Google Earth Pictorial:
The Church of the Ascension
[Download and Install Google Earth]
I remember an experience I had about two years ago. I was working on a project for the Archdiocese of Chicago and met a new parish music minister. As we were talking, the inevitable question came up, “Where are you from?” The answer came from my colleague, “Oh just a small town outside of St. Louis.” “Oh really, I’m from outside St. Louis. Where?” “Well on the East Side, you’ve probably never heard of it, Collinsville, Illinois.” “Ss. Peter and Paul parish? That is where I’m from!”
What surprised me about the encounter was not that just that I met someone from Collinsville, but that I met an extraordinarily talented pastoral musician from Collinsville. You see, for all the strengths of the pastor of my parish as I grew up, I can’t say that I was attracted to work for the Church in a parish because of him. My experience of him was cold. I was surprised to see that another person from that same cold environment would flourish with a calling to work for Church. I asked him where he got the inspiration to work for the Church. He said, “Sister Anita Marie.”
Sister Anita Marie was an Ursuline nun. I mention that because today is the feast day of Saint Angela Merici, the foundress of the Ursulines. Their charism in the Church is to teach and foster the faith, originally by fostering the lives of young women. I didn’t know it was her feast day until Mass this morning at the Church of the Ascension in Overland Park, KS. You can visit the parish website at www.kcascension.org and if you have downloaded Google Earth, you can view my pictorial of the parish by clicking here.
I also am reminded of this story because of what happened last night on pilgrimage. My mom and I pulled into my sister's house in Shawnee Mission, Kansas and an hour or so later, my brother Jay pulled in. It was a surprise visit that he made so that we could all be together with my mom one last time before I leave the country. In the back of my mind, I knew this might happen. Karen, my sister, talked about it with me a couple weeks ago, but I forgot. It was surprise.
Putting all of this together… God is full of surprises, or more accurately, we are forgetful enough as human beings to remember how God works. Time and time again, God works in our life, but we aren’t expecting it, just like I forgot to expect my brother. In a particular way I’m intrigued by why I, and others, tend to limit the working of God in the Church, to the activity of the hierarchy (priests and bishops). If that were the case, I never would be on this pilgrimage, given how I felt distant from my pastor growing up. If God only worked through the hierarchy, my fellow parishioner now in pastoral music would never have developed a love for liturgy and music. Were God limited to the consecrated few, Angela Merici would never have started a movement of women that has fostered the lived experience of faith in so many through the Ursulines.
Even Jesus. It was so hard for so many people to accept that the message of God’s love could come to us through a carpenter’s son, to someone of low estate, to someone of such simplicity. How often do we limit God or just plain forget about God’s workings? How many times do we have to hear stories about God surprising us before we are no longer surprised?
Then again, surprises are pleasant. I’m sure it brought as much pleasure to my brother and sister to surprise us, as it did for my mom and me to be surprised. Maybe God made us the way we are so that God could have fun, constantly surprising us, just like he told us he would.