VOTF on Boston Common

"Stand firm," sang the multi-parish choir August 15, as Catholics from the Archdiocese of Boston participated in a historic Mass on the Boston Common - the first Catholic Mass to be celebrated there since the Pope's Mass 25 years ago and the first Mass ever on the Common to be called for and organized by laity. The Mass was the outcome of nearly two months of planning by the Boston Area VOTF Council to show solidarity with parishioners facing the losses of their parish homes, now numbering over 80 parishes. Also, it was hoped that the Mass would demonstrate the strength and resources of the laity.

As cantors intoned name by name each parish the Archbishop of Boston has ordered to close, the choir and congregation ended the Mass standing firm in an exhortation that echoed words of hope the Rev. Robert Bowers had uttered during the homily. "Be the new community, the restored community of hope," Fr. Bowers said, as he acknowledged the pain, the grief, and the uncertainty generated by a process the archdiocese calls reconfiguration but which the people experience as an unfair loss. "Our Church leadership has confused the mission of the Church with the money of the Church," he said.

"All too often during this terrible time I have heard our Church leadership say what we DON'T have. We don't have enough priests. We don't have good solid buildings. We don't have donations like we used to," he continued, "But what we don't have is bishops who have the courage to ask, WHY? I say, look what we DO have: We have each other. We have a voice of the faithful. We have strength and resources and we have God with us."

Strength and resources were precisely what the Boston Area VOTF Council needed when it began to plan the Mass - and both were present on Boston Common.

Faced with a compressed schedule - about seven weeks from start to finish - the Boston Steering Committee entrusted the logistics planning to Ed Wade; the liturgy planning to Dorothy Kennedy, Darrell Simpson, and Linda McKay; communications to Sheila Grove; and fund-raising to Rich Acerra. From the first announcement of the plan, the organizing team also quickly gained a logistics angel: events planner Bill Sell of Expo Advisors, who attended the Boston Council's first Parish Summit meeting to learn how he could help prevent the closing of his own parish, St. Jeremiah in Framingham.

Bill helped guide the process of obtaining permits from Boston city departments already under siege from plans for the Democratic National Convention. He secured tents, a stage, and sound equipment, and handled a multitude of tasks needed for such events.

The one thing Bill could not control was the weather. But rains and winds from two hurricanes did not quell the spirit, or the turnout, for the Mass. Under gray, foggy skies and against a chill wind, some 2,000 Boston-area Catholics trooped to the Common for the 4 p.m. Mass, concelebrated by four priests whose parishes have been ordered to close: the Rev. Stephen Josoma of St. Susanna in Dedham, who as the presider asked God to forgive us all when we paid, prayed and obeyed and thought that would be enough for our faith; Fr. Bowers, the homilist, from St. Catherine of Siena in Charlestown; the Rev. Ronald Coyne of St. Albert the Great in Weymouth, whose parishioners carried their altar cross from Weymouth to the Common via bus so that it could stand alongside the altar there; and the Rev. David Gill of St. Mary of the Angels in Roxbury, whose parishioners in a previous week had formed a living ring around their church in symbolic opposition to the closing order.

Supporting the concelebrants were altar servers, readers, Eucharistic Ministers, cantors, singers, and musicians from numerous parishes in the diocese and a group of young liturgical dancers from Our Lady of Sorrows in Sharon, MA. The multi-parish participation as well as the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual prayers and songs during the Mass emphasized the impact of the closings on all Catholics in the diocese.

John Hynes, chair of the Boston Steering Committee, reiterated this impact when he read messages of support and encouragement from VOTF affiliates around the country and the world at the end of Mass.

John also thanked the scores of volunteers who worked so hard to prepare for the Mass. Special thanks went to the organizers from the Steering Committee and to Bill Sell, as well as to those whose efforts proved key to planning: Rich Feeley and Ross Holicker of ROI Event Management in Needham, MA, for behind-the-scenes planning; Performance Platforms of Hudson, MA, for the stage and sound system; Barbara Paul of Bloomin' Exhibits in Barrington, RI, for green plants to decorate the altar area; Tim Westerhaus, Pastoral Minister of Liturgy and Music at the Paulist Center in Boston, for organizing the music and musicians; the clergy and staff of the Paulist Center for their many gifts of time and support; and Suzanne Morse and Steve Krueger from the national VOTF office, who were so effective in helping publicize the Mass. Several regional TV evening news programs covered the Mass as well as the Boston Globe and the archdiocesan newspaper the Pilot.

As attendees left the area, returning by charter bus, car, subway, and on foot to their homes - and home parishes - they passed the markers Mass organizers had assembled like poster-board tombstones along the walkways to the Mass, markers with the names of every parish targeted for closing by the Archdiocese. It was not easy, passing those markers, to feel the hope Fr. Bowers had asked for earlier, belief and hope in a better world and a new life.

But it was precisely for that belief that the Boston Area VOTF Council organized the Mass: to gather a community of believers to attend to the grieving of all closing parishes and to participate together in the Eucharist, the Source of Life, Healing, and Strength.

It was also to ask, as one young girl did of her mother when leaving the Mass on the Boston Common, "Why isn't it always like this?"

Donna Doucette

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