Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B) on July 21, 2024, at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Parish in Chicago, IL, as part of the Welcome Weekend for the new team of Paulist priests serving the parish: Rich as pastor, Dan Macalinao as associate pastor, and Bob Cary as priest-in-residence. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:13-18; and Mark 6:30-34.

My name is Rich Andre, and I am thrilled to be the new pastor of Old St. Mary’s Catholic Parish! I’m excited that two of my wonderful brother Paulists are also joining the leadership team at Old St. Mary’s: Dan Macalinao (ordained 64 days ago) as the associate pastor, and Bob Cary as a senior priest in residence!

Every weekend until the end of August, we’ll hear from the Letter to the Ephesians. We can think of Ephesians as a corporate merger document, negotiating how two very different groups of people – Jews and Greeks – will become a single faith community. In today’s passage, the Greeks are the people “who once were far off,” and Ephesians is saying that “the dividing wall” between Jews and Greeks has been destroyed so that together the two groups can become “one new person.” 

In our passage from Jeremiah, God promises that he will appoint shepherds to unite the people. As Dan, Bob, and I begin our journey with you, let’s remember: all of us at Old St. Mary’s — not just the priests — are called to serve one another in shepherding this community on our collective journey.

Let us recognize that we all follow Christ, the Good Shepherd of love and mercy.

St. Teresa of Avila was a mystic, but she was also a pragmatic reformer of the Carmelite order. That’s an interesting contrast to consider as we contemplate one of her most famous prayers, called “St. Teresa’s Bookmark”:

Let nothing disturb you; let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing. God never changes.
Patient endurance gains everything.
The one who has God lacks nothing.
God alone is enough. 

Everything changes. Due to a lot of circumstances in recent years, there have been many transitions in pastoral leadership at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Parish. April Greer is the 3rd principal of our largest ministry, Old St. Mary’s School, in the past 6 years. James Holzhauer-Chuckas, is the 7th director of lifelong faith formation in 11 years. And I’m the 4^th pastor in 11 years. To put it another way for anyone who’s been around Old St. Mary’s for more than a decade: Mike Kallock was the pastor when the new school building opened. Any child who enrolled in preschool while Mike was the pastor has since graduated the 8th grade. 

With the many transitions, plus a pandemic and the population boom in the South Loop, it seems as if some parts of the previous vision for Old St. Mary’s Parish and School have been lost. There’s also some confusion about our various ministries. Which groups are currently active? Who’s leading them? Are there new volunteers we don’t know about? Do we have up-to-date contact information? How do the leaders communicate with the pastoral staff? 

Don’t get me wrong: Everything changes, but God alone is enough. Old St. Mary’s Parish continues to be a vibrant place. It’s the most racially diverse parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago, and we have a great mix of people from different generations and from different neighborhoods. We welcome those who often feel marginalized by the universal Church: women who long to have leadership roles, people who identify as LGBTQ+, young adults, people of color, and people who question Church teaching. All of them are welcome here as full members of our community! Old St. Mary’s School is considered among the best in the city for high school preparation. And in a world where people feel disconnected, I am amazed at how many social events are happening at Old St. Mary’s, even in the height of summer vacation season. This weekend, there are seven events here that include a reception, plus several other special events without food!

At the same time, some words from Jeremiah apply to our parish. Some of the sheep have been scattered. Long-time parishioners frequently speak about the people who have drifted away. Some things aren’t as lively around here as they used to be. 

Simultaneously, both the school community and the rest of the parish community may feel a little bit like the Jewish Christians at the time of the Letter to the Ephesians. The Jews surely welcomed the first Greeks joining their communities, but they probably also wished that the Greeks could be a little less “Greek” and a whole lot more “Jewish.” But as the Letter to the Ephesians counseled both the Jews and the Greeks, the dividing wall has been broken down. The parking lot is not supposed to divide the school from the rest of the parish! We, like the Greek and Jewish Ephesians, must continue to grow together into one community.

Everything changes. All things are passing. We need to recapture some of the spark that some people at Old St. Mary’s believe we have lost, but we also have to recognize that there isn’t some magical “golden moment” of the past that we’re trying to re-create. Our world has radically changed in the past 12 years. We have a different pope, a different archbishop, and a restructured archdiocese. Technology has changed. Those of us who have been here have aged and gained wisdom, and we have been joined by others who bring new energy but don’t know our history. The pandemic has changed how we socialize. As St. Teresa beautifully counsels us: everything changes, all things are passing, God alone is enough. 

Too often, however, my attitude is less like St. Teresa and more like Mark Twain, who said: “I’m in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.” Unfortunately, progress doesn’t happen without change, and change always brings about moments of uncertainty. 

This may be a moment of uncertainty in the history of Old St. Mary’s, but it is also a moment of excitement. Even in the few short weeks since Dan and I have joined the leadership team, you might have started to notice a few tweaks. If you’re watching online, you see that we’re upgrading our live stream. (The color is much more vivid, but we’re still working on the sound quality.) If you’re here in person, you may be experiencing a new sense of energy. This week, we had an important kick-off meeting of the combined pastoral, administrative, and school staff. (Several of the nineteen people in the room had never met each other before!) We have already implemented some steps to better work as a team going forward. 

But this is an effort that requires all of us to be involved in shepherding, not only the paid staff. It’s not the staff alone who determines the direction of the community. That’s why next weekend, I’m asking anyone who can stay after Mass to meet with me one household at a time in the chapel to quickly tell me about what excites you, what frustrates you, and what gives you hope about Old St. Mary’s Parish. If you have more than 2 minutes of thoughts to share, or if you’ll be away next weekend, please send me an email by July 31. Your input will guide the pastoral staff, the school board, the parish pastoral council, and the finance council as we begin the visioning process. Also, in the upcoming months, there will be many kinds of volunteer and leadership positions to fill. Please stay informed by reading the bulletin each week. We were thrilled to have 28 people come yesterday afternoon for the training for extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. Several served for the first time this weekend after the training! When you think of someone you know who has the God-given skills to serve in a given capacity, please personally invite them to consider it, and please share their name and contact information with a staff member so that we can follow up. And if someone invites you, remember that famous quotation: God doesn’t call those who are equipped, as much as God equips those who are called. God alone is enough!

Through Jeremiah, God promised to appoint shepherds to the people of Israel. None of us within the Body of Christ have all the skills to shepherd people as well as Christ, the Good Shepherd, himself. But each and every one of us — here at Mass today or watching online — has the spiritual gifts to be good-enough shepherds. 

Friends: we’re in this together. Pope Francis would call this the work of building a synodal Church, listening to one another as we journey together. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit and recognizing our interdependence on one another, let’s restore whatever has been lost and build a future brighter than any past!