At Sunday Mass the other day, we had a flashback to what Mass was like 15 years ago, when we were new to our 11,000-member parish.

We’d enter the sanctuary a bit like we would a big train station. We’d see the altar and lots of nameless fellow commuters. Even though we had our young children with us, we felt a bit detached. Like the commuter in the station, we had a destination — the best, actually, in the Eucharist — and walked purposefully to find a seat. And as we did, we walked within a cone of anonymity.

Back then — when investing in relationships with fellow Catholic men and women in our parish seemed impossible alongside welcoming our newest baby, commutes, work, and overseeing Trinity House Café + Market — we were like so many dads and moms today: busy, lonely and isolated. When these parents skip Mass or hop over to a neighboring parish, no one notices. And in the process, their faith is at risk of becoming more private, individualistic and attenuated.

That was us — until fellow parishioners stepped forward, introduced themselves, and invited us to join men’s and women’s groups like the Men’s Mornings of Recollection, the Knights of Columbus, the St. John’s Moms Group, and Walking with Purpose. Not long after, we each stepped into meetings packed with fellow men and women intent on putting faith first in their lives.

When the meetings were over, we left those rooms a better dad, a better mom. Through a brief talk on some aspect of the faith or a bible study, and times of prayer, every one of us fellow parents found a takeaway. If you’ve ever worked out at a gym for an hour, then you know what it was like — not every minute was easy, but you leave better than you arrived. It’s an hour that you know will pay dividends in the days ahead. 

But like developing a new habit of exercise, it didn’t happen overnight. It took time for each of us to let our guards down, to invite accountability, to challenge others, and to unpack Scripture and Church teaching in an open arena with other men and women. It took time for us to learn others’ names, begin praying for them, and start inviting others to try this spiritual workout.

But how could we not? After all, on so many mornings and evenings, our friends’ witness strengthened us. They got us out of our heads and back into the game. Maybe it sounds over the top, but it’s true: God spoke to us through these men and women, and still does.

Flash forward. Our massive parish is no longer a train station. One glance around us on a Sunday morning reminds us of a hundred stories — of real Catholic men and women, husbands and fathers and wives and mothers who have traded in Lone Ranger discipleship for something better. They’ve traded “Bowling Alone” Catholicism and virtual reality for embeddedness in community. They’ve heard Jesus’ call to go “two by two” — never alone — and to make disciples.

Perhaps not every Catholic man and woman needs his local parish men’s or women’s group — Walking with Purpose, That Man is You, Knights of Columbus, Cursillo, prayer group, or other groups — in order to forge authentic friendships and be on mission with his or her brothers and sisters. But in our fast-disaffiliating cultural moment, these groups can serve as a life raft for those of us who could otherwise drift away from the practice of the faith.

For us, these scrappy and beautiful little local platoons became part of the deep structure of our Christian witness, our Trinity House. The incoming fire from the culture and our own wounded and prideful hearts are too relentless for us to turn back and reenter the cone of anonymity. And our mission calls us forward.

Fifteen years later, we are grateful. So, invoking our Blessed Mother who “set out in haste,” may we set out in greater haste to invite our brothers and sisters. And let us beg “the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest” (Mt 9:38), beginning with the laborer we see in the mirror.