A Mind Made Up

Over the past month, two people have asked me about the name of our unified parish. Let me reflect briefly on that topic. We know that within four years, we will be one parish. All five of our parishes will come together into one new parish. How will we name the parish? Clearly, it would not be just to simply take the largest parish and use the name of that parish for our new parish. Numbers also make “voting” on a name problematic. However, we do need to discover or create a new name for our parish.

Indeed, as we come to know and follow Jesus in each other and in the joys and crosses of Beacons of Light, I invite all parishioners to be thinking about a name for our new parish. I am not shy about the fact that I think our name should be St. Crescent Parish. There are lots of great reasons for that, which I’ll relate over time. However, even though I am convinced that the Holy Spirit dropped that name down from heaven for us, or better, the Spirit dropped it from the top of St. Peter’s Square in Rome, where St. Crescent is one of the 140 saints who have statues there, I am fully aware that we could have any one of thousands of saint names for our parish. Over the past weeks, two people have talked to me about the name of our new parish. The first person didn’t like the name St. Crescent. They were ready to get a committee together to find a better name. My response to them was that it was too early. We have much, much more important work to do toward unity. In fact, I would say that we’ll be ready to start to seriously consider a saint name for our parish when all our finances are combined. Likely, combined finances are a few years off. We have lots more unifying work to do in the meantime!

The second person was concerned that I had already made up my mind that our parish name is going to be St. Crescent. Only part of that assumption is true. I have made up my mind as to the best name for our parishes! I am allowed to make up my mind just like everyone else, especially if compelling reasons convince my mind. Good leaders make up their minds…and change them! Fortunately, the pastor does not get to decide the name of a unified parish without recommendation from the leaders of God’s people. Therefore, the person is wrong to assume that just because I have made up my mind, that is going to carry the day. It also doesn’t mean my mind is closed. Therefore, as preparation for the future process of naming our parish, I invite parishioners to write and email/ send a 500-word reflection making a case for a saint’s name you think is best. Send that to a parish office or to Ginny, our Director of Communications at [email protected], (or to a pastoral council. See below.) In a couple of years, those reflections will help parish leaders recommend the best name possible for our parishes…and it will be fun!

Pastoral Council Email Addresses
Over the past months, Crescent Parishes’ awesome IT person, Eric Nienaber, has been busy with a myriad of unification in our offices. He is working to unite four phone systems into one across three campuses. He has rewired two campuses with the hardware necessary to accommodate new staff member computers and phones. He obtained a unified domain name for our emails, with each staff member receiving a new email address. Soon, Eric will be accomplishing a recommendation made by pastoral council members themselves: creating a dedicated pastoral council email address for each of our pastoral councils. Over the next weeks, that email address will accompany the names of pastoral council members listed in the bulletin. Pastoral Council Presidents will monitor those emails. Thanks, Eric, for unifying staff and for helping pastoral council members to accomplish one of their goals: being the voice of the people!

Vacation Around the Corner
One week ago, I changed the oil in my minivan and rotated the tires. I resurrected my Leinenkugel plastic shopping bag holding fresh fish recipe books and the listing of standard groceries I use, which also has on it the supply of spices on hand at St. Catherine’s rectory at the end of last year’s vacation. (I think I’m one of the only priests in the volunteer program who cooks!) I’ve been peeking at the current forecasts, reveling in the fact that the northern Minnesota nights have been in the mid-fifties and the days in the mid-seventies! Indeed, I’m looking forward to my twenty-third vacation in Lake Itasca, Minnesota where St. Catherine Church sits at the north entrance of Minnesota’s premier state park, where the mighty Mississippi begins. At the headwaters, there is an iconic national-park-brown-painted, fifteen-foot-tall pine trunk with the following words routed and yellow-painted into it “Here 1475 above the ocean the mighty Mississippi begins to flow on its winding way 2552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.” I leave this Tuesday morning well before the rooster crows to make the over 950-mile trek in one day. If all goes well, I’ll arrive just after supper, unpack, and get the boat ready to hit the water. Lord willing…and I’m pretty sure God is…Wednesday for supper I’ll be having fresh fish poached or sautéed in the kitchen or in a foil pouch on the fire…never deep fried. Please pray for me. I’ll be praying for Crescent Parishioners!

Sincerely and with Love in Christ,
Fr. Pat