Dear All Saints Family, It’s an honor to write to you as your new pastor for the very first time. The word “pastor” is Latin for “shepherd”, and I am humbled that the Archbishop has placed his trust in me to be the shepherd and spiritual father of All Saints. Throughout this past year, I’ve been praying about what the Lord has in store for us as a parish, how he wants us to grow, and how we can better follow him. Listening to all of you during this time has given me a sense of who we are as a community, where we’ve been, and what our hopes and dreams are for the future. I was privileged to arrive at All Saints 15 months ago, just after we celebrated our 200th Anniversary. I’m reminded every day that we stand on the shoulders of those who have built this place and made it what it is today. Yet this moment represents a unique inflection point for us as a community. We are still at the dawn of our 3rd Century as a parish (not many in our Archdiocese can say that), and because of this, much of my prayer this year has centered around answering this fundamental question: what does All Saints Parish need to thrive for our 3rd Century? Our History In many ways, All Saints mirrors the trajectory of Catholicism in the United States as a whole. Our first century (much like the 1st Century or so of American Catholicism) was characterized by what I call “Immigrant Catholicism.” Immigrants, mostly from Europe, came to America and founded towns centered around their parish churches. Many of these parishes were comprised of a single ethnicity, a common diaspora from the “old Country” with the parish as a hub for community life. As many Catholic immigrants experienced discrimination in various circles, parishes served as a refuge and comfort for a community looking to be accepted in their new country. In many ways, All Saints fits this paradigm quite well. Our parish was founded by new immigrants who sought to give other immigrants a place to pray and be with God. Fast-forward to the 2nd Century of Catholicism in America, and the emergence of “Cultural Catholicism”, where Catholicism became accepted by the wider culture. Catholics no longer had to worry about fitting in with the world around them, because the Church had “made it”, so to speak. Catholics began to take up positions of leadership, including the Presidency in 1961; the Catholic/Christian ethos was universally accepted across our culture as a common way of seeing the world around us; and Catholic themes were seen throughout movies and given prominent positions on TV (Bishop Fulton Sheen comes to mind). No longer having to worry about “fitting in”, Catholics began to move to the suburbs, seeking stability and a comfortable way of life. Once again, this 2nd Century of American Catholicism played out in much the same way in our parish as St. Peters transitioned from rural farmland to bustling suburbia. Thousands and thousands of Catholics moved to our area to build homes, raise families, and experience the American Dream. As we enter this 3rd Century of Catholicism in America and All Saints, we now see that the world has vastly changed, even in just the last few decades. Cultural Catholicism is no longer a cultural needle-mover; in fact, the number of people who claim no religious affiliation in the US is now larger than the number of Catholics. Entire generations of people who have grown up with the faith have abandoned it; God no longer plays a meaningful part in their lives. The primary consequence of this is that we can no longer rely on the wider culture around us to help transmit the Catholic faith; in many ways, we are on our own, with no assistance from the world around us. The world is now actively working against us, rather than with us. If anything, our world resembles the pagan, Roman territory encountered by the Apostles more than it resembles Christendom. As such, we need to move from “Cultural Catholicism” to “Missionary Catholicism.” Missionary Catholicism represents a fundamental shift in our thinking, our mindset, and our strategy for handing on our faith. Simply put: to be Catholic today means being different from everyone else around us. How we see the world, how we spend our Sundays, what priorities are prominent in family life, what we watch on TV, how we raise our families—all the answers to these questions must be vastly different for the Catholic versus everyone else, or else the faith will not be handed on. I know that many families have experienced this firsthand. Many parents and grandparents tell me “Father, I did all the right things. I sent my kids to Catholic schools, we went to Mass on Sundays, but none of my kids practice the faith anymore. What did I do wrong?”—to which I say this: you did nothing wrong. The problem is, the world around us got crazier and crazier; and the things that could sustain life-long discipleship in prior decades are now insufficient for passing on the faith today. We’ve unfortunately seen this at All Saints in recent decades too; while our parish population has remained constant, we have less students in our school and our Mass attendance is down 31% in the last 15 years. All of this has occurred despite our parish doing some truly wonderful things on a day-in, day-out basis—the problem is, we haven’t adjusted and changed our approach to win this battle we face with the world around us. This is the challenge before us today—to adjust what we do to meet this moment as Catholics in the 21st Century. To accomplish this conversion of heart and mind, I strongly believe that the very mission and vision of our parish need to stand at the heart of what we do. Institutions that have strong mission and vision thrive around those common pillars. For instance, if you were to walk into NASA Headquarters in the 1950’s and ask an employee “what do you do here”, each and every one would answer “I’m here to put a man on the moon.” From the engineers to janitorial staff, every single employee of NASA was focused on the singular mission of getting a man on the moon. Every endeavor, every proposal made within the organization was put up against the single question: “will this help us put a man on the moon, or not.” We need that same focus and purpose behind everything we do as a parish. Our Mission With that in mind, I would like to propose a new mission for All Saints Parish, one that can stand at the very heart of our parish and school as the single rallying point for everything we’re about, and that mission is simple: Following Jesus, Forming Saints. That’s why we’re here; that’s our one and only goal here at All Saints, nothing more, nothing less. Following Jesus
We cannot lead our parish into its 3rd Century if we don’t know whom we follow—namely, Jesus Christ, and Him alone. Following Jesus means that we first know him as our Savior. This stands in stark contrast to how many in our world look at Jesus—as merely a nice guy, an historical figure, a charismatic leader, or a moral guide. Sadly, many baptized Catholics see Jesus in these terms; when this happens, we end up (in the words of Pope Leo XIV) “living in a state of practical atheism.” We must unambiguously confess, with St. Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”—and follow Jesus with everything we have.
