Two Days, Two Parishes

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Last weekend I was in Vernal on Saturday for the 100th anniversary of St. James the Greater Parish, then on Sunday I attended the Catholics Can Mass at St. James the Just Parish in Ogden. Both celebrations gave me food for reflection, but on different topics.

Talking with parishioners at St. James the Greater, I was struck by how each of them gave thanks for those who have given to the church: Roni Greenhow, who compiled a history of the parish, said her research made her realize how many people over the past century contributed to building the church, which she had always taken for granted would be there as a place for her to pray. Then Brad Laney and Lisa Stringer told me that the recent renovation of the church’s interior was completed by donations not only from parishioners but also the contractors who worked on the project as well as community members who don’t belong to the parish.

Like Greenhow, I often take for granted the fact that I’ll be able to go to church when I want, whether to pray or attend Mass. I work mere steps from the Cathedral of the Madeleine, so I can walk over there whenever I desire. I also live in the greater Salt Lake metro area, so on Sunday I have my choice of a dozen churches within a half-hour drive, and I can choose to attend any time from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. to hear a priest say Mass. It is easy to forget that in more remote parts of the state people drive for upwards of an hour to attend the one Sunday celebration at their parish, and some don’t have a priest every week.

The annual Catholics Can Mass celebrates the contributions people with disabilities make to their parish and to the Church. Prior to attending this year’s event, I read a piece on the Gospel reading by Barbara Reid, O.P. in Give Us This Day. Writing about the parable of the vineyard workers – also known as the parable of the generous landowner – Sister Reid described a conversation she had with a single mother who was trying to find a job.

“She had little education and few marketable skills,” Sr. Reid wrote, and the experience of waiting in the unemployment office hoping for a job made the woman realize that the workers in the parable who were “standing idle all day long in the marketplace were not lazy. They would gladly work if anyone would hire them. But they were left behind because they were deemed old, infirm or unskilled. …”

That was followed by Bishop Solis’ homily at the Catholics Can Mass. Tying together the reading from Isaiah – “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord,” – with the Gospel about God’s generosity, the bishop said that Jesus “came to establish a new value system, not based on what is fair or unfair, not about what is just and what is unjust, but what is good for everyone.”

Sitting in reflection later that evening, what came to mind was Greenhow describing a 1930’s-era photo of a priest standing on a ladder, hammer in hand, literally helping to build St. James the Greater Catholic Church. As a photographer myself, I too would have snapped the shot of the priest rather than any of the others because he was recognizable – someone looking at the picture would know that it was about a Catholic doing construction work. In a photographer’s eyes, the priest was a more worthy subject than any layperson, even if she or he had spent more time and effort on the project.

But what about in God’s eyes? According to his value system, are the contributions of those of us who can labor all day in his vineyard, conspicuous because of our jobs or the amount of money we give or the number of hours we donate, more worthy than those of the people who because of their circumstances are able to work only the last hour of the day? We know what Jesus had to say about that: “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the others contributors” because “she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. Reach her at marie@icatholic.org.