2005 Evangelization Supplement

Evangelization is rooted in hospitality at St. Gabriel Parish

By Mary Ann Wyand

Hospitality and community outreach are longtime traditions that demonstrate evangelization at St. Gabriel the Archangel Parish in Indianapolis.

In recent years, parishioners also have demonstrated faith in action by welcoming several hundred Hispanic Catholics to the 880-household West Deanery faith community located at 6000 W. 34th St.

The three-year Disciples in Mission evangelization process completed last year helped parishioners grow closer to Christ and share the Gospel with others.

About 25 percent of St. Gabriel’s parishioners are Latino, a demographic change that Father Larry Crawford, pastor, said began about five years ago.

Hispanic families from the Indianapolis and Brownsburg areas enjoy attending the 5 p.m. Spanish Mass on Sundays, he said, and they fill the pews each week for eucharistic liturgies celebrated with joyful music and enthusiastic prayers.

“St. Gabriel parishioners are extremely good at welcoming people and offering hospitality,” Father Crawford said. “It has always been one of the hallmarks of this parish. When I came here as pastor in 1999, many people commented that one of the attributes of the parish is that it is a welcoming community.

“That, in part, comes, I think, from the nature of the people and the experiences that some of the people had when they went through Christ Renews His Parish,” he said. “I think it also comes from the fact that St. Gabriel Parish has an incredible number of different nationalities, and people over the years have become very sensitive to that reality and really work at appreciating all the different cultures and nationalities that we have and trying to be very inclusive.”

To celebrate their multicultural membership, St. Gabriel Parish sponsors an International Festival each year. A large sign advertising the three-day festival on June 10-12 was placed in front of the church several weeks ago and serves as a visual symbol of St. Gabriel’s hospitality.

Father Crawford said he was encouraged to hear Pope Benedict XVI emphasize that evangelization is one of the primary missions of the Church during his homily as part of his installation Mass on April 24 at the Vatican.

St. Gabriel Parish lives out God’s call to go forth and spread the good news of the Gospels on an international level, Father Crawford said, by partnering with Westview Christian Church members, just across West 34th Street, to assist a Latino community in Santa Maria Tzeja, Guatemala.

This joint mission effort initiated by Rev. Jim Hollis, pastor of the Disciples of Christ congregation, began about four years ago.

“They’ve gone down three or four times for two weeks at a time,” Father Crawford said of Westview members, “and taken all kinds of supplies” to help build a school and church there.

St. Gabriel parishioners also have participated in a mission trip to the Central American country, he said, and Westview members currently are helping St. Gabriel parishioners and the Guatemalan people build a Catholic church in Santa Maria Tzeja.

Kathleen Mick, the part-time pastoral associate for the Spanish-speaking community at St. Gabriel Parish, also assists with liturgies as a music minister and teaches Spanish for kindergarten through eighth-grade students at St. Gabriel School.

Mick joined the parish faith formation staff six years ago then started teaching Spanish at the school in 2000. She began working in Hispanic ministry in 2001.

“We started the Spanish Mass in April of 2000,” Mick said. “When we did find a priest who could celebrate the Mass every Sunday in Spanish, we started out with about 50 people. Now we have between 300 and 350 people coming to this Mass.”

Several diocesan and order priests celebrate the eucharistic liturgy in Spanish and provide sacramental assistance for Latino families at St. Gabriel Parish.

Mick said religion and life for Hispanic people, and they appreciate the opportunity to pray and worship God in their native language.

“I think it’s an element of the parish that is special because they’re thousands of miles away from their families,” she said. “The majority of Hispanic people left everything they knew—their families and friends—just to make a better life. People are hungry physically and spiritually. Here at St. Gabriel Parish, they find something they recognize, a spiritual home where they can come to worship.”

Hispanic Catholics at St. Gabriel Parish come from several Spanish-speaking countries in Central America and South America, Mick said. “Now they live in a new country with a strange culture and different language, but they’re able to come here once a week and celebrate their faith. They pray, they talk to God, in their first language, which is Spanish. It is such an important part of their relationship with God to be able to express that and worship together in a community in Spanish. I think it’s very beautiful that they find that here so far away from their homes. We’re one faith, one Church, and we can learn from the Hispanic culture and from their devotion to the faith.”

St. Gabriel parishioner Fran Young of Indianapolis, the chairperson of the Evangelization Committee for about 10 years, said the three-year Disciples in Mission process completed last year has helped adults and teenagers become more involved in sharing their faith with others.

“I think the main focus of evangelization truly is rooted in hospitality and needs to reach out to all people,” Young said. “I think the spirituality of the parishioners has grown enormously for the people who participated [in Disciples in Mission]. We try to focus our ­[evangelization] efforts toward non-practicing Catholics, people who are unchurched and have no faith home, and active Catholics to increase their spirituality. Our goal is to bring all three groups closer to Christ.”

Young said Catholics Returning Home, a six-week program for people who are non-practicing Catholics, “gives them a way to update their faith and ease back in the door so they don’t feel like strangers. We do our best to make them feel welcome to come back and begin practicing their faith again.”

Parish hospitality also means providing opportunities for people from other cultures to celebrate their own faith traditions, she said, adding that Hispanics prefer to pray in Spanish and Filipino parishioners want to worship in their Tagalog language as often as possible.

The Gospels call Catholics to reach out to the community, she said, citing Mark 12:30-31 in particular as a reminder that, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” †