Father Robert Gielow, CM, left, and his brother Father Dick Gielow, CM, sometimes conduct large parish missions together.  Both are assigned to the Vincentian Parish Mission Center.

Parish Missions Renew the Faith

Sitting in a pew on a Wednesday night may seem like an unlikely place to experience a miracle, yet people do. Father Dick Gielow, CM, says it happens all the time.

Fr. Gielow is director of the Vincentian Parish Mission Center, a group of Vincentians based in Independence, Missouri, dedicated to conducting parish missions around the country. “I can’t tell you how many people feel they’ve been healed or cured by their experience at a parish mission. I get letters every week from people about the effect the mission has had on their lives,” he says.

To renew and invigorate parish communities is the purpose of parish missions. They are as old as the Congregation itself, yet relatively new in their current form.

“Conducting missions is the original apostolate of the Vincen­tians,” says Fr. Gielow. “It’s even in our name: we are the Congregation of the Mission,” he says, emphasizing the last word. “St. Vincent’s original work was to do parish missions in the French countryside. That’s where he started, and why the Congregation of the Mission was formed.”

Parish missions have evolved over the centuries, undergoing adaptations as they traveled from Europe to America, and from our early days as a country to the present. When the Vincentians first came to the United States in 1815, the land was vast and the Catholic Church was a new and growing institution. Parish missions took a backseat to the more pressing needs of establishing parishes, schools, and seminaries. Another constriction was the rule against celebrating Mass in the evening.

In 1974, the parish mission apostolate was renewed through the work of Fathers Frank Crowley and Carl Schulte, CMs, whose efforts led to founding the Vincentian Parish Mission Center in 1983. While other priests and brothers also conduct parish missions, the center is the focal point of the Congrega­tion’s efforts and the primary activity of the four Vincentians who staff it.

 A Vincentian parish mission has four key elements. Foremost, there is a focus on the Eucharist and Reconciliation. “In the old days, the parish mission was mainly a Penance Service conducted around Lent and Advent. It was a fire and brimstone approach that focused on people’s sinfulness,” Fr. Gielow says. “It scared people, especially those who had been away from the Church for awhile.

“In contrast, we offer Mass every day as a preparation for confession. The Eucharist is at the core of the parish mission experience; it reconnects people to their faith and the parish. During larger missions, it’s not uncommon to have 25 or 30 people come each night who have been away from the Church 15 years or more. Missions offer an opportunity for people to deepen their faith and come back to the Church,” says Fr. Gielow.

Another key aspect is visiting the sick and homebound. “In my view, ‘the poorest of the poor’ are not just financially poor, but people without privacy or independence. That includes many people in nursing homes. We make an effort to see all the parishioners, especially those that don’t often get to visit with a priest,” he says.

A third element of parish missions is to offer renewal time to parish priests. After kicking off the event, they can have a few days away from parish duties to refresh.

A final tenet is parish missions are offered free of charge. Whether a parish has 10 pews or is a mega church, the only requirements are to request the parish mission and prepare for it.

The Vincentian Parish Mission Center conducts missions all over the country, from New York to California, all year long. It typically conducts 35 missions a year, and currently is booking events into 2012. The bookings and the free will offerings – about $4 to $5 million since 1983 – are testimony to the need for, and success of, Vincentian parish missions.

“It’s a great community builder,” says Father Gary Ostrander, pastor of St. Gerald Parish in Ralston, Nebraska. As a firm believer in the value of parish missions, he has coordinated four such events at St. Gerald in the last 10 years. “The Vincentian parish missioners preach with great enthusiasm and as word travels, each mission has been bigger than the one before. The mission is a wonderful way of connecting people more deeply with their faith and the parish,” he says.

Fr. Gielow adds, “People who go to church on Sunday come with different levels of faith. It is not always the greatest spiritual experience. A parish mission brings together like-minded people for a focused spiritual experience.”

Another dimension of the spiritual experience comes when parishes join together for a mission. Fr. Gielow explains, “Increasingly, we are doing parish missions for several parishes at once, or even on a city-wide scale. Several years ago in Des Moines, Iowa, we held a mission that attracted 3,500 people a night. And earlier this year, we held a mission for six rural parishes.