We’re in a season of change. Kids go back to school. Then the first chilly evening. The first frost touches the garden. The moment when we can’t find a pumpkin to carve because the store’s just put out the Christmas decorations.

Today’s a change for us. We’re now St. Boniface Parish, in both St. Lawrence and St. Boniface Churches. We officially have a new territory—all of South Side until we near Bastress, the East End of Williamsport until we reach the borders of Loyalsock Township. And we have another project at the end: growing into a linkage with St Ann’s Parish (slated to commence July 1).

I’m not going to tell you that nothing will change. Sure, I’ll still be your pastor. We’ll keep the Mass schedule in place for the moment. We’ll do many of the same old things in the same old way. But, linkage with St. Ann’s—even if it involves a second priest—will require a good, hard look at the Mass schedules. Even before we get to that point, we shouldn’t imagine that we’ll just act like two separate parishes when we’re really one. (Oddly, for the last few years we’ve tended to act like one parish even when we were two!)

We’ll be challenged to think anew about what oneness looks like. We’ll be required to think about how diversity and unity interact. We’ll ask how ministries or committees that seem to be duplicated in the former two parishes can now be wedded to be one. It won’t always be easy. I can’t say we’ll always like it.

Let’s remember why we do any of this at all. The psalmist tells us “If the Lord does not build the house, the workers labor in vain.” We’re not here for buildings. Not here for names. Not here to create comfortable corners where we can sit still. We’re here to allow the mission of Jesus Christ to continue in and through our community. Let the Lord build this community. Let his word, let his life, let his Eucharist compel us forward as this new parish.