Editor's Note
A Special Day
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, is a very large church. Seeing it filled in April with more than 1500 faithful from our own Diocese -- men, women and children who had come as pilgrims to honor our diocesan patroness -- was a stirring, inspiring experience. The music, the glorious architectural setting and the beautiful liturgy all played a part, but to me the most affecting element of the pilgrimage was the sense of solidarity: knowing that we, Catholics from all over Eastern North Carolina, were worshipping together as the culmination of a journey we had undertaken together for reasons we shared. Many of us know the feeling of parish community, but the sense of diocesan community on that day was special.
For a moment I wondered how it might have been if we had all journeyed there on foot like the European pilgrims of old. But even in an air-conditioned bus, one could sense the togetherness. At one point the pilgrims on my bus began the Rosary. A woman across the aisle, noticing that several of us didn’t have rosaries, reached into her bag and distributed some knotted prayer circlets she had made. I sat beside a mother of teenagers, who told me that her youngsters were at the age where they weren’t always too enthusiastic about church. She had come on the pilgrimage “to take a break, and to be with people who are happy to be Catholic.” And we were. Our souls are nurtured when we turn to heaven as a community.
A few weeks later I had the chance to talk with couples at our Bishop’s Masses for those celebrating 25, 50 and more than 50 years of marriage. If there was a common denominator in the couples with whom I spoke, it was a sense of humor. And though they were very cordial, it was clear that the humor wasn’t for me – it was something gentle and genuine between the spouses, and it was a habit.
The biggest recent event in our Church in the U.S., of course, was the visit of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to Washington, DC, and to New York City. Several people from our Diocese were fortunate enough to see him at those venues, and their reflections are part of the coverage of the papal visit in this issue.
I hope you’ll send me your own thoughts on these events and on this issue of NCC. I’m at 715 Nazareth Street, Raleigh, NC 27606 or reece@raldioc.org.