give freely and generously (here at Saint Bernadette more than half don't give at all), and if you don't ask, you go under.  By the way, this is the case with every church and every charity in existence.

The Bishop's Lenten Appeal is upon us again.  I can only ask you to give more if you can.  Our goal is $465,000 and, we have always done, we will keep you informed where we are with our goal in the weekly bulletin.  When we reach our goal, if you still haven't given, I ask that you consider our capital campaign as a worthy alternative.

There are only two things that bring a parish to life in God.  Prayer, which teaches us love, and community, which gives us a place to belong.  As human beings these are the two things we really need, love and belonging.  The Good News is that, despite all the unhealthy ways we have looked for them, God has given us a context, his family the Church, to locate our lives and grow in loving service of him and each other.  It is a simple vision which has fueled two thousand years of community, right from the time of the Apostles, just days after Jesus turned it all over to us, his servants.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

This weekend we welcome our new Director of Religious Education, Lynn Jones, to our parish staff and religious education program.  We have enjoyed working together already two weeks, and Mrs. Jones has really hit the ground running. She prepared a short bio for us this weekend, which you will find below.

One change you will know right away is we have now in place a security plan for protecting our children in the program when they are in classes, essentially closing the building to anyone who is not a student or a Virtus-compliant volunteer.  If you are a parent in the program, please be sure you open your emails!  You can contact Mrs. Jones at her email address, ljones@stbernpar.org.

I grew up in Michigan. After graduating from the Naval Academy, I was a Surface Warfare Officer (ship driver!) for five years, including two deployments in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I married my husband, Jim, also a Naval Officer, and the adventure began! Moving every two or three years, we have lived in San Diego, Japan (for a total of seven years!), and here in Northern Virginia, including two years at St. Mary’s in Fredericksburg when Fr. Don was the pastor there. We have three children (one grown and two in college now) and I spent many years volunteering in their schools, scout troops and packs, religious education classes, Odyssey of the Mind, etc.  I was the DRE at our on-base parish in Japan for two years and for the last five years at another parish in the Diocese of Arlington. As a parishioner of St. B’s for over the last six years, I am thrilled to be working here in my own community. 

I've had quite a few conversations lately with colleagues and peers in our Church and everywhere about how unmanageable life is becoming now.  For a while I have wondered if we would come to the realization that life was just too much, that we would reach a point of the upward limit of just how much information and communication we can stand as human beings.  At what point does our quality of life disappear?  Sometimes 200 "real" emails daily (not including all the junk), each with a corresponding expectation if not obligation.  I'm sure I'm guilty, too, of making a request of someone who probably wonders how all this is going to get done.  It is too easy to hit send and make something somebody else's thing.

One friend says that I should put an automatic response on my email that tells the sender right away that, because of sheer volume, a response might not come right away.  That would be the "highway robbery" approach. If you can't pay the criminal tolls, you sit in the slow lane for a few more hours.  I'm type A enough to know that I would not like to see that, though it is probably true.  Another friend has an automatic reply on emails that simply says that she will be able to look at emails between 9:30 and 10:30 each morning and will have a daily triage to deal with those that are most important.  I'm not sure I would like to get that, either, though it is effectively what a lot of people do now, when you don't hear back from some people until next week.

If you don't hear back from me, it is not that I have ignored you, it probably means that today is full and I have put "mark as unread" on your email so I have some way to go back and try to find it and get caught up.  Up until a couple of months ago, I maintained under 200 of these that I knew I had to work on.  This week it went over 1,000.

I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that all of this is not making us better human beings.  We are less human.  And I don't know anyone who is growing more joyful in the process.  Let's try more to talk to one another.  And I promise, I will think twice before hitting send. Something even so small as an email still has three gates to pass before sending:  is it true? is it kind? is it necessary? (Thanks, Mom.)

You will find in today's bulletin a pull-out section.  We are only a number of weeks away from our biennial School Auction, this year title "Time Traveler" observing our 60th anniversary as a parish/school.  In this section you will find opportunities for sponsoring the event on several gift levels, donating auction items, or buying ad space in our booklet.  Please consider su pporting our school!  And also, please attend!

God bless you,