The Most Holy Trinity
Pastor
~ I announced last Sunday that the Archbishop of St. Louis has asked me to serve the Church by taking another assignment. Not a new assignment, an old assignment really, another assignment actually! In addition to remaining the pastor of St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, the Archbishop has asked me to also be the pastor of St. Pius V Parish. As you may know, I previously served as the Pastor of St. Pius V for 10 years, from 2006 until 2015. It is a community that I know well and love very much. After the Archbishop shared with me his reasons for wanting me to take this additional assignment, and having a conversation about what that would mean, in obedience to the Archbishop’s request, I said yes. So, as of this July 1, I will be the pastor of both St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Pius V. They will remain two distinct parishes. I will not be moving from St. Margaret of Scotland. I hope that an associate pastor will be assigned to St. Pius V and he will live there, assisting with Masses and parish life. As to your other questions, the answer is “I don’t know.” I don’t know exactly how this will work. I don’t know what my schedule will be. I don’t know how this will affect our Mass schedule or parish life here or there. Yet, I have faith and confidence that all things will work together for good. The Holy Spirit is in charge of the Church, as we celebrated on Pentecost Sunday, and I trust that she will show us the way forward.
Even though we will remain two separate parishes, I hope that there will be ways that St. Margaret of Scotland can partner and collaborate with St. Pius V. We are already both sponsoring parishes for the Immigrant & Refugee Ministry, coordinated by our parishioner Kevin Kuehl (who is getting married here next weekend! Congratulations, Kevin and Kristen!). St. Pius also has an active St. Vincent de Paul Society and operates an important food pantry for our neighborhood. Perhaps there are ways that we can cooperate on our folks Becoming Catholic, Youth Ministry, Young Adult Ministry, or family faith formation. I certainly want our parishes to come together for our annual Mass in the Grass in Tower Grove Park, the Sunday after Labor Day! (I actually brought that tradition to St. Margaret from my days at St. Pius!)
One of the things this means for St. Margaret of Scotland is that I intend to reconstitute a Parish Pastoral Council. You may or may not know that we have not had an active Parish Council since before I became pastor. During COVID, it went on hiatus, and I did not put any effort into reorganizing it during these years. But that time has come, especially since my presence here will be more limited moving forward. It is certainly time that the members of this parish share the responsibility of setting the direction and vision for our parish.
I have been inspired by the vision of our late Holy Father, Pope Francis, who modeled a synodal Church for us, a vision which Pope Leo has made his own. A synodal church is one that is active in prayer, dialogue, conversation, and discernment as we find the way forward together. It is a deeply collaborative Church that relies on the presence and promptings of the Holy Spirit and the experiences of all, clergy and people walking together. Since I want a synodal parish council, I want us to discover what that looks like together. My experience with Parish Councils in the past has been a mixed bag, with almost every group asking themselves (and me!) “what are we supposed to be doing?” Rather than me having that answer, I want us to discover it together.
If you are interested in being part of our first Parish Synodal Council, I invite you to an evening of discernment on Thursday, June 18, at 6:30pm in the Vincentian Children’s Chapel in Church. This will be a time for information and prayer to help parishioners discern if they want to put their name forward for consideration to be part of our first Parish Synodal Council. If this is interesting or exciting to you, please be in touch with me!
Let us pray that our Blessed Mother Mary, Mother of the Church, will show us the way forward, and that St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Pius V will intercede for us and pray for us. And please pray for me!
