Sometimes You Can Go Home Again

I returned to Maine recently to visit with family. So on Sunday, before heading home to Vermont, I returned to the church that had been my home parish, off and on, for many years.

I started attending Sacred Heart Parish in Portland, Maine, shortly after making my Confirmation in high school. I had been confirmed at a different parish in another part of town — Saint Dominic’s Church, right next door to where my family was living at the time. But St. Dom’s didn’t have anything in place to involve or engage its youth after Confirmation.

Sacred Heart, on the other hand, had an active youth group. Several of my high school friends were involved. They also had a very good choir — and though I was the only high school student in it at the time, it got me involved in the Church, in the liturgy, and in the community.

It would be a little over a decade later that I’d return. Fresh from a divorce, unmoored and drifting, I made my way back — both spiritually and physically — to my old Church. By this time, the old Saint Dominic’s church had been closed and its parish merged with Sacred Heart. So I was coming home to a blending of two childhood communities.

The choir was mostly new people, but still going strong. In short order I was invited to join the Social Justice Committee and the RCIA team. I served on the parish council, first as a member at large and later as chair of the Social Justice Committee.

It was during this time that I first went to Haiti as part of our Parish Twinning program. We worked on ways of reaching out to and welcoming our neighbors: the low-income neighborhood around us, the LGBT people who had found their spiritual home with us, the Latin-American community who used our parish for their Spanish Mass.

One Holy Thursday, we concluded the Mass as usual for that particular day — a procession with the Eucharist out of the Church, around the corner, and down the street to the rectory, where it would repose until the Saturday evening Easter Vigil. A nun, a fellow Social Justice Committee member who was with me in the procession, leaned in to tell me that this was her favorite part of the whole liturgical year.

“This is our purpose here,” she said. “We bring Christ into this neighborhood.”

Coming back to the parish now was a chance to see the fruits of past labors. The 12:30 Spanish Mass is still going strong. At the 10:30 Mass we attended had a large African immigrant population in attendance, and parts of the Mass were in French for their benefit. Most everyone I expected to see was still there, and a lot of new faces as well.

At Communion it has always been my practice, after receiving, to observe the rest of the congregation as it receives. I take in the Body of Christ in its infinite variety — all those individuals who are its members — I focus on seeing Christ present in the people around me. And on this day it warmed my heart to see probably the most diverse group I’ve ever seen in my years in Northern New England.

Black and white and brown, young and old, people from all walks of life filled the church such as I’ve rarely seen for a standard Sunday in Ordinary Time. This is my Church. This parish where I came to know Jesus, where I learned what it meant to truly be a disciple, has continued on with its mission. It is still bringing Christ into the community, and inviting the community to come to Christ.