A Work in Progress

Dear Friend,

The ramp project continues (between rainstorms) and I’m reminded that now is not the first time I’ve lived next door to a construction project. God continues to teach me. In the early 90’s (i.e. last century), I lived next door to Saint Francis Church in mid-town Sacramento, where the building was being retrofitted for earthquake safety. Just like here, a stately and solid historical site was becoming a work in progress, and not for the first time. 

My lesson in Sacramento came through the redesign (c. 1980) of the church’s main aisle. As originally designed (1908) the church’s center aisle led directly to a beautifully elaborated sanctuary marked off by a communion rail. In the redesign that aisle still powerfully aimed itself at the altar but was now interrupted and reoriented. The baptismal font, originally placed in a private baptistry near the front doors, was now in the middle of that main aisle, now widened, inviting a pause at a very public, visible space where water (and the Spirit) stood ready to make us new, right in the middle of the church’s main pathway.   

Quite likely because of where I was at the time in my own faith journey (preparing for solemn vows as a friar), I saw the church interior – Sunday after Sunday - mirroring the stop-and-start pattern of my own faith experience. Here it was, my journey, made holy.

Advent begins this weekend, and I hear a call to pause. It’s time to get ready, time to begin again, and to allow the familiar to be made new (“swords to plowshares”, “spears to pruning hooks”). It sounds radical and it is. It’s my question at the start of this liturgical year: Am I willing to be made new, to be a work in progress? 

Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm