Introduction to An Unexpected Detour

Last summer I was peacefully going through my life in fairly expected directions when something unexpected happened. I learned that there was going to be training for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS) at a local parish. I knew these few facts at the time:

• That CGS was a Montessori-based religious ed program (and I've loved Montessori for a long time) 
• That friends of mine had traveled to neighboring states to take the training.
• A friend of mine from my parish was planning to take the training (because our pastor wanted to get the program going at our parish).
• The second person from the parish would only be charged half price. 

Connecting these dots caused me to check into whether my parish would want to send me along for the training as well. I was already working at the parish as a liturgical assistant, but thought it might be handy to have a staff member (who already loved Montessori) to take the training in order to help advocate for it, even though I didn't expect to be able to be a catechist - and I definitely had no intention of applying for the open position of DRE (who would be expected to implement the program).

 The pastor said yes and I rearranged my schedule in order to free up the week for Level I, Part 1 training. And fell instantly in love. Although she missed the first day of training, my daughter Kate joined me beginning on day 2 and has been by my side ever since.

We (Kate and I) took the fast track with training by taking Level I, Part 2 at another neighboring parish just a few weeks later. I tentatively and tenuously started to do what I could to help brainstorm getting
the program started.

There are a lot of twists and turns to the whole story, but, in a nutshell, my pastor asked me to take the job of DRE and promised to get me help (and hired a full-time assistant within a few weeks) and be very flexible regarding our family/homeschooling needs. After a lot of prayer and intense family discussions I said yes.

Just wanted to share a brief introduction to this new piece of my life as I am hoping to blog about some parts of the story/journey.

Beautiful Peg Doll Apostles painted by Bernie (age 18)

A Delightful Surprise

Our local parish has always been decent, but honestly, it looks like a hospital. Everything is white and plain (it was an early 1990s complete rebuild of a 1950s Church - not a lot to work with). The tabernacle is raised up and relatively in the front, but to the side of the altar. The priest and altar servers sit in a half-circle shaped area under a little dome behind the altar. There's nothing on the wall behind them. Though a processional cross is placed on the altar during Mass, we've felt the lack of the focal point of a crucifix during the Mass (there's a statue of the resurrected Jesus way off to one side on the wall and a statue of the Holy Family on the far side. Because it's kind of a sideways-facing Church, the "front" wall is extremely wide.). The lovely crucifix from the old Church is presently located on the side wall of the Narthex/vestibule (with some nice votive candles underneath).

Anyway. We got a new pastor this summer and he's really great. Solid, engaging and gives the BEST sermons. One of the first things he did when he came to our parish was to pray with the Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours each weekday morning with anyone who was interested. Nice!

But what happened this morning at Mass blew me away. First of all, very diplomatically, he made the announcement that he's interested in making a few changes to the church and was open to input from everyone. That got everyone's attention! :)

He had some background explanation (which was at the same time diplomatic, practical and spiritually helpful), but basically what he wants to do is move the tabernacle to the central area behind the altar. (John and I, surprised, smiled at each other.) He wants to move the priest's chair to the place where the tabernacle was. Next, even more cautiously, he explained that when he started talking to the parish council about the whole idea, they were also interested (and he thought it was a great idea) in moving the big beautiful old crucifix from the Narthex (duh!) to the front of the Church. I could hear a bunch of people around me whispering "Yes! Yes!" and suddenly the entire congregation erupted into applause. It was truly an amazing moment (I cried.).