Editor's Note
A Special Day
This month, you’ll read a brief news story about the Altar Server Appreciation Day Mass held at Cardinal Gibbons High School in November. If you were there, as I was lucky enough to be, you’ll remember it for some time as a very special event. First of all, the enthusiastic response to the Bishop’s invitation to altar servers and families was completely unexpected. The event had to be relocated twice as the numbers of people planning to attend grew ever larger.
Next, as the cars and buses arrived at Gibbons and the servers came in and their families helped them vest and snapped pictures, the celebration and excitement in the air were palpable. It felt like a large, cheerfully chaotic wedding. The pride of parents and siblings in “their” servers was evident. There were parish groups, large families, in some cases just a parent and a child, but all were drawn by a common desire to lift up the girls and boys who “go to the altar of God.”
There was another aspect to the celebration that took me back to our Diocesan pilgrimage to the National Shrine in 2008. This event, like the pilgrimage, was a Diocesan celebration. Some 40 different parishes were in one place acknowledging their larger common identity.
Finally, the reverent, joyful demeanor of the servers themselves touched hearts as they filed up to receive crucifixes from Bishop Burbidge. Faith, we’re often reminded, is about much more than just “feeling good.” Still, it felt right and good -- in so many ways – to give thanks to the altar servers of our Diocese.
As Catholics enter the Christmas season, the poor are rightly on our minds more than ever. You would be inspired, as I was, if you could spend a morning with Sister Mary Isaac Koenig at Wilmington’s St. Mary-Tileston Outreach Center. There is a spirit there, and Sister Isaac is at its center, that goes beyond the material assistance the center is able to give the needy. The volunteers at the outreach make sure that the poor not only are accorded respect and dignity; they are actually admired for the courage and resourcefulness many of them show in the most unfortunate circumstances. I hope our cover feature conveys some of that spirit.
All of us at NC Catholics sincerely wish all of you an Advent and Christmas season filled with spiritual riches!