News - September 2020 RSS Feed

On Sunday, September 20 we celebrated Catechetical Sunday. On the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the Most Reverend Robert E. Barron, Chairperson, Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis invited everyone who is involved in the work of catechesis to consider earnestly the importance of catechist formation. He mentioned that they had produced a variety of articles, videos, and podcasts exploring our baptismal call to be active participants in the evangelizing mission of the Church, as well as the unique role of catechesis in the whole process of evangelization.

When I first heard reports about the corona virus affecting so many people in China, I wasn’t sure what to think about this news. Then I heard about cases breaking out in various parts of our country. I think that the seriousness of our situation really hit home on Sunday, March 8, when a parishioner who was a physician warned me about the seriousness of the pandemic that would soon be upon us. Before that week was out we were instructed to close down. In the first few days and weeks I was concerned about how we would function as a parish. By Easter time we decided to have live-streamed Mass. We had no idea how well that it would be received. Soon it became clear that we should do it every week until we would be able to open again. In the meantime I have learned to use an internet tool about which I had never heard: Zoom. Over the next six months I have become somewhat adept at hosting Zoom conferences. While meetings in person would be much better, most of us have learned to live with Zoom. Because of it, life can carry on.

August 26, 2020 marked the one hundredth anniversary of the passage of the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment was the result of decades of steadfast advocacy by women from all walks of life throughout our nation. One woman who was jubilant at the passing of this amendment that gave women the right to vote was my paternal grandmother: Anna Dougherty Dillon. My father would tell me that Grandma often would say women should have been granted the right to vote long before 1920, but that she was grateful to have that right. And exercise it she did! My grandmother wasted no time in registering to vote and never missed an opportunity to vote right up to her death in 1964. Another thing my father told me was that she would never tell my grandfather or her children for whom she voted. When asked she was just smile and say that she wasn’t going to say. This annoyed my grandfather who wanted to know how she voted, but he or her children never found out.