Stories of Faith

Answering the Call

No, God did not call me by phone to become Pastor here in Albany, but it is interesting nonetheless how I got here.

You see, it was  just another day in March when out of the blue, while shopping in Costco, that I received a phone call that would once again throw a curve ball my way. The reason I say this is that whenever I received word of where I was being asked to go in the priesthood it was always not what I expected.

My reaction was no different with the news that March day when I was told that the Archbishop was considering moving me to become pastor of a parish closer to Portland. When you think Portland, you think Portland; at least that is what I thought.

I was told that I would know more information within the next few weeks. So, for the next two weeks you know how a mind works! You try to examine all the possibilities and determine where you might think you could be placed. It was at a meeting toward the end of March that I was notified that the Archbishop had a place in mind for me to become Pastor. I instantly thought about where in Portland I would be relocating to. What I heard next was, the Bishop would like you to become pastor of St. Mary’s in Albany.

My response was, Albany?

All I could think of was that Albany was not in Portland!

Over the next few days I would pray seriously about this request. It was just a few days later that I visited Albany for the first time, and found that this was where God was calling me to serve. I would accept this invitation on the following Monday, and everything would rapidly unfold from that point until the present day.

You see, God really only leads us exactly where he wants us to go, and he will always journey with us on that path if we let him. I know that I have been abundantly blessed in ministry, and it is no different here at St. Mary’s Parish and School. From the very first visit meeting with the staff who warmly welcomed me, to the students at the Catholic School and their welcome signs, cards, and, Hi Fr. T’s in the schoolyard, I knew this was meant to be. Through the transition more and more parishioners helped me to feel at home at this parish and school.

 One of my favorite passages in scripture is The Road to Emmaus and it all fits together as we are called to walk on that road with God, trusting that wherever he leads us, we shall follow. As I begin this chapter in my life as Pastor and Spiritual Leader of St. Mary’s Parish and School , I encourage you to look at where God is calling you in your journey of life.

Enjoy the stories that are presented to you from many parishioners and school alumni who have had their own experiences over the past 125 years. My prayer is that these stories may help you reflect on your own journey and relationship with God today and into the future.

Father Andrew Thomas

It Must Be Hard For You

It must be hard for you  . . .

I have been the pastoral associate at St. Mary’s for more years than I care to write down. Recently I was helping one of our parishioners with her annulment testimony. As she went through her story of physical and sexual abuse by her former husband; suicide attempts and a great spiritual darkness following her divorce, she apologized for burdening me with her story. It must be hard for you… she said.

As I thought about her statement, I couldn’t help but think about the many stories I had heard or lived through during my time here at St. Mary’s. There have been so many parents who have lost a dear child… baby Samuel and baby Noah and baby Audrey Rose; babies Jack and Olivia, the twins who died so close to birth; little Casey who was so courageous in the face of her leukemia, and others. It is hard to witness their pain, to want to help even a little; to try to make sense out of such a tragedy.

I thought about a dear friend whose daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren were killed in a car accident on the far away continent of Africa. I thought about celebrating the Last Supper in a dying friend’s hospital room – first the Eucharist, then pizza. I thought about watching parishioners suffer through the ravages of cancer or other illnesses – some who survived, others who didn’t. I thought about all those stories and so many more.

As I cried my way through the memories, I thought, Yes, it is hard. But it’s more than that; it’s  humbling and inspiring. I am a romantic at heart, always looking for the happy ending. In the stories and lives that are shared with me, I see the pain but I also see resurrection and hope. Death is not the end! Evil does not win! The human heart always triumphs because each and every one of us is made in the image of our great and glorious God.

I see those who are hurting or bowed down with pain lay their sadness on the altar where it is transformed. I see them standing with their sisters and brothers in faith who hold them up and pray for them, even when they have no voice to pray for themselves.

Our God is so good. God walks with us, and even carries us through our most difficult times. Through the grace of the sacraments and the fellowship of our faith community, we are healed. It’s our faith story. We are people of the cross. But more than that, we are people of hope. We believe in resurrection, thanks be to God!

Kathy Reilly

Paper Airplanes

In the early 70’s, our family was new to Albany and St. Mary’s. Fr. Mel Stead was the pastor at the time. He introduced me to Nikki, another Italian girl, that was also new to the area. We worked on the bulletin together each week. At that time the bulletin was done on a very old mimeograph machine. It took us almost all day to put it out. Nikki and I both had small children, and they played in the old gym while we worked on the bulletin. We became very close friends having lots in common. We both grow up in large Italian families sharing in the same foods and similar experience.

One Saturday afternoon, Nikki invited my family and Fr. Stead to her home for dinner. During the afternoon, Fr. Stead sat showing the children how to fold paper airplanes and the art of soaring them across the room. He was so patient with them. They practiced folding and flying airplanes all afternoon. Getting more proficient as the afternoon wore on. The following day we went to Mass, picking up a bulletin on our way in. We sat in our usual place, in the front pew. Adele, my daughter, who was usually so naughty in church was very quiet. I was not paying attention to what she was doing; she was quiet! She sat and meticulously folded the bulletin into an airplane, just as Fr. Stead had taught her. She drew back her little arm and sailed that puppy right onto the altar like a pro. Fr. Stead was grinning from ear to ear on how well she picked up the art of folding and flying paper airplanes. He could not have been more proud of her. However, I wasn’t! I made her march up to the altar and pick up the airplane.