Following Jesus also means taking our lead from the Gospel, not popular opinion, and being boldly, proudly, and unapologetically Catholic. Each of us, by virtue of our baptism, must make the conscious decision to follow Jesus every day and resist the temptation to be hesitant or halfhearted in our adherence to Christ, His Church, and His teachings. As the 21st Century goes on, I am firmly convinced that believers will have to pay an ever-greater price to be Catholic—so we should present the whole Catholic faith in our parishes, (yes, even the difficult teachings) with no apologies or ambiguities, so that we can follow Christ more fully.
Following Jesus begins with each of us hearing the Gospel, but it doesn’t end there. After hearing and accepting the Gospel, it is our vocation as baptized Catholics to help others follow Jesus too! While parts of the Gospel seem antiquated or even controversial to some people nowadays, we know by faith that Catholicism contains within it the fullness of truth, the fullness of joy, and the fullness of life. We have in our faith the very thing our world needs the most. If that is our mindset, then our proclamation of the Gospel will be joyful, free of any confusion, and help others follow Christ too. Any evangelization that dances around difficult truths or doesn’t teach the Gospel in its fullness is not truly following Christ, and won’t bear fruit.
Forming Saints
Forming Saints starts by living a vibrant sacramental life animated by the Eucharist and daily prayer. The Eucharist and daily prayer help to form the human heart after the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and we need to center our parish around these sources of grace, especially as our world moves further away from God. One of the most troubling aspects of modern society is that increasing numbers of people believe that the visible world is all there is—that there is nothing beyond what they can see with their own eyes. As Catholics, we know this to be false! There is an infinitely greater world that we cannot see—and the Eucharist, in particular, helps us discover and enter into this unseen world. In the Eucharist, our eyes observe what is, by all appearances, mere bread and wine; but the eyes of the heart behold something deeper and more profound: the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. In the same way, our worship should direct our hearts and minds to that unseen world. The Mass transports us from suburban St. Louis to the foot of the cross, from our everyday experience to Calvary itself; it takes us out of our ordinary lives for an hour on Sundays and lifts the heart and mind to things beyond our everyday experience. This encapsulates everything from our liturgical music, to how we go about following the rubrics and instructions of the Roman Missal. Beautiful worship moves the heart in ways we can scarcely imagine, and the Church is at her best when her worship is a source of beauty, piety, and prayer. So, the more Eucharist-centered our worship is, the more it will form us to be holy, because worship should not just be an encounter with one another, it should be an encounter with the living God.
Forming Saints doesn’t just take place at Mass for an hour on Sunday; it must fundamentally be at the heart of every parish and school event. For all the effort we put into so many good things (whether it’s works of mercy for the poor, giving people a tasty fish dinner on Fridays in Lent, or providing a good education), our Church building is not as full as it should be on Sunday mornings. We need to dramatically rethink what we devote our energy towards as a parish community and focus more of it on going and making disciples. Let me be clear, this does not mean that we should get rid of all our longstanding events and traditions—it just means that we need to do them with a mindset of “how does this event or ministry help others follow Jesus and become saints here at our parish.” If it does, fantastic! If not, then we need to figure out how it can, or potentially do something different that does. For example, a priest friend once struck up a conversation with a man at his parish fish fry. The man wasn’t Catholic, but his wife was. He told my friend, “Father, I’ve been to fish fry’s for over 30 years, but I’ve never been asked at any of them whether I wanted to become Catholic, whether I needed prayers, or even been invited to Mass.” For whatever the occasion, many people set foot on our parish grounds for a variety of events each week, and we need to impart to them the mission of our parish in everything we do—even if it’s within something as simple as a fish fry.
In short, I think these 2 pillars give us a wonderful blueprint for ministry here at All Saints. Yes, it might involve changing how we do some things, but I firmly believe a renewed mission and vision will bear tremendous fruit for our parish. Our new mission will allow us to refocus our efforts on what truly matters, explore new opportunities to nurture our parish, and help one another grow in union with God.
In Christ, Fr. John Schneier