|
By Susan S. Sullivan, Special To The Bulletin
ALPHARETTA—The cavernous church building at St. Thomas
Aquinas is made of many simple materials, including rough stone, smooth tile,
dark wood and clear glass.
One might expect elaborate décor in this exurb parish,
which is nestled in one of the wealthiest areas north of Atlanta. The beauty of
this church is most visible when the pews are filled—the beauty of a
people of faith and struggle, who feature the Stations of the Cross as a major
element of their worship environment.
In the materials, textures and spaciousness of the building, there
is a mirror of the groundedness, diversity and openness of the parishioners.
What happens in the church building is at the center of parish life for 4,900
families, the hub of a huge wheel of ministry and outreach.
Adult faith formation, welcome and hospitality, small faith
communities and apostolic service would be among the largest spokes of a wheel
centering on the seven Masses offered each weekend.
Parish life at St. Thomas Aquinas is bilingual. One quarter of the
parishioners are Hispanic, many undocumented and living without medical
services and financial resources Anglo parishioners often take for granted.
Father Al Jowdy, who has ministered in the parish for 13 years, 10
of them as pastor, points to the challenge and opportunities created by the
Hispanic newcomers as a testimony to the faith and faithfulness of the original
parishioners.
“One of the things I’m proudest of in the last 15 years
here is how gracefully this community has welcomed the ‘strangers in our
midst,’ not that there haven’t been bumps in the road,” said
Father Jowdy, who is bilingual.
According to Terry Zobel, adult education and evangelization
coordinator, and others in the parish, the long-standing charisms of the St.
Thomas community have made the blessing and struggle of blending two cultures
possible.
“People began meeting at the Roswell mission that became St.
Thomas in 1959,” said Zobel. “There were Bible studies from the
beginning. The priorities for adult education, small faith communities and
hospitality go way back, before the parish was even founded. I remember
experiencing it in 1969 when we were a mission of St. Jude. From the beginning
of my experience of this parish, it was, ‘So glad you’re
here.’”
“Another piece of it,” she said, “is that
we’ve had wonderful pastors, each with different gifts, but always the
right person at the right time—coupled with very strong lay leadership
from the beginning.”
Zobel said many early leaders of the parish were part of the
Cursillo movement, which set the foundation for lay involvement.
“It didn’t take people here long to hear and respond to
the call of the Vatican Council,” Zobel continued. “It took off.
People were ready to be church here for one another and for the community from
the beginning. So when the influx of Hispanic people came and the challenge was
thrown out, by and large people said, ‘Sure.’”
Zobel said the parish has never been a “status quo”
place. “There is a readiness to listen to the voice of God and try to
respond. In our small faith groups hundreds of people are regularly trying to
discern God’s will for their lives.”
Kathy Hoffman is a facilitator for one of the 50 small faith
communities that involve about 600 parishioners. Hoffman has worn several
parish ministry hats since she and her husband relocated to the area from Ohio
and joined the parish in 1990, but it was the small group faith experience that
made St. Thomas home.
“We had been part of the RENEW process (in Ohio) and had
experienced the benefits of the smaller group and getting to know people,”
she said. “We knew it was the best possible way to get connected in a
parish right away.”
Hoffman admitted being anxious about finding the right parish.
“We walked in that Sunday and said, ‘Yes!’ The
emphasis on worship and family religious education, so much about this parish,
spoke to our lives. We love this place.”
“I don’t think Kathy’s story is unique,” Zobel
said. “You’d hear it throughout the parish.”
You’d also hear about the palette of religious education
offerings. At St. Thomas there are 1,250 elementary-age children in religious
education, 300 middle school students, 300 high school students and 200 adults.
The Hispanic parallel program has 425 people enrolled.
Adult education has evolved since the early days to include not
only the small faith communities, but various classes, with five adult sessions
meeting each week. Adults attending the sessions (most of which are on Sunday,
simultaneous with children’s sessions) have a choice of classes. Current
offerings include “Religions of the World,” a marriage enrichment
course and a Bible study class featuring Joshua and Judges.
The people who are served by these faith-building programs
don’t stop there, according to Zobel and Hoffman. They put their faith
into action.
