Sesquicentennial committees want you

Americans love to celebrate history. We cheer at Fourth of July fireworks, collect memorabilia from Civil War battlefields and count candles on birthday cakes. We hold family reunions and visit historical sites during vacations.

We pay our respects to history with a hint of sadness: monuments erected to soldiers who never came home, news footage of police beating protesters following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Still, despite the shame and pain of those moments, we continue to look to our collective history as a source of hard-earned knowledge, pride -- and a reason to celebrate.

Throughout the course of this year, parishes, parish clusters and deaneries across the Albany Diocese have scheduled events celebrating the sesquicentennial (the 150th anniversary) of the Albany Diocese. This week's issue of The Evangelist highlights several upcoming events.

The countless hardworking Catholics who have joined sesquicentennial committees to plan these events have given us a choice. It's easy to look at the history of Catholicism in our Diocese and see only the painful moments: the loss of some of our Catholic schools over the years, the closure of a mission church or a parish program, the decrease in the number of priests available to actively minister to our parish communities.

But if we can put aside the sadness evoked by some events in our history as Americans in order to celebrate our country, isn't it time to also put aside whatever excuses we have created, whatever grudges we have harbored against changes we have disliked within the Church, and celebrate our history as Catholics?

For some of us, it seems easier to be patriotic than true to our faith. But this year, we can unlearn that lesson -- and create some new history. By checking out the local events held in our parishes and regions, we can become a part of the rich and glorious history of the Albany Diocese.

We can learn about saints and sinners, circuit-riding priests and Catholic settlers, and even those in the not-so-distant past who built both our churches and our parish communities; or we can choose not to do so. We can make history by making our parish and deanery sesquicentennial events well-attended, joyful celebrations -- or allow them to become just another, bitter memory of "the way things used to be."

(01-30-97)

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