Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

You don’t have to be a scripture scholar to figure out the message here: use your gifts, whatever they are, no matter how large or small they might be, use your gifts and use them wisely.

In Matthew’s gospel, the teaching of Jesus is the treasure.  And the question today is: what have you done with this treasure?  Whatever I have to offer is for the needs and service of others.

Outreach and advocacy is what our parish is all about.  Here today to reflect on what we’ve been given – for others – is Lauren Pusich, a young adult parishioner, who is events coordinator for the Josephinum and our immersion coordinator.

Welcome, Lauren.

Thank you Fr. Paul. I think I’m more nervous for speaking now then the time you called me up in the middle of your homily at St. Therese. I’ve certainly had more time to overthink it!

I’ve been asked to speak to you today about the impact your gifts have – how your decision to offer your treasure impacts our parish. To share just one story about how that fits into our parish’s outreach and advocacy efforts. An appropriate message to hear on a day Pope Francis has decreed the “World Day of the Poor”.

My role is to serve as our parish’s first immersion coordinator. Here an immersion is not a deep dive into another language, rather it is a jumping into to our faith. Immersions remind me of the impact our faith can have when we let it guide our actions.

Now that’s still not a clear answer an immersion actually is. You can boil down an immersion into calling it a day of service often for students that I have the privilege to facilitate. It’s easier to understand if I walk you through an immersion.

The day starts with students – usually middle schoolers – arriving early in the morning into this beautiful space. Fr. Paul welcomes them and opens the day in prayer.  I ask the students if they are excited and if they are a little scared for today. It always gets a laugh when they see more often than not, their teacher raise their hand for the latter question.  

I go over with the students what they can expect for the day, who they will met, our partner agencies they will visit, and why they should pay attention to where they see Christ today. I ask the students (and their often-wondering attention spans), to see if they notice anything different about this space compared to other Catholic parishes. On Friday, a student from St. Therese mentioned the font while another mentioned the intricate detail on the ceiling. Both are certainly unique parts of our parish. But I directed the students to see the glass behind me and then the glass to my left. What’s different?

One student gets it – “you can see through the stained glass on that side!” That’s certainly something not often seen in a Catholic parish. It’s part of the reason I love being here at Christ Our Hope. The openness of the glass allows passerby’s to see in and see the celebration of our faith as we do today, but more importantly it reminds us that our faith does not stay inside. Our faith is not just lived on Sundays. Jesus calls us to live our faith out every day of the week and to be with people. To go out and build relationships with others. Relationships with our neighbors that are often forgotten. I tell the students that they have that opportunity to build relationships with these people and how Christ is alive in all of us.

The students leave and for the next two hours embrace putting themselves fully into a project. That might be here at the Josephinum or one of our various partner agencies such as Recovery Café, Mary’s Place, Heritage House, or Urban Rest Stop to name a few. It can be as simple as cooking a meal, playing bingo with residents, or just sitting and having a conversation with someone.

Then they return for my favorite part of the day. They break bread together with Josephinum residents. The students sit in pairs with the residents and have conversations. I encourage them before hand to lean into any discomfort they might feel and to have ice breaker questions ready: “how long have you lived at the Josephinum” or “do you think the Seahawks will win on Monday night football?”.

Then I see them go deeper.  A student asks, “what does it mean to have us here today,” another asks, “do you have any stories to share with me”. During our reflection time (after the dreaded clean-up of course), I ask the students about those conversations. One states, “He said to be grateful with the things I have because I don’t know what will happen next” and the next responds, “She said I was doing God’s work”.

God’s work. That’s what an immersion is. The gospel calls us today to give back what we’ve been given and use it to grow the kingdom of God. The students grow the kingdom of God by building relationships while on an immersion. They are only able to do this because of your commitment of stewardship to our parish.  

You can grow the kingdom by helping to ensure that Christ Our Hope remains the beacon of light in downtown Seattle giving the students the space to have the discovery of faith in action. I ask that you continue this commitment. Join me in saying yes to doing God’s work. Just giving a dollar a day covers the cost of one of these immersions. We have hosted eleven immersions so far this academic year and have 13 more planned. I hope that you are able to give until it feels good as Rick called us to and at a level that helps keep us in the good financial position Adam and Austin discussed. I know that each of you can follow the prayer I close an immersion with. To ask that God continues to accompany us on our journey, give us open minds and hearts, as we serve as neighbors searching for a greater understanding of his unending love and joy. Thank you.

Lauren Pusich, Immersion Coordinator