Missionaries for Christ

Catholic movement and the power of prayer in his Parish

Fr Michael Heidt of St Luke's, Bladensburg, in his address given at the Washington, DC FIFNA Convocation, offers his experience as an example to the larger Anglican church

It seems remarkable to me that four years have passed since I first addressed the A&SA chapter of FIFNA. I had been Rector of St Luke’s for just four months and Robert England very graciously asked me give a talk on what I was up to at St. Luke’s, "What do you want to know," I asked him, "the good, the bad or the ugly?" Robert replied, "Just keep it short and positive." Well, my brief is pretty much the same today; Robert, well-known champion of the Catholic Cause, has asked me to give a progress report on St Luke’s. A remarkable amount has been achieved but before I share this with you we have to go back to the Lent of 2000.

On my first Sunday in the parish I climbed the steps of the pulpit to give my opening sermon and gazed out, at what seemed like a great height, on the heads of sixteen West Africans, who looked back at me with sphinx like suspicion. This was at the principle Mass on Sunday and I gripped the sides of the pulpit and thought, "Good Lord, what have I got myself into." Sixteen people, very scary; the state of our finances was equally frightening, with a total pledge figure of around $75,000, reflecting not only the economically depressed condition of Bladensburg itself but also the inertia which the parish had sunk into. This was considerable, the parish hall had been allowed to flood for several years, the rectory was uninhabitable and the dust of neglect hung over everything like a shroud. I was a very worried Parish Priest as I looked out on those sixteen heads and so I prayed with a kind of white-knuckle desperation, asking God for help. The job seemed too big for me; I had nowhere else to turn, so I asked God for help and the courage to use every opportunity that He gave me to build up the parish.

The prayer has been answered, with remarkable growth in every aspect of our parish life; we’ve grown numerically, from an average of 65 persons at two Masses on Sunday to around 500 at three Masses and are home to the largest Hispanic congregation in the diocese. The last two years have seen over 60 Baptisms and almost as many Confirmations, there are at least 50 young people enrolled in Sunday School and First Communion class, the church is open morning, noon and evening for public recitation of the Divine Office, Rosary and Mass and so much is going on that I find it hard to keep track of. What’s happened is that we’ve moved from being a small, poor parish, to a large and vibrant poor parish in one of the nastier suburbs of Washington DC. I am amazed at what has happened, every element of parish life, from worship to the condition of our buildings, has been transformed and I wish I could take credit for it. But I can’t, the work is God’s, He has built St. Luke’s, moving ineluctably and with power to transform our humble parish church.

The sheer volume of answered prayer is remarkable, from the smallest to the largest detail. For example, I love classical liturgy, give me a Solemn High Mass set to Palestrina and I’m in heaven, give me the Missa de Angelis and I’m more than half way there. I prayed for this and it’s happened, we have a Solemn High Mass every Sunday. I love devotion to Our Lady, but there was none at St. Luke’s; I prayed for it and within weeks we had a 4’ statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is taken through the Town on a two mile long procession with police escort on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. We sing the Angelus every Sunday and recite the Rosary daily. I saw the demographics of our neighbourhood changing with a massive influx of Latino immigrants and prayed that God would send us a Hispanic Priest, who would work for free. Again, within weeks the prayer was answered in the person of Fr. Robles, who continues to perform outstanding mission work in the parish. From the spiritual to the temporal, I asked the parish to pray for the renovation of our buildings and grounds, but we had no money – still don’t, and within a year had completed a building project at a market cost of over $100,000 for something in the region of $25,000, mostly paid for by donations. More frivolously, I prayed for 19th Century High Mass sets, never really thinking that God would grant such a request, but He did, we have them now, and why not? God wants beauty in our worship. I prayed for a relic of the True Cross, I’ve always wanted one, and what happened? On the first Friday of Lent, 2001, a person visiting from New York, gave me a relic of the Holy Cross. The list goes on and on, an amazing vindication of the power of prayer.

What’s happened is that God has worked through the abilities and prayerful energy of a small group of catholic Christians to turn around a parish that had experienced over thirty years of continuous decline, in an area that saw thirteen murders in seventy-two hours the other month. I firmly believe that God has chosen to vindicate Himself and the Faith once delivered, in a church, which to all intents and purposes had died. I say all this, partly out of obedience to Robert England who asked me to share some of the work that’s been accomplished at St. Luke’s but also because this story has a moral and serves as a metaphor for the Church at large and the Catholic Movement of which we are a part.

Four years ago, St. Luke’s was a broken down parish, the Catholic Movement in North America is in the same predicament. Like the failing parish it has no movement, it isn’t doing very much, its not growing; in fact its shrinking as parish after parish bites the revisionist bullet and falls off the radar screen of catholic orthodoxy. Once we could fill stadiums, now we count ourselves lucky to have a total Mass attendance of over a hundred souls. We’ve seen the progressive attrition of our numerical strength and with it the ascendancy of the revisionists at every level of ecclesial polity. At one time the cry went out, "You have Jesus in your tabernacles, now take Him into the streets!" Now, in church after church, those tabernacles remain but the people don’t even know what they are, "What’s that silver box on the table?" Said the husband of the Bishop Pro Tempore to me during the pro tem visitation. It’s not so much a case of apostasy that we’re dealing with here but total ignorance, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Things have come to such a pass that even the basics of catholic vocabulary have been forgotten, to say nothing of doctrine and devotion. Why not have women priests, we have female judges? That’s the level of debate, the barbarians are surely within the gates, they’re running the city and the Catholic Movement, no less than the dying parish is looking at closure. Just as I looked out on those sixteen heads, while my stomach turned over with trepidation, so too is the honest Anglo-Catholic surveying the state of the Movement here in North America. We are looking at defeat.

This is a very good thing. Like me at St. Luke’s, we have been brought to a point where we have nowhere left to turn but God. Politics will not save us, man made schemes and inventions will not rescue us, our own talents and skill are not up to the job of turning this situation around. Only God is up to the task, only He has the power to turn defeat into victory and the thing is, He will, and why? Because He loves His Church and He will not stand idly by whilst she is destroyed piecemeal. Just as a loving husband will protect his wife from being murdered, so too will God protect and defend His Holy Bride, the Church. He was not content to let St. Luke’s, Bladensburg, sink into the dust from which she came, but worked with great power through a small group of loyal Christians when they turned to Him in desperation for help. He will do the same thing for our part of the Church; our job is to make that desperate plea for help, to turn to Him for mercy and then to move out into the world and build up His Kingdom. In other words, appropriately enough on this second Sunday in Lent, we’ve got to repent. Our part of the Church must repent and where better to begin than with us, the loyal Anglo-Catholics of North America, that small minority of men and women who understand the Faith and believe its substance? It can be done, of all places, in Bladensburg, it can be done across the nation and it is only right that it starts here in the capital and with us.

We must be very sure of this, God wants to rebuild His Church and He wants to do so through you and me. We have to let Him and that means turning to Him in faith and making use of every opportunity that He sends, and He sends plenty, to work for the growth of His Kingdom. This entails obedience to certain fundamental principles, which we all know and can follow. We must become people of prayer, with the worship of God at the center of our lives; it is no accident that St. Luke’s began to grow from the moment we started the daily celebration of the Mass and recitation of the Office. So it will be for the Church at large. We must become people of grace, nourished by the seven sacraments, built up by the Word of God and filled with the virtues. In a word, we must become missionaries, missionaries of the Gospel and the Catholic Faith, the Faith which is coterminous with Christianity itself and without which there is no salvation.

Four years ago I said to this group that the revisionists were yesterday’s men. I was right, they are and so is anyone who stands against the Faith once delivered and our Holy Mother the Church. To war against these is to attack reality itself, the Truth which is Christ reigning as Head and cornerstone of the Mystical Body, militant here on earth and triumphant in heaven. To fight against this is suicide, our task is to fight for it and to do so with faith, hope and charity, strong in the confidence that Christ will not abandon us. In this we have the overwhelming support of the Anglican Communion, more than this, we have the support of the Church throughout the ages, of the Apostles, Saints and Martyrs, the Doctors and Confessors, the holy men and women who go together to make up the countless host of heaven which is more in number than the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea. More than this, we have Jesus, the only begotten Son of God. Against Him none can stand, with Him we cannot fail.

Our calling then, is to go out from this meeting into our parishes and the world, confident in the victory that God alone supplies. Our goal is clear, we are to be missionaries for the Faith, people on fire with the love of God, His Church and each other, men and women who will work tirelessly for the growth of the Kingdom. In the power of the Spirit we will win souls for Christ, of this I have no doubt and I pray that this small group of faithful Christians will help to form the nucleus of a movement that will win back for North American Anglicanism her rightful heritage as a true and vital part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Christ for the salvation of the world.

Fr Michael Heidt, St. Luke’s - Bladensburg