“This parish is about ministry, service, calling,”
Hoffman said. “It’s about partnership with God in building the
kingdom. It has everything to do with your heart and your intentions.”
Parishioners confirmed their desire to build up the kingdom on the
occasion of the church’s 25th anniversary in 1997.
“ . . . Rather than self-congratulatory dinners and dances,
this parish celebrated its outreach to the community by intensifying that
outreach,” Father Jowdy said. “That year we twinned with St.
Martin’s in Delatte, Haiti. Our continuing relationship with them has
included visits and raising money for a church building. We also identified
several other service projects for the anniversary.”
Zobel finds energy from being around others open to finding God.
“We have RCIA tonight. Sometimes we have to drag ourselves there, but we
always leave more energized than when we began the evening.”
Energy for all these activities originates with parish liturgies.
Kathy Kuczka, director of liturgy and music, left a job at CNN to start this
combined ministry full time about three years ago.
“It’s more fulfilling work,” she said, “but no
less stressful and chaotic. It’s like being in a popcorn popper.”
Kuczka, who has a master’s degree in liturgy from Catholic
University in Washington, D.C., said it is a great privilege to coordinate both
liturgy and music because “they are so wedded together. I get to create
what I hope will be meaningful worship experiences.”
She coordinates six choirs or music groups, from Coro Hispano to
Life Teen, along with 14 cantors. Part of that coordination is cohesion in
music and liturgy. Much of the same music is used by each group at the Masses.
Kuczka does not speak Spanish, but many parishioners do. Having
one Sunday Mass in Spanish is not enough, she said. Bilingual refrains are now
being incorporated routinely at Mass, while special bilingual liturgies help
celebrate the diversity of the parish community, she said. “We always make
accommodation for the other language, so what is proclaimed in one is printed
in the other. You make it the best it can be liturgically. You go for
beauty.”
Liturgies, such as a multicultural Pentecost Mass on June 2, to be
followed by a multicultural feast, help bring parishioners together, she said.
Other bilingual liturgies include weekly Stations of the Cross during Lent and
liturgies for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.
“I have a great team of people I work with—organists,
pianists, choir directors,” she said. “I could never do all of this
myself.”
Kuczka appreciates Father Jowdy’s approach to liturgy, which
flows out of Vatican II. “Because of his vision, the laity here take a
central role. It’s really their parish. It’s really their liturgy. I
never have to ask someone twice to do something.”
Kuczka said one of the best parts of her job is the parish’s
response to liturgies.
“The exciting thing is to see how this parish lives out its
Gospel mission of feeding the hungry and bringing the good news to the poor.
The Gospel message of liturgy is lived out in the life of this community . . .
The presence of the risen Christ is real.”
Experiencing Christ in others is a particular emphasis for Carmen
Lerma, who has headed the ministry to high school students since 1997.
“You can have all the head stuff,” Lerma said, “but
people learn best by experience. You live it and you let them see you live it.
Then they are more receptive to the head stuff of their faith tradition.”
The parish has used the Life Teen program since 1995. According to
Lerma 150-200 teens participate in the Life Teen program with 22 adult core
members. In addition, a “Spirit team” of 53 adults and teens works
with the 180 confirmation candidates. The confirmation program is not an end of
a teen’s interaction with the parish, according to Lerma, but a celebrated
beginning.
“Confirmation is a grand celebration of the teens by the
parish,” Lerma said. “From there we want them to feel a sense of
involvement and know that their input is essential to the parish, that we want
them to be eucharistic ministers and lectors and Spirit team members.”
And many go on to serve within the community. “We want to
communicate to them the sense of belonging and value; that they have something
wonderful to offer. Their part of being the body of Christ is important and
needed.”
Experiencing the body of Christ is made possible by teen
gatherings during the week. Other events are designed to push the boundaries of
the teen experience.
“We sponsor a hunger meal in Lent on Ash Wednesday,”
Lerma said, “to be in solidarity with the hungry in the world.” Soup
is served and guests are assigned to socio-economic groups that receive
different resources, akin to the experiences of living in the First and Third
Worlds.
In December a “Cardboard Campout” finds teens sleeping
outside in cardboard boxes to raise money for area agencies that aid the
homeless. Last December, 133 teens participated in this unusual sleepover.
“What we try to do is make it so their social group is their
church group,” Lerma said. A variety of needs are met, from help with
homework to a parish-based Al-Ateen.
“The kids are awesome,” Lerma said. “It’s we
adults figuring out how to draw on the teens’ talents. They want to be
there.”
Parishioner Barbara Lovatt is largely responsible for discovering
another group that wanted “to be there.” Eight years ago, while
working for a charity in Roswell, she was struck by the number of Hispanic
clients wanting their children baptized, their marriages blessed by a priest
and their children instructed in the faith. They longed for Mass in Spanish
nearby.
Lovatt began asking questions. A priest was found to say Mass once
a month on the lawn of an apartment complex where many of the Hispanics lived.
A kitchen table served as the altar, family lace as the altar cloth, family
pictures and banners as the decorations.
“This was an unbelievably spiritual gathering of
people,” Lovatt said. “I went to my parish. I asked Father Al if
these people could be part of St. Thomas.”
A visit to the apartment complex opened Father Jowdy’s eyes.
“We pastors don’t often see all the population groups in
our parish,” Father Jowdy said, commenting on what he jokingly refers to
as his “kidnapping” after Mass one Sunday by Lovatt. “They live,
shop and work where we don’t see them. It was kind of a ‘if you build
it, they will come approach.’ If you try offering a ministry for a year,
you’ll find out if there’s an overwhelming need.”
Father Jowdy started by offering Mass on the lawn in the apartment
complex. Today there is “standing room only” at the Spanish Mass in
the parish church.
Father Jesús David Trujillo-Luna, a native of Colombia, has
been ministering in the parish for two years. While he serves both the English
and Spanish-speaking members of the parish, he has a special role with the
latter.
“We are many, but we are one in the body of Christ,”
said Father “J.D.,” as he is called. “I continued the work
Father Al started in the 10 locations in Alpharetta and Roswell where Hispanics
live.”
Father Trujillo-Luna said more than 1,000 people worship at the
Spanish Mass on Sunday. More than 150 people are present for the Friday evening
Spanish Mass. He also celebrates Mass once a month in each of the 10 apartment
communities when the weather is appropriate.
He said there are Hispanic eucharistic ministers, lectors, singers
and more than 40 Hispanic catechists.
Carmen Desmelik is the coordinator for Hispanic ministries in the
parish. The work encompasses 10 people in the Hispanic RCIA program, 32
teenagers in the Hispanic Life Teen program called “Adolescentes,” a
total of more than 85 men and women in the Hispanic Christ Renews His Church
group, 84 Hispanic children preparing for first Communion and more than 20
babies baptized each month. There are approximately 80 people attending
Hispanic adult education classes on Sunday. Three tiers of English classes are
offered in the parish.
“The Hispanic community is growing,” Father
Trujillo-Luna said. “Only two of those 10 Hispanic residential areas are
stable. In the last three weeks I’ve met 15 new families from California.
They are coming here to get their children away from the drug and prostitution
problems there.” Ninety percent of the Hispanic parishioners are Mexican,
he said.
Celebrations include the Hispanic youth group’s Passion Play
on Good Friday; elaborate festivities honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe; the
Spanish Choir Festival, to be hosted by St. Thomas this December; approximately
10 Quinceañera parties each year, when the entire community celebrates
the birthdays of 15-year-old girls; and monthly presentation blessings for
40-day and three-year-old children. The possibility of Hispanic Cub Scout and
Boy Scout programs is being discussed.
Soccer is another popular pastime for Hispanic parishioners, he
said. Hispanic parishioners over 18 make up 99 percent of five different teams
in the Roswell League with two of the teams directly connected to the parish. A
four-foot trophy on Father Trujillo-Luna’s office floor attests to the
success of the players.
“Soccer is a way of bringing people into the parish,”
Father Trujillo-Luna said.
Bringing the teens of the parish together is another priority. The
strategy includes shared events, such as the Valentine’s party, mission
service trip and a retreat. Since February, the Hispanic and Anglo Life Teen
groups share the Life Teen 5:30 Mass once a month.
“We’d like to have one Life Teen group,” Father
Trujillo-Luna said. “I don’t know if it’s possible, but
we’re going to try. All the Hispanic teenagers speak English and everyone
goes to school together.”
“This is one church,” Father Trujillo-Luna said.
“There are people from different countries who speak different languages,
but we are all part of St. Thomas Aquinas.”
Lovatt commented on the “lovely, generous, grateful
people” in the Hispanic community. “They became our friends. They
shared their spiritual issues. They shared lots of other issues.”
Medical issues are a huge challenge for this largely undocumented
and uninsured group, Lovatt said. One of the first babies to be baptized by the
parish’s fledgling outreach died of a treatable infection.
“Our Hispanic ministry doesn’t just expect people to
come to Mass,” she said. “We address spiritual and social
issues.”
Several years ago the parish, through Catholic Social Services,
hired a bilingual mental health counselor. An obstetrician was found to provide
affordable prenatal care to Hispanic women, with parishioners attending the
Monday appointments to translate.
The parish recently hired a bilingual parish health professional
through the St. Joseph Congregational Health Ministry, Lovatt said. It is
another significant financial commitment for the parish.
“Medical resources for the undocumented is the biggest
dilemma for most of these parishioners,” Lovatt said.
Support is growing as Hispanic organizations in the Atlanta area
join their voices, she said. The process includes educating other churches and
agencies, finding grants for local clinics and insisting that existing medical
institutions find ways to provide care.
“People want to help,” Lovatt said. “It’s a
question of educating our wealthy Anglo parishioners.”
She pointed to the pairing of Hispanics and Anglos for rides to
soccer practices, to retired and active teachers volunteering in an
after-school tutoring program and to Spanish classes offered in the adult
education program.
“Barbara Lovatt is our conscience at St. Thomas
Aquinas,” said Deacon John Strachan. “Sometimes we need to be
reminded of the Gospel mandate.”
For Deacon Strachan, that mandate encompasses many of the
activities mentioned previously, and others, such as the parish support of the
Cumming Care Center, a crisis pregnancy outreach.
“We really do a lot,” he said of parish outreach.
“They’re all my favorite. This kind of generosity just shows the
commitment of the parishioners. I’ve never seen the parish not respond to
a need that was presented.”
He credits the spiritual intimacy and support generated by the
small faith-sharing groups for much of the momentum of the parish. He and his
wife have been members of the same group for 12 years.
“This support of each other is one of the best things that
ever happened at the parish,” he said.
Most things that happen at the parish are cataloged in a
substantial folder of information that is available to newcomers. Prospective
parishioners are asked to prayerfully experience the parish before making a
membership commitment that will encompass time, talent and treasure.
The newcomers find information from the history of the parish,
which was founded in 1972, to a list of the three missions established nearby,
St. Peter Chanel, St. Brigid and St. Brendan.
The packet includes descriptions of, and contacts for, a variety
of parish ministries and programs. Cooperative ministries with other groups
include Habitat for Humanity, North Fulton Community Charities, night shelter
work and the Refugee Sponsorship Committee. The Gospel Justice Commission,
Liturgy Commission, Education Commission, Community Life Commission and
Stewardship Commission provide input into these aspects of parish life.
In addition to Father Jowdy and Father Trujillo-Luna, Father Dan
Fleming completes the roster of parish priests with Father Thomas Murphy,
retired, pinch-hitting. In addition to Deacon Strachan, permanent deacons
include Deacon Bill Keeling, Deacon Edmund LaHouse, Deacon Don Nadeau and
Deacon Kevin Tracy.
A rich framework of journeying in and with Christ provides a
context for the parish mission statement: “We, the members of St. Thomas
Aquinas Parish, are a welcoming community of diverse Christians who are called
to: Proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, seek spiritual growth, provide
compassionate outreach, share our time, talents and treasure so that we and
others might grow, and celebrate our faith through the liturgy and sacraments
of our Roman Catholic tradition.”
“We have to understand that somehow we are all ‘Christ-
bearers,’” Zobel said. “We are challenged to bring Christ to the
parish and to the world.” |
