Minneapolis Musings
By David Pais

It’s March. It’s Minnesota. It’s cold. What would bring over 500 self-identified and declared Catholics to the mid-west in the middle of winter? I know it is Lent, but this is not a form of abstinence or penitence. It is quite the opposite---it is a celebration of who we are and who God has called us to be. We are at the New Ways Ministry Conference entitled OUTWARD SIGNS: Lesbian /Gay Catholics in a Sacramental Church. Seven of us here consider Francis Xavier* our spiritual home. 

We have gathered in this suburb of Minneapolis to share our faith, learn from each other, and hear expertise on ethics, theology, scripture, psychology, and human development. We have come to grow in our faith and wisdom so that we might better be able to minister to those whom we meet in our roles as bishop, priest, sister, pastoral associate, religious educator, spiritual director, parish administrator, chaplain, nurse, doctor, teacher, professor, lay volunteer or dedicated Catholic. We are bishops, nuns, priests, parents, sisters, brothers, partners, cousins who are deeply committed to living out the command to love God, and “to love one another as I have loved you.”  We are here because we take our baptismal vows seriously and are striving to be the priestly people of God that are called to serve God’s creation. .

Throughout the three days of lectures, presentations, and workshops, stories from real life are exchanged of graces received, insults endured, scars healed, and promises to grow from these incidents to be more loving and compassionate---to mirror as best we can as humans, the Divine, unconditional love of God. On Sunday in preparation for our dispersing to go out and spread this Good News, we gather together in a worship service to draw strength and courage to continue our apostolic work.

As the Conference draws to its close, I am again reminded of Saint Teresa of Avila’s prayer to be “Christ, (for he) has no body now on earth but yours; no hands, but yours; no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet which Christ is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now.”

In this season of Lent 2007, with all that is going on in the world and in our Church, we are called to be Eucharist for each other, to strengthen our bonds of communion to the Divine and to the Human, to be an Easter people in a Good Friday world. Seven of us from Francis Xavier have freshly experienced/witnessed how we and others are called to be Christ in the world. It is my hope that these examples will serve as yeast for us, for our faith here among our beloved community, and in the larger environment in which we live. May they say “You will know them by the way they love one another.”

Peace and Good,

David Pais
March 18, 2007

* David Pais is a parishioner at St. Francis Xavier Church located at 55 West 15th Street, New York.