in my parish, there is one weekly mass with a sign language interpreter (with one of the church's staff being the interpreter).
on Holy Thursday mass, she was in the mass but initially not doing the sign language and just sitting in the pew. then come a group of parishioners who communicated with each other in sign language and they were so confused while looking for the interpreter. a more senior usher then approached the interpreter to let her know about them, and she immediately got her podium ready and do the sign language.
this really resonates in me how important it is to make mass accessible. it may impact only very few parishioners in total, but for them the interpreter is a very big deal to help them being part of the mass.
Perhaps real accessibility can only come through subsidiarity. Every family is inaccessible to a disabled child until they have one. This is true also of a parish family. If the parish accepts a new son or daughter just as a family would, with love, then the accessibility becomes personal, not a program.
However, families need time to grow into accessibility. Parents often come to the parish with self-righteous demands about how the parish will be, how everything will be done differently, starting today, and done not through conversation or growth but by fulfilling a list of demands. Parents who insist that their disabled child deserves a whole host and not just a tiny piece, or that they will give the host to their child themself, or that their child will attend religious education classes despite severe behavior problems.
In all situations, love and humility are required to make any progress. All things are possible with love. If the disabled person is a beloved member of the parish, then everyone will move mountains to make the parish accessible. Making a parish more welcoming is not a program that is done by a parish corporation, but by a thousand small acts of kindness responded to by gratitude.
Thank you both for this! I plan to use this in a piece I'm working on about the meaning of pro-life for the whole of life.
I also want thank Fr. McMillan for his comments. It's important to remember that families with a young disabled child are even more tired and freaked out than families with young typical kids and accompanying them as they parse through what the need from their parish can be particularly challenging--but commensurately fruitful for all concerned. And the shift from entitlement to gratitude is something every millennial needs help with. As a mom with a disabled child who is now 23 I can tell you how painful and confusing it is to be treated as though any accommodation for your young child is being done as an undeserved favor to her parents and not out of recognition of her as a beloved child of God. A simple expression of gratitude for her presence would have gone a long way to taking the sting out of many painful moments.
And I would highly recommend clicking on Michele's name to see her website. Home as mini-monastery is an idea all non-monks could benefit from, whatever our state of life!
in my parish, there is one weekly mass with a sign language interpreter (with one of the church's staff being the interpreter).
on Holy Thursday mass, she was in the mass but initially not doing the sign language and just sitting in the pew. then come a group of parishioners who communicated with each other in sign language and they were so confused while looking for the interpreter. a more senior usher then approached the interpreter to let her know about them, and she immediately got her podium ready and do the sign language.
this really resonates in me how important it is to make mass accessible. it may impact only very few parishioners in total, but for them the interpreter is a very big deal to help them being part of the mass.
Perhaps real accessibility can only come through subsidiarity. Every family is inaccessible to a disabled child until they have one. This is true also of a parish family. If the parish accepts a new son or daughter just as a family would, with love, then the accessibility becomes personal, not a program.
However, families need time to grow into accessibility. Parents often come to the parish with self-righteous demands about how the parish will be, how everything will be done differently, starting today, and done not through conversation or growth but by fulfilling a list of demands. Parents who insist that their disabled child deserves a whole host and not just a tiny piece, or that they will give the host to their child themself, or that their child will attend religious education classes despite severe behavior problems.
In all situations, love and humility are required to make any progress. All things are possible with love. If the disabled person is a beloved member of the parish, then everyone will move mountains to make the parish accessible. Making a parish more welcoming is not a program that is done by a parish corporation, but by a thousand small acts of kindness responded to by gratitude.
Thank you both for this! I plan to use this in a piece I'm working on about the meaning of pro-life for the whole of life.
I also want thank Fr. McMillan for his comments. It's important to remember that families with a young disabled child are even more tired and freaked out than families with young typical kids and accompanying them as they parse through what the need from their parish can be particularly challenging--but commensurately fruitful for all concerned. And the shift from entitlement to gratitude is something every millennial needs help with. As a mom with a disabled child who is now 23 I can tell you how painful and confusing it is to be treated as though any accommodation for your young child is being done as an undeserved favor to her parents and not out of recognition of her as a beloved child of God. A simple expression of gratitude for her presence would have gone a long way to taking the sting out of many painful moments.
And I would highly recommend clicking on Michele's name to see her website. Home as mini-monastery is an idea all non-monks could benefit from, whatever our state of life!