In this lush suburb, they `beat the bushes' for people to serve

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 25, 1998 by Arthur Jones

At Holy Family parish, giving was at the center of the mission; everything else followed

Holy Family Church is a Christmas story about Sunday families and Monday families, and angels on the altar.

More than half the 24,600 people in the 3.4 square miles of South Pasadena are registered at Holy Family, and two-thirds of those are usually at Mass on Sunday.

Every Monday, the 300 homeless or needy families come to the church for a week's supply of food from the Giving Bank. Tuesday through Friday, 60 homeless turn up -- probably only 10 percent from South Pasadena -- for a take-away meal.

What may not be usual in some inner-city settings is happening here in a neighborhood where homes range from $250,000 to $1 million.

This place is the opposite of the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome. Here poor people are invited in, places are designed for them, they are essential to the life and future of this parish.

On the second Sunday of Advent, there were 600 computer-paper Christmas angels on the altar. These are staffer Pat Babb's computer-print-out angels, and each angel carries the name and birth-date of a boy or girl from among the 600 Monday-family children under 16 years.

The almost 3,700 registered Sunday families and singles ensure that each child has an age-appropriate gift, and much else besides, for Christmas.

Holy Family is a gift that keeps on giving. Some 15 percent of the parish family is elderly shut-ins. Each week, 2 dozen teenagers take turns in teams videotaping the 9.30 a.m. Sunday mass and seeing their work broadcast on three local cable channels to 18 cities.

And how many other parishes have a full-time gerontologist on staff?. This parish's handbook is a yellow-and-blue three-ring binder crammed with activities and ministries. What's not in it, yet, is the culmination of the dream.

South Pasadena, founded 1888, is what a lot of Catholic neighborhoods were like 50 years and more ago: Half the people in public office are Catholic; half the people in business; and probably many of the cops and mail carriers. The July 4th parade is mostly Catholic.

In South Pasadena, Holy Family is identity.

To some extent, it has always been that way, said Julie Smith (nee Shaw) who grew up in the parish, attended its school and returned as an adult with husband, Marty, to raise their five children in it.

Smith's own involvement -- 20 years ago she was doing religious ed, a job she did for 14 years, and now she's directing community services -- provides insights into Holy Family's sharpened focus. So does the parish building plan -- they go hand-in-hand.

When Smith took over parish social outreach, about the time the new pastor arrived in 1980, "there were 1,200 families on the books then," she said, and "nearly 4,000 now."

"Masses have always been packed -- now there are more of them -- and the parish has always been blessed with great leadership and priests. Sometimes I see [previous pastor] Msgr. Thomas McGovern or Fr. John Berry [who was in residence] and they say: `It's grown so.' I tell them, `It's all your fault -- you started the ball rolling.'"

If they prepared the turf, Msgr. Clement Connolly, pastor for almost a decade-and-a-half, has spread its sward in a dozen ways.

"We never dreamed monsignor was the visionary he is," said Smith. "He engulfed and internalized Holy Family and was off like a flash. The word among the staff is: Don't give him any more new ideas."

There are enough to be going on with.

When Smith took over the social outreach, she said, "we beat bushes to find people who needed help. The police and postal service employees were offering to do food drives." They do it annually, for gradually the word spread around.

"People know we're here now," said Smith, and the other churches, some of which have small or emergency programs, share information and assistance.

"One church had a socks drive; schools have collected shoes -- new and used -- for us," said Smith, whose parish title covers activities from Giving Bank to video ministry to vacation Bible school to parish environment.

Soon, the numbers coming to the old Victorian house at the corner of Rollin and Oak were parking their old cars on the street or standing in line on the sidewalk.

The parish seniors, the bulk of the Giving Bank volunteers, were humping 3,000 bags of groceries a week down and up the basement stairs.

Four years ago, with the parish crying for meeting room and the Giving Bank, the parish borrowed $3 million ("We had no parish reserves," said Connolly) and bought the First Church Christ Scientist on the opposite corner.

The handsome, low roofed, brick-clad structure, now the St. Joseph's Center and Giving Bank site (it has a large parking lot) complements Holy Family's own Spanish baroque church: two very different architectural gems set in grass and trees on city neighborhood streets.

In Holy Family Church's entrance is a scale model of the parish plan. The old empty convent is gone; the Victorian house replaced by a light, bright pastoral center -- with a simple chapel in its basement. Redoing the 300-student school is next.