After all these years we are still laughing over one of the many antics of Adele.

Rosanne Wilson

No Place like Home

If you’re looking for a dramatic story, filled with miracles and visions and revelations of every kind, this isn’t it.

This is just a tale about an everyday woman who would love nothing more than to portray herself as a seeker of truth and lover of knowledge, but in reality I’m just a middle-aged version of Dorothy, the little girl from Kansas, who became utterly lost in a strange and frightening place before she finally realized that the happiness she was looking for had been at home all along.

As an enthusiastic convert to Catholicism in my young adult years, I never thought that there would come a time when I would not only question my adopted faith, but reject it entirely. A ‘wannabe’ ever since the first time I saw The Sound of Music as a child, I longed to join the Church, but fearing parental disapproval, I waited until I’d been married for several years to enter the catecumenate. My husband, a non-practicing Catholic at the time we were wed, was very supportive and went with me to many of my RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes. Our young children accompanied us to Mass every Sunday, making faith a family affair. The months passed, and before I knew it I was standing before the altar on Easter Vigil to receive the Body of Christ for the very first time.

When we moved to Oregon in the spring of 1988, we attended Mass in another parish for a time, but for some reason we never really connected with it. Then, after our fifth and last child was born in 1991, the baby suffered a health crisis that nearly cost him his life . . . and sent us running back to our faith. That’s when we came to  St. Mary’s of Albany.

The years that followed were happy although challenging due to our poverty and the struggles all young parents face. Our children were all baptized here and attended CCD classes. My husband and I served coffee and donuts on a number of occasions after the eleven o’clock morning Mass. I was also on the Social Concerns Committee, which, among its many accomplishments, established the Parish Nurse Program and helped bring the Anne Frank exhibit here to Albany, as well as being involved with Everybody’s Neighborhood, a celebration of diversity begun as a counter to a street demonstration by a white-supremacist group.

In the mid-1990’s, however, life changed drastically. Bit by bit, our involvement in parish life diminished as I began nursing coursework at Linn Benton Community College to help my family escape the cycle of welfare dependency. Our marriage suffered many problems during those years as we grew apart, and we very nearly separated a few months before graduation in 1997. (We thank God to this day that we were so poor—we had no choice but to stay together and fight it out!)

More years passed. I worked a number of different nursing jobs; my husband and I regained our former closeness; the children grew up and began to move away. But the intellectual elitist tendencies I had developed during my college years, as well as the horrendous things I saw in my work every day, had taken their toll on my faith, and I began to doubt the existence of God for the first time in my life.

On top of that, I was crazy busy.  There was little time for prayer or reflection; days flew by in a blur of activity that left me feeling exhausted and old. Oh, there were times I felt the resurgence of God’s presence in my life, like when my grandchildren were born—when I read The Shack and experienced a spontaneous healing of the guilt I’d carried for 25 years after my second daughter died—when I listened to an especially moving piece of sacred music or took the time to marvel at His creation.

But unlike people who went to church, I told myself, I was a spiritual person who didn’t need to be kept in line or told what to believe. I didn’t need organized religion telling me how to vote, when I could stop having children, what I could do with my own body. And I certainly didn’t need to confess my sins to a priest when God could hear me Himself.

I was proud of my independent spirit and open mind, proud of my tolerance for all sorts of beliefs and morality. Then my youngest son, who hadn’t set foot inside St. Mary’s since preschool, met a Catholic girl at West Albany High a couple of months before graduation—and this is where things get interesting.

Baptized Catholic as an infant, my boy nonetheless knew little about his religion, and when he first started dating this young lady and attending Mass with her, he wasn’t especially thrilled. He thought the songs were boring (he was used to the rollicking Christian contemporary music they play at the evangelical church his aunt attends), and he didn’t like the structure. But by Christmastime, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and in order to do so, he needed to become . . . a Catholic.

They say that if you live long enough, and allow yourself to experience enough and learn from it, eventually your life comes full circle. Before we knew it, my son was nearing the end of RCIA; as he prepared himself for his first Reconciliation it suddenly occurred to me that maybe—just maybe—I should go with him. I knew his fiancée and her family would be there, but I thought he might appreciate my support as well. I was proud of him for taking this important step, and I figured it was time to prove it.

What I didn’t know was that this would be the turning point in my own life. That night, as I sat in the pew next to the son who had somehow become a man while I wasn’t looking, I gazed up into the rafters, and was suddenly filled with the same kind of awe that I used to feel all those years ago, when our young family had been active members of this church.

All at once I realized that at long last, I was HOME. This was what had been missing while I wandered in the desert of spiritual homelessness during my thirties and forties. Even though I’d believed my sporadic prayers and Christian book-reading were enough, suddenly I found myself craving something more