Florida Catholic | Wandering Catholic Invited Home

Parish invites wandering Catholics back ‘home’

Holy Cross Parish has instituted a “Coming Home” program to reach out to Catholics who are not practicing their faith.

CARLOS BRICENO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 01.11.08

ST. PETERSBURG | How do you get people who aren’t going to church anymore to consider returning?

You reach out and invite them back.

That’s what Holy Family Parish is doing as part of its “Coming Home” program. Several lay leaders, with the permission of parish pastor Father John Tapp, have put together “Coming Home” as a way to evangelize those who are considering returning to the church.

The program is one of the fruits of the diocese’s Living Eucharist initiative, which was begun at Holy Family Parish last year with parish staff and lay Catholics reading and discussing the book “From Maintenance to Mission.” The Florida Catholic has periodically focused on the parish throughout the past year in an effort to show how one parish is participating in the initiative, which is a multiyear renewal and evangelization process.

“Coming Home” program leader Mary Naughton has had experience with the process of inviting Catholics back to the church: She participated in a program called “Landings” in her former parish in Philadelphia years ago. “Landings” is a comprehensive approach started by the Paulist Fathers to welcome returning Catholics.

MORE INFORMATION ?
For more information about the “Coming Home” program, contact Mary Naughton at marynaughton2004@yahoo.com
or 727-365-3751.

“We’re using the important elements of ‘Landings,’ which is telling your faith-journey story,” said Naughton.

During weekends in late December, the time of year that attendance during Masses often increases because of Christmas, Naughton and several other lay leaders left fliers on the pews of the church as invitations for people to e-mail or phone program leaders for more information on how to participate.

“We are forming a group for people who are seeking a return to the church,” the flier stated. “We’re nonjudgmental. No explanations needed. No questions asked. Just a gentle, safe program made up of people interested in exploring and sharing their faith.”

The six- to eight-week program began Jan. 10, and it emphasizes that one does not have to be a theologian to share faith and what he or she believes.

Father Tapp said the “From Maintenance to Mission” book was integral in helping people at his parish reach out to people, especially those Catholics who have left the church.

“We’re conscious of it (our role as evangelizers) now,” he said. “We know we have to act on that: to be a source of support to people who have not seen the beauty and blessings that living an active faith can bring.”

Naughton said it is important to show others they are not alone.

“There are other people, myself included, who have possibly experienced what they have experienced,” she said. “It’s building community, as well. When people really get into sharing, whether it’s regarding a reflection on Scriptures or sharing something else, a sense of community is built. When you have that sense of community built, people really get into their faith.”

Her own experiences have included going to church when she was growing up and graduating from a Catholic college in 1959. But then she stopped going to Mass.

“I spent a lot of time away (from going to church),” she said. “It was mostly out of laziness.”

Her loss of interest did not mean she had lost her sense of spirituality, she said. But after spending 25 years living and working in Hawaii, she said she decided to come back to Pennsylvania. And when she came back, she also attended a Mass again.

“When I came back, I guess I had what you call a conversion experience,” she said. “I went to a particular church (in Philadelphia) and it was an absolutely incredible experience. I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit,” she said.

Naughton said there are many reasons people stop going to church, such as being annoyed over what someone said or did to them. It could be a disagreement with the church’s teaching on a particular matter. It could also be that someone does not like to get up on a Sunday morning, she added.

In the case of another lay leader of the group, Claudia McIvor, a divorce, subsequent annulment and remarriage resulted in some “difficult times and a bumpy road between me and my church.”

But when she felt reconciled with the church, she said she felt “an overwhelming gratitude that God had brought me through that process.”

She said she hopes to lend “a listening ear” to those who are interested in returning to the church.

“I’d like to listen to their stories and say from this parishioner, ‘You are still part of the church,’” said McIvor.

Father Tapp said a good time to reach out to people is during the holiday season, because people’s spiritual senses are usually “heightened” and because more people attend Masses during the Christmas season.

But, he has a reminder for everyone: The practice of faith is day to day, week to week and not just during the holidays, he said.

“Our responsibility is to reach out to all of God’s people,” he said. “And I think we have a special obligation to reach out to those who have been away from the church for a while. Their obligation is to rediscover the beauty, the value of the Mass and the role of the Eucharist in their lives.”

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