How does a pastor respond after his church has been desecrated?

Last updated on: July 29, 2016 at 4:53 pm by Deacon Greg Kandra

How does a pastor respond after his church has been desecrated? 2016-07-29T16:53:15-04:00 Deacon Greg Kandra

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Like this: here are the thoughts of the Rev. Bill Peckman, whose Missouri Catholic parish was vandalized and desecrated with human feces last weekend.

An excerpt from his blog:

No more that Satan was able to defeat Jesus at Calvary, will he be able to defeat us unless we allow him. Our God is more powerful than he. If our parish had been found worthy to suffer violence for the name of Jesus, then so be it. For we know, the story doesn’t end in the tomb on Good Friday. Nor does our story end on this long Good Friday either.

Not often does a parish know the hour of its resurrection. We do. 8 AM on Saturday, our bishop will be with us and exorcise the evil visited upon our Church and to make reparation for that desecration. We will reclaim what was defiled. We will, by the grace of God, watch the Holy Spirit breath new life into the dormant and lifeless church building. We will have Eucharistic Adoration afterwards, as must happen where the Blessed Sacrament has been defiled. When the time comes at 11 AM, we will punctuate our taking back of our Church building with a Eucharistic Procession which will encircle the outside and inside of the building. After our long Good Friday, we will experience our Easter.

I end with this: We also know that Easter wasn’t the end of the story. The Church, filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, was to engage in the mission of Jesus Christ. By the same token, we are not purging a building for the sake of of merely having a place to celebrate sacraments. These avenues of grace have a purpose: to give us the means necessary to get about the business of the Kingdom. Archbishop Sample of Portland Oregon reminded his flock a few weeks ago that the Church exists for the salvation of souls. Given our Church back this Saturday, perhaps we stand our ground to Satan and double down on our commitment to the mission of the Church. We will be given that chance. So many churches attacked as of late, especially in Iraq and Syria, will have to spend much more time in their own Good Fridays. Let us honor them and honor the mission of Jesus Christ Himself, and use this tragedy to give stronger and bolder witness to Jesus Christ and the power of His mercy and forgiveness!

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