A month is ending and spring is continuing. Today I went to a wedding of a friend who I met about 12 years ago when she first came from Tanzania and was staying at the Catholic Worker house in town, Casa Maria.

Eventually she moved to a house on the north side near the Catholic parish that my wife and I had joined some years ago. It is a wonderful small Catholic parish in a neighborhood that has suffered extreme poverty in recent years. Our St. Vincent De Paul Society, making home visit and and offering help to persons in need is the largest in the area. Sadly, however, we are a small and poor parish that, with the scarcity of Catholic priest, we cannot afford one these days. So our church is being sold and we are closing with the hope that with the money from the sale of the Church will can keep our service to the neighborhood, like our Food Pantry and St. Vincent De Paul society going when our members integrate into other parishes.

So this wedding celebration was one of the last, if not the last, our parish hall will see. There was a bit of African, American and Roman Catholic and Catholic Worker culture mixed in this last celebration of the wedding today.

Our physical Church will close but the celebration of the poor, the immigrants and those in need will hopefully continue on. Our last celebration is the beginning of new ones.

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