Our Community – This is Us

“Fifteen years ago we relocated from NY to PA. For most of our married life, John & I attended liturgy at St. John’s University with a group called St. John’s Sunday’s Worshiping Community. Liturgy was held in the University chapel. It was a small group, probably about 150 people compared to most parishes. Both our children received their First Holy Communion there, despite being enrolled in Catholic School. So community worship was & is an important aspect of worship for us.

We joined St. Mary Magdalene during the pandemic when we were all quarantined in our homes. We originally tried live streaming the Liturgy from different parishes, but felt we were merely observing liturgy as on lookers & not really participating. What struck me was, why weren’t we being encouraged to bring our own bread & wine to our table? God’s power can certainly use cyber space to be present at our table & also couldn’t the bishops’/priest’s intention make this happen? I had known about the St. Mary Magdalene’s Inclusive Community, but the time of their Liturgy and place of worship was not going to work for us. A neighbor, Eileen Butler, emailed me the Liturgy that was going to be used on Zoom that Sunday. We liked what we saw & decided to give it a try. We immediately felt welcomed & knew we had found a community of kindred spirits. We have continued to worship with the community via Zoom. This is truly a community, where people share their love & concern, their hopes & dreams for one another, but also for the local & the world community. We so appreciate the homilies, the shared reflections from the community & the prayers of the faithful, where everyone is encouraged to share their concerns & ask for each other’s prayers.”

We are indeed blessed & fortunate to have become part of this community.