I have St. Joachim church on my mind this week, probably because I am writing this after having spent the entire day at Lummi for a funeral, a daily Mass, and faith formation. A few notes:
Mass Time Change
St. Joachim is trying to offer more faith formation on site (see below); hence I was asked by the community there if I could change their daily Mass time from 6:00 pm to 5:00 pm so that they would have time to offer dinner and formation before bedtime. I was happy to do anything that would allow St. Joachim to offer more faith formation.
As such, the Thursday Mass at St. Joachim’s is now offered at 5:00 pm.
I know they advertised this in the Ferndale bulletin, but I am not sure about other locations. I am very sorry to anyone from our other churches who might have shown up for Mass at the wrong time this week.
Rosary Program
The faith formation opportunity currently on offer at St. Joachim is a group focused on learning how to pray the Rosary. Eventually, the goal is to learn the Rosary prayers also in the Lummi language.
Indulgence Requirements
I have had people ask me what is required to receive the plenary indulgence associated with St. Joachim during the Jubilee year.
Every plenary indulgence has two parts: the specific action required for the specific indulgence, and the normal requirements for a plenary indulgence. In this case, the specific action is simply to show up to and pray at St. Joachim. On top of that, an excellent treatment of the general requirements for a plenary indulgence can be found here. The summary is that one must (1) receive sacramental confession and communion within about 20 days [before or after] of the work, (2) be in a state of grace at the time of the work, (3) be detached from sin [i.e. not be planning to return to sin], (4) pray for the Pope’s intentions.
Lummi Funerals
Another thing I want our county to understand is my relation to Lummi funerals. For all of our other funerals, we divided them up between our three full-time priests, favoring the vicars who have more time for extra liturgies. However, with Lummi funerals I am always the one to celebrate them unless I am out of town. Why the discrepancy? Three reasons:
First, Lummi funerals are complicated. They often occur at the Wex’lium (the Lummi community building) and there are a lot of historical practices and expectations that need to be navigated. It is helpful for one of our priests to be a Lummi expert, so that things go smoothly.
Second, that priest is me because of the unique context of the Lummi people, in general and in our county. The forced assimilation policies of the U.S. government from the 1880s until the 1970s have caused a lot of generational pain, and the common experience of priests entrusted with Native communities is that it takes years of working with tribes before they are willing to trust an individual minister enough to talk to him about what is really going on in their lives or their community. In a sense, this is true of everyone – more time means more trust – but it requires proportionally far more time for Reservation ministry. So pastoral success at Lummi requires a long-term, reliable presence, and the priest most likely to be in Whatcom County for the long-term is always the Pastor.
Finally, I have been impressed with how dedicated Lummi folks are to attending funerals. There is high turnout from the community for each funeral, many people stay for several hours, and the vast majority of people at these funerals are tribal members that I have never and may never see at Mass. It is kind of like if I had a booth at the Lynden fair – lots of diverse people cycling through with plenty of time to converse. Yes, a Lummi funeral requires me to clear my calendar for an entire day, which is certainly a sacrifice, but that one dedicated day allows me to serve that community far more effectively than a dozen or more Sunday Masses, so I have made it a priority.
Fr. Moore 