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Next Saturday, May 3, eleven Cathedral children will receive their First Holy Communion along with many others from the Frances Xavier Warde Catholic School’s 2nd grade at Old St. Pat’s, the parish that shares FXW with Holy Name. Father Compton and I plan to join them Saturday. Then, next Sunday, May 4 at the 9:30am Mass in the Cathedral auditorium, those eleven children will receive their Second Holy Communion. I will be the celebrant and will welcome my friends and their especially invited families. Please, join us. This will be a first at Holy Name. I am looking forward to the Second Holy Communion Mass next Sunday at 9:30. Next Sunday every Cathedral parishioner should plan to attend “Leadership Day” – a ministry fair featuring the ministries, activities, commissions, and organizations that give Holy Name Cathedral parish its wonderful reputation as a real parish Church. Most Cathedrals do not function as parishes, certainly not with the life that characterizes Holy Name. From after the 8:15am Mass on Sunday through 2:00pm, you are invited to see what Holy Name presents. In addition, I hope many parishioners seriously consider offering their names for the parish’s lay leadership groups. Now is the time for you to volunteer to serve a 3-year term on the Parish Pastoral Council (the group that helps me point out a direction for the Cathedral); or on one of the Council’s four Commissions – Parish Life; Evangelization & Spiritual Life; Adult Religious Education; or Human Concerns. These are the committees that organize the parish activities and ministries. One-third of the leadership rotates off each Commission and the PPC each season. Registered parishioners are invited to be interviewed as part of a “discernment process” that determines who the new members will be. Some great and committed people belong to the Commissions and the PPC now. We will need about 30 new names. How about you? You can be a part of the volunteer lay leadership at Holy Name Cathedral in the exciting years ahead. As we continue our Restore & Renew campaign to make Holy Name Cathedral an even more beautiful place of prayer, as we anxiously await our return to our altar after this emergency exodus, we look ahead to recommitting our parish to the Christian activity that has made us famous. I will see you here after Mass next Sunday! For some months I have been participating in a “Periodic Review of Priestly Ministry”, an exercise presented at the 6-year point of my assignment to the Cathedral to help me in my role as pastor. The Cathedral staff, parish leaders, and parishioners at-large submitted data and comments on my ministry. I met with another veteran pastor who reviewed the data with me and assisted me in composing a “Development Plan”. Part of the evaluation exercise asked me to present a summary of my plan here in the parish bulletin. Most folks stated that areas of strength in my work were my preaching; my willingness to do my fair share of the heavy sacramental “priest work”; and my ability to delegate authority. Among the main recommendations were scheduling annual performance reviews for senior staff members; establishing a calendar of evaluation/revision for established projects or ministries; and attending to my own health. In response to the review, I set three goals for the coming year: (1) to hire a competent administrative assistant to organize files, schedule reviews, and serve as chief communications staff member; (2) to schedule days when the staff can pray, set ministerial goals, and enjoy each other’s contributions to Holy Name; and (3) to initiate end-of-the-term evaluation of Parish Pastoral Council projects. The first has recently been accomplished with the hiring of administrative assistant Laura Grazioli. The second was a positively regarded part of last fall’s calendar; the goal is to do it again. The third will be addressed at an upcoming PPC meeting. I am grateful to all who participated in my review. Thanks. I had three objections to the process. First, the instrument used came in a “one-size-fits-all” package. The questionnaires were identical to those used for a pastor in Englewood with no assisting pastoral staff; a pastor in a heavily ethnic area; a pastor of multiple parishes; a pastor of a parish in competition with a suburban mega-Church. There was no evaluation of 25% of my unique job as pastor of the Archdiocesan Cathedral. Second, the format invited anonymous criticism. I never read an anonymous letter. I sign everything I write. That’s the way I believe the relationship of a pastor and parishioner must be. If someone wants to swing at me without the courage to sign the letter, I dump it unread. This evaluation tool invited anonymity – positive and negative. Fortunately, each comment carried the ID number of the nameless critic. I know there is one angry person in the pews who thinks I should be working far away from the Cathedral. Congratulations. The Archdiocese succeeded in getting me to read your anonymous, mean vitriol. Nevertheless, be sure I continued to give your personal opinion all the attention it regularly deserves. Finally, it took way too long to run this evaluation, maybe longer than it takes most pastors at review time. A falling ceiling and the frantic Cathedral pace can share some blame with me for delay. I really did not need the extra work. Overall, now that the review has been filed, I comfortably look forward to a second term as pastor of Holy Name Cathedral. I hope I also am the Cardinal’s choice. Meanwhile, please pray with me, for me, and for the great Holy Name Cathedral. I am excited about the Confirmation of many adults (last year we had over 100) on Tuesday evening, June 24. The catechesis or preparation will begin May 12. Right now, contact Cathedral Pastoral Associate Ann Klocke at 312-573-4467 if you are a baptized Catholic who has already received Communion and who never was confirmed. Mobility of families, various norms for when Confirmation usually gets celebrated, and a weaker emphasis on religious education all have contributed to a larger number of young adults and even not-so-young adults who missed this once in a lifetime Sacrament. Engaged folks can see that after marriage, trying to get their children to understand the Sacraments will be a lot more successful if mom and dad both have participated in all those channels of grace that were available to them. Both Cardinal George and Bishop Kane will administer the Sacrament this year. One big change – because of that pesky construction in the Cathedral, this year’s celebration of adult Confirmation will take place at St. Joseph Church (“the pocket-Cathedral”), 1107 N. Orleans, just south of Division. Call. The whole Catholic Church will be stronger after that powerful Mass. I am away this weekend. I will be back on Tuesday.
Fr. Dan Mayall |
