Lexington, MA 02120

5/28/04

Dear Archbishop Sean O'Malley,

21 years ago I was a lapsed Catholic, someone who had drifted away from the church in late adolescence. I returned with the birth of my first child, determined that my son and later my daughter should know their Catholic faith. Sacred Heart in Lexington is the parish in which I renewed my relationship with God, and shared that faith with my husband and children. While it is undeniably so that faith transcends any building or locale, much of its foundation is built on relationships and memories and a community of Catholics who live their beliefs. It is not simply the memories of my children's early sacraments, or Father Colletti's tender conversation with my ailing father just weeks before his death, my father another lapsed Catholic struggling to make his final peace. It is not the spaghetti dinners, CCD, the homilies which spoke to our hearts, serving as a greeter and letting my children ring the steeple's bells at the end of mass. It is not the hours we have spent welcoming new babies, praying for the sick, and mourning the passing of our loved ones. It is through all these memories and many more that Sacred Heart became the road by which I returned to God, with wonderful role models all along the way. I have watched in admiration members of this parish live Catholicism in their daily lives and show me the way. To name but a few - the ever patient and loving Sister Mary, the Ludwigs and all their incredible efforts on behalf of the disadvantaged, Frank DiPietro and his tireless ministrations to keep my kids connected to the church, Jim Keefe and his magical beautifications of the church, the elderly woman who despite her collapsing spine trudges on foot to mass each week.

These are difficult times for Catholics, and for those of us who have struggled our way back to the fold, the dissolution of our spiritual community is a grievous blow. Can there be any worthy justification for closing the doors of a comunity which works so well together to live its faith and light the path for others?  I am struggling again...to understand.