Nov. 23, 2016

By Dan Haycock
Parishioner, St. Mary’s Clayton

Three weeks ago, parish council members and finance council members of The Catholic Community of Alexandria, St. John's of Lafargeville and St. Mary's of Clayton joined together for the first of a series of meetings.  The 32 parish representatives were called by Father Douglas G. Comstock, pastor in Alexandria Bay and Father Arthur J. La Baff, pastor in Clayton and LaFargeville to form the Living Stones Planning Group (LSPG).
The purpose of the first meeting was to give an overview of the past, look at the current situation and consider what the future will bring to parishioners of the river parishes.

For those who wonder, the past reference points to the abundance of priest that Catholics enjoyed for generations. There were churches in all the small villages across the diocese. The larger towns and cities had numerous churches.

Today, because of the declining number of priests, churches have been closed or combined with neighboring villages.

People of the Diocese of Ogdensburg has been talking about how to handle this situation for many years. This is where the Living Stones Planning Group comes into being.

The parishes in Alexandria Bay, Clayton and LaFargeville are to become one community and will share a priest. Similar parish groupings will happen across the North Country.

Catholics will have to make sacrifices about all aspects of parish life, but don't think for one instant that our Church will die and fade away.

I have often heard it said, "We, you and I, all of us here and others who we pray with, who come together to share the Holy Eucharist with, are the Church. Church is not the building, rather, the building is a place for the ‘church’ to gather, to come together in comfort."

Yes, I'm sorry that we don't have the number of priests that we used to have, but every Catholic has a job to do.

First and foremost we need to pray for vocations. We still have women and men entering religious life, just not enough. So we must pray for more to hear the call.

Secondly, we need to support the priests and religious we already have. As they get older, they need extra help and that's where you and I come into it.

The diocese offers all sorts of training/ education about how we can get involved in parish ministry.
There are also many options on how to get our youth involved: Guggenheim, retreats, March for Life, Mystery Players, just to name a few.

Finally, I ask you to pray for us, your sisters and brothers who are part of the planning process in parishes across the diocese. The group in my community will be meeting once a month from now until late spring. Each meeting will focus on a different subject, with experts being brought in to talk about them.

Decisions will be made, tears will be shed. We ask for the strength to do God's will.