A pastor comes home

Intermountain Catholic

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By Father Michael Sciumbato

SALT LAKE CITY — In his novel You Can’t Go Home Again, the American author Thomas Wolfe said that you can’t go back to the places of your youth and expect to have the same feelings and emotions. When I returned to Saint Ann’s in August as pastor of the parish and administrator of the school, after 25 years away, I was more than a little fearful I would find things so changed that I couldn’t connect, that I would feel displaced and out of touch.

I grew up a child of Saint Ann’s: I was baptized and confirmed here. I made my First Communion here. I celebrated my first Mass here. This place is flooded with memories for me. And as it turns out, Kearns-Saint Ann School is the best memory of all for me. The children, the faculty and staff, even the building itself, have been a real source of joy and blessing for me.

As a child, I was taught here by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, and I became so deeply connected with them that I became the first lay associate of the order. While the sisters are gone (and that saddens me greatly), in their place, we have been blessed with vibrant, committed teachers, who work hard to educate our children. I love going into their classrooms. The environments they have created touch our children to imagine, learn and grow with lessons that invite our children to open their minds to the wisdom and the glory of God and His creation. Our teachers are a real blessing to us all.

Likewise, our administrative staff is a wonder: from our principal, who seeks to maintain high educational and behavioral standards and make sure that our children learn our Catholic values, to the administrative staff who see their jobs as vocations to positively form the minds and souls of our children, to our plant administrator and his staff who clean and maintain our building and facilities so beautifully. We are truly blessed by professionals who are there for our children’s needs as if they were their own.

But best of all is your kids, our children. Maybe I just have a special "in" to their hearts because I am the pastor, but I love to walk through the building or playground and hear their shouts of "Hi, Father Mike," and receive their hugs and high fives. I They are, each one of them, a cherished gift from God.

In his book, Thomas Wolfe’s protagonist found "going home again" an ultimately futile and disappointing task. But in coming home to Saint Ann’s, God has saved the best part of my priesthood for now. I pray we can carry on the mission and example of those Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word who loved us and worked so hard to help us to learn and grow. And I pray that in the years ahead, we may all work to make our own history here, that Kearns-Saint Ann may be a school not just of future presidents, astronauts, scientists, and teachers. But a place where young people can feel safe, supported, and loved, so that they may become every wonderful, tremendous, and phenomenal persons God calls them to be. Can’t go home again? Of course you can – and it might just be better the second time around!

Fr. Sciumbato is pastor of Saint Ann Parish in Salt Lake